Wrong Chance

by E. L. Myrieckes

  Chance said, “You were right, you know? Lures are better.”

  “Let’s go out on the lake tomorrow. I know a spot in Mentor where sheephead and pike are practically jumping on the line.”

  “Tomorrow’s not promised to either of us, dude.” Chance eyed him skeptically. “You did like I asked, right?”

  “Didn’t say a word.” He looked at the amateur tattoos covering Chance’s arms and neck.

  “What about to Africa?”

  “No one knows you’re here. What’s up with the secrets and this dress and wig thing?” Then Yancee noticed something strange and leaned in closer to Chance.

  “What?” Chance said.

  “Where’s…Did you cut your dreads off? Oh, you’re really tripping.”

  Chance tossed the Mickey’s bottle, then he climbed to the ground. “Come on, I wanna show you something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Come see for yourself, shithead.”

  Yancee followed Chance to the Infiniti. Chance popped the trunk and Yancee saw a ten-gallon Igloo cooler.

  “Open it,” Chance said with a grin.

  FIFTEEN

  Africa Taylor felt like throwing in the parental towel and saying “fuck it.” No, she wasn’t an unfit mother; but, as far as she was concerned, she damn sure had unfit children. She wished there was a hotline where parents could report abusive children.

  She was a disheveled young mother—by force not choice. Looking good and styling the latest Gucci wasn’t for women like her anymore. Her once to-die-for hair was pulled into a mangled ponytail. Kool-Aid stains were such a norm, she sported her sons’ grape-flavored fingerprints on her clothes like they were fashion trendy.

  Her anger bypassed simmer and went straight to boil. She was so pissed she was shaking and having hot flashes like they were contractions. She’d signed up to raise loveable children, not midget devils. Her smoldering glare landed on her six-year-old son standing on top of her refrigerator. Her kitchen curtain was tied around his neck like a cape. He wore his tighty-whitey Fruit of the Looms with a pair of tube socks pulled over his hands like gloves. And what pissed Africa off even further was the silly-ass grin plastered on his face.

  She said slow and deliberately, “I’m gonna kick your motherfuckin’ ass if you don’t get down from there, Rasheed.” She’d specifically told Yancee that the comic books were a terrible idea, because he wouldn’t be home to deal with their interpretations. “Rasheed—” She pointed to the floor. “—I said get down.”

  “My name ain’t Rasheed, Mommie. I’m Superman and I’m fixin’ to kick the Hulk’s green ass.”

  Her blood pressure spiked. “Down, dammit! And watch your damn mouth. Where the hell is your brother?” She wondered how Rasheed had gotten on top of her refrigerator. Then she thought it was best she didn’t know the details.

  Rashaad, the other twin boy, rolled from under the table. His brand-new school shirt was ripped to shreds, green finger paint—she hoped—covered his face, and he had their fire extinguisher in hand. “Kryptonite, motherfucker.”

  “You better not, goddammit,” Africa warned with the point of a finger as a tear leaked from her eye. “You better not spray that. You better not.”

  “Don’t worry, Mommie,” Superman said. “I’ll save you from that no-good green bastard.” He leaped off the refrigerator like the cape actually worked.

  Hulk fired the kryptonite, blasting Superman in midair, coating the entire kitchen with white soot. Hulk flexed his muscles and growled. The twins laughed as the dust settled.

  Africa stormed out of the kitchen without a word—livid, lump in throat, unsure if she should all-out cry or just fucking leave. She had it. Yancee was going to deal with this shit on his own as soon as he got home, because she was going to her mother’s.

  In the living room, she found Ms. Gail Taylor, her mother-in-law, whispering into the phone, mischievousness in her cataract-ridden eyes. Africa knew immediately things had taken a turn for the worst. Wiping her tears, she said, “Madear, who are you talking to?”

  Madear crinkled her face and shushed Africa. “The CIA is gonna give me a job after this one.”

  “Hang up, Madear.” Africa wept. “Please hang up the phone, Madear. I can’t take this shit anymore.”

  “What’s a phone? That sounds familiar.”

  “It’s the thing you got stuck to the side of your head you’re talking in.”

  “Oh.” Then Madear got indignant: “No, I will not hang up. They’re gonna personally put Barack Obama on the phone for me.”

  “Hang up right now.” Then: “Please, Madear.”

  Madear shushed her again, then she spoke into the phone: “Yup saw it with my good eye, the right one. One of ’em is about four-two and green, an ugly sum bitch.” Madear smiled a toothless smile at Africa. “The other one calls himself Superman; and my so-called daughter-in-law, Africa Taylor, went in there a fairly attractive black woman and came out white. Talk about super powers.” Madear raised her eyes to Africa. “So how long before you send in the military? Barack—”

  Africa unplugged the phone and prayed that Yancee would hurry home.

  SIXTEEN

  Chance knew exactly what the Janus-face butt wipe would do next. He counted on it. Yancee always had a problem with keeping his dick beaters off things that didn’t belong to him.

  Yancee shifted his gaze between Chance and the cooler. “On everything, my sons will love these.” He dug in the cooler and scooped up one of the tiny eight-armed creatures and balanced it on his palm. “What are they?”

  Winner winner chicken dinner, Chance thought, then said, “Law 8: Make Other People Come To You—Use Bait If Necessary.”

  Then it happened.

  “Ouch!” Yancee dropped it back in the Igloo. “The little fucker bit me.”

  “Dude, you’re such a dupe.”

  “What?” Yancee pressed down on the bite.

  “The bite. That’s how it starts,” Chance said. “Reason I choose a Blue-ringed octopus is because their poison works immediately and it won’t be found in your system once you’re dead.”

  Yancee rubbed his mouth.

  “First you feel a tingling sensation in your lips, like you are now.” Chance shrugged a sorry buddy. “Next you’ll go into a state of paralysis. Lose control of every muscle, dude.” Then: “Hope you don’t shit and piss yourself. You’re too old for that.”

  Yancee’s eyes darted around. He started to fall until Chance guided his limp body into the trunk. It took some doing, but Chance managed to twist and turn Yancee’s sculpted body until he was on his back. Chance wanted to see Yancee’s dark eyes.

  “Chance…what are…” Yancee’s eyes darted back and forth. “What—”

  “Difficulty speaking is a side effect,” Chance said, looking down on his frightened friend. “Save your energy because you have a lot of explaining to do. You need to think long and hard about how bad of a friend you’ve been.” He slammed the trunk closed.

  SEVENTEEN

  The silent treatment really got beneath Jazz’s skin in the worst way. She hated when someone igged her and put her on ignore status, especially someone who was highly animated like she was and could run their mouth and talk plenty shit like she could.

  Jazz plopped down on the sofa beside Jaden, going out of her way to disturb him. “Really, are you gonna sit here all day spinning that ball on your finger?”

  He kept the ball’s momentum going with strict concentration.

  “Dammit, Jaden, talk to me.”

  Silence.

  She said, “Tell me what I can do to make this better.”

  He gave her an I wish you were dead look.

  “Jaden.”

  More ball spinning. More ignore status.

  “I know you’re angry with me.”

  “No shit.”

  She smiled, satisfied she made a breakthrough. “Before the—” She glanced at Jaden, thinking twice about proceeding. “Before the accident
I was working on a novel where the protagonist has anger issues. In one sense, he’s his own antagonist.”

  “I’m not listening.”

  “But you’re responding so you hear me.”

  “Smart ass,” he mumbled.

  “Would you rather I be a dumb ass?” Then: “Terrance—that’s the protagonist’s name—reminds me of you. He’s older than you by two years.”

  “You act like you can’t see I’m ignoring you,” Jaden said. “I’m exerting all my energy trying to be nice, but you’re starting to push my buttons.” He went to the other side of the living room.

  Buank. Buank. Buank. Buank.

  “Through Terrance I discovered that the problem with poisoning by anger is it eats away your insides. Everything Terrance does and says is poisoned.” She thought about their situation and sighed. “After a while a person who poisons themselves with anger feels nothing. I don’t want that to happen to you, Jaden.”

  “You have a lot of nerve preaching the choir to me about an unfinished, undeveloped character. You couldn’t possibly know how Terrance’s personal conflict is gonna unfold because you’re too weak to discover an ending, to close the story. He can’t go any further than he’s been like I can’t.” He stomped across the room and stood over her. “I have every right to be angry. You—nobody else—ruined everything and took me away from my dad in the process. I’ll never forgive you. And I promise to remind you of that fact every day.”

  Buank. Buank. Buank. Buank.

  EIGHTEEN

  He stared into Stygian darkness. It was getting harder to breathe. And being stuffed in the trunk of an Infiniti didn’t have a damn thing to do with it. Yancee didn’t know what was happening to him or why. He did Number One and Number Two on himself, and the stench was turning his stomach. He couldn’t move a lick. His motor skills had taken a permanent lunch break. But oddly he could feel every agonizing inch of pain each time his head slammed against the rim of the spare tire. He didn’t know what had gotten into Chance. This was way beyond the perimeter of their normal fighting and bickering. But he realized that Chance had dedicated himself to playing bumper cars with every pothole in the city.

  After listening to the thrum of tires cruise against different textures of road for an undetermined amount of time, the tires crunched over a long strip of gravel, then the car stopped.

  The engine was shut off; he could hear it tick.

  Apprehension set in; his heart sounded like a bass drum in his ears.

  The car door was slammed shut.

  What had Chance so pissed? Yancee tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but the stubborn thing wouldn’t go down.

  Urgent footsteps fell on gravel.

  A key slid into the trunk’s lock.

  Yancee couldn’t move. So the urge to attack he had was no good.

  The trunk opened and without preamble, Chance said, “You stink.” Then: “Dude, you’re gonna die of respiratory failure if I don’t inject you with this.” He showed Yancee a syringe. “But not before I make you feel all the pain I’m feeling.”

  Yancee’s eyes moved right, left, up, and down. Wherever he was there was a tree-leaf canopy covering them. He looked through the leaves and saw the sky had darkened. Africa was going to kill him for being late. She was going to swear up and down he was out fooling around on her again, he thought, totally blowing off the seriousness of his immediate predicament. He smelled hints of rain mixed with a pine-needle breeze and his bowels.

  Then his eyes pinned Chance and reality sucker-punched him, putting things in proper perspective. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Hunch,” Chance said, grabbing two fistfuls of Yancee’s UPS work shirt. “But my sixth sense tells me you know exactly why.” Chance tugged Yancee from the trunk and let his body hit the gravel with a thud. “Time to get your comeuppance.”

  “Aahg!” Yancee howled in pain, hoping someone would hear him.

  “It’s only us, dude. Scream like a pregnant bitch if you wanna.” Then: “Now you understand why I chose to zap you with the venom of a Blue-ringed oct.” Chance started dragging Yancee across the gravel. “You’re completely paralyzed and fully conscious. You’re gonna love this part, dude: the beauty about this contradiction is you can feel all the hell I’m about to put you through. Well…up until the point your breathing stops.”

  Now, in typical Chance fashion, Yancee realized that Chance wore thread-bare jeans, scuffed Vans sneakers, and a bleach-splattered Nirvana T-shirt. After Yancee endured the punishment of a flight of concrete stairs, the dragging was over. He wasn’t sure of how far Chance dragged him—ten, fifteen feet maybe—but judging from the burning sensation of his chest and face, it was farther than a hop and a skip.

  Yancee lay face down—skin on fire—against a cold floor, another contradiction. He was still clueless as to where he was, and he couldn’t get the sight of Chance’s bald head out his mind. All he knew about his whereabouts was he was indoors and the place smelled like it had been bottled up for years.

  Chance kicked him onto his back and showed him a large surgical scalpel. “Dude, I’m not horsing around.” His voice echoed throughout the building.

  That meant the place was definitely big and probably empty, Yancee assumed. “Chance, man, what the fuck?” His eyes darted back and forth, taking in as much of his surroundings as his limited field of vision would allow. From the architecture and stained-glass windows, he thought he was in a church. Only he couldn’t locate a reference or likeness of Jesus Christ. Somewhere in the distance he could hear a choir of crickets, the rustling of trees bringing up the background, and traffic, of all things. Then he felt a faint draft push across his face.

  Chance didn’t waste any more time. He jabbed the scalpel into Yancee’s thigh and twisted the blade to get a good flow going.

  Yancee screamed.

  “Nice comeback.” Then: “Been thinking about it for the last six months. Dude, you knew about Cashmaire all along.”

  Click.

  Now everything fell into place. Chance must’ve known about what they had done or he was fishing for answers. Yancee’s guilt catapulted him back to 1999 when Leon had shown him an article written in a medical journal. Yancee could still see the evil smirk Leon had on his face as Yancee had read the article.

  Yancee was jerked back to the here-and-now when he saw the shiny blade lunging toward him again. First everything went from 88 rpm down to 3 rpm, and then his surroundings went mute. In slow motion he studied the deliberateness of the asymmetrical-shaped blade, the audacity of its precision point. He anticipated the inevitable pain it would cause but couldn’t flinch or brace himself to soften the impact. Primal fear instructed him to survive, instructed his body to take flight or fight, instructed his hands to reach up and stop the dangerous blade from hitting its mark.

  Nothing happened, though.

  His brain transmitted, but his body didn’t receive the messages. During the slow motion, he examined Chance’s face: anger and vengeance had replaced easygoing and laid-back. Chance had to know, but how? Who had broken their pact of silence?

  Then the blade sliced into his flesh; a guttural scream leapt from his mouth at 100 rpm.

  “If I’m right, you got some huge gonads screwing around with my life.” Chance twisted the scalpel. “Dude, you’re leaking plenty good.”

  Yancee lay there in pain, motionless. He knew he was bleeding to death. “Why are you…what you want from me?”

  Chance put his face uncomfortably close to Yancee’s. “The truth.”

  “Don’t let me die like this.” Yancee felt his fear crystallize.

  Chance laughed. “Of course not. We’re buddies, dude. You can count on it.”

  Yancee heard the duet of crickets and trees again. His breathing was labored. He did his best to speak through his agony. “The truth about what?”

  “Shithead, why didn’t you stop me from hooking up with my wife?”

  “Come on, Chance. It doesn’t—”

/>   Chance showed him the bloody scalpel. “I’m not in the mood.”

  As the sound of traffic filtered in, Yancee relived that day in his dorm room and did his best to tell Chance all about it. “It started on a Wednesday back in February of ninety-nine.”

  NINETEEN

  “In breaking news this afternoon,” the newscaster said from the television set, “The charred bodies of Carole Sund and Silvina Pelosso were found in a rental car. Sund’s daughter’s body was found thirty miles away from Yosemite National Park where the women were last seen alive. Police and the FBI—”

  Yancee shut the television off and turned 93 FM on. Mad Cobra’s voice came through the speakers: “Girl, flex time to have sex…” And Yancee went back to what he was doing.

  “Boy, stop it.” The gold-digging tramp slapped his paws away from her crotch. “Do you always put your hands on things you ain’t earned?”

  “Bad habit I’ve had since I was a kid,” Yancee said, easing up on the bed while kissing her neck, positioning himself to dry-fuck her. “I like touching things, baby, to see how they feel. You feel—”

  “I. Said. Stop!” She elbowed him in the gut. “Next time I’ll go lower.”

  “Girl, flex time to have sex.”

  Yancee swung his feet around to the floor, frustrated and horny. “What are you tripping on?”

  She climbed off the bed and straightened her designer clothing. “Just like you thought you was about to get some of these goodies, I thought you was paying for my hair and nails to get done.” She crossed the room, purposefully teasing him with the sway of her handlebar hips and lovely ass, and reached for the doorknob.

  Yancee sprang to his feet, erection straining against his khaki Dockers. “Girl, what are you trying to do, leave a brother with blue balls?”

  Mad Cobra said, “Girl, flex time to have sex.”

  She dug a trial-size bottle of Jergens lotion from her purse and tossed it to him. “Hope that works for you. My new appointment is tomorrow at eleven.” Then: “I need a pedicure too since you played me and made me reschedule.”