Meals from Mars

by Ben Sciacca

  “Mind if I come in?” The man stuck one of his heavy boots inside with a thud. Jim cleared out of his way as the old man and his dog stepped into the cabin.

  “I didn’t catch your name,” Jim said with a half-smile.

  “I didn’t catch yours either.”

  “Jim Dawson.” Jim extended his hand. Another quick lie. The dog growled slightly.

  “Easy, Lilac.” The man placed his hand on the dog’s head. “My name is Tucker,” he said to Jim. “But everyone around here calls me Bug. I’m the manager of this property and live here year-round.”

  “Okay, Bug,” Jim replied slowly. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You got someone else here with you, Jim?” Bug asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “No. Just me.”

  “Hmmm.” Bug clomped over to the fireplace. “Looks like you’re on your last two pieces of firewood.” He paused for a moment, resting his hands on both of the chairs. “You know it got down to minus three degrees last night? Minus three degrees! Never been that cold down here before—not since I’ve been alive anyways.”

  Jim nodded and watched as the old man moved slowly around the cabin. Lilac clung close to his heels and nosed through the sausage cans on the floor. A coal popped in the fireplace and gave the dog a start. “Is the weather supposed to warm up today?” Jim asked.

  Bug offered up a grin, revealing some missing teeth. “Yeah. If you call thirty-eight degrees warming up.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Jim responded. “Maybe I can get out of here this afternoon, then.”

  “Maybe,” the old man said. “There’s definitely gonna be some ice in a few places.”

  Lilac stopped. Her ears perked slightly, and she turned her attention toward the bathroom. Jim noticed and looked over at Bug. He was staring back at Jim with a strange expression.

  “Do you have any more firewood in the back of your truck that I could use?” Jim asked. “As I said, I’d like to be out of here as soon as the temperatures rise a little bit, but I could use some more wood in the meanwhile.”

  Bug looked at Jim, over at the bathroom, and then back at Jim. He called his dog and moved back toward the front door again. “Jim,” he said gruffly, spinning around to face him from in front of the doorway. “I don’t know who you are or why you’re here. But I can spot a liar when I see one, and you ain’t no insurance adjustor. My guess? You’re one of them meth dealers, or something like that. We’ve had a few of them up here over the years, cookin’ and sellin’ that mess. All I know is you ain’t no adjustor and you bein’ all the way out here in your fancy car doesn’t make any sense to me.” He cast a quick glance toward the bathroom. “And you ain’t here alone, neither.”

  With that, he opened the door and slammed it behind him. He trudged rapidly back to his truck, still puttering out front.

  Malik burst out of the bathroom with his gun still drawn. “Is he gone? Finally, man!” He pulled back the curtain again and peeked out the window. “That dude was like something out of a horror movie, for real! Thanks for covering for me—I appreciate it.”

  “I don’t like to lie,” Jim muttered. “But I didn’t feel right about him for one minute.”

  From behind the tattered curtain they both watched Bug pause outside of his truck. He pulled a glove off of his hand with his teeth and retrieved his cell phone from his pocket.

  “Who do you think he’s calling?” Malik asked.

  Jim spoke quietly. “Probably the police.”

  20

  THE DECISION

  12:19 p.m., Tuesday before Thanksgiving

  THE OLD MAN HAD MADE HIS CALL and returned to his truck. He rumbled back down the snow-laden road before pulling off into a driveway, where he still sat, monitoring the cabin for the last thirty minutes. Malik paced nervously back and forth. Meanwhile, Jim’s attention remained fixed outside the window. Now and then he glanced at his watch.

  “Man!” Malik suddenly erupted. “I ain’t gonna just sit here and wait for somethin’ to happen. If that old dude called the police, then I need to get up and out of here. Now!”

  Jim took a look at the gun in Malik’s hand and the panic in his eyes. “The best thing to do right now, Malik, is stop and think. If you keep running, your situation is only going to get worse. You already ran once. Besides, these roads are still a mess, and there’s nowhere for you to go. You wouldn’t make it more than a few miles down the road before you crashed or ran out of gas. You need to think this through.”

  “So you think I should just stick around and wait for some country crackerjack police officers to show up and arrest me?” Malik growled with a furrowed brow. “’Cause that ain’t happenin’!”

  “Then what’s the plan, Malik?” Jim retorted. “I’ve been asking you that all night. Are you going to shoot your way out, go live in the woods somewhere? I mean, what is it? What did you think was going to happen? Did you think that this whole mess would just blow over—that people would just forget or something? You can’t win this one.”

  “Win?” Malik shouted. “Win? Man, I ain’t tryin’ to win. I’m just tryin’ to stay alive. I’ve already told you that I’ve lost. Don’t you think I’ve thought about my situation a few times over the last few hours? Assault. Robbery. Carjacking. Kidnapping. And now you add breaking and entering, or trespassing, or whatever. Any one of those charges will put me away for a while, right? There ain’t no way to come out of this a winner!”

  Jim shook his head and took a step forward. “The best thing you could do is just give me that gun and then let things unfold. If what you said is true about what happened back in that gas station, then you’ll have your chance to prove it.”

  “Because they’ll listen to my side of the story, right? Who else is gonna testify for me? Mike and his boys? You? Are you gonna be my lawyer, Jim? Shoot! The only person that could speak up for me is probably dead. And some folks think I’m the one who killed him. Look—I might as well just go ahead and walk down to the jail and lock myself up for the next twenty years, because that’s what they’re gonna do anyways!”

  Jim could tell that he wasn’t getting through. He took another look out of the window. Bug was still parked in the distance. The fire had died, and the cabin was rapidly growing colder.

  Malik closed his eyes and tried to breath slowly. He could feel his heartbeats thudding against the walls of his chest, could hear them ricocheting around in his head.

  Suddenly Jim leaned forward. Another vehicle was coming their way, a lone white SUV. It crawled down the long road before pausing in front of Bug’s truck. On top of the truck was a rack of lights. It was the county sheriff.

  Jim hoped Malik wouldn’t notice, but the young man was now standing beside him, peering out of the window. Bug had stepped out of his truck and approached the sheriff’s vehicle. He pointed toward the cabin.

  Jim turned to say something, but Malik had already bolted toward the back door. Jim froze for a moment, wondering where Malik was going to go. But then he recalled that he had left his keys in the dash holder. He sprang toward the back as well.

  Malik was already inside the Lexus and fumbling for the keys. “Come on, Malik!” Jim shouted. “Don’t be stupid! Where are you going to go? What are you going to do?”

  Malik ignored him and slammed the driver-side door shut. For reasons he couldn’t explain, Jim raced around the front of the car and opened the passenger door. Malik had already found the key and placed it in the ignition.

  “Listen!” Jim yelled. “This will only make things ten times worse than they are.”

  “Things can’t get no worse!” Malik retorted as he fired up the engine.

  Jim looked off into the distance for a moment and then back at the young man who was struggling to get the car into drive. “Do you even know what you’re doing?” The car had spent the night under an umbrella of pine trees; the ground had nothing more than a thin layer of powdery snow on it. Malik placed his gun in his lap and gripped the steering wheel with both
hands, when it dawned on him that the entire front windshield was covered in ice.

  Malik cursed and fumbled to find the driver-side window control. With a slight groan the window dropped, and he stuck his head outside. He took his foot off of the brake, and the car rolled forward.

  Jim jogged alongside the car for a moment, yelling at Malik to stop, but Malik ignored him, navigating the car around the edge of the cabin and onto the snow-covered driveway. He could barely breathe. The icy air lashed against his face and burned his lungs. The frozen steering wheel felt foreign in his hands; the engine drew him onward with an unrestrained power.

  Jim continued to run alongside the car as it picked up speed. Half out of anger and half out of desperation, he leaped into the passenger seat and slammed the door. “Pull over and put the car in park!” he said forcefully. “This is going to end with you totaling this car and winding up in a hospital.”

  They slowly rounded the corner and spotted the police vehicle and Bug in the distance. Malik pressed his foot down on the gas pedal; he had made his decision. Jim recognized that it was time for him to make his. He could jump out or stay put.

  He reached for the door handle to attempt a hasty exit, but Malik depressed the gas pedal even more, throwing Jim into his seat as the car roared into action and raced forward. Jim frantically grabbed his seat belt and clicked it into place.

  The sheriff and Bug stared at the Lexus as it kicked up a wake of white powder. Malik’s squinting face still hung out of the driver side window. The car continued its rapid approach, and the sheriff put his hand on his holster. Bug sprang from the road and hid beside his truck. Malik grimaced.

  “Be careful! Be careful!” Jim shouted. He placed his hands on the dash to brace himself.

  The sheriff nearly toppled over as the Lexus raced past, missing him by inches. He reached for his gun for a moment but instead grabbed his radio and held it up to his mouth. “We have a black Lexus exiting Morgan’s. License plate: One. Charlie. Alpha. Two. Four. Alpha. Delta. Driver is black. Male. Requesting immediate backup.” He yanked open the door to his vehicle and jumped inside.

  Jim spun around in his seat and watched as the SUV made a rapid three-point turn and began pursuit, its lights flashing and siren blaring. “Look,” he asked desperately. “Just let me out!”

  “Forget it!” Malik replied. “You shouldn’t have jumped inside.”

  The road was blanketed in a thick layer of powder and a thin layer of ice, but the gravel provided great traction. Malik took a sharp left turn that would point them back toward the county highway. “This is ridiculous!” Jim said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Where in the world are you going to go? Do you really think this is going to work?”

  Malik said nothing. He could hear Jim’s voice, but his words were garbled. The frigid air continued to pummel his face and drown his ears. Outside, the world was white as far as he could see. Terror drove him onward. He had never felt so hopelessly alive.

  Jim, on the other hand, sat there wide-eyed with his teeth clenched. He clung desperately to the roof handle with both hands.

  21

  THE CALL

  12:53 p.m., Tuesday before Thanksgiving

  THE SHRILL RING OF THE PHONE on the wall startled Wilma. She released her grip on her cup of coffee. Exhaling a slight sigh, she rose from her kitchen chair to catch the phone before it rang a third time. “Hello?” she asked wearily.

  “Hey, Ma,” a voice on the other side said softly.

  “Keith? Is that you?” A slight smile formed on Wilma’s lips. “How are you, baby?”

  “I’m good, Ma.” Keith sat behind his desk in his office. His face rested in his hand. “MarQuan Cole came by this morning. He told me about Malik.”

  Wilma winced but said nothing.

  “Were you gonna call me, Ma?”

  “I was, son,” Wilma replied. “But you have enough on your mind right now—enough going on. I was gonna give it a day or two. Figured he’d turn up and we wouldn’t need to bother you with it.”

  Keith closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. “Ma—you know that you and the family are never a bother. How are you and the kids holding up?”

  “The babies don’t know just yet,” Wilma said. “They’re playing next door this morning. I’m holding up—just here praying for Malik. Only Jesus knows where that boy is right now.”

  Keith turned slightly and took a look out of his office window. Large, fluffy clouds hung in the sharp blue sky. “MarQuan said Malik might be tangled up in some real mess. I can’t see that boy doing anything like that—hurting anybody, stealing a car.”

  Wilma shook her head. “Me neither, son.”

  “So then, what’s going on? Where is that boy, and what is he doing?”

  Wilma shrugged. “I don’t know, baby. I shouldn’t have sent him out so late for those groceries. Lord knows it was getting dark and cold out there. Malik wouldn’t hurt nobody. He must have gotten spooked or threatened by someone or something. That’s the only reason he wouldn’t come home.”

  “But what about that mess at the gas station?”

  “Malik loves that place, Keith,” Wilma replied. “You know that. He’s known Habib since he was almost five. He wouldn’t lay a finger on that man—or his store. You know this neighborhood. Anything could have happened. The best time of the day for me is when those four babies come home from school and they’re safe and sound in my apartment. Every day there’s another fight up at their schools, and every week it seems like there’s another shooting. It’s much worse than when you were a boy.”

  “You think he’s mixed up with that white man who came to see you yesterday evening? Have they ever met before?”

  “No,” Wilma said plainly. “That was Jim’s first time coming to our place. Him and Malik have never met before.”

  “Do you know what this Jim does for a living, Ma?” Keith queried. “He’s a big-shot lawyer from Stone Brook. I truly hope that Malik has not done something foolish to or with a man like him.”

  “I know our Malik didn’t do anything wrong, Keith. Besides, Jim seemed like a nice man. I don’t think he did anything wrong either.”

  “So, Jim is from Mars? He’s part of that group that’s been bringing you the charity?”

  “Don’t say it like that,” Wilma chided him. “Ain’t no one from my church bringing us no groceries, son.”

  “They might if you would tell them you needed some.”

  “Just about every other person in our church needs some groceries or a power bill or something.”

  “Not your pastor,” Keith retorted. “Pastor Jackson doesn’t need anything. He and his Escalade seem to be doing just fine! I wonder if he’s ever had trouble with his power bill or his groceries.”

  Keith’s mother sniffed but said nothing. Keith continued. “Besides, I’ve been trying to send you some money too. Is that not enough?”

  Wilma nodded. “Every bit helps, son. Thank you.”

  “Have you talked to Sobrina?”

  “I’ve tried to call Sobrina three times and even left a long message, told her that her boy is missing.” Wilma sighed. “Your sister doesn’t really want to talk with me right now. And besides, Lord knows where she is . . .”

  Keith was overcome with heaviness. “We gotta find Malik, Ma.” He spoke in barely a whisper. “After all our family has been through, he was the one that I knew was going to take the next big step. If he’s gone on and done something stupid—something foolish—I don’t know if I can—”

  His mother stopped him. “You just need to keep praying. What else can we do in times like these? We need to be praying, son.”

  “Praying for what?” Keith muttered.

  Wilma placed her chilled and aged hand around her coffee mug and gripped it tightly. “Praying that he’d come home—that wherever he is, and whatever he’s done, God will just send our boy home.” Her voice wavered as her words stuck in her throat. She dabbed quickly at a tear that nestled in one of t
he wrinkles around her eye.

  Keith grabbed a picture frame on his desk and studied it for a moment. The image inside was three years old. In it Uncle Keith had his arms around Camron and Malik. All three of them were dressed in suits and ties. They had just finished hearing a well-known sociologist from Harvard speaking at a local fundraiser. Their expressions were serious, confident, and serene. They looked poised to wrestle with and triumph over their universe.

  What had happened to the three men in that picture? Keith wondered. What had once looked certain was now fragmented. The phone trembled slightly in his hand.

  22

  THE SURRENDER

  1:07 p.m., Tuesday before Thanksgiving

  THE LONG GRAVEL ROAD WAS COMING TO AN END. The sheriff continued to race behind the Lexus as they drew closer to the county highway. Jim glanced at the dash. The all-too-familiar gas light was on. He knew that they wouldn’t get much further before this escape came to a grinding halt. He hoped that it would be the gas that would stop them and not an icy crash.

  Malik could no longer feel his face. He blinked constantly in an attempt to keep the cold out of his eyes.

  Sheriff Jefferson cursed as a hidden pothole jarred his vehicle. Just then his radio came on. “Sheriff, this is Dispatch . . . The Lexus belongs to a Jim Dawkins. A report from the city verifies that the vehicle was seen in Edgewood last night. It’s possible that Jim was carjacked and kidnapped. The black suspect is believed to be armed and dangerous. Over.”

  “What’s this carjacking city thug doing all the way out here?” the sheriff mumbled to himself.

  Jim leaned over as far as he could, put his hand on Malik’s shoulder, and gave it a squeeze. “Slow down! Slow down! This gravel road is about to end! The highway is probably frozen over!”

  Malik took his foot off the gas and pressed the brakes. The car ground to a sudden halt about ten feet from the edge of the highway. He paused for a moment and looked quickly to his left and to his right. To the right the road had several curves and turns. To the left the road was long and straight.