A Day's Gamble

8.

I ended up meeting up with Dickey and Ray-Ray. I came to a decision and this was supposed to be a retirement event of sorts. The end of long career of doing bad shit. One more meet and I was to be done.

In the car, my mind was heavy and my skin prickled. Goosebumps. It felt like a ghost was hovering over me.

Ray-Ray and Dickey sat up front, clowning around and joking like they normally do. They were not as loud as they usually were; maybe, I was just not listening as hard as I normally do. My mind was elsewhere and my gut was sinking like it knew that the know situation was going to be fucked up. Somehow, I expected my heart to feel the same way, all twisted up and beating irregularly like a drop of water hitting a tin pan. I touched the center of my chest; there’s no ache there. Just the steady beat like always.

“Yo, Man.” I looked up and saw Dickey pointing to the black Chevy Caprice turning the corner. Black windows, shiny black finish, and sitting on twenty-two inch spinning chrome rims. It was a beauty. Cars, like that, made me think of things like lions and tigers, all big and powerful, but still full of grace and speed.

Dickey turned back to Ray-Ray. “You got the stuff?”

Ray-Ray slugged Dickey in the arm for the stupid question. “Of course, I got the stuff, dumbass. “ He held up a crumbled McDonald’s bag, the type you usually get when you order a Big Breakfast, and tapped its side.

He turned around to look at me. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” My mouth said. My gut called me a stupid asshole and my brain agreed. We opened the doors and took a minute to adjust the sudden bite of the wind. It was so cold. Another reason we shouldn’t be out here.

Dickey leaned against the car, waiting for some sign to walk across the street. Ray-Ray took up a position across the street, leaning on an old car some feet up, waiting for the men to begin their transaction.

Three guys emerged from the black Caprice. Two of them were as big as any defensive linemen with necks as wide as hams. The driver was bald and dark, a shade or two below the color the sky becomes when there was no light in the city below it. The other was fair skinned with wet looking curls close cropped to his head. They, like the car, were dressed in black. They waited beside the car as their boss approached Ray-Ray in the street.

The boss stepped forward. The man was familiar. Handsome in a way that only movie stars could be, he stepped forward, smile already spreading on his face. Desmond “D-Man” Jones. I hadn’t expected to see him. We were low level soldiers. He was executive level in comparison.

D-Man in one look sized us up and mentally calculated whether we were worth half a moment of his time in one cool sweep. Nodding in Ray-Ray’s direction, he urged him forward. Ray-Ray gave D-Man a small smile and greeted him with a half embrace. Dickey and I held our positions as they quickly got down to business.

“I’m just curious, Man.” He flicked his tongue over his dry bottom lip and smiled a crooked grin. “Where’d you get this?”

Ray-Ray laughed nervously, the sound hollow and empty. “Why do you want to know?”

D-Man held up his hands in a surrendering gesture and smiled, trying to placate Ray-Ray. “ I didn’t mean nothing by it. I’m just curious….” He looked us over. Something in his gaze unsettled me. “A man should know a little something about the people he does business with, don’t you think. Especially in the business we’re in?”

Ray-Ray just nodded. His skull cap flopped back and forth accordingly. Why was he still talking? He’d already handed over the stuff and he had the money. Dickey leaned against the car waiting, not feeling an ounce of the uneasy that I did. He wouldn’t meet my eyes and Ray-Ray was still talking to this guy.

Something wasn’t right.

I took a step back, putting some space between me and them.

D-Man embraced Ray-Ray again. He turned around and addressed his boys with a slight head, but didn’t go any closer to the car. “One more thing.”

Ray-Ray shrugged and faced D-Man. “Yeah.”

“I wanted to share something with you,” D-Man said while smirking. “Did you know there’s no crime in stealing from a thief? But paying him for the thing he stole from you is just criminal.”

Ray-Ray looked back at us, his head whipping about, a look that screamed ‘I fucked up’. “Man, I didn’t know they were yours.” He stammered.

Dickey slid off the car and he was moving closer to the door. “You should have asked somebody.” D-Man responded.

The air went silent. Birds flew off the telephone wires, leaving the area devoid of any noise. The only thing I could hear was the sound of my own heart, thundering in my ears. My palms were clammy; my fingertips slicked by the slow roll of sweat down my skin. My feet bounced nervously against the pavement, waiting for a true sign of danger.

D-Man looked calm, satisfied with Ray-Ray’s response. He held his hands up again in a surrendering gesture. “I was just messing with you again. Damn, Dog…You’re too serious.”D-Man laughed along with his boys.

Ray-Ray was hesitant in laughing as well. He did so uneasily. Dickey remained by the door. So, I watched them laugh, feeling way too tense. I just wanted to go home. See Nico and apologize.

“On second thought, I wasn’t joking. “D-Man’s change in tone was as quick as his hand moving inside his coat to retrieve his gun. The clap was loud and way too fast. It was like I struck deaf and dumb. My feet only began to move as a pair of bullets passed through Ray-Ray’s center. His blood cascaded out in a spray of red droplets like sideways falling rain.
I was running when the next clap sounded. My pace barely slowly as I saw Dickey fall against the car. With my arms pumping, my legs extended farther and faster, my chest burning from the years of abuse from cigarettes. I was not alone, because I could hear them behind me. It was the big ones. I could tell from the sound of their feet hitting the pavement alone. Just one corner to turn before I could duck into the alley across the street. Five seconds from returning to my family.

Midway in the street, a sharp bite tore through my shoulder, another to my gut knocking the wind out of me. I couldn’t fall now. The alley loomed right in front of me. Then, my left leg gave way after it’s ripped apart by a bullet. My legs dropped me and I was falling through the air; the concrete meeting my face and ripping into as I skidded on the rocky surface. I came to a stop on my back. My breath came in short bursts, pain in each one.

Footsteps approached, and I was too tired to move away.

A pair of shiny shoes stopped by my head. “Just another young sorry-ass homie.” D-Man muttered. He almost sounded like he was regretful. No, there was nothing to regret about this. He held up the gun. The black barrel trained above my head.

‘God, don’t let it end this way.’ I prayed.

There was a wail sounding in the distance. I had never been happier to hear the siren on a cop car. My eyes were closed and I just stopped, laid there pretending to not breathe when my chest burned terribly. The wait was unbearable. Each passing second D-Man deliberated what to do with me, the harder my chest demanded to expand.

Finally, D-Man was satisfied. Their boots pounded the pavement. The sound grew smaller, fainter with each passing second.

My mouth opened before my eyes, swallowing great mouthfuls of air. It felt like I was starving. It wasn’t enough. My body felt so heavy. There was no way I was getting up, so I laid there with my eyes trained ahead—straight above at the sky that had suddenly changed without me realizing it.

Did my father see this? Was the night so full of stars as he laid dying? Did he find comfort in the millions of sparkling lights? Flashes of memory dart across his brain. Pop probably thought of me and Mom, because Nico and the kids are the only things I could think of. Like stars, the two brightest spots in my mind were the images of my Mother’s smiling face and Nico’s look of serene love, as he watched our babies sleep. My chest rose and fell heavily. Three stars sparkled in my field of vision. Just three.

TBC