Hick - Andrea Portes [28]
“Nice work, kid. Now we’re murderers.”
“Is he dead?”
“I dunno. Fuck. This is not good.”
She grabs me by the wrists and throws me out the door.
“Wull, maybe we better call someone or something . . .”
She’s pulling me along the gravel, about as fast as heels can race-walk, dust flying up around our feet, like an angry steam engine churning. My arm feels like it’s four feet in front of its socket and I look back to see if there happen to be any witnesses to our little travesty.
“Don’t look back, kid. Just keep moving.”
We turn the corner into the brush where the car’s hidden between two side-by-side weeping willows, the rabbit waiting for us, impatient. Glenda hurls me into the back and jumps in the driver’s seat. She fumbles around for the car keys, hands shaking, swearing little half words to herself, like she doesn’t have time enough to finish them.
“We can’t just leave him there.” I say it.
“Oh yes we can.”
“No we can’t, Glenda.”
“Amateur.”
“Listen. Listen to me. You took money from that place, didn’t you?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Wull, think about it. What looks weirder . . . two girls call an ambulance for some old guy who just dropped dead and oh they’re so upset they called the cops right away, and then maybe two months later someone figures out some money happens to be missing . . . or . . . or . . . some old guy is dead behind the counter with no one in sight and there’s some fucking money missing.”
She stops fumbling.
I catch her eyes and say quiet, “Get it? it’s better to just call the cops and play dumb.”
She starts to work it over in her head. You might think this is me being good, but really this is me not wanting that old geezer knocking down the door to my peaceful slumbers trying to turn all my late-night dreaming into nightmares.
“You’re right.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. I do not want to take that old man with me to bed every night.
“You’re right.”
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“I dunno. I dunno. Just shush. I gotta get organized here.”
She hops out the car and hustles back into the store, searching behind the counter for the phone. I keep one step behind her, trying to pick up a few pointers. She finds the phone, stops herself, lets out a breath like she’s communing with the gods and dials 911.
“Hello, hello . . . yes, um . . . we have an emergency here . . . we’ve got a, well, a dead or sick gentleman, here. I mean, he just sorta fell over mid-sentence down here at Custer’s Last Stand . . . yep, down on Highway 92 . . . I swear to God you better hurry, maybe there’s still hope. My name? My name is Cheryl. Cheryl Tarkington. Please do hurry. I just don’t know what to do . . . I’ve got my daughter here and all, probably traumatized for life.” She hangs up the phone and looks at me. “This better fucking work.”
I look up at her, starting to question my decision. Maybe I’m wrong and am gonna spend the rest of my life in the slammer with girls named Lakeisha and Irma and Jean. I resign myself to live a life of study behind bars, like Malcolm X, emerging a prophet with the wisdom of my redemption.
Glenda clasps her hands. “Let’s pray.”
She and I stand side-by-side, heads down, and here’s her prayer:
“Dear God, don’t let that man die. Amen.”
We wait a thousand years before two officers of the law come swaggering through the door, one white bread, one Mexican. The white bread one has hair the color of dishwater and blue eyes and a gait like he’s about to fight off a bull. He looks Glenda over, up and down, and I can tell he likes what he sees. The Mexican cop stands by the front door, waiting for the ambulance, posing like there’s a photographer in the bushes taking pictures for some hero calendar.
“Ma’am, you here when it happened?”
He’s got a voice like a bass drum, like his throat got cut in two and now all that’s coming out is pure man.
“Why, yes I was, and so was my daughter here, Isabel, and I am just so worried she’ll be traumatized for life because of this, oh, you should have seen it, poor girl.”
He looks down at me, some TV cop sent from Hollywood to play the role of gallant