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“Dwayne, is that you? Who’s there? What’s happening?”

Finally, I hear Dwayne’s labored breath—he’s panting, practically wheezing—and he tells me in an awful voice that there’s been an incident, some kind of robbery or mugging, and I better come over quickly because there’s “blood all over the place.” Then he drops the phone and I can hear another crash and a shout, as if the incident’s still going on.

“What’s happening?” Gab asks. “Did we get robbed?”

“I don’t know,” I say, getting dressed. “I’m going there now. Call 911.”

Soon I’m racing in the opposite direction on the same roads I traveled barely three hours ago, now slick with rain. I keep dialing the store with my cell phone, but no one answers. I want information, details, updates—is everyone still alive? have the cops come?—and I can’t wait the twenty minutes it takes to get there. The blood Dwayne mentioned, the blood. Was it his or someone else’s? Is Kevin okay? Who was at the store and who is there now?

Then I remember Dwayne’s gun and feel sick to my stomach. I should have done something. I should have frisked him every day and checked his backpack, and then as a family we should have done everything in our power to make the store a safer place. For instance, why couldn’t we at least have bought one of those fake security cameras that you attach behind the register to make people think they’re being recorded? If Dwayne hurt somebody, what does that mean for us? The more I think about this, the more I need to get there, and then because I am thinking in this selfish way, I feel even sicker.

It’s time to get out. The gong has sounded, and this time everyone in the family will hear it at the same time.

At Atlantic Avenue and Hoyt Street sirens are flashing, and a police car has parked awkwardly on the sidewalk. And yet the scene looks weirdly peaceful, as if whatever happened took place hours and hours ago. I see the police tape cordoning off a section of sidewalk near where we put out the trash, but not the candles or the wailing relatives or the reporters and their cameramen. It seems like nothing all too serious could have happened here tonight.

And then I see the puddle of blood, two feet long and a foot wide, glimmering on the sidewalk. At its center sits an expensive embroidered Yankees cap that was probably bone white an hour ago and now has the same color as the blackening pool.

Turns out it’s the robber’s cap. At closing time, he and his accomplice—both teenagers from Bay Ridge, a middle-class white community in South Brooklyn—walked into the store. Kevin, who was shutting down the register at the time, appeared, from their point of view, to be the only person on duty. Dwayne had gone back to the stockroom to fill a bucket with mop water, and as the plume beat noisily against the plastic, his hearing was blocked. The teenager in the Yankees cap pointed a gun at Kevin and told him to give him the contents of the register. Kevin, thankfully, didn’t hesitate to comply. He put the entire drawer of cash on the counter next to an aluminum tray of biscotti, and the teens started stuffing their pockets. But then Dwayne turned off the water, and one of the teenagers accidentally knocked over the biscotti.

“Everything okay?” shouted Dwayne.

The robbers bolted, and Dwayne, after sticking his head out of the stockroom and seeing the look on Kevin’s face, started running too.

“No, Dwayne!” Kevin shouted. “They’ve got a gun!”

Dwayne kept going, however, and found the robbers fleeing down Hoyt Street on bicycles. The one with the cash had already gotten away. The one with the gun was struggling, though, and when he realized what was coming after him, he must have wanted to die. After a flying leap, Dwayne tackled the slower robber and crashed with him to the sidewalk, both of them landing on the bike. At that point the robber still had his gun, which during the tussle ended up pointed near Dwayne’s face. He pulled the trigger, and what