Black and Yellow--yes, like that song from another rap artist--that's the color of the giant sign I missed.
It's a giant sign combined with the two colors known in the rap world, and now known to me more than before because of the Black Cats Jaguar playlist: black and yellow. The sign itself, apart from the color that borders and fills it, is centered and decorated with a black cat right in the middle. The figure of the cat is in a stance mode. Its hind and front legs are fully up, as it has its back turned towards observers, with only its head turning back to give off one last glance. Perhaps, the last glance that should have told me, and is probably there to tell others, of the dangers that can await them if they do so dare to enter.
The odd thing is that "cats" in the name is spelled with a "z". Almost like it's done for a purpose; like, other things, it's there for a reason, a bigger, bolder reason than the one that comes off with a first stare.
My stare notices something else, though: the car behind us parks first.
Then Oso drives around the back of the bar.
The bar is located right on a corner of the street.
On the other side of the wall, on the one I'm in right now, the buildings don't rise like they do on the side that my grandmother is currently at--thinking and drinking her tea because she's pleasantly convinced my uncle is free of stress (oh, how much she doesn't know)--which means the plain view makes everything visible with merely a few feet of height. And this bar had two extra feet than any other building within a five mile radius, lunging itself over the neighboring rooftops to tower the skies, and to make our sight and vision a bit better, for those whom may come for us; not now, but soon.
This is it. No more driving.
I know we've reached our destination when the music stops. Then I see Oso twist the key in the ignition, shutting off the engine.
"Come on," he says, waving his men down. "You get the mess from the back," he then says to the man on the passenger seat.
I didn't know if he meant the beer or the body. What exactly does he want us to get?
The men get outside of the car, carrying the man I ended, and one of them stays by my side, waiting for me to close the door, or to not run away. I suspect it's the later of the choices.
"Come on," he says, annoyed at my time wasting.
I don't know what awaits for me inside, so I try not to hurry it. I pick up my feet slowly, keeping my eyes at the giant yellow sign -- not because I want to look at the sign, but because I'd rather look at the sign than look at this man's eyes.
I finally get down. When my shoes touch the gravel of the parking lot, the sole slips and I wrestle to keep my feet steady. Although, I think it's more my nerves that are making my feet tremble than the gravel on the ground.
We're all alike -- the men and I. We wear the same colored skin. And we probably share the same historical grounds. I wouldn't doubt being born in the same geographical location as these boys. But right now, in this moment, with this situation, with me having murdered one of their own, we are nothing alike, and we are not at the same power scale I used to live with on the other side of the wall.
I guess the feeling of not being free hits me once I take my first walk towards the bar, once I'm away from the crowd and can now feel the air freely, as a free person would, but instead, with these men behind me, guiding me, I feel it -- I feel how unfree I am.
I can't mind any of this going on in my head. I can't let it affect me right now. So I continue to walk forward.
Oso leads the way.
Two men wait at the door of the bar.
Two giant, bearded, broad-shouldered, toothpick-waste wearing, toothpick-chewing, perfectly-hair-gelled, lower chin pointed forward men await at the front door; both of them in black suits too.
Oso walks in without a glance, as if they know who he is.
They simply nod their head when he walks by and continue with their duties, their living.
I'm not bandaged or held behind my will physically right now, so I can run if I want to. But I know what will happen if I do run.
Instead, I reach the door. And then I reach for the handle.
To get to the door from the graveled parking lot, you have to climb a tiny, rugged, three-stepped staircase located in a undiagnal angel with a small, but thick, garden-wannabe fountain beside it. And with a black rail wrapped around the whole way until reaching the door, any drunk fool could make his, or her, way up to the door with no excuse. Even if the rail is unsteady, at best.
With only two windows facing the street side and the parking lot, along with the other two windows for the door, nothing could be seen from the outside -- thanks to one-way sunscreened glass, of course.
All that could be seen from the bar was the shaking floors their house-DJ provoked.
"Who's this?" asks one of the giant men at the door.
These men were probably twice Oso's size. And they were four times the size of half of the men guiding me up the stairs. And ten times the size of the one carrying the twenty-four pack.
"New recruit," laughs one of the men.
"Yeah, new recruit!" yells another one -- one of the men helping one of the other bar workers that came out to dispose of the body "out back". Outback wasn't outback when two gasoline gallons are being used; I may be jumping to conclusions though.
"Go ahead," laugh both men at the door.
**********************************************************************************************
I had seen places like this.
When Moritz and I first watched that Scarface movie, or when he would force me to watch all of his gangster movies, these type of bars and places is where most of the business and dialogue took place, apart from the strip bars.
Here, however, I don't know if I can tell the difference.
"Come on," waved one of Oso's men.
Oso at this time had lost himself in the back crowd.
An outer hangout spot wrapped around the bar. It was an upper-level that hid under a tiny roof that dropped down. Up there, older-looking men, like Oso, sat and drank and smoked and checked out guns.
Guns.
Reflections shoot back from the extra-clean tables--the reflection of the grey, mirror-like disco balls above us, scattered on every other block of the ceiling.
The ashtrays and the white lines scattered from one table to the other are the only things not reflecting any light into my eyes, over my face.
Pushing the reflections and the smoke aside, I get to the bar to see two of the men I had arrived with, already preparing themselves for a row of shots.
"Who is this, Bobby?" asks the bartender.
So Bobby is one name.
"A new recruit," Bobby laughs.
"For new recruits," the bartender says, dropping a row of shots in front of me. A row of shots. Not just one shot.
The row consists of three glasses.
One of them has red liquid. One of them has green liquid -- a muddy, misty type of green, like lemon juice. And the last glass has a clear liquid -- probably tequila or vodka, I'm suspecting. But what do I know? I'm only used-to whatever parties I can sneak off to whenever my grandma takes off to her Catholics Daughter meetings that she insists -- or tried to in a time far, far away -- I take up with her; but I never did take those classes and hours with her; I never joined; I never became Catholic -- whatever that means; I left my grandmother on her own -- and perhaps, I left myself on my own; maybe I left myself here, with these men, these Catz, and my uncle nowhere to be seen; I left myself "helping" other men, as opposed to my uncle.
"What is this?" I ask the bartender, and Bobby -- if Bobby can hear me while drowing himself in the three colors.
"Ah! That was delicious!" exclaims Bobby, wiping off the remaining juices with his tongue.
The bartender laughs.
"One is cherry liquor," replies the bartender, pointing at the red one.
Then he points at the green one:
"That's lemon juice," he says, highlighting the only correct thing I've predicted this night.
"And the last is our house tequila," he then laughs off, twirling his thick, dark mustache.
There was a flamboyante way to how the bartender pointed to the glasses that reminded me of my friend, Amorrole, from back home.
"Do I have to take all of them?" I ask, nervous because I had never done a shot before. But I don't know if I have a choice now.
"This is my first time taking shots."
"What!?" Bobby yells.
The bartender laughs. I'm not sure if it's at Bobby's yelling or my secret. I'll guess it's the secret, probably.
"To popping cherries with cherry liqueur," toasts the bartender, raising his glass at me, waiting for me to do the same.
Before I can toast to him, I suck up my fear and ignore my stomach. I tilt my head back and push in the first glass.
I feel the burn hit my stomach. But I ignore it.
I keep my head tilted back and I throw back the second glass.
The juice is a nice, calm antidote to my burning intestines.
"Whoa!" I hear Bobby yell. I think it's Bobby, but I don't turn, so I don't know.
My head comes forward to allow my throat to swallow, and to not mind the reflexes that want to break through for a more embarrassing moment.
Once the feeling passes, the tequila goes back.
"Yeah," the bartender yells. "Whooo!"
When my eyes finally open from all the burning, I see the bartender serving another round.
"I can't," I say.
"It's not from me," he says, looking up, looking behind me.
I turn.
I see Oso on the upper, outer layers. He's pointing at me. He's sitting with a group of larger men -- larger than the ones at the door, and he's pointing and waving me over.
The bartender slides the shots over.
"Here -- you take yours and I'll take the rest," he says, placing the other shots on a black tray he brought out from behind the bar.
"First meeting, eh?" said Bobby, winking when I turned at him.
Bobby is one, Oso is another, but who are the rest; who are all these men?
In place, in my own habitat, can be least described as my current feelings at the moment.
Carrying a pair of shots in this nightclub/stripperclub-like place, in my sweater and jeans and converse, isn't something I thought I'd be doing when my grandmother said "go help your uncle."
But here I am.
In the movies, my type of characters never end up safe. In the movies I watched with Moritz, my type of characters always plays a horrible role in these, say, roles.
What do I do though? Run and have them kill my uncle?
"Come on," says the bartender, whom I haven't even met by name yet.
Is this because he thinks it's not worth investing that much time into me as to tell me his name because he knows they're going to kill me; because such a question is reasonable to ask right now.
No. No. No. I can't think like this.
Out, I say to those thoughts, and to myself! Out!
I push the thoughts out of my head and move my feet forward.
Keep going. Keep going, I tell myself.
And I do.
"Eh!" I hear as I walk over.
Then "Whooo!"
Then "yeah, more girls!" from a pair of ladies sitting over a few men's laps.
Out, I say, again, --on my thoughts -- , out!
"Here you go," says the bartender, laying down the pairs of shots on the table.
"Thanks, Fern," says Oso.
Fern, Bobby, and Oso.
Those are the only names I have, I think.
But, so, it's Fern.
I couldn't have pictured him as a Fern.
But Fern doesn't matter. And how I pictured him doesn't matter, because I have a bigger picture to worry about -- I have my pictures, the one sitting before me, which consists of large men, to worry about.
"Sit, miss Divina," says Oso, slapping the empty space to the left of him. The cushion reacted to Oso's slap with a popping sound.
I could see the people sitting on the side he was telling me to sit scooting, making room for me, as if Oso's demands were that important; or maybe it's the people he's sitting with that are that important.
"Ha! Like Divana!" says one of giant men, one of "the important ones".
Great, I think. Here we go again. Another one.
But maybe, just maybe, divina is the word I need right now to push the other horrible thoughts that only raise my anxiety out of my head.
Divina, divina, divina, I think.
"What happened, miss Divina?" asks one of the men.
I put my shots down and take my seat.
This is going to be a while, I assume.
***********************************************************************************************
Outside, a life I came with has been forgotten and left, out to wonder on its own, as I have in here.
I now sit with these men on this table, and I acknowledge that wherever my benevolence might still have been in tact, it is now vitiated, or will be, with whatever actions I therefore will have to perform to "replace" whoever I killed back at my uncle's store. With this thought in mind, I don't think another shot will be such a bad thing, as I could use the extra dose of courage in my blood.
"Are these for right now?" I ask, pointing at the shots.
There are five men at the table, and three look over to Oso. The most important ones look over.
Oso then looks at me.
After a few seconds of silence -- if you can even get that in this place full of smoke and music and white powder -- the men burst out laughing.
"Ha! I like your new recruit, Oso!" yells one.
"Of course it's for now," says another one, already downing his shots.
"So is she doing the next job?" asks the man furthest to me.
Oso looks back at me with a smirk.
"Na," he says, "but she'll come with me to learn the ways."
The men laugh and toast their half-empty glasses.
With the lift of their arms, I get the smell of cheap cologne and deodorant.
One of the men even compliments Oso with a "I like the way you think" -- which I find absurd because these men don't even know if I'm up for the task they'll assign me. What if I just freak? I can't freak. Not if I want to stay alive.
A life for a life, after all, right?
"Happy hour ends in fifteen minutes," calls the DJ.
It's funny that just three weeks ago I was signing years book. Just three weeks ago I was getting out of soccer practice at this time.
Now, right now, I'm in a "new class". Here, I'm "learning new things," according to Oso.
"Are you all staying for another one?" asks one of the men that Oso joined.
I could tell that Oso was different around these particular men at the table; as opposed to the Catz that drove with us here, the ones that helped Oso take me from my uncle's store.
There isn't a dictatorship-tone to Oso's voice around these men as there was in my uncle's store, or in the car, or even just waking up to the the front doors of the bar, with the other Catz.
The authoritative feeling was no longer in his hands. At least not while we were in here.
"No, we gotta get going soon," Oso replies. "I have two more tonight," he says.
"Good, good," the men reply, all synchronized.
"And how are Bobby, Derek, Xavier, and Felix treating you?" asks the broadest man in the bunch (the Crazy bunch), almost broader than a two-piece doorway, or as broad as a pair of revolving doors.
We are revolving...revolving to new worlds.
But I have new names: Bobby, Derek, Xavier, and Felix. Those are the first Catz I met.
The bartender, however, is still unknown. Even though I would like to put a name to him. His kindness has done that much to me. Unlike with Oso, I didn't get any feeling of resentment or superiority with The One That Pours Courage.
In a weird, unexpected way, this place and these people have not been anything like what I assumed they'd be like.
The people?
Oso, Felix, Bobby, Derek, Xavier, the bartender, these broad men that obviously hold more rule than Oso, the men at the door, the people in the bar -- all of them; they've all been, well, unexpected.
"They're good," Oso replies.
"Take them with you too. Felix and Bobby still need to learn the ropes better," says one of the men at the table.
"Yeah, I know," aggrees Oso. "They're coming with."
At school, a lot of the kids aren't half as kind as the young-looking people I've met here; or like the ones that brought me here.
On the other side of the wall, the West Wall, there seems to be a lower look to life, to our daily advantages that we do not recognize. Yet, they're the same advantages these people seem to crave oh-so-much.
I mean, if my incident would have happened on the other side of the wall, the cops would have been called, I would have been able to explain my case as self defence (in my mind, at least), and that would have been that. The case would have been handed to professionals. My uncle wouldn't have had to beg. And my grandmother, possibly, would not need to bury another one of her family members....next to her own parents.
But all this, and these meetings, didn't happen on the other side of the wall.
No -- they happened here.
In oddity, that feeling and happening, seems right.
"Shoot, it's almost eight," says Oso. "Come on," he then tells me.
"Cheers," says one of the men, lifting whatever remained of his glass.
A bit of my leg almost causes the table to tilt when I get up to follow Oso.
"Oh, shit!" I let out.
"It's alright, It's alright," say the men.
Is it alright? Is this alright? Is it alright that I'm following Oso right now to "learn about whatever mission we're doing"?
It doesn't matter if it's right because I don't have a choice.
"Come on," says Oso, probably realizing I was in my head once again.
I follow Oso down the steps from the upper platform of the bar to the lower platform, where the rest of the guys are waiting. I almost slip on the uneven cracks of the steps, but a girl helps me attain my balance.
"Always happens," she laughs, extending her hand so that I can reach out and use it as a "steadier" to hold, and hang, onto.
Everyone in here does not seem so off-putting as I'd thought they'd be. Maybe simply judging from my uncle's reaction, I expected much worse. But I haven't done, and they haven't done anything to me, anything yet htough. So who knows if my uncle was right to react the way he did react.
The one I think to be Felix, notifies the others of our soon departure.
And the bartender sees them off with one last shot -- he even gives me a salute -- and then they're grabbing their jackets before I can be treated to another three-colored treat.
I can see the bartender, whose name I still don't know, packing up the beers they brought from my uncle's store in one of the fridges behind him. He stacks one, then another. And so on. Until I don't see him anymore.
This tells me we are not so different than the rest.
These Black Cats drink the stuff from the store.
"Bobby!" Oso yells, "get the vests."
Vests?
Bobby goes into a back room hidden next to the bar, behind the counter.
What vests do we need and why do we need vests?
Before I can wait for Bobby to reappear from the door he had just vanished behind, Oso leads us back outside, to the parking lot.
We pass the bouncers and the front steps, and we're once again on gravel.
Steadier, I am, this time, however. I know more know. Even if it's only a little -- I know more.
To my surprise, we do not take the black, shiny, slim, air-cutting car with the running jaguar. Instead, Oso walks over to a tall, raised, unnecessary-tall truck.
"Where are we going, I ask? And what do you all want with me?" I finally have the nerve to ask. "What am I supposed to do?" I push.
Oso laughs.
Bobby says "we only want our friend back."
And Felix finally addressing me by saying (I think it's Felix) "an eye for an eye, miss Divine." I'm not sure if he meant the rhyme, but my own rhyme is that those words, combined, should not rhyme, and they annoy me, all the time.
"Get in," Oso says.
Too short to just walk onto the truck, I step back and take a leap in, having to catch myself with the roof as to avoid falling back.
"Whoa!" says Felix, for the second time.
Without a watch or a phone, or anyone telling me the time, I assume it's rolling onto eight at night. There was a clock in the bar, and when we walked in, I managed to take a look at it -- it said seven. And once inside, it felt like an hour. But honestly, every second here, with the Catz, away from home, feels like a full minute. So I'm not making any promises with my time management at the moment.
"Come on, miss Divine. You're going to watch how it's done," says Bobby, returning with the vests.
But how:
"Why do we need bullet-proof vests?" I panically ask.
What the hell, I then think. Because what the hell?
"I told you we needed a new recruit after you took ours," Oso says, jokingly.
I notice the quiet boy -- or at least he looks like a boy with a clean-shaven face and perfect hairstyle -- gets in the back of the truck, already placing his vest over the area where it's supposed to go, where it's supposed to protect you: protect the wearer of the vest..
"You're going to learn today," the boy snarls, under his breath.
"What?" I say. I don't know why.
But I then think I should have crossed over with a bullet proof vest when my grandmother sent me; maybe then I wouldn't have gone pulling no trigger with no self confidence. Who knows: maybe the poor boy, the new recruit, simply needed the money, maybe he simply needed to pay rent for those he loved...like all of us.
What the hell, Ludivina, I think to myself.
It's a commotion in the truck, with loud music and cigarettes and chatter. But outside, the streets look empty. And they have looked empty since I arrived. And they've stayed empty since leaving my uncle's store to reaching Black Catz.
Even from the parking lot, from inside the unmoving truck surrounded by the same strangers I arrived with, I can tell the deadness of all that surrounds us.
Unlike the other side of the wall, West Wall, there is no life here, There is no driving around, or playing around, or living around.
There is no going out just for a walk.
Or going to a mall.
There is no mall.
Perhaps that is, all of it, why my uncle is struggling so much.
But his mother never got him the credentials like my grandmother did to me. So he's stuck in East Wall -- like me.
That's all I know: that I owe my grandmother everything...or did, before getting caught.
After my parents died before I could even meet them, my grandmother crossed me over and got me the credentials I needed.
And it all makes me laugh out loud.
"What?" asks Bobby, confused, trying to hear over the music.
"Nothing," I say.
Really thinking: wow -- my grandmother went through everything just so I could ruin it all the one time she sends me across to East Wall.
"So you never told us why you did it?" asks Oso, turning on the engine.
"Did what?" I reply.
"Killed Tom," says Felix.
I tilt my head down in ashament.
My fingers start to twirl with each other. I say "with each other" instead of saying that I twirl with them because I've lost control of my body. It's the nerves that are moving my fingers now -- not me.
"I don't know," I reply, holding back the tears, the extreme trembling. "I don't know. It all happened so fast."
"It always does."
"What?" I ask Bobby, confused. "What do you mean?"
"Deaths. They always go by fast," he says.
Felix raises the music as if to avoid his take on it. And that was that for that: for Tom's death.
Oso pressed the gas and we drove into a darker part of town. The lights were now behind us. And those that were coming before us, were now dimming.
"Put it on," said Felix, turning back at me and looking at the vests beside me.
Everyone had already placed their vest over their chest.
I was the only one left.
When the lights got dimmer to the point of almost driving into pure darkness, Oso shot the bright lights of the truck on.
At this moment, when Oso shimmed a brighter light, I could see preparation in the eyes of Felix, Bobby, Oso -- I could see preparation in the eyes of everyone.
But preparation for what?
I looked back and realized Bobby was cocking a gun.
"What is going on?" I snap.
Felix laughs.
"Easy, miss Divine. We shouldn't need them," says Oso, pulling out a handgun from the glove compartment beside him, while keeping one hand on the wheel.
Then Felix pulled one from the glove compartment in front of him.
The sounds for the next seconds, all the sounds in the car, all the sounds overpowering the music, were guns being loaded.
All I heard was that cha-ching sound.
The truck tilted from side-to-side, notifying me of the off-gravel; off-course, we were now pulling, and driving in.
"Hold on," said Oso.
Oso speeds up, and up ahead, I could see a tiny, tiny light in the far distance.
"Well...at least someone's home," said Felix, smirking.
"Sergeant knows we're coming," Oso says.
"Sergeant?" I say -- in more of a questionable-tone than a stating-tone.
"We got a meeting with the police, miss Divine," Feliz replies.
A meeting with the police? Gang members? What is going on here?
"What do you think they'll say?" Felix asks, completely leaving me out of the conversation. "Think they'll have it."
"Hope so," replies Oso.
***********************************************************************************************
On the other side of The Wall, gangs didn't meet no police as easily as this. No gangs like Oso's gang could ever just drive up to a police station with guns and vests to simply have a meaningful conversation. But from what I've experienced so far, the rules are not the same here.
We don't learn about this side of the wall, East Wall, l in our classes or in our books. They don't require us to: the teachers. We only learn about what happened and what is happening on our side, West Wall.
Maybe if we did have to learn, then I would have learned about the Black Cats and what not; and maybe then I wouldn't have stuck my finger in that trigger and pulled it; thus, pulling myself from the life I had.
In our books, kids like Oso and Felix and Bobby and all those I saw in the bar, at least by their looks, seem like the same kids that are now praised as war heroes in different pages. Their attitudes sometimes mirror what those captains and surgeons would have been in a more "modernized world" -- whatever that means.
********************************************************************************************
When we reach the tiny light that was in the distance but is now a little farm house out here in the middle of nowhere, Felix and Bobby get down first to head towards the door.
Oso signals me to hang back.
He leaves the lights on and even the radio.
I move closer towards the dashboard to "learn," as they said.
But what exactly am I learning? -- yeah, that I don't know.
Felix and Bobby reach the door. Bobby is the one that moves to the door for a knock.
Upon the third knock, a smudgy man walks out.
Oso approaches the smudgy improto-meeting.
My ears lean in closer to hear what I can, when I can -- when I'm not seen.
"Do you have the contract?" asks Oso -- or at least that's what I think he asks.
Felix and Bobby stand beside the dealing men. Felix to the right, and Bobby to the left.
The men stand in the stance Felix and Bobby use when they're scared of something, or when they're preparing for something; in a stance that allows them to easily go into combat if the scenario requires it.
The aplomb trait of Oso asked again:
"Do you have the contract?"
The cop or police officer standing in front of him waved out fellow officers after the question. His hand lifted rather quickly too. It's as if Oso hat hit his "contract-nerve".
After this -- right after this -- more officers walked out of the house, with their heads down in a pusillanimous manner.
Every man in this situation looks my age, to my surprise. And the cop with the authority seems only a few years older.
Again -- unlike the other side of The Wall, it is children, here, that are running things; all this I get from the looks of it -- I do not know for certain.
"Contract, boys," the lead officer demands, his palm stretched out into the sun waiting for the item to be placed over it.
One of the boys in the pusillanimous-line walks forward and pulls a scroll from his haversack.
**********************************************************************************************
The build of these houses shows the economic power of the people.
On the other side of the Wall, it's cement, strong structure, careful planning, that comes together to make a house or building.
But on this side of the Wall, cheap wood, cheap mud, cheap cement, flimsy brick, leftover cardboard, left-over steel parts, leftover car parts -- all these, on this side of the Wall, are used when making houses, buildings, or other structures used to house people.
Even this police station -- if you can even call it that -- seems to be made with leftover car-parts, or leftover steel items: railings, tracks, etc.
Nothing is the same here -- nothing apart from our skin and soul.
Boys, girls, boys, girls.
That's all I've seen.
Running things, patrolling things, working on things, bartending -- you name it.
We don't run things on the other side.
Perhaps, that was a reason my grandmother sent me over.
It was the armies these boys and girls ran that she must have not expected me to get involved in.
But the eyes I see are the same in these boys and girls as they are in me, as they are in Moritz, and my grandmother, and other kids in my school in West Wall. So what makes them more disposable?
Perhaps, it's the pupils?
Their pupils have this sight to them that looks as if it's never seen anything other than that which is damming; that which only vitiaties one's benevolence.
And their pupils tell me one thing: their benevolence was vitiated long before I met them.
The boy leading the pack, backed by the government, speaks again:
"We've decided you can only cross the Borderlines of 339 after seven," says the leader-boy-cop that rolled out the scroll.
Oso takes the paper form the patrol's hands and focuses all eyes on it. He turns and twists his chin with his fingers, pulling, at times, the scruff wrapped around his face.
"So what are these lines, Henry," he asks.
Henry? Looks like I've got another name.
The one they call Henry, gets closer to Oso, lifting up his shoulders as if trying to get higher for a better look at the map -- which is what I think they are looking at.
"The Zushka's said they're handling everything else. They said they only want you all focusing on this part of town, which is where you already are."
Oso looks surprised. He looks back at his men with a dropping smile, lifting and dropping all at the same time; he doesn't have seemed to have planned for this.
Henry asks for more from a man beside him, one wearing the same red and green colors.
They all wore these colors -- Henry's men: red and green, like the shots; but now the shots are on us, from them, not the Black Catz.
There were some soldiers with more pins on their chests than others. But they all had them over red and green colors.
The men I was with didn't have any green or red. Besides the shots I took, which I never got the name of, there was no red or green at the bar, in the truck, on them, -- there was no red or green anywhere. For them, everywhere, it was all black and yellow. And the sticks they puffed weren't the ones Moritz puffed on -- or I, occasionally at parties or after school; after soccer of all things.
I guess it's the stress that makes me puff. I don't know. Maybe it's the stress that leads us all to do more things, which then leads to more stress -- like these men.
Anyways, the leader of the "black and yellows" and the leader of the "green and reds" (that's what I'm calling each side for obvious reasons), seem to come to a disagreement:
"You know what she said last time," Henry insists, shoving Oso back, then fidgeting at his side-piece. "She doesn't want to have to tell you again," he repeats, angirly, frustrated, ruffled, some dome...some dome.
Oso fidgets too.
Bobby and Felix begin to lift their pieces hanging off of them.
Perhaps I should put on my vest?
And what are the Zushka's?
"This isn't what we agreed," Oso throws, irritated at the thought of betrayal. But I don't know who is actually telling the truth. "Our community didn't plan for this," he insists.
"None of us did. But you know what Zushka say's in this state goes," Henry veterates, handing Oso another letter.
"What is this?"
"It's the bill."
"For what?"
"For the service you owe for being on Zushka's land. You're only a Party, Oso."
"Yeah, and we're a party that protects."
"Yeah. Sure. 'Protects.'"
"Are you saying we haven't been doing our job?"
As I strap my last vest straps, I think and question: protect; allowed; Zushka?
These Black Catz seem to have some law in order, I believe.
***********************************************************************************************
Faith is something I didn't get from my grandma; it is something I got from life.
Felix grabs Oso's left hand and suggests they "talk it with the people."
What people, I think. The ones back at the Black Catz bar? Or the ones outside my uncle's store? Or maybe both of them?
"Let's talk it out, Oso," Bobby suggests, wanting things to not get out of hand.
Henry steps forward and snatches the map from Oso. "And we're going to need two-hundred papers to take the map."
Once Henry says that, the soldiers that followed him out of the station that looks more like a house, move forward and lift their guns.
"Easy," Oso says, pointing at Felix and Bobby and Tommy.
"Oso -- the Zushka's don't need you at the station you're at. We can have one of our police stations do it for more money without the care you all give."
"And our families?" Oso asks.
Henry and his men laugh. Again. It's that type of laugh that knows what will happen; the type of laugh that is not meant to be funny, or signify an actual reason one would laugh.
"How much do your families make anyway?" Henry asks.
"It's not that. It's the protection we need," snipes Oso, as quick, almost, as an actual sniper.
"And for protection you need to pay the Zushka. They control the police and army. You know that."
"Yeah," Oso agrees. He then hits back: "But you're taking parts and parts of our land, slowly, and we still haven't seen any compensation."
Be reminded that I am a mere spectator in all of this: the guns drawn, me in the truck.
The men laughing and aiming begins; I'm in the truck.
I see a left-behind refile in the trunk of the truck. Tommy must have really known the trunk had "the good stuff".
The house that all these men are arguing and standing in front of, looks no bigger than my uncles store. The shape -- being that it's not on a corner -- is the only thing differentiating it from my uncle's store. With a square shape instead of rectangular shape like my uncle's, and with a triangle top, the police are housed and guarded in what could also double as a bodega, or corner store -- whatever floats your boat, or guns, or whatever.
Two windows greet new arrivals at the front of the "police station."
I am not sure about the police station because the men that call themselves the police seem to handle themselves less-thugashly (if I can say that) than those I believed to be the real thugs; the ones that took me -- and look like me.
Bobby reaches for the map in Henry's hand to reroute the conversation to go back to the people of the community, rather than the power of the community.
"Come on, we'll give you the two hundred later," he says.
All this is happening while the men are still in a protective stance, guns drawn -- the men on Henrys side; those they call the "police."
"Hey!" I suddenly hear one of them scream.
And before I can look up with the gun I had decided to take from the trunk, a pop goes off into the air.
"Wait!" I hear Oso's voice yell. "Wait!"
I hear another pop.
It's like we're in a ridiculous popcorn machine with all the popping; and if not the popcorn machine, everything could still very-well be from a Hollywood film, because we all seem to be mad people in some action box-office thriller.
Another pop comes into our "script."
"Divine! Divine! Open the doors!" I hear someone yell.
I didn't get accustomed to Felix's voice, or the patrol's voices; one of them must be the caller.
"Open the doors! Open the doors!" I hear the yell again.
Within the popping, I hear struggles for breath. I hear screaming.
Oso makes it to the truck first with the keys.
He throws the keys into the ignition and then opens the door behind him.
I am too deaf and too scared to move when I'm supposed to move. But when I do move, I open the doors that are not yet open.
I see Tommy coming now. But this time -- this time he's not carrying vests or guns; this time he's carrying Felix.
Felix's head hangs back, while his shoulder wraps around Tommy's neck, with his left hand dropping over Tommy's back, and his right one cocooned within his own stomach.
"Give him to me," Bobby says, opening his arms towards Tommy.
Oso is set to drive off, but bullets swaying our way and men running everywhere force him to hold cover. If he takes one, someone else will have to drive.
********************************************************************************************
I've never driven. And I have no idea where we are -- let alone where I can take us during this dark, dense night. Because of this, I'm hoping Oso turns out okay to drive.
When they reach the truck, Felix helps Tommy lung his uper weight onto Bobby.
"Help me!" he yells at me -- Bobby, not Felix, obviously -- "help me" he says again.
The patrols, within the seconds of break they take while hiding back in their house with firearms still drawn, allow us just enough time to close the doors, throw Felix in the backseat, give Tomy time to lung back into the trunk, and Oso to drive off, as I hoped.
I can't check whether I'm hit or not because I basically am too afraid to open my eyes to see the truth; if I am hit, what can I do about it here, is the only thought going through my head.
When I took Felix from Tommy -- or when I helped Bobby grab Felix from Tommy -- my eyes were half-way closed.
I was expecting one of us to take a bullet somewhere; but nothing, I think.
"Heads down!" Oso yells, pushing down the gas pedal with each bullet flying by.
"He's bad!" Bobby says.
When I finally have the ovaries to look up out the window by my side, I see Henry and his soldiers jumping into a truck like ours. But again, like the uniforms, the truck is red and blue instead of green and red.
"I think they're following us," I say.
"Thanks for the obvious!" Bobby yells.
Just trying to help, I think.
"We can't lead them back to the bar," Oso says.
"Turn towards the ranch."
The ranch?
I feel my body swing to the right, throwing me onto Bobby, who's trying to stop the bleeding on Felix's stomach.
Felix is screaming and breathing because there's nothing else for a person shot in the stomach to do.
My body then turns to the left.
"Cover me!"
Tommy, following Oso's call, hangs off the window and begins trying to stop the following patrol car.
The bullets are now flying from our side -- to start with, at least.
"Hold on," Bobby tells Felix.
But I don't think Felix can hear Bobby under all his screaming.
At sixteen, barely onto my senior years, what I'm currently living is the worst and most horrid thing I've ever been apart of, or have ever seen.
I jump on Felix, pressing my hands on his stomach.
"I'm sorry if it hurts," I say. "It's for your own good."
"We're almost there, bud," Bobby says to Felix, consolingly.
I now hear the same flying deadly objects I heard when we were trying to get away from the police station flying, at the current moment, next to us as we drive away. Where to? I have no idea.
"Stop right there!" the cop calls in the intercom. "Hold and we'll ceasefire!"
"We can't stop now," Tommy yells, still firing away.
"Duh," Oso mutters under his breath, still turning and holding the gas pedal.
I feel my body jump with the truck and then Oso pulls the truck in a full 360 motion.
In the twirling and swirling, my vision is not steady, and it's hard to see anything going on. That is all true until we're face-to-face with the patrol's charging truck.
"Hold!" I still hear the driver yelling through an intercom stuck to the roof of their truck; a feature we were missing.
Behind me, turning my head, I see a bank; a drop; I feel water too.
The breeze picks up as if an ocean is clear by. If I am right, that means we're near the coast. In the darkness it is hard to see, but you can always feel the ocean when it's near.
"Heads down," Oso yells again!
The shooting goes and we go too. Oso presses the gas.
"The Zushka's order a halt!," says the intercom. "Hault!"
But we don't halt. We continue.
The bullets continue next to me and I'm still tucked down pressing Felix's wound.
There's too much blood. That is what I do know. There's too much blood.
The truck before us stops -- the one carrying the patrol men.
Henry gets out.
Oso follows him.
Then Bobby gets out.
"Wait," says Felix, spitting out blood. "Wait, please."
"Grab him," says Tommy, handing me a gripping, bloody hand.
Time and noise floats, silently, fully-muted.
All I can see is Felix. Some of the blood spitting out of his mouth falls on my hand, hitting my hair, sticking to it in fact.
"I'm here," I tell the boy that can't be any older than my friends from school, the boy I'm holding onto and that is holding onto me, laying on my lap.
Outside, like the first time we pulled up to what I assumed to be the patrol station for this unit, Oso and Henry are at it again while a boy dies on my lap.
I feel Felix trembling more. And getting colder too.
I pull him closer, trying to keep him warm.
Three gunshots go off outside the truck.
"Miss Divine," comes out afterwards, fuzzy. "Miss Divine."
I don't hear the patrols or Henry anymore, but I still hear Felix.
"Miss Divine."
"Hold on, Felix," I say. "Hold on."
He trembles harder, and I hold him closer.
"Hold on," I say, not knowing what to say or what to do or how someone in Felix's situation might feel; what do you say to a dying boy. Do you know?
Guilt runs through me thinking I should have done what I'm doing with Felix with the man from the store, the one I made vanish, accidently; the same one that has me here; the same one who's place I'm supposed to take. But then again: I do know exactly what I'm doing for this boy, for Felix.
He's wrapped in my arms. Or my arms are wrapped around him.
None of this, I know, to be comforting because I am not in Felix's shoes (fortunately); but what I do know is what Oso tells Bobby:
"Take it," he says. But take what?
Felix's blood begins to redecorate my sweater.
"Momma?" I hear Felix asks, his eyes lost past mine, looking up at the sky or the clouds -- looking at anything but me.
"Yes," I repy, lying for the other person's benefit. "Let's go," I then say, holding Felix's hands with both hands, gently, but firmly.
Felix takes a big breath. Then his eyes fully open at the sky. And his chest lifts towards the sun.
"Let's go, Felix," I reply. "Let's go home."
Felix's chest slowly comes back down, to earth. And his hands go stiff; they let go of me; although, I don't let go of them.
My eyes, hysterically, break out in water works. I can't help it. They're running on their own. I haven't programmed them to run: Felix has.
I forget all about the outside world for a minute.
**************************************************************************************************
When Oso and Bobby and Tommy jump in the car, and when they finally stop in-between all the chaos to notice what has happened over my legs and why I am crying, they begin to question everything -- they don't tell me this or they don't say anything out loud, but I can tell by the way their eyes look and how they look at each other exactly what they're telling each other; it's that way people look and the way their eyes look when they've made bad decisions about something, when they've chosen the answer and direction and path that maybe they shouldn't have chosen -- the thing is, you never know why people make these decisions, what they had going on at the moment, why life drove them to make these decisions; so you can't judge, order, or implicate belief of your own.
"What do we do?" I ask, trying to hold my waterpark in an intermission of sorts.
I've never had someone die on me before, but the look I got from these boys told me they had.
It's as if every second, I could tell by their eyes that they were making peace with this.
Oso grabbed my hand.
"How did he go," he asked. "What did he say?"
I wipe away a tear, then another, then another. It seems as if the water-park has opened back up for business.
When I'm able to shut-it down again, say:
"He went with one breath." Felix left with one breath.
"That's good to hear," Bobby says, probably knowing it was more complicated than just going with "one breath." But he'd take that one-breath bullshit for now.
Tommy, on the other hand, drops his head. That's how he takes it: he drops his head. Then, he shakes it -- his head.
"We're losing too many men," Tommy says.
How many?