I lost my cousin when I was younger. I couldn't visit him at his grave because my grandmother said I was too young to go with her. She had to travel deep into the other side of the Wall to go to his funeral.
But when she came back, and when I asked her about it, and when she finally talked about it, one thing I remember her telling me about it was that my cousin listened to this one song on his last days.
"Just breath," she said, about the song, holding back emotions. She has always been stronger than me.
Maybe that's what I should have told Felix, I think regrettably. Or maybe that's what I should tell myself at the moment?
Just breath.
Oso turns back around and tells me to close Felix's eyes.
Before I do, I look back at where Henry was, forgetting all about the commotion when Felix had to go.
I see that there is no more Henry, or his men, though.
It seems they have left with Felix.
"Turn around and close his eyes," snaps Oso.
"Those fucking pigs killed him," says Tommy.
He then aims his gun at the lifeless men on the floor. The dust on the gravel begins to rise, creating a sort of mist in the air, complicating Tommy's aim.
"Leave it," says Oso. "Can't you see we have bigger problems."
Bobby closes Felix's eyes for me because I'm still too lost in Henry and his men and Felix, and their journey, and where they went, and if maybe they are with my cousin right now.
I picture them all having dinner; all of them, "breaking bread."
Perturbed, Oso zooms out of the scene where all the other men with families -- I'm guessing even though they don't have kids they might have parents and siblings; all left their significant others and are now somewhere else -- are leaving, or have, left with Felix.
The whole ride back was somber: Oso, Bill, Tommy, and myself -- we all kept our heads down and mouths shut.
Felix didn't move either. He stayed on me, holding on, and I stayed under him, holding on.
When we got back to the Black Catz bar, most of those that were inside before we left were now outside waiting. They must have heard of what had happened too, because I even saw a few of them with medical supplies, even over all their toxicationess; zoinked but willing to help.
"Get him to the beds," one man yells.
Then a woman throws a bandage and a brown bottle of alcohol at me.
"Press it down until we reach him," she says.
Oso looks back at me and grabs the supplies just thrown at me from where they landed: over Felix, over my lap.
"There's no point," he replies, to both the man and woman whom have given me the nursing-instructions.
"What do you mean?" asks the woman.
"I'm sorry, Lucy."
"What do you mean?" she repeats, this time in a higher, more cracked voice. "What the hell do you mean?"
The man, I believe, picks up on Oso's real message.
"Come here," the man says says to the woman, grabbing her and holding her.
"No! What does he mean?" she repeats.
Her cry gets louder.
"Come here," the man repeats, holding her even tighter, pushing her head down into his shoulder, part of it over his chest -- sort of how I was holding Felix; but one of us was alive.
Oso puts his head down and pulls the truck out back, the same place we drove to when we brought the last man in -- the one I had killed.
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Am I the bad curse here? Or do these people get used to seeing these many people die in one day? I've never seen one person die, let alone two.
"What does he mean he's sorry?" the woman continues to cry. When she can't cry anymore, her sorrow turns to anger, and after hitting -- who I believe to be her husband -- she turns her anger towards Oso and everyone getting out of the truck, including me.
First she runs at Oso, escaping the hands that tried to hold her back, that tried to keep her from reacting like any mother would.
"What the hell happened!" she screams.
I don't know what to say, and I also don't know what to do with Felix, like I didn't know what to do with the first person I came with. When will someone reprimand me for the last body I brought in like this lady is reprimanding Oso for Felix?
"I'm sorry," Oso says again, holding the lady, not hitting back, taking all the hits like he felt he deserved him.
"It's not his fault," Bobby says, running over to try and hold - who I believe to be Felix's loved ones -- back from Oso; because after all, it wasn't his fault.
Oso takes Felix from my arms when I realize I'm still holding him. "Go inside," he says, looking at me, deeply, and then at Felix.
It was both of our faults, I tried to tell him.
The woman that was kicking and punching Oso is being held back by the man also trying to console himself.
On the walk inside, the bartender that first served me my first shots when I got here tries to catch up with me.
Trying to get my hair out of my face and the dry blood off of me -- it was everywhere -- I move one foot and then the other, zombie-like, not processing what has happened or what is happening, and definitely not processing any of the bartenders, whom was still a stranger, words.
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Since leaving my uncle's store, I know nothing. And I probably know less now.
"How about a drink," asks the bartender, throwing his jacket over me. "Come on."
We get to the bar and he throws out two large liquor glasses. He pours both over half-way.
And it's the top-shelf tequila he's using as well.
"This might help you swallow what you just had to swallow," he says, pushing the shot glass my way while he downs the one he poured himself without waiting for me, as if he had seen what I had seen -- but he probably has, every day.
"I'm Noel," by the way, he says, pouring himself another shot.
I look out the window before taking my shot. And before looking at the time on the clock on the wall, the night seems darker this moment than it had before -- but that could also just be the moment I'm living, and its darkness creeping into it.
"Come on, honey, don't think too much; just drink" says Noel, tapping the gripping hands around the shot glass.
"Sorry," I say, stretching out my hand and shaking his hand without him ever stretching out his hand to shake mine.
When I do shake his hand, I wonder if I should; I wonder if I should get to know anyone and if anyone should get to know me because, like Felix, we might be taking shots here one minute and then having to dodge shots that are ready to end us -- and surely, one shot, will end us -- the other minute.
"Nice to meet you," Noel replies, sniggling. "But that shot ain't going to drink itself."
"How can you handle this?" I ask, without wanting to ask.
"Handle what?" he says, casually, as if nothing had just happened outside; as if I hadn't driven-up here with Felix over my legs and more blood of his all over me, because of what we all have come to accept.
"All the violence and death; how do you handle that," I reply, looking back out the window again.
Barely, from where I'm sitting and where the window I'm looking out of is, I can see the moon; it's quite visible in this darkness. And the sight, and light, of it is nice. It makes me feel like I'm still connected to the other side of the wall because the moon is the moon, it's always the same, no matter where you are in the world, no matter what side of the wall you're in, no matter the continent, or the gravel on that continent, under your feet.
Noel, fixing his hair, which is shaped like a fohawk, takes my empty shot glass and wipes down my area. After the wipe, he sets down a glass of water -- like water -- is what I could use right now.
The way the night shapes and the way the moon begins to pass by, to hide away, tells me the night will soon turn to day.
"It's what we have to live with," says Noel. "It's the way things are on this side of the wall."
The way things are on this side of the wall? What does that even mean? Killing and allowing this many deaths is how things are on this side of the wall?
"What do you mean?"
Noel wants to say more, I can tell in his eyes and the way his lips move and pucker up. But he doesn't say more.
Instead, Oso walks in shortly after my whole "what do you mean" comment.
I can still hear a light "what does he mean" coming from outside. It follows Oso into the bar, as do the people that greeted us when we arrived.
Behind the bar, there are many things that accompany the bottles: candles, pictures, flowers, jars full of water full of herbs, leaves and plants, religious pictures; and out of all this, the things that grab me the most are the pictures of all the people.
"Who are they?" I ask Noel.
"Miss divine!" yells Oso, walking across the bar towards us.
On Oso's trail, close-enough to tow -- Bobby, Tommy, the people that were once in the bar before we drove back, the lady and man crying and also carrying Felix -- they all follow Oso towards us, as if they had something to learn from us.
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Once you pass the bar, there is a tiny door hidden only a few feet apart from the bar, within a tiny spot -- a tiny, dark spot.
Say you walked in from the front door: You go straight, about ten feet straight, and you hit a few tables. When you turn to the right, you'll see a few tables before you even see the bar. Then you turn right, and then left: then, you'll see the steps that lead one up to the outer-part of the bar... "the VIP area".
I don't know if it actually is the VIP area, but I'm guessing it is because of the people that hang out there. It's all the "important people," from what I've seen since arriving.
Tucked right past "the VIP area" was the DJ and his two turntables.
Where I haven't seen anyone walk into -- nobody except Oso and Bobby when we arrived with the man I killed -- is to the back, tiny dark area past the bar. The one everyone walks to right now.
Once the people and Oso reach the untamed area, he -- Oso -- turns back to ask Noel for the keys as I try to question him at the same time.
"Noel! Keys!" Oso snaps.
Noel ducks (both my question and Oso's answer) and jumps back up with a pair of keys. He tosses them at Oso.
Oso then disappears into the dark space, twirling the keys, allowing the clinking sound they made to notify us of the Catz location.
At this time, nobody is partying anymore. The mood has changed: the DJ has stopped playing, the people have stopped drinking and socializing; the feeling is way more somber; but it was that way since Noel and I got back into Black Catz.
Everyone is too preoccupied saying goodbye to Felix.
"Miss Divine," Oso calls, turning the lock in a key.
I don't see him turning the lock of the key because Oso has disappeared in the dark, but I can sure hear him.
That, and with the line of people formed behind him, I can trace him back to the noise coming from the dark, so i suspect it's him that's opening a door -- some sort of door -- and it's him that's calling me.
I get up from my barstool.
"It's okay," says Noel, as if to suspect that I, too, suspect something.
No reply comes for Noel because what i really want instead of a reply towards Noel is an answer to my last question: who are the people resting on the levels of the bar behind the bottles?
Jumping over and past the barrels and crates of bottles and cans, I make it behind Oso, in front of the chain of people waiting. Felix hangs from his arms and legs as a group of folks hold him until Oso fully opens the door.
I don't feel like I'm in a bar without any music playing, or any drinks toasting. It feels much different.
"Come on," Oso waves, leading us all into the tenebrosity.
With a switch, the tenebrosity turns to light, and we can all see what is inside.
It is like a morg. It is a place with safes; loads and loads of safes; small, same-sized boxes on every wall, perfectly aligned in rows and columns.
Is this the Catz Purrgatory? No matter, we're in it.
Everything about this "purrgatory" defirienties from the bar. Even the temperature differentiates from the bar. Colder breezes brush and push our bodies. It -- the colder temperatures in here -- escape, traveling into the warmer moistness in the air outside, by the bar and towards the front door, onto the outside world. Although, I don't believe anyone from the outside world is awake at this time.
I walk in, immediately creating goosebumps all over my body. And the goosebumps didn't just come and form from the AC unit in the room. It all, along with my goosebumps, creeped up on me with all the death that surrounded the room.
"Place him over there," Oso points, at a grey, steel table in the middle of the room.
The light in the room is even different than that in the bar.
Different feelings also come with Feix, and his folks still whimpering and scuffling. Bobby, Tommy, and myself quickly help them get the body onto the table that Oso pointed to, along with a few other people I hadn't yet met, and we stand aside -- or at least I stand aside.
"Careful," says Oso, still sensitive and caring with his friend even after his soul was no longer in play, no longer able to return his kind gesture with a "thank you".
When Felix is on the table, the woman that didn't "understand" what Oso meant - and still doesn't -- when he said that (Oso, I mean) Felix was gone, falls onto Felix's chest once Oso and a few of the Catz are able to get him on the table they had set up in the room. And once she does -- once the woman (whom I'm assuming is the mother or a close relative, along with the man consoling her) falls onto Felix's chest -- she begins to wale, uncontrollably, and understanbly, being who she might be. I would if I were in here situation. As I assume anyone, including you, would do.
No parent should ever leave this world after their child. And to think I'm the cause of that happening -- of this child, of Felix, to leave the world before his loved ones, those that raised him, do, is, and will always be, inexplicable to me.
At my uncle's store, that boy, the boy I destroyed: where are his parents; when will they come for me?
"It won't end like this," says Oso, patting, lightly, the lady on the back. "It won't end like this, Yvonne," he says.
Oso looks up at Bobby and Tommy.
This look leads them towards a bag within a stack of bags in the corner of the room, opposite to where we are.
Bobby and Tommy place Felix into a bag after a few locals cleaned him up. And after they do -- after they clean him up -- they place him into a slot on the wall, into one of the squares, like they would in a morg; the wall is gigantic; it's grey like the feeling it holds and gives off; it's there to not move, to not live -- to just hold those ready rest.
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With heads down, and low spirits, Felix's parents hold a small prayer in the room -- the Purrgatory -- where we'll leave Felix to rest until we, ourselves, are put to rest.
I don't even know where I'll end up.
Once the prayer finishes, outside the room (the Purrg), I see Noel return to his post at the bar.
In fact, we all return: Oso, Bobby, Tommy, the mom and dad of poor, dead Felix -- everyone that was associated with the Black Catz returns to their regular post -- whatever the fuck that means after we've seen what we've seen.
Oso stands at the center of the bar. It was the first time I had seen him stop before walking up to the second floor -- the outer stage, right before the DJ.
Noel walks over to Oso and hands him a whisky glass, with a good amount of whiskey, as predicted.
Oso grabs the glass and hits it twice, creating a "ding, ding," sound, as that of a toast, because, after all, that is what he is doing. Yes, even after what we just did: put Felix in a fucking Purrgatory -- a Purrgatory.
"Fellow Catz," Oso begins. "Tonight," he then says, "and last night" -- Oso looks at me after this -- "we lost two members of our unit."
Unit? I thought this was more of a gang, I think; or at least a civil gang, at that.
"Tonight, however," continues Oso, "we lost one of our leaders."
With this note, the "leaders" note, the woman that wailed over Felix in the Purrgatory begins to sob again, but lightly this time, as if to still want to keep a clear ear to hear what Oso had to say about her son, about that boy she loved, that boy which is now gone.
"Felix was with us since we can all remember, with his mother and father being leaders before him," Oso then said, looking at the man consoling the woman, and the woman being consoled.
And what about the boy I took?
"We can mourn our brothers, our soldiers -- Felix and Yago -- or we can stand our ground and refuse to give-up the rights they so badly want to rip us from!"
Fight for the rights they want to take from us?
And Yago? Is that the name of the ghost that will haunt me until it is my time?
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Whatever I thought I was getting myself into, has been slapped and known to me now, that it is not what I am actually getting myself into, and that maybe, just maybe, these people are not what I believed, and so, my hypothesis has been wrong all along.
The Black Catz I've made in my mind, the one's I've pre-judged, are far from the ones I've actually met -- far from the ones I've seen and heard.
During a break when Oso isn't talking and nobody is looking, I whisper a question to Noel:
"Where is the family of the boy we brought last night?" I ask, curios to meet the people I would soon have to face with guilt; face head on as their rightful, deservedly-so hate, hits me.
Noel doesn't turn at first. But after Oso finishes off selling those he needed to sell, he whispers back:
"Yago came in as an orphan," he replies. "Lucky for you."
"Lucky for me?" I snapped, in a whisper-ish-tone, however low I could -- whisper. I don't think my whispers helped, however, because my voice is never quiet even when I want it to be quiet.
"Shhh!" said Noel, as I anticipated, because Oso was back at it.
If I didn't have my grandmother, or my uncle, would anyone know about me, I thought. Like the orphan boy I made disappear, would anyone care?
I don't know. All I do know is that my grandmother and uncle aren't here. So does it matter?
Yet, it's not that they don't want to be here; I mean, they can't not not want to be here if they don't even know where here is. I wonder if my grandmother even knows what happened. I wonder if my uncle even got the word to her. Of course he got the word to her. She must have phone him like she probably was trying to do with me before Oso destroyed that chance with the bottom sole of his shoe.
"We must not let them do what they did to our ancestors," cheers Oso, lifting a fist in the air, reminding me my ancestors had already been done whatever they were talking had been done to their ancestors, because I'm sure they'll no longer ever see me again; so it's like I'm the ancestor they lost, versus the other way around.
After Oso makes this recommendation, the one where they take no more shit like the shit their ancestors took, the crowd cheers back to him, they too, with their fist in the air, in agreement. But there are also the few that are still weeping for their lost ones -- as they should.
All is different on the other side of the Wall.
More men and women arrive, all dressed as we were when Felix left us: camouflaged vests with the Black Catz logo front and center, right in the middle, and guns with straps for those that cared to arm themselves.
The big men I saw earlier -- the one's I had shots with -- enter after the men guarded with vests, after their security.
And they, the men, carry faces that tell a story of being awoken at a time when one does not like to be awoken and then forced to show up in a place one does not want to be because he or she would rather be somewhere else -- that's the face they carry.
"What happened?" the biggest one asks Oso. The same one that cheered me on with the shots.
And then came the one that toasted to me being "a new recruit," whatever that meant.
"When are we preparing for this?"
"We need to plan this well."
More guns and vests were brought into the centre of the bar. But not by Bobby.
I also see the sun brought back into the room, slowly, from the ground up.
It started to show simply in reflection, but as the people deliberated, the room filled with the natural light, until the entire room was lit.
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It's like a fohawk that most of these men and boys sport. For those of you that don't know, a fohawk is like a mohawk without the fully-shaved sides.
And the women, at least most of them, styled a straight, long hair that hung over their shoulders. But there were a few -- those with vests and strapped with "gats," that sported a bun right at the top of their head.
One woman, however, kept her curls in tact. It was short hair too. But her curls hung with pride. They were thick, as if they did not need care; as if they are being plenty cared of at the current circumstances.
They all looked healthy. Not too healthy; like they run every day and they don't eat a lot of carbs.
My appearance, when I catch it behind Noel, on the mirror that holds the shelves that hold the bottles, is that of a fatigued woman -- or girl.
At sixteen, I'm trying to hold my own with this group of "buffalo soldiers" -- as Bob Marley would say.
At this time I do wish to be back in Moritz' room after a good soccer practice, relaxing and...yeah, relaxing.
I'm tired. And how can I not be? The sun is up. What? The sun is up!
"Miss Divine!" calls Oso.
"Ha! Miss Divine!" one of the new men with vests laughed -- one of many, many times before, and probably not last.
"Who's this?" he asks.
"This is the new recruit" Oso replies -- again: one of many, many times before and not last.
There were all sorts of guns here.
If you haven't quite gotten to an answer of who these people are but you're also trying to figure it out like me, let me tell you where I'm at: I believe they're some sort of civil police that formed to protect themselves from Henry and whoever rule him and so on.
"Miss, Divine!" screams Oso.
"Have you ever killed someone?"
"Um..."
"I mean besides yesterday?" Oso remarks before I can remind him.
"No. No, of course not."
"Have you ever shot a gun before yesterday?"
"No. No -"
"I don't need a story. But I do need you to practice."
"What?"
"Go outside and practice with Bobby" Oso says, tossing me a rifle from the table.
"What?"
"Come on!" says Bobby, pulling my arm.
I hear Noe laugh.
Bobby takes me out to the back, which like the inside of the bar, is now lit with the natural light that has snuck up on us.
The back of the bar is gated with thick, wooden gates that block off any view into the backyard. Over the fence, and above the whole backyard, a one-way glass covers the and stretches over the yard to cover any views into the back entrance of the Black Catz. We can see you, but you can't see us.
From the bar, to the gate that separates the bar from the street, there is about a one-hundred foot walk. The floor is gravel like the parking lot. While the builders fixed the border of the bar and the sky over the backyard, they did not fix the floor. The floor is like that of the parking lot. The same type that tricks my footing. And trick it this time, they did again.
Bobby walks towards the gate.
I stand near the door that lead us out here; the same one that left Oso and the rest of the Catz behind me.
To the left side of the backyard door, tucked under the roof, a smaller bar is rooted. I'm guessing it's for overcrowded nights.
From the back of this smaller bar, Bobby pulls out a handful of empty cans.
He places one over a perch from the fence.
"Hit it," he says.
"What?"
"Hit it."
"With?"
"Oh, right," Bobby says, then pulling out a gun from his back and tossing it to me.
"Hit it," he then repeats, walking back from the can, from the fence.
The debating behind me increases. But our debating -- Bobby and I's -- ends, with the one goal I need to do: hit the can.
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Besides what happened in my uncle's store, I had never shot a gun before. But I think I've already told you that. Or at least I hope you've picked up on that -- not just from the incident in my uncle's store, but by everything else that has happened after that, with Felix, Henry, and all those other boys/men.. So the fact that I now have to shoot this can is not a task I plan on completing with one simple try. And if my life is going to depend on my accuracy, well, I'm shit out of luck.
"Come on, divine."
I drop my shoulders and drop my lips.
"Can you guys please stop calling me that," I say.
"But it's cheerful," Bobby replies.
"Oh, and you guys need cheering?"
"Um..."
I look back at the closed door. Then at the room where the morg was, or Purrg (however you took it; my way or the actual way), as if I expected Bobby to see what I saw through the wall. And he does. Because how can he not? He's lived every second of my life, since my uncle's store, by my side. It's no surprise that we now think alike -- or can read our own thoughts .
"Yeah -" we both say.
"Okay, whatever. Well, why do I need to hit this? Or why did Oso send me out here to practice?" I say.
"Because you're going to need it soon," he replies.
"How soon?" I ask.
"Like really soon," Bobby says, confirming my fears, giving me the answer I did not want to hear.
But I dig deeper:
"How soon?" I interrogate again, trying to get down to the bottom line, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
"Just practice, Divine," insists Bobby, annoyed at having to tell me again, even if it wasn't long when he told me in the first place.
I scuff and aim, annoyed; annoyed I have to aim at anything. The weight of the gun gets in the way of the way I'm positioning my arms; therefore, I stretch out my legs a bit to make my stance a bit more comfortable than the one I had taken-up before. I place one foot on the outside, stretched as far from my body. Then, I bend the other leg -- my right leg because I'm right-handed -- in front of me, placing some (if not most) of the weight on it instead of on my shoulders.
"Focus on what you want to shoot," says Bobby. "Forget the world and focus on your target. And forget your bogus stance too, divine."
Oh, bogus?
I blow the hair out of my face. It usually never falls over my eyes like this, but with the wind, and the dirt, and the passing of my twenty-four hour showering period, my hair has taken a new style all together, and it's done so all on its own.
I close one eye and focus as Bobby has told me. It's all about the aim, I repeat to myself.
It's hard, however, with the discussions behind me getting louder by the second.
Geez. How bad do I really need to learn, I think.
"Can you move more," I tell Bobby, not entirely confident in my aiming abilities, and whether that aim would stretch out into wider surrounding I did not intend on it going, and then hit Bobby, leaving me with yet another body to haunt for eternity, like the boy from my uncle's store.
"Right, "says Bobby, moving interiorly, and inherently, to the corner of the room. Actually: he -- Bobby -- more like jogged than walked to the corner of the room, not knowing when I'd be pulling his trigger.
And I don't blame Bobby for moving that fast once the trigger hit my hand. I only wish his friend would have done the same -- the same friend that got us both out here, shooting make-belief anger to an empty, dilated, dry, rusty can.
My first shot goes off. Not where I wanted it to go off, to go pursue. But it was off nonetheless. And luckily, unlike the poor boy in my uncle's store, this bullet didn't pierce anything that would constitute another sin by my part. This bullet, didn't cause any havoc. Bobby didn't like that, however. But I did. No damage, even for a bit, even when I was trying to cause it, felt good.
I take my aim again, knowing Bobby isn't here to perform any forgiveness of sins, but rather, to teach me how to commit new ones. So here I am, aiming. My hand lifts again, with the pistol steady between my palms and fingers.
The next round goes off. Right when I want it to too. And it's closer to the target this time. Closer, but off.
After the fourth and fifth and sixth round, I began hitting the can right where I'm actually aiming. Is this what true badassases feel -- those paid to "protect us"? The can shakes and rattles right where my eyes aim. The bullet pumps and bounces against the can, then ricashaking with other steel, old adverts on the wall. We didn't think this up, or plan for it, as it is a safety issue. But time is pressing. As a result, one eye closes from the reflex of my thoughts. Then the gun goes off again. I don't need to open my eyes to know that my bullet hit the can because I am made aware of that by the sound the sugary-drinks aluminum cover makes when the bullet bounces off it, or into it, to notify Boby and I that my job is near complete, and that, perhaps, Bobby has been a good "instructor".
"There you go!" I then hear my "instructor" say, as my eyes are still closed and another round is being fired by the command my brain gives my hand. This process went from a focus-and-aim tutorial to a lift-and-shoot level, because the act has seemed to come rather naturally to me....to my surprise.
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I know what you're thinking: how can she; a girl that's "never shot a gun" before, now doing this, now shooting like this; but how?
And I'm thinking the same thing. But the simple answer, for both you and me, is the same: I don't know.
And I only place "never shot" in parentheses because to say I've "never shot" would be to tell a lie -- because as both you and I know, I have shot before.... You, myself, and my uncle, are very aware of that.
Bobby, may not be aware of that, but he's aware of the new skill he thinks he helped me develop. So he cheers me on:
"Come on," he says. And he allows me to shoot more and more until the gun runs out of rounds. When I notice this, and before I can let Bobby know of this, he waves me back inside through the backdoor which he is holding open. Inside, Oso and the other Black Catz are still planning whatever they're planning for, they're still talking about whatever they were talking about before Oso instructed Bobby to bring me outside for a shooting-range training session.. //
I must warn you though, before we go back into the Black Catz scene, that I don't think my training session helped at all, for it is easier without the sense of danger around me to aim at a can than it will surely be when other bullets are aiming at me, flying at me and not a can.
And while you know this, it is only reasonable to think that I should warn the Catz too. But I don't.
Now that you know that, or that I've warned you of that, let's carry on...follow me:
Congo whispers something into Oso's ear -- I presume it is the notes taken on me and my newly-improved shooting accuracy if any whatsoever) -- and then he looks at me; they both look at me, they both inspect me.
Poison funnels and three-colored drinks are not served at this time, being that I presume it to be sometime around eight or earlier in the morning -- probably too early for them, the drinks. But there is coffee, and cigarettes, and cigars, and marijuana, and some more white powder scattered on this table and then that table.
The ambience is that of a crowd sticking together, ready to go into any battle or situation as one, as an army -- like we've hypothesised them to be.
From the corner of my eye, I see Noe perched on his barstool enjoying a thick joint. He sips on a tiny espresso cup, allowing a moose mustache to stay while he puffs. This is goig to be a joint fight, after all.
Everything seems relaxed and hectic all at the same time -- if you can picture that -- until Oso needs me again; maybe he doesn't need me, but calls upon me again. I guess this "new recruit" stuff is serious?
There's now a map spread out over the table that has the eyes of Oso and a few other men huddled around, beside each other.
Oso points at the map, looking up at the man opposite from him.
"We need to hit them here," Oso says, pointing.
"Who is this?" asks the man, looking at me.
Oso laughs, like he's thinking "do I really need to explain this again?".
And he does:
"This is a new recruit," he says, aiming at me with his free hand.
"What happened to that new orphan boy?" asks the man.
So someone does remember him, I think.
Oso looks at me, with a grin, and then he lowers his eyes -- like you'd see in a disappointed person, a disappointed man that has just lost something.
"Oh," then replies the Cat that asked the question as if he had taken the hint and thus, revealed the answer for himself, all by himself. "Is that why she's -" he stutters to ask...
"Yeah," Oso finishes the man's thoughts before he could, invisibly connecting the dots for those whom were looking for them to see.
Is this a rule, I think. The new recruits thing. It must be if this man caught on right away.
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As a reader, and I the writer--although sometimes I wish I was the reader instead of the writer because who knows if I'll ever get to live long enough to read this back like you will, and how you can dissect every inch of this, every inch of every word--you might think that I've grown accustomed to all of this--the action, the war, the killings--but I can assure you, I haven't; I haven't grown accustomed to any of this.
Nevertheless, a "birdie"--whom came in the form of my grandmother--once told me that sometimes you just need to "fake it until you make it". So, here I am, faking it, until I make it.
Me, a Black Catz member? I guess so; I guess that's what I am.