Chapter 6: Chapter Five - "Kidz"

This is really happening.

Pamela knows this.

And so does Fernando.

Noe is ready for this by the car.

I want to be by the car. But for some reason, I stick close to Pamela. I feel safer with her than with Noe. And I'm definitely not moving towards Oso or Congo. They're right up-front by the enemy line. Any sniper or clear soldier on their side could have a clear shot on them. So why are they there; why did they choose that spot to stand?

I wore running shoes. Remember? Yes, I did. Therefore, why am I not running?

"Come on," yells Pamela, pulling me over towards where I did not want to go.

"Where do we go?" she asks Oso and Congo.

"Take the East," yells Oso.

The men behind the wall and gate are all setting aim.

I don't see the mediator that was talking to Oso earlier, but I do see more than enough men and women to end us all.

Are they waiting for us to shoot?

On the corners, a set of machine guns get rolled up, making the barrel of the long gun just visible over the fence, or wall, or whatever the hell it is.

"Go! Go!" yells Oso, again, realizing Pamela and I and Fernando all stayed frozen in place gawking up at the giant, long bullet dispenser that was setting aim above us, ready to blow our bodies into smithereens; and ready to tear our heads apart.

What. In. Gunz. Name. Am. I. Doing.

Like a brigade, we all move in. "One, four, one, four," I count in my head, like a soldier, even though I've never been one, until now, if this is even "soldiering".

Pamela and Fernando take me where I need to go. Or really, I follow them to tell myself where I need to go.

The first bullets ring from our side.

I run to Oso. It's him, blowing round after round, flicking his finger in that trigger like a blasting jack rabbit high on speed, needing to bounce more and more and more.

Go, go, go...That's how the bullets went, hitting cap after cap.

I can see why he wanted me to practice at un-moving targets: because he could hit moving targets...and any other targets that moved before him.

Congo's bullets are catching up to Oso's quick wit, and easy fingers.

The caps over the wall are. at this time, crossing and jumping the wall, running towards us, knives facing forward, their Google Glasses probably trying to find out where we come from; maybe their Google glasses will tell them I'm from the other side of the Wall.

We run east as we were told. But why? Why do we really run east? What, where, who, are we trying to get to? What are we trying to accomplish?

***********************************************************************************

It's all wrapped with streets, this building we're running around, and when we turn towards the eastside, we meet our first round of bullets coming from active soldiers headed right at us—from every street wrapped around this building.

Luckily, or fortunately, we're in line and behind a rack of tall trucks parked in rows, which protects us, and gets in the way, of any bullets aiming at our brains, ordered to black them out. Those trucks, and the wall they make, take the bullets meant for us, giving us time to take cover, making ourselves invisible from the Government fighters looking for us.

Pamela sets her first aim, once she reaches a safe spot free from the flinging death-spheres coming on command of the Official Party.

With no active plan in my own mind, I follow Pamela (and her plan), as does Fernando, and we forget about Oso and Congo—and their plan.

They (Oso and Congo) are back at the front.

Because of this, at this moment, Pamela is the one teaching me the way, or the position. Therefore, I position myself like her, and near her.

I place one knee down—I choose my left knee—and I take aim.

The first bullet makes my ear ring. I had never shot a gun this size, this close to me, before. We didn't use this kind for target practice.

Then, the second ring goes off without me noticing, or wanting it to. Perhaps my same fidgeting, and tick, that came at my uncle's store, has come back once again, once and for all—to haunt me before faith decides to close my eyelids shut to never open once more.

I hear one scream after the second bullet. It comes late. It comes after the thought of my uncle's store.

There are so many bullets going off this very second that I lose notion of which one is mine, or which one was mine, or will be mine.

The screams aren't just coming from my side anymore, that, too, I am aware of.

I look around me but soon have to look down to avoid my face being chopped in half by all the light-speed-deifying objects jetting beside, below, above—jetting from all the light-speed-angles possible around here, or near me.

Our shoes are not ordered like theirs—like the soldiers from the other side of this building, the ones running at us—our shoes are not ordered. Neither are our brains. Their boots are combat-like, up to the knee, and jet black. Their brains, on the other hand, I don't know. But maybe their souls, I do know.

We, on the contrary—and maybe due to the unjust hand of life—get other types of shoes, more beat down and not-so-much for this occasion as theirs are; we get the only shoes we have; we get the ones we wear for breakfast, lunch and dinner; we get the shoes we wear in the morning 'till sundown; we get the shoes we wake up with, and the ones we want to die with—if we're only that lucky.

Under one car, to a distance, I see a boy's shoes I recognized from earlier that day at Black Catz, where I believe to have gotten an eye on him with his mother, hugging it out, caressing it out, hoping for the best, and probably not wanting to think about the worst.

*************************

They are these blue Vans—the shoes I see—that are pretty popular right now. With all the kids on TV, with all the rich kids that can afford to be kids, these Vans have become wildly popular, and wildly known...and sold, of course.

They are these bulgy, curvy, low-looking shoes with more lines than a feet-carrier probably needs. But either way, they are hugely popular. And it's these Vans that I now see, their round, bulgy, curvy face, lines on, beaming as high as can be, looking right at me, revving every engine in my soul.

But at least I have my running shoes.

And so does the boy: with his running shoes.

The boy doesn't see me. He doesn't know what I'm thinking, or that I'm looking at him.

I don't know if I'd be able to bare his look, his eyes—I don't know if I'd be able to bare the pain and fear in his eyes because I know what it feels like, and I'd only feel sorry for him, which would then get me killed, because after all, this is a 'dog eat dog world,' as they say—his Vans tell me that much, because I was that kid: the kid that this kid is.

As a result of this feeling—this connection that I have with this stranger-soldier whom has only taken up the weaponry before him because he had no other choice, like myself—I look away from the Vans and back at the jet, black boots that the soldiers can choose, and would-never replace with Vans, and then take aim.

"For him," I whisper to myself and pull the trigger.

When the snap of the trigger clicks, and the blast from the barrel sounds, a bright light flashes before me and presents me with the face of not only the boy that was now laying behind me but also all the other people I could remember, and their bright eyes and tan skin, and the ladies with their hairstyles and the men with their fauxhawks, then the bright light disappeared and I could see again, and what I could see was more soldiers, from their side, coming right at us.

There is no time to dedicate these shots to anyone; I just pull the trigger at this moment, as fast as I can.

My conscious wonders about Noe, Congo, and Oso: the first Black Catz I met. Are they okay?

Without looking anymore, oddly, I keep pressing down where the trigger hangs. Earplugs would be nice right now, but my ears are half-blown out, so they'd be useless too.

"Hurry up!" screams Pamela, pulling me behind what looks like a pantechnicon.

I then feel Fernando grab me.

"Come on!" he yells.

The heat feels cold. But I don't know if it's actually getting cold or if it's the atmosphere that's making me feel cold; the atmosphere of the bitterness of death occurring all around me; whether Pamela, or myself, or Fernando make it, is all up to faith—no, it's up to luck. If we get lucky enough to dodge a bullet.

****************

I forgot to mention, when we arrived, the giant light posts that hang above our heads like aliens—or beings from another planet looking down on us, judging us, observing our pathetic, foolish actions, which destroy us, one by one—those giant light posts turn on, suddenly; they all turn on, one by one; one corner to the next, like dominoes, signaling to the other when the appropriate time to turn on had arrived, and so it would switch on; all corners are lit without needing to be lit, as the sun still shines even though it is hiding away; maybe like us, it wants to hide away; or like me, because I don't know how Pamela, Oso, Congo, Fernando, my grandmother, uncle Benicio—I don't know how any of them feel.

When one of the beaming posts above turns on, it gracefully, and thankfully, does so right above a man—or boy—pulling up on me, all of his evil-glory of succeeding in another killing grinning in-front of me under all the light that shined over him, like a God-sent gift from above, telling me that this might be one of the last and only helping moments left in this run of all runs.

**************************

Pamela hits the man before I can.

Then, Fernando goes in for another jab, right to his chest.

I speculate, in this moment, any zoetic being would fear, fear.

Remembering when I held Felix, our last seconds--Pamela's, mine, Fernando's, Oso's, Congo's, and the rest of the Black Catz'—begin to run in perfunctory, tossing me back to that tragic, horrific moment I will never be able to forget—like his last words, Felixs'. I hated that moment then—when it happened, when I was holding Felix—and I hate it now, when it's happening to the man that was sneaking up on me.

After more screams, the red dust settles, and so does the noise of the guns. And when I am brave enough to hold my head up high—Pamela and Fernando already have theirs up high—I notice Oso and Congo breaking into the bounders of the Government building; Oso was waving us over.

"Let's go before it's too late!" shouts Pamela.

Running back towards where we first came from, turning the corner, I spy Oso punching a code into a small, grey box located at the side, right of the building, next to a narrow, blue door.

Once Oso is done, the gate opens to reveal a pair of corridors.

You remember the gate, right; the one behind the mediators that brought us here in the first place?

Glad you're still with me, then. Although, not sure how much longer I can last. Pamela looks more the fighter than I do. And so does Fernando. Maybe you'll need to follow them onto the next parts of this story?

"What are you waiting for?" screams Fernando, waving me into the gate. I can see that Congo is already on his way, with Oso.

There are fountains and tables and chairs and balconies—the inner-part of this building looks far from what a Government building should look like, and more like a mansion would look—one you'd see on those music-television shows, I believe the show was called "Cribs". Well, anyways, this place was like one of those places from Cribs. It is "chic"—can I use that word with you? I guess so, because I just did--cap-a-pie, decorated in gold, silver, more gold, more gold, jewels.

What were these Government buildings living off of?

Our presence is that of a goat in a sheep farm: it is unwanted.

Who would be the proxy of Oso if he should fall so far from the bar?

From the patio area with the fountains and gold and chairs, we follow Oso into the path of more corridors and tunnels and bridges, crossing room after room, until reaching a gigantic master bedroom with a view of the whole city—not from a window, but from screens placed to inform whoever was sleeping here, of everything going on in every corner of every street.

"Jesus," sighs Congo, looking up at the screens, seeing how one is placed right at Black Catz.

"We found them trying to leave from the backdoors," says a group of boys that came with us. Pamela was part of the group.

To me, the funny thing about this whole debacle, is that we all seem alike—our soldiers, their soldiers, we all have the same, droopy, lost, illegible, eyes over our face; we all seem to carry this pain that we're trying to fight, and hide; we all fall into this group of hostages holding other hostages; it's all comical, really.

Pamela pushes one of the boys towards Oso. "Say what you said to the rest of them," she tells him, forcing his head down by forming a purlicue with her palm on the back of this boy's head.

I count about three women and three men in the hostage group that accompanies this boy in-tow. And I also count half of them with the same tattoo: Party, it says.

***********************

You know, the thing about being held against your will, is that sometimes the other person—the one holding you against your will—they don't actually know your will, they don't know anything, really, including what, or who, they're holding; the thing about being this way, about taking people forcefully, is that sometimes you are also taking yourself and forcing yourself into a situation you and that person did not ask for, and probably don't want to be in.

Are we the hostages, or are they?

The boy that is pushed forward, is also joined by a girl that was in their group. The word Party marks her arm as well.

"This isn't what we agreed on," she says.

"No. Not yet," says the boy.

Oso swings his arm. It hits the girl. Her face flies to the side, with Oso's palm.

I want to interject; I want to say "hey—what are we doing; let's take it easy, let's talk it out."

"What was that?" asks Oso.

"She doesn't' know what she's saying," says the boy.

The other soldiers tilt their head down, dropping any secrets they might know away from us, hiding them down into the ground.

"Tell your girlfriend to keep her mouth shut," snaps Oso, directing his anger at the boy.

To be fair to Oso and his attitude, I hadn't seen him like this, this upset, since I met him, or at all...in general. So why was he suddenly this mad because of a simple comment? If he didn't get this way when I shot down the other Black Catz at my uncle's store, or when Felix left us, why was he acting this way now?

"We're not risking shit for her," said the girl, looking at me this time.

"Shut her up!" Congo demanded, this time, unlike Oso, swinging at the boy, tossing his head the other direction.

"What's going on?" Pamela asks.

"You promised us more than her, remember?" says the girl, again, looking at Oso, not mending the dripping blood from her nose.

Pamela looks at Oso, then back at the girl talking:

"Promised who, what?" she asks—Pamela asks to the hostage girl.

On the wall, paintings of the Renaissance days' grace every inch of part of every wall, with their dark, gloomy color shades and facial expressions that can only say they are trying the best they can with what they have, all decorate, all parts of this massive place.

As the evening begins to sneak up on us before any of us expected it to, so do the answers in this sudden altercation; the hostage soldier boy sticking up for the girl goes first:

"You all promised us," he insists.

***************************

The boy and the girl—being that they're arguing and falling out of place—they are no longer in-line with the rest of the brigade that they were captured with.

The boy is nearer to Oso than the girl is. But the boy is nearer Congo than I am—which means I can't stop what happens next.

It all feels like a misunderstanding, but it's not, because Oso knows what he's doing. His gun is not meant to be used as a backhand swapper-of-sorts but, in this case, it is: it's being used for just that. And it went over the boy's skull like a hammer, taking the bottom part of his rifle. Oso lifted then it—the rifle—and dropped it before the boy could even realize what had just happened—before the darkness could set over him like a strong, gust of wind; Oso did all of this like a fast storm that came-and-went before the locals could even witness what had just hit them.

"Wait!" I scream, without wanting to scream. "Shouldn't we hear them out—at least?"

"Do you hear yourself?" says Congo, disappointed, I could tell.

"She's got a point," Pamela throws in, agreeing with me. "We all have our own reasons for fighting."

"They must have their own for joining the Government forces," Fernando then says.

And it is not false what we are saying. Like you, the reader, too, has choices for being whoever it is that you are; we don't know who people are and why they are the way that they are—all we know is that we decide (and probably one of the few things we can decide) what people are part of our lives, and vice versa. It is no different when at war—whatever the war may have been formed for, it is never any different, for any of the soldiers, no matter the time period.

A part of me wants to help these soldiers, for some reason. I know I shouldn't. But I do. Maybe it has something to do with gaining bad karma—or me believing I've gained bad karma—from all the bad things I've been forced to do since joining the Black Catz, that has me here, wanting to make up for all the bad karma by doing some good karma with these hostages.

"We have to at least hear them--they're just kids," I say, to anyone that would hear me. Because they are kids. You'd judge that yourself if you could see them; at least if you could see them how I see them. And I, too, say that because I, too, am a kid. That is one truth. And the other half is full of these Government bodies, these "gangs", these soldiers, these Black Catz—but, either way, more than half of each of these groups, is packed with nothing but kids.

********************

You can see the shade fading in the corridors. I don't know if anybody else sees it, but I see it. I see it because I am always looking for the sun now. For some reason, since leaving my uncle's, the sun, the light, is the only thing reminding me that tomorrow will always shine.

I tell myself that: no matter what, tomorrow will always shine; and when the sun isn't out, and the clouds are all out, grandma told me that was when the sun shined the hardest—therefore, that can only mean the sun, the light, is shining the hardest on us right now, when the gloom has fully taken over.

"Okay—you want to hear them out. We'll hear them out," Oso says. "Hear yourself out!" he then demands, from the girl, slapping her.

"Hey!" I react, in a scream—again without wanting to say it but still saying it anyway; a reflex; an adrenaline motion without my notion.

Oso looks back at me and then back at the girl. Would he deal with me later?

"We were told that the Black Catz had agreed a deal for her," said the girl, looking at me.

A deal for me? What?

"That's the only reason we gave you her," she continues, looking deeply at Oso, as if she knew something only he knew, and nobody else.

"You're talking nonsense," Oso says, disagreeing.

He then pulls out his pistol and aims it square at the girl's forehead. Except this time, unlike when he did it to the boy, he didn't just use the holster of the gun, but instead, the very reason it was invented for:

The first shot went off right when I managed to fully turn my head, avoiding the horror that waited behind me, in the living area of the room.

I think maybe the girl was right, which is why Oso ended her. But I don't think she was talking about me. She was referring to someone, but not me. It can't be me. I just "joined" the Black Catz. Although, seeing what I'm seeing now, seeing Oso take a life for a simple misunderstanding instead of talking it out and solving things with words, I'm beginning to think that I got my judgments on the Black Catz—or at least on Oso—all wrong; maybe I don't know who the girl is talking about.

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Whenever my grandmother would order things from The Amazon, some of her trinkets would come in boxes that were held together by wire frames wrapped and covered in a plastic mold. If any box came with pieces that required building, these pieces were also held together by these plastic wire bands. I mention these bands because I would sometimes play with them whenever I was bored. I kept them to tinkle around with my finger. What I discovered in this boredom hobby that I had picked up, was that if you twisted and played with the bands long enough, the plastic mold that covered the wire would eventually come undone and off, revealing the wire underneath...the true form of the wire; with this realization, the plastic wire showed me, a human, that like most things, the wire became undone with so much festering and fidgeting, and only then, which then got me to thinking that this same festering could have also worked for the girl soldier—enough fidgeting and tinkling for anyone always unravels them...if given a chance...and therefore, we didn't need to kill her...or anyone.

***************

"Jesus, Oso - why did you do that?"

When it came out of his mouth, the look for that statement also came out on Congo's face.

We all quickly became infected with Congo's look—we just hoped we didn't get infected with the poor girl's look: her face up at the sky, looking blankly, mouth open, blood pouring out, arms spread out, fingers stretched out, fingers crutched inward, and upward, at the tip. We all hoped that look didn't infect us. But who decides; does Oso?

Fernando was just as freaked as I was. I could tell by his face, his eyes, mostly.

"That wasn't necessary at all," he said.

Oso bends down, keeping his look on the girl, playing with her hair through his gun, twirling her hair with the barrel of his gun.

"She's in a better place," he then says, still twirling the poor girl's hair. What is he playing at?

I think we all saw what I saw: that Oso was acting different, strange, peculiar.

Now that the sun was really fading, our surroundings were getting truly dark, along with whatever we had remaining within.

Over us, the sky casts shadows throughout the clouds that fly on by, almost not wanting to stay and witness what it was we were getting to, or at.

Then, suddenly, for the first time—at least since I've been with the Black Catz—I hear a mobile ring, a mobile I didn't recognize, with its ringtone set at a low, ominesense pitch to perhaps match what Oso had in mind: the phone's owner.

Oso lets the phone ring...until Congo mentions it:

"You should pick up."

But Oso is still twirling. If (I think) his fascination with the girl could have lasted more time, then maybe she'd still be alive. But it didn't. And he's still twirling.

Another ring comes. And then another.

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"What? Yes--I'm sorry. Of course, of course. No problem. Sounds good."

These are the pleas of Oso to whoever was on the other line of the phone. I had never seen him plea with both his eyes and his mouth. He did this for a couple of seconds until he dropped to pure silence. His head dropped too. Then his shoulders sank like a disappointed man.

Whoever was on the other line of the phone, must be important enough to shut him (Oso.) up

Yet, whoever is on the other end of that phone, can still not stop Oso from twirling, because there he is, still, with his barrel, sticking its metal in-between the girl soldier's blonde, bloodie curls—probably, the brightest curls I ever did see too--and still twirling them in all of their bright, colored bloodiness.

Maybe it's all an attempt to twirl the poor girl back to life; or maybe that could just be wishful thinking? It could be great wishful thinking.

"Oso! What are we supposed to do?" Congo asks.

And after he did--after Congo asked Oso what to do--the boy soldier that had once stood up to him, then stood up to him again.

"She said you promised something," he now goes onto Oso, "and you didn't deliver," he goes on to finish.

Then, the boy soldier, with his hands tied and all, uses his head as the main weapon to go after Oso, the man, who we all presumed, had taken someone dear to this boy, because that is, after all, the only way someone who loves someone would react after they've been taken away from them—or maybe it's the simple brotherhood built between these men and women that soldier together, like the Black Catz, that I hadn't yet been able to build while my time on the other side of the Wall, that has this soldier like this, reacting in such a brave manner, with nothing on his mind but vengeance for a dear loved one. The bravest I've seen. And probably, the bravest of braves.

With this, the boy smashes the front lobe of his skull first thing, right onto Oso's center lobe, right where his forehead met in perfect angles, separated at an even space to the rest of his forehead...the death shot, other's might call it; the sniper kill; the dead-on attack.

Oso's head lunges backwards—the first lunge the strongest--, then it goes further and further, turning a move into a knob, then turning that knob into a violent head-strain.

"Get him off!" Congo begins to scream, not knowing what to do with his own body; not being able to put two-and-two together to jump up and use his own arms and legs; or perhaps is the comfort his gotten used to, as he can use the Black Catz' arms and legs instead, get those arms and legs blown-up, fucked up.

**************************

The other Black Catz, including Noe, acted before Pamela, Fernando, and I could.

They push the boy off of Oso. And they don't do so politely or kindly. They do so by force, knocking his head back.

We all continue to watch this—or at least I do—as if it's no big deal and it's all a part of some big play that we're all involved in, but at the time, I wonder if anyone at any time will ever say anything?

Oso is shaking himself off from being shaken. But oddly enough, he looks more worried about the call than he does the head knocks he got knocked into him—or perhaps it's that those knocks knocked some real sense into him. I don't know.

Maybe they ought to do it me too? I mean, who was Oso—and that voice on the other end—talking about? I don't know. So yeah, maybe I do need some of those knocks just given to Oso that maybe helped him make more sense of everything—I now need those knocks, to help me make sense of everything.

***************

My uncle—even being that I never really talked to him or hung out with him, but I did hear much from my grandmother, mostly because she was always showing off about my cousin, Tom, as he was a straight-A Air Force admit-tee—was never one to lie. And they (The Black Catz) are the police, he did say. So I ask myself: what kind of police?

Oso had promised something to someone, and now he wasn't saying what, or to whom he had promised it to, to anyone—at least not to any of us.

To the backburner that worry goes, because we need to move along the remaining hostage soldiers. Thus, no time to worry.

Staying on the colored tiles, that only the main bedroom had, we scooted the hostages to a corner of the room until Oso told us what to do. We were in no known conditions to go outside. Why? Because we had just taken over a Government building. Surely that ought to call for signs of caution when going out into the exterior world again. But the night was already here, like last night when it snuck up on us like a blanket suddenly woven over by death, reminding us to simply finish the task at hand. And let's hope that the latter doesn't do what the blanket, metaphorically, already has.

************************************

Getting the boy and the girl buried took us hours. And Oso didn't help. The digging was hard because of the land. That's what Oso said.

"It's the soil they use," he stuttered, smoking cigarette after cigarette, gracefully prancing back-and-forth, around and around, while also glancing down at his mobile from time-to-time.

Are we all one freak-out away from going bad-shit crazy? Because that's how I feel. I mean, who's to say I wouldn't have wanted to join a Black Catz-type of society if I would have been born on this side of the Wall?

Sometimes I think we're all born like that: on different lines and we're only lucky to be on those good sides—of the lines—those who are born on the right side, of course—or else we would simply be bad-shit lunatics and murderers like these kids on this side of the Wall; we're all only lucky to be who we are, and nothing else; unless you're on this side (or on the wrong side, of course).

I think we all criticize people we would be like if we, too, were born in their situation. And it's not right. A shame I had to learn this way. But I did learn.

Who are we to talk?

Who are we to say anything?

Who are we? Nobody.

We are just lucky fools.

Fools that don't know how foolish--or luck--they are.

"If you bury them deep enough, nobody will find them—ever," Oso says, like he's done it before. Not a surprise, really. Just another one of his bad-shit, lunatic beliefs. One of many. A belief you could only pick-up from being a bad-shit lunatic for quite some time now.

But we don't have a choice; because we all do what we're told...nothing else.

Down at the bottom, below our bodies, those we're laying to rest enjoy, what I believe to be, the hardest part of the earth.

These could have also been some of the hardest, bravest, wildest folks I ever did meet. So perhaps, this setting is only fitting. A hard ground, for a hard soul.

I didn't want to bury any of these kids. And I surely didn't want to murder them. And I (or we) didn't. Oso did.

We all saw him do it.

Congo can't believe it either—like myself.

But we all continue to dig. Congo isn't the only one digging. We—all the Black Catz soldiers—dig too. Because, I guess, in soldier-land, you do as you're told...not as you think.

"How far until we stop?" I ask...thinking I'm asking myself but really asking outload.

"Until you can't go anymore," replies Oso.

And we did. We dug until hitting a hard patch that didn't allow us to dig anymore, like he said: the "hard-part" of the world.

The other soldiers watched as we did it (as we dug)—until we had to do it to them.