At the skatepark just after noon. Two early birds are boarding. Young kids. No one else. We sit on some bleachers by the sideline.
“Maybe they won’t show,” I say almost hopefully.
“We’re early.” She shakes her head, lighting two cigs and placing one in my mouth. “They’ll show, one way or another.” She sighs a hungover cloud.
“What if they don’t?”
“We go home, take the whole bag together and die happy,” she laughs.
I flick my cig ahead and see Bean meandering over.
“What’s up?” he goes.
“Skating, as you can see,” Care jokes dryly, giving him her cig and lighting another. “Sort of a spectator sport to me. Where’s your board, anyhow?”
“Oh... I fall a lot. Usually I just hang out.”
Care waves her little torch over the whole park. “No one here now, really. Now’s the time to practice.” She smirks.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “They’ll show up soon. Actually, H wanted me to hang with you guys so you don’t think he’s blowing you off.”
“Did he now?” she goes, pulling out a tiny bag and doing a bump of powder off a knife tip. “That’s very nice of him.”
I grab her forearm, but she wrenches away and raises her nose. “Don’t knock it if you ain’t seen Scarface. Today I’m Tony Montana, and the game’s on. Show’s almost on the road.” She sniffs.
“Cool...” Bean says. “Can I get some?”
“Some of my foot up your ass,” Care says. Licking her ciggie’s filter and sticking it in the baggie.
“Just a little?” I’ll pay.”
Care lifts her oversized sneaker to the sky. “My foot. Your ass.”
Bean sits on the corner of the bleecher despondently.
“Anyway kid, you don’t wanna be around people doing this shit. Especially at your age.”
“I’m fifteen,” he says. “How old are you?”
“A thousand years old. I’m an alien from another planet.”
Bean looks at me. I shrug and toss my half-burned smoke. He watches it sail gloomily, like he’d pick it up if we weren’t watching.
A crimson Ford Bronco screeches into the bare parking lot across from the concrete skatepark. A teen hops out of the passenger door, walking slowly to the front, followed by the driver, a taller guy with dark messy hair at his ears, sunglasses, a black leather duster falling to his boots. They take their time approaching up a paved path, scanning their surroundings. Finally they come near us, silent.
“Terminator I,” Care says to the tall one, “Meet Terminator II,” nodding at me. “Hunter, have a smoke on me.”
He seems reluctant to take it. “I’ve got my own.” He lights up a long menthol. “This is my brother John.”
“Bad John. Big bad John. It’s a Michael Jackson thing, right? I’m a fan too,” she grins. I sigh.
John glares at Bean and the kid disappears. John takes off his glasses. “Woods?”
I look around, reluctant, but Care hops right up. “Yep, that’s smart.”
We trudge a few minutes down a trail and find a small clearing off the path. John lights a smoke, pushes his hair out of his eyes. “Whatcha got for me?”
“A whole lot of nothing if I don’t see some money...” she says, arms crossed.
Hunter and I tense up. Care and John are standing off.
“First the price,” John says. “Ten each ain’t happening.”
“That’s exactly what’s happening,” Care affirms cockily.
“Out of the question,” he answers, sniffs.
“Not a question,” Care says. “I know what you can get for 'em, I know what you’ll make if we keep selling to you, and what you won’t make if I walk.” She taps her foot impatiently.
“Five. Then we talk higher if the shit’s good.”
“I gave samples,” she says, annoyed. “The shit’s good. The rest aren’t Tic-Tacs.”
“And if they sell...” he continues.
“Ohoh!” Care waves her arms. “If they sell, he says. They sell. Maybe I’ll sell 'em myself and you can sling whatever crap you got sitting at home.”
John flicks his cigarette. “Five each now, plus two each after, at the next meetup.”
“Sorry,” Care nearly yawns. “Gotta keep it in tens, or I can’t count right. I’m bad at math, see?” She starts putting up fingers randomly as if perplexed by them.
“Five each now. Plus three on top next pickup. That’s generous...”
“Generous is not wasting my time.” Care huffs. “Let’s go.”
“Wait.” John sighs. “You’re a real ballbuster, aren’t you, little girl?”
“And you’re a lousy negotiator for someone who came knowing the price.”
“This isn’t a deal anymore. The price tag just dropped to ‘free.’”
Hunter unfolds a small pen knife nervously.
“Oh, just like that?” Care pulls her knife. “Look, mine’s bigger”
John laughs.
“So...” Care steps back. “Are you really robbing me?”
“Of course I’m robbing you,” he chuckles. “Hand over everything you have. Put it all on the ground.”
“Fuck you.” Care spits and starts to turn around, till a dark gun appears from John’s belt.
My arm shoots out lightning as the baton crashes across the bridge of John’s nose and sends him to the ground twitching. Hunter startles, but I hold the stick straight at his knife. “Don’t.”
Care runs up and grabs John’s gun. “How do you use this fuckin-” and a deafening shot rings through our ears as dirt scatters in the air. She points it at Hunter, who freezes.
“You got one too?” Care snarls, shaking with fury. Hunter shakes his head in terror.
I walk to her, calmly trade the gun for my baton, and lower it, facing Hunter. She growls, then checks John’s pockets. I cooly stare into Hunter’s eyes and he drops the blade.
“Very slowly... everything else on you. I don’t want to shoot you,” I say.
Hunter whimpers and tosses a wallet, lighter, pack of cigarettes, and a balled-up baggie of weed. I let Care collect it all as I move to the side to keep my line of sight.
“The fuck is this? It’s all wet. Aw, did baby piss himself!” She steps behind me. Hunter drops to his knees, bawling, his pants darkening.
“Come on, we gotta go!” I yell. I look back and Care is hacking at John’s shins with the baton as he gurgles and howls. It reminds me of me brutalizing Dryden. My stomach turns.
“Care! Enough!”
She scowls and collapses the baton against her hips, throws it and her knife from the ground in a pouch she’s made from pulling up her sweatshirt. We run.
“Fuckin... knew that... was some fucky shit...” she puffs as we sprint.
We run for five or fifteen minutes through blurring trails and don’t slow till we see camp. We dive in our tent, zip it shut and pant forever. I chug most of a water bottle. She sips, then throws it against the wall with a splash and finishes the rest of the gin in one swig as her makeship pouch spills on the floor.
“Can’t even sell a little X to some highschoolers without getting a gun pulled. This town is Hell... I’m in Hell...”
“Bad John wasn’t a highschooler!” I exclaim. “And you call that a negotiation?”
“Gotta be hard with 'em if you wanna make a deal. How was I supposed to know he was gonna pull a gun?”
“I don’t know!” I shout. “Because Bean said he robs people? Because his name starts with ‘Bad?’ Why didn’t you just take the ‘five now three later’ deal?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Why didn’t I just front him all of it and hope he pays us back. Please, Mr. Bad John Man? You shoulda let me bust him up like you did Dryden.”
That hits me. “Dryden was a killer! This guy’s an amateur...Only an amateur pulls a weapon before they’re using it.” I glare at her.
“Oh? So it’s my fault?” she asks. “I was ready to shove it up his ass.”
“At least do that instead of showing your hand! If you weren’t snorting that shit, maybe you’d have acted like a professional. Maybe you’d remember your bullshit about not bringing knives to gunfights. And not show your blade just because the kid showed his!”
“Knife, knife, and you had the club. It all worked out. Who pissed their pants? I didn’t.” She laughs maniacally.
“And John had the gun.”
“And look how that turned out for him,” she says. “We beat the odds, now you got the gun.”
“Because luck! Imagine if I wasn’t there, if I wasn’t fast enough, if he pulled it and pointed it at your head. Then what? We could have had regular deals with them. Now we can’t go back to the park, more attention on us. Or we’re just dead. This is all your plan you threw away, Care.”
“Alright, whatever!” she snarls. “Just let me count this... 60, 80... 1000... Jesus... Fucker brought a thousand exactly. That’s why he was so hung up on 5 each. Did we really pick the brokest drug dealer in the whole town? Fuckin... what’s his brother got? God, all soaked in piss... shoulda busted him up too, little fucker. The balls on those little scumbags...”
“Hunter didn’t want to be in that situation any more than us,” I say, unloading and studying the handgun. “Didn’t you see it in his face?”
“Coulda fooled me. Who pulled their shit first?”
“You did,” I remind her. “People pull weapons when they’re scared.. or stupid.”
“Oh, ha-ha.” She rolls her eyes. “So with the piss money, we’ve got... thirteen-hundred and twenty. Wow, almost dying to the idiot brothers for chump change, some weed and coke we don’t need, and piss cigarettes. Fuck! I don’t want these!” She chucks them at the wall by the spilled water bottle.
“Don’t forget the gun,” I say, examining it.
“Woah now, don’t blow my head off with that thing,” she chuckles nervously.
“It’s unloaded now. Magazine’s out.” I pull the slide back twice to show her the chamber is empty.
She screeches angrily, twists and crumples a baggie. “Fuck! This coke isn’t even good! Could life get any worse?”
But I’m mesmerised by the gun. She sighs, takes a deep breath, crawls over and chugs tequila from the bottle.
“It looks alright,” she comments. “Worth something at least.”
I look it all over. Care seems nervous. She’s seen too many guns before.
I pull the slide back. “Safety check.” I pull the trigger and it clicks. She winces. I place it on the floor. I turn the pin back and pull the slide off. Pinch the spring. And it comes out. “Here’s the barrel... no rust or residue... didn’t fire it much at all.”
“And you know that just by looking at it?”
I shrug.
“So it’s worth more?” she asks.
I stare at the disassembled machine. It all comes apart in my head. Then in my hands. Care watches in amazement. Then I put it back together.
“Fifteen shots left,” I say. “We need more ammo.”
“Ammo?”
I take the bottle, swig, slap the magazine in place, cock it, put the safety on, tuck the gun under my sleeping bag. “Yeah. More ammo.”