Drowning Tucson (28 page)

He held his finger over Yoli’s lips until they were safely inside the truck, which was still cold because the heater was broken. She hopped up and down on the front seat and laughed and asked him where they were going. What’s the prize? I’ll tell you in a minute, Yoli. Put these clothes on while I drive. She let the blanket fall from her shoulders and stepped into the pants and pulled on the sweater he had picked out for her. Then she settled into the seat and giggled when Peanut reached over her to fasten the seatbelt across her chest.

Yoli. We’re going to Disneyland. Remember what I promised you? That you’d get to go? Well, if you’re good and you don’t tell anyone, I’ll take you there and we’ll have so much fun. She looked at him with amazement. It was hard for her to understand how they were going to Disneyland, but she didn’t want to question her brother because she had wanted to go for so long it didn’t matter how she got there. She started singing a song from
Sleeping Beauty
and Peanut hummed along, driving the truck slowly away from the house and out onto Country Club Road, then he pulled the truck into Torchy’s parking lot and dimmed the lights.

Okay, wait here for just a minute, and I’ll be right back. You want some chips or something like that?

Doritos.

Okay. Peanut reached over and locked the passenger door. After he opened his door, he locked it too and told Yoli not to open the doors for anyone but him. No one. I don’t care if it’s the cops, or Mom, or a friend. You just lay down on the seat and wait for me to get back. It’ll only be a minute. Okay? She lay down on the seat and pulled the blanket up to her chin. That’s right, Yoli. Just like that. Lay there and sing your songs. He started a song from
Snow White
for her, and she quietly sang along with him, singing so softly in her high little voice that he could barely hear it after he had shut the door, checked the locks, and pulled the hood from his sweatshirt over his head.

The neon lights outside Torchy’s were flickering, many of them burned out already, and the few remaining had maybe a couple days of life left. Peanut turned the corner of the building, out of Yoli’s view, and lit a cigarette, then took several deep drags while he considered his next step. He’d always had a fondness for Torchy’s. The owner, a guy they assumed was named Torchy, though none of them really knew, didn’t mind the kids loitering outside his liquor store. Probably because their parents were his primary customers, and so he didn’t want bad relations with the rest of the community. But either way, he’d been nothing but kind to Peanut and his friends and the rest of the neighborhood kids, so Peanut felt badly about what he was about to do. He fingered the barrel of the pistol in his front pocket. The rim was cold but the handle fit his hand perfectly. It was the only gun he’d ever owned, the one he’d gotten from Chuy the day after he was initiated into the Kings. While he’d been lying on the living room floor of his house, a cold washcloth on his forehead and Neosporin smeared on all the cuts and bruises they’d given him, Chuy knocked on the front door and ordered Peanut out of the house. Peanut had thought he was in for another asskicking, but instead Chuy reached behind his back, pulled out the 9mm, and handed it to Peanut. This, he said, is a gift from us. Don’t lose it. And he walked away immediately, not allowing Peanut to reject the gift. It wasn’t a matter of whether or not Peanut wanted it. The Kings wanted him to have it, so he had to accept.

Peanut stood outside Torchy’s, hoping his plan would work and everything would fall into place so his baby sister would be able to live her life somewhere better. All we need is a few hundred to get us started, which Torchy’s would probably have because it was the first of the month, so everyone rushed right over after cashing their checks to buy tequila and beer, or maybe some whiskey, and definitely cigarettes. Torchy’s
had
to be brimming with money.

He snuffed his cigarette out on the sole of his shoe, blew out the last of the smoke, and peeked around the corner of the building to make sure Yoli was still safe in the truck. The exhaust pipe was vibrating, sputtering out little clouds of thin smoke while the engine rumbled beneath the truck’s hood. He couldn’t see Yoli, which meant she was fine.

Fuck it, let’s go. Peanut turned back toward the front door of Torchy’s and pulled it open. The bright rows of neon lining the ceiling flickered and made him squint. He walked to the back of the store where they kept the forties—Mickey’s and Colt 45 and St. Ides—and pretended to look for a specific brand. Really, Peanut was counting to thirty in his head, ignoring the cashier asking can I help you find anything? Young man, can I help you? Peanut shook his head, lowered his chin to his chest to hide his face in case there were cameras he hadn’t noticed, and walked swiftly toward the counter.

He stopped and lifted the gun out of his pocket. It’s not too late to give up, he thought. The guy hasn’t even seen the gun yet and I haven’t asked for any money so I could just pretend I can’t find what I’m looking for, go outside, and tell Yoli that we’ll have to postpone the trip. But he knew if he didn’t do it now, if he gave up so easily, he would fail his baby sister. Yoli, sitting out in the truck cab all excited at the thought of finally going to a place none of the other kids in the neighborhood had ever been. Yoli, who deserved better than this place with these sad fucked-up people who always hurt each other because they’re too afraid to hurt the people they really hate. No. He would not fail Yoli.

He pulled the 9mm the rest of the way out and felt the handle settle in his palm, the grip familiar and calming, and he raised the gun and placed it between the clerk’s eyes, cocked the trigger back, and flicked his eyes toward the register. Open it. Open it, asshole, and give me the
money. All of it, in the bag, and don’t forget the safe on the floor behind you too. Don’t give me that shit about how you can’t open it because this 9mm between your eyes says you can, says you better if you want to see the sun rise, old man. The clerk stared at Peanut, not even glancing at the gun between his eyes that was cold and made goose bumps stand up on the back of his neck, but instead looking deep into Peanut to try and see what was making this boy rob him when all he had ever done was act nice toward Peanut and his friends, never called the cops or shooed them off with a pushbroom, and up until now it had been fine—sure, a little graffiti behind the store every now and then, but he honestly liked most of it—yes, until now it had been fine, but he knew it was inevitable, was a bit surprised, actually, that no one had robbed his store just yet but he’d still planned for this moment, and while he looked into Peanut’s eyes and tried to warn him with his own eyes, to say just turn around and leave and we’ll pretend this never happened, since I know you’re just desperate and doing something stupid, like you have something to prove to the other guys you hang out with, but I can’t—
won’t
—let you get away with it so put the gun down—I won’t even hold it against you that you put it up to my forehead—and turn around and walk out the door and go home and get some sleep and don’t ever come back, it’s that simple, trying to get this message across to Peanut so he wouldn’t have to do what he was doing at that moment, his right hand slowly, slowly going toward the cash drawer while the other reached beneath the counter for the cold steel barrel, ah, there it is, and wincing as he wrapped his finger around the trigger of the shotgun and aimed in the general direction of his attacker—that ought to be about level with his arm—then he asked Peanut once, please don’t, just walk away, just go out the door, boy, and Peanut shouted BOY? I’LL SHOW YOU A BOY and the clerk knew this was his only chance to get out of this alive, he’d heard how these gangbangers killed for sport, so he closed his eyes and squeezed and felt the shotgun buck in his hands, heard the buckshot spray through the counter and opened his eyes in time to see Peanut looking down in surprise at the counter as it burst into splinters and the lead pellets buried themselves in his chest and face and the arm holding the gun, and Peanut cried out as he felt the
molten lead ripping through his torso like a thousand metal spears being thrust all at once, Jesus it hurts, and he stumbled backwards, dropping his 9mm, tripping over warm cases of Milwaukee’s Best, then landing on his back and lying still and wondering if Yoli was okay in the front seat and hoping she would never open the door for anyone, but grow old in the truck and maybe one day figure out how to drive it so she could finish what he had started.

This is the part where I’m supposed to bash out my window and crawl onto the roof, Rebecca thought, when the cab of her car had been underwater for more than two minutes. Her car shook and turned and flipped beneath the water, knocking up against the walls of the arroyo, scraping small boulders and crashing into turns while the flood-water swept it from the city into the bowels of the wilderness. Yes, this is the part we’ve seen a thousand times on the news. I kick out the window with the heel of my foot and don’t worry about cutting myself as I climb onto the roof—because it’s better to get a few cuts than to drown—and up on top of the car, where I hang on until some Good Samaritan throws me a rope or a police helicopter shines its spotlight on me and lowers down a man with a safety harness to lift me away.

But Rebecca did not bother to kick her way to safety. She did not try to roll the window down. She did not try to undo her seatbelt. She sat completely still and let her lungs fill with water, feeling purified as it splashed against the back of her throat and down her windpipe until it boiled inside her lungs and they threatened to—aren’t they supposed to burst?—collapse. She could feel each water molecule seep into the lining, burrowing, tickling almost, and was a bit disappointed because this was supposed to be the most painful way to die—waiting on the remnants of oxygen left in her blood to dissipate and then for her brain to get all mushy and foggy and slowly wink out, and she was supposed to be in complete terror while her hair floated around her head in a seaweed dance—she’d be dead but still able to see. But the oxygen wasn’t
dying out, even though she knew she hadn’t taken a breath in at least three minutes because the dashboard clock was still blinking.

It was during these minutes that Rebecca saw the last bubble of air float by her head from the backseat and lodge itself between the windshield and the dashboard. She leaned forward to pick it loose. She felt it wedged in the corner of the windshield directly below the Grease Monkey sticker from her last oil change. She remembered the grand opening of the Grease Monkey on Pantano Road and how there was a man in a blown-up vinyl monkey suit who sputtered around on the street corner with a plastic monkey wrench and a pair of overalls, beckoning the drivers to stop, and kids peeked over the ledges of backseat windows or from the rears of station wagons and smiled and waved at the monkey. She lifted the bubble tenderly between her fingers and brought it to her face with the intention of biting into it and sucking out the few air particles it might contain, but instead of placing it in her mouth she raised it up to her ear and pinched it until it burst and a scream escaped and shot into her ear, down the canal like burning wax, reminding her of something that mattered before the flood and the car filling with water and the turning and twisting.