Now I'm shaking as I lay him onto the floor, the fury of futility raging through me. A car door slams outside. It barely echoes into my brain. I don't care just now. I can't seem to move. I can't stop staring at Charlie, empty, lifeless on the floor. Everything happened so fast, ripped into my world. The blood is thick on my hands, sticky. Everything is sticky. Fuck.
On his way in, Charlie must have left a hell of a scene in his path, bloody smudges all the way down the hall, on the floor and the walls. It leads her here, to the kitchen, to this scene. I can hear the footsteps quicken.
She stops just short of entering the kitchen, hands releasing the paper bag full of produce. Her eyes rove the situation, trying to make sense of what she's seeing. Onions and apples and peppers, the ingredients for our plans to grill, roll about. Huge brown eyes find mine, beg for understanding. Another car door slams outside. I can't speak. What words can I give her? None that will help.
“Isaiah, what happened?” Maria says, voice low, demonic.
Her feet slide forward slowly, mechanically, pulling red. She kicks a crimson onion away, falling beside him as if her body has lost the strength to support her. Tears are welling quickly along the bottom rims of her eyes.
Footsteps pound down the hall, owner no doubt alarmed by the gut-wrenching trail. It's Josh, Mr.-Jeans-and-a-T-shirt, Charlie's protege. He's a damn good drug dealer and god-damned punk.
“What the fuck?” he mutters, stunned to the spot, eyes wide and uncomprehending.
Maria is all intense, blazing brown eyes on me, demanding I speak. The tears break, lighting trails on her cheeks. Her hands have curled around Charlie's shirt, squeezing into white fists. The room feels like a thousand pounds around me.
“All he said was Reaps,” I admit finally, eyes shying away from hers.
I've broken, too, cheeks wet and salty. It's all I can do to force the voice from my chest. I got nothing for you, boss.
She stares for a long time before her eyes fall to him. Tears stream to her chin, then drip to her little maroon t-shirt. She ignores them. She looks like maybe if she stares at him hard enough, he will wake. He will be her big brother and laugh. He'll still be here to beat up her boyfriends and know what to do when there's trouble.
I want to go to her, but my hands – his blood is all over me. Then she stands, swaying unsteadily. Joshua moves to help her, but she pushes him away with nothing but a look. Her world is full right now. And she storms through the house, leaving crashes and breaking sounds in her wake.
He looks to me. I only shake my head. Stupid boy, such an idealist little prick. Before either of us can follow or find any words for each other, she's back, Charlie's gun in one hand and a black case in the other. She takes another long look at her dead brother.
She says, “He always wanted a jazz funeral.” Her voice is shaking and distant, fighting the storm.
Then she looks at me. It seems she has something to say, but she only stares. She's fucking crazy.
So I say, “You're fucking crazy. What are you gonna do?”
She doesn't answer. She doesn't need to. She's taking charge of the situation. She wants me to deal with the one here. A few wayward tears escape despite her efforts.
“Maria, don't do this,” I say from the floor. There's no heart in my words. She's never taken orders from me. I know it won't work, but I have to say it. Charlie would say it. Charlie would stop her.
She only cocks an eyebrow at me, tucking the gun into her pants. I should know better. Yeah, I do. She grabs a massive car key from the counter, its large metal, dollar sign keychain scraping across the surface like the coattails of death. Without another word or even a glance, she walks away from her world down the rudely redecorated hall.
Josh stands for a split second, watching her. He looks to me, heartbreak all over his sleeve, then curses as he follows her. The door slams seconds later and I am suddenly left alone again, covered in my cohort's blood as I sit on the kitchen floor. And he's there, growing cold, eyes scrunched in his last expression: pain.
My hands are shaking so badly it's hard for me to pull my phone from my pocket. It's even harder to navigate to Contacts and find Freddy. Finally I make the call, leaving bloody fingerprints the whole way. The emotional well runs dry momentarily as the ringing re-connects me to reality.
The voice on the other end says, “Yeah?”
So I answer, “Frederick, get to the house. Now.”
Then I let the phone drop to the linoleum for the sake of digging my cigarettes from my pocket, Camel Wides. The phone skids into a pool of already darkening scarlet. I leave the same colored fingerprints on the pack, then the smoke itself. Warning: these things could kill you.
With effort, I light it, take a long and rough drag. Or you could get shot in the gut at close range and die in agony on your kitchen floor. My legs are going numb beneath me, but still I can't move.
“Looks like you'll have to settle for a street funeral, Charlie,” I tell him, blowing smoke at the ceiling. My eyes follow it as it wafts toward the light.
My tears are drying. I'm numb. It's only an overload. I know I'll break down eventually. Yeah, I'll crash much harder into my grief than any other landing I've ever had. She'll break down eventually, too. We all will.
A new world has been born of the old one. It's a world without a good friend
