J. Osborne: Black Gum

I shook my head.

“We could do what we said. We could hit each other.”

“I’m not going to hit you. Or get hit.”

Shane turned in his seat. Prairie rolling by out the window. “Do you understand how fucked we are?”

I nodded.

“There was a lot of money. That was a lot of money.”

“I know that.”

“We should flip the car. The cops come.”

“We’re both still a little high. I’m not flipping the car.”

“I should have brought a gun.”

“You don’t have a gun.”

“I should have bought a gun.”

“You wouldn’t have used it.”

“I would have shot him.”

“You were just as scared as I was.”

Shane chewed his thumbnail. “Your aura is different.”

I took a deep breath. “Oh yeah?”

“It’s yellow but I don’t know which yellow. You’re either afraid or you’ve come to some new point in your life.”

“I don’t know if I came to a new point in my life. I think I remembered a point from before all this. You know the feeling you get when you almost get in an accident? You just barely miss the car coming at you. You know that adrenaline? That’s what I’ve got right now. I feel like I forgot. I feel like I forgot that I’m the guy who gets pulled over for running a red light. I forgot that the universe has this conception of me as someone who does the right thing. Good things. I don’t know how I forgot that.”

Shane was quiet for a bit. “We’re just different.”

“I think so.”

“I’m the guy who can’t ever see his mother. You know she has a restraining order on me?”

“I know.”

“We owe a ton of money to people who have made other people disappear for far less.”

“We’ll figure it out. I’ll get a job. We’ll pay them back.”

“You’ve still got that adrenaline going?”

“Definitely.”

“I wish I could say I understood it. You’re the near miss, but I’m the oncoming car.”

He reached for the wheel and turned it. I stomped on the brakes and the car spun. It stopped on the side of the road and the engine died.

When I started hitting Shane, I’d only meant to knock some sense into him. Eventually he was yelling stop, and after a few more I put him out.

I fired up the ignition and drove us home.

A week later we were sitting in the living room. Charlie cut out lines on the coffee table. None of us spoke. We hadn’t said more than a couple words to each other since we got back from Rockville.

Two large men came through the door carrying guns.

Charlie hopped up and said, “I know you’re not coming in here on some bullshit.”

They pointed the guns at Charlie.

He said, “At least knock.”

The big man on the left said, “I’m Turtle, and this is Little John.”

Charlie said, “Turtle. John.”

Turtle noticed Shane sitting on the recliner. “Shane! Why don’t you answer your texts, fool?”

Shane looked at his hands.

“The rave was several days ago, homie. Where’s the spoils?”

“Danny Ames took it.”

The color went out of Turtle’s face. “Come again?”

“Danny Ames took it.”

Turtle rubbed his face. He said, “Do you know how to use your phone? Phones are pretty amazing. You could have texted that to me and we wouldn’t have bust in this motherfucker and been all rude to our host.” He pointed at the coffee table. “May I?”

Charlie extended his hand.

Turtle did a line.

Little John did a line and yelled, “Holy cows!”

Turtle said, “Don’t pay attention to him. Pay attention to me. He’s a waterhead.”

Little John said, “Better bring my floaties.”

“So Danny Ames took the money.”

Shane nodded.

“It was what…”

“I don’t know. I didn’t count it.”

“We priced it out at about fifteen k. Would you say that sounds right?”

Shane thought about it. “Sounds right.”

“Okay. So, do any of you have fifteen thousand dollars?”

Turtle looked at me. I shook my head. He looked at Charlie, who said, “This isn’t my fuck-up. I didn’t have shit to do with any of this.”

Turtle nodded. “All right. Now, a part of me is wondering if there’s not some subterfuge going on here.”

Shane’s eyes went wide.

“Hold on. I’m not done. You coming back here, just sitting there waiting to get fucked, that’s not what guilty people do. So I believe you.”

We all deflated a bit.

“But you still owe us.” He turned to me. “How much do you have on you?”

I went into the guest bedroom and opened up the drawer. Brought them back around five hundred bucks.

“Don’t you motherfuckers sell drugs?”

I told him, “Mostly I eat them.”

“You ever heard ‘The Ten Crack Commandments?’”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t take?”

“No.”

Turtle and Little John stood up to leave. “It’s like this, guys. Your buddy here hooked it up. And we’ll subtract the four grand we were gonna give you guys. That puts it at ten-five. I don’t want it from this little faggot, I want it from you, Shane. It was your job, and this is your fuckup.”

Shane drummed his fingers lightly on his knees.

Turtle waved. “I’m being nice, but only because I hate Danny Ames even more than you do right now. Holler.”

Little John said, “Don’t holler in the house!”

They left.

Charlie held Shane in a bear hug. The tattooed man thrashed and screamed. Black gums bared.

I watched.

Shane calmed and eventually fell asleep.

Charlie got a blanket out of his room and covered his cousin sleeping there on the floor.

He said to me, “If you’ve got somewhere else to go, you’d better go there.”

I slept in my car.

Like that it was over.

I lived my whole life on a path and for a moment there I strayed. I lived low and found out that I wasn’t equipped for it. Charlie didn’t call me anymore. I lived in my car for a bit.

Shane disappeared.

I just kind of floated.

Then I decided to try life again.

At one point my wife and I fell back into it. I called her and sobbed into the phone and she told me to come back over. The dog was happy to see me. When I walked back into the apartment I could smell who I was. She showed me her paintings and we listened to the songs she’d had on repeat.

All the old nicknames and shorthand came back. I was learning how to speak again. There are hundreds of tongues out there but you only really speak when you’ve invented your own language.

After spending the night together talking about everything, she left for work early the next morning. I lay in bed looking at the Christmas lights strung up along the wall and everything there was heavy. I thought about the bed. I thought about when I used to wake her up with a song and she’d stay quiet til I fixed the coffee and we went our ways.

I took a shower.

I left.

I lucked out. A friend of mine was out of a roommate. She offered to let me stay for a month without rent. She had four Chihuahuas. I sat on her couch and played with the dogs and slept on an air mattress in the guest bedroom.

I walked back into the hot dog restaurant. I filled out an application and the owner read it over and said, “You look familiar.”

I said, “I get that a lot.”

“You don’t look like you get that a lot.”

I said, “I’m ready to work.”

He said, “Well, we need a dish man.”

“I am your dish man.”

“Welcome aboard, dish man. Show up to work on time, and never fucking steal from me.”

“Okay.”