“Be cool, Momma, and we all go home,” Marcus said, sweat soaking the neoprene biker-mask, eyes narrowed against dusk’s angled light. The Sig Sauer’s pebble grip pressed dull against his gloves.
Muted sobs rang from the bank’s patrons, face down on the tile. Bat and Lee paced the floor deftly collecting wallets while the new guy, Angel, stood on the teller’s counter screaming how he wished they’d give him a reason. Fucking junkies.
Jackson should be here.
The middle-aged woman’s tears soaked the stacks of cash as she emptied the last drawer into the duffel. “Good job, Janet,” Marcus said, zipping the bag up. “By next week this’ll all be a dream. Let’s go!”
Four sets of boots pounded out to the streets of south Boston with hurried breaths. Rubber screeched as the stolen Charger fishtailed into traffic. Marcus heard none of their laughter as they blew past the intersections in what felt like simultaneous fast and slow motion.
“Slow down, Lee,” Marcus said. “Masks off.”
Adrenaline beat a thousand anxieties through his veins. Sirens wailed in the distance. His dad’s words echoed from his memory, the image of him clear as crystal, polishing his glock at the table.“You two take care of each other when I’m gone. The world would rather you be dead.” God dammit, Jackson. Marcus gave him his chances, but six consecutive losses in the ABA was a death sentence. What’s one more fight prove? The ‘Boston Shell’ had let them both down.
“Hell yeah,” Angel said, eyes wide and yellow as his teeth. He rolled his sleeves up to show a score of track-marks and scratched at the wiry threads of hair hanging onto his scalp. Marcus felt his eyes heavy upon the bag at his feet. “Is it always that easy?”
“Most of the time,” Lee said.
“If you don’t get greedy,” Bat said.
In the slow mask of surrounding traffic, they passed block after block of crumbling apartments and homes into northern Roxbury. Marcus wondered if Jackson was walking to the ring. Maybe the fight had already started by now. The engine cut and they stepped onto the street, met by the cool kiss of the wind and a violet cityscape. Lee opened the clear bottle and let the gasoline glug over the interior.
With the click of the zippo and famished plume of flame, the four started down the road and turned off from the sirens and into the web of asphalt alleys between complexes.
“Wait for my call,” Marcus said. “Two days from now. I’ll have your shares.”
He didn’t wait for an answer before starting towards his apartment four blocks out. A metallic click stopped him in his tracks. He peered over his shoulder and saw Angel’s barrel lined up between his eyes.
“No,” Angel said. “I need some now…”
“That’s not how it works,” Marcus said.
“Bull shit! I ain’t going home with nothing.”
“This is the guy you vouched for,” Marcus growled to Lee.
In a breathless voice, Lee said, “Angel, be easy. Marcus is good. He always is.”
“Fuck that,” Angel said, hand shaking, “I don’t know him.”
Bat slowly reached—
A clap of thunder rented the air and Bat stumbled against the wall grasping his chest. By the time Angel turned his aim back Marcus had the Sig drawn. Three orange flashes illuminated the alley. Angel dropped with an extra hole in his head and chest. Though shock muted the pain at first, it felt like a horse had kicked Marcus’s stomach.
Sirens wailed over the neighborhood.
“Shit, Marcus,” Lee said, pulling his hair. “I’m sorry… That’s a lot of blood.”
Rage pumped out his abdomen. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Get Bat out of here.”
“We’ve got to get you help.”
“I’ll get it myself,” he said, wincing through the pulsating agony. He turned, vision already spinning, and limped on. God dammit, Jackson, he thought. One last fight, my ass. This was his reward for keeping their lights for over a decade.
Through the alley and past Lenox, the weight of the bag nearly unbearable, he held the gored hole and ground his teeth through anguish. He hurried over the grass field, unsure if the flashing lights down the road were real, and laid eyes on the brick complex. His hands struggled with the key and left handle red, but at last it opened and the dun interior welcomed him home. With hurried breaths he swallowed the pain, threw the bag into the family room, and stumbled into the kitchen to fetch the first aid kit. Pale and cold, Marcus looked at the mess of his stomach and fell to the family room’s recliner with a white flash of pain. Who could he call? His gaze turned to the mounted photo of him and Jackson as kids, propped on their parents shoulders. The sirens’ cries mounted ever-stronger beyond the window. He heard his dad’s voice, “The world would rather you be dead.”
With a trembling hand, he took the remote and turned the TV to DAZN, the undercard of Garcia and Delillo, the tenth round of Jackson Grey versus Don Matter. He screamed at the sting of vodka and watched with a spinning head as Jackson swayed behind the ‘Boston Shell’ (the more aggressive cousin to the Philly), ducking under shots until a window opened and he buried a right into Matter’s ribs. Marcus wondered if he was ever that fast. Back behind the shell, dancing, until a left hook cracked Matter’s cheek. A spray of spit and sweat hung in the air. The pain disappeared for a moment as the ref’s count hit ten and his baby brother raised his arms. The announcer shouted, “There's no such thing as dreams, just a plan and a counter!”
Sweat dripped from Marcus’s grin. Siren-lights flashed beyond the drapes. Footsteps pounded outside the door.
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