Somewhere in Louisiana, we lost Johnny Cash. One of us had left the RV door open a smidge and he likely bolted to his freedom. None of us would realize until we were driving far away. At first, I worried that Jenny might have a meltdown, but she didn’t really care. She had Seymour and all of us had other things on our minds other than the dog’s welfare. If I’d have thought about it more, it should’ve concerned me that us Gimmelmans could be so nonchalant to lose a family member, even one with four legs.
In Baton Rouge, Barry got up early in the morning with the grand idea for the two of us to spend the day together. “Male bonding,” he called it. Mom was holed up under the covers, licking her wounds. Steph and Troy were tasked to watch her and Jenny. He slid the coke vial into his front pocket, and we took a taxi to the downtown area. Some old buildings and plantations. I wasn’t impressed. I knew he needed me on his side and could sense a separation. To lose me meant our whole carefully stacked Jenga operation might fall apart.
“What do you want?” he said, all teeth, whipping out a stack of bills. “Anything.”
I wanted him to comb his hair, his ’do out of control. I picked out one of Mom’s cigarettes, wrapped in a curl.
“Maybe I was saving that,” he said, laughing way too hard. Had he taken a toot from the vial without me noticing, I couldn’t tell. “How about a suit like those guys wear on Miami Vice?”
“Okay.”
We went to a store where I chose a pastel blue suit, tailored to my size. Trying it on in the mirror, I had to admit I looked rad.
“You look rad,” Barry said.
“I know.”
He bought me Ray-Bans too, the whole outfit running over a thousand dollars.
“Somebody earned good grades,” the saleswoman said, shaking her finger.
“I don’t believe in school,” Barry said as she frowned. “I’m my own school.”
I tugged on his sleeve to get us out of there before he could embarrass us more. We stopped at a café and got beignets dusted with powdered sugar.
“Your mother,” he said, halfway through a beer. “She’s really okay.”
I took a hit of sweet tea, the sugar overload rocking my brain.
“Her relationship with Grandma Bernice was not a good one,” he said. “It’s better for them to be apart.”
“Are you saying that because it’s true, or because it’s something you want me to hear?”
“Goddamn, you’re a smart fuck.” He drained the beer. “She doesn’t realize it yet, but it is better. That woman is all negativity and brimstone.”
“She knows about the bank.”
He looked to the left, then the right. Customers having conversations around us, none of them listening. Inching forward in his seat, he talked close. “She cares about you kids too much to rat. Your lives would be destroyed.”
“Do you want our lives to be destroyed?”
A bird landed on our table, small like a swallow. It cocked its head, waiting for his answer too.
“Of course, I don’t—”
“How do you see this ending?”
His eyes bugged. “The plan we had. International. Paris, maybe? Spain.”
“What if we went there now?”
He shook his head. “This troubles me to hear. You’re my gung-ho soldier. I’m saying we don’t have enough cash yet.”
“We don’t have to live fancy.” I tossed my hand in the air like that was what fancy people did.
“I owe money. You know this. You know this, right? I’m buying myself time.”
“How much do you owe?”
He rubbed his nose as if he had an itch he couldn’t scratch. “A lot. A lot, a lot. Too much.”
“Mob?” I asked, mouthing the word.
“It’s not for you to worry about.”
“But if we went to France, they wouldn’t find us.”
“They would. Eventually. So, this last job…it’ll solve all our problems.”
The sparrow flew away, unsatisfied with his answer. Part of me wanted to follow it wherever it went. After our bite, Barry got the wild idea to get me a better gun, a Bren Ten like they used on Miami Vice. He decided this gift would make me stop questioning his ways. We went to a gun store. A man with neck hair manned the counter. He showed us the Bren Ten, cool steel like Crockett and Tubbs used. The catch, there would be a wait. But hold on! Barry had another wad of bills hidden in his shorts. The man with neck hair was delighted. Bought off so easily. We left with the gun, and along with the suit and the Ray-Bans, I should’ve been ecstatic. But a sense of dread rumbled through my belly. I had awful diarrhea. Had to run into a shoddy restaurant and squat over a rusty toilet. In the mirror, I was pissed at how simply I could be bought. Outside, Barry was whistling on the corner, “Friend of the Devil” by the Grateful Dead. I wondered if he’d firmly made the shift to becoming Jerry Garcia, a laser focus honed on our next job. He put his arm around me, yellow pit stains gaping from his undershirt, pulling me close. Kissing the top of my head.
“I’m giving you life experience,” he said. “Worth more than any cash we’ll steal. A story to tell your grandchildren. No one on this planet has had a childhood like you.”
“That’s a good thing?”
He winked. “A very good thing. What is life if not for experiences? We might as well be dead then.”
I had a chill when he said the word “dead.” Maybe it was because he walked with a terrible limp from being shot in the ass, and I had almost lost him. Maybe it was because the night before, he came to me bloody in my dreams. Maybe because I envisioned that he’d never survive this job. That an ominous cloud hung over our world, wanting retribution for the last time he escaped by the skin of his teeth. He continued singing “Friend of the Devil,” not surprising because he’d been hoodwinked by the other side a long time ago, like I had too. I was his son, after all. We shared the same blood.
There was no denying who I was. A Gimmelman through and through.
Great only in our warped delusions.