RECKLESS — Bad Boy Criminal Romance (12 page)

              “Do you think your sister could’ve run away?”

              “I don’t doubt it at all.  She’s threatened to before.  If she was upset, she would do it.  She still needs to come home though.”

              They cut back to the anchorwoman.  “To this point, police have assumed the case to involve kidnapping or some type of foul play.  Planned dives into the ocean in Pensacola this afternoon to search for Angela’s body, however, have been cancelled and police are reevaluating the circumstances involving her disappearance.  It’s possible the case may be reclassified with Angela suspected as a runaway.  If you have any information on her whereabouts, please contact authorities.”

              “My brother’s such a fucking hypocrite,” Angela says.  “Do you know how many times I’ve seen him out drunk on the weekends?  He’s always been overprotective of me.  He has some weird complex about making sure his little sister doesn’t do anything wrong.  And the only times I’ve ever snapped at him was when he was being an asshole.  I can’t believe he said all that about me.”

              “I think he just did us a favor actually.”

              “What do you mean?” she asks me.

              “This story has been getting attention.  The sweet, perfect young girl who may have been kidnapped or killed.  But now it’s totally changed.  Now you’re the spoiled, rebellious, young alcoholic who ran away.  Now the story’s dead and everyone except your family is going to forget about you.”

              “But don’t you think people will have sympathy for me?”

              “No.  You’re not an innocent, pretty female victim anymore.  Maybe the local Pensacola new stations may squeeze in any updates on your case after stories about kittens getting stuck in trees.”

              “That’s a relief … What do we do next?”

I throw back the bed covers and position my body to face her.  “We need to figure something out right now.”

              “What?”             

“Do we trust each other?  I mean, can we?  Really?”

              “I don’t know.  I thought we sort of already did.”

              “Yeah, sort of.  But we need to decide for certain.  Can we really trust each other fully and completely?  What would you do if we got caught right now?”

              “I wouldn’t tell police anything.”

              “You wouldn’t claim I kidnapped you?”

              “No.”

              “Why not?”

              “Because I owe it to you.”

              “Why?”

              “Because you’ve treated me well.”

              “How about that night in New Orleans?  How can you trust me after I did that?”

              “That really pissed me off.  But I’ve thought about it a lot and I feel like I totally understand now.  I mean, we’d had a crazy night out and suddenly there I was looking hot and sitting right next to you on the bed.  You probably just couldn’t help yourself.  It wasn’t fair really.  And even though you were rough with me, you let me go before you really did anything.  I can forgive that.”

              “If we got caught would you tell them that you lied to me about your age, that you said you’re over eighteen?  I mean, you have the fake I.D. and everything.”

              “Sure.  Would they care?”

“I don’t know.  Hopefully they’d show a little leniency and hesitate to cut my balls off right away if they thought you’d convincingly passed yourself off as legal.  But who knows?”  I stare at her a few moments.

              “What?” she asks.

              I shake my head and say, “I really want to believe you.  But there’s no way I can for sure.  For all I know you’re bullshitting me now and if we were to get caught you’d send me up the river to save yourself.”

              “I wouldn’t.”

              “How about this?  Truthfully, there’s no way we can trust each other.  So how about I give you everything we’ve made since we met.  And even a little more.  I’ll give you over a thousand dollars to survive and we’ll part ways right now.  I’ll forget all about you and you forget all about me.”

              “No.  I don’t want to.”

              “Why not?”

              “Look, I trusted you when I first decided to go with you.  For all I knew you could’ve raped or killed me.  I’ve put my trust in you.  Why can’t you put your trust in me now?”

              I stare downward and think silently.

              “You’re good at this, and you’re teaching me and I think I’m becoming good too,” she says.  “It makes sense for us to be together.  We’ll make this work out the best possible way for both of us.”

              I pause.  We’re both on the bed, sitting face to face.  I extend my hand. 

She takes my hand and shakes it.

But when she tries to release I don’t let go.  Instead I tighten my grip and lean in closer to her.  “I’m not fucking around,” I tell her.   “You need to understand: If you do
anything
to benefit yourself at my expense I won’t think twice before slicing your fucking throat … You put yourself totally on the line for me, and I do the same for you.  Understand?”

“I’m totally devoted to you and you to me.  I swear.”

I release her hand.  “I need to go out for a second.  I’ll be right back.  Start packing your things.”

I drive around and end up in downtown Shreveport where I find a payphone outside a bar called Straycat on Travis Street.  I dial my old home phone number in Memphis trying to reach my mother.

              “Yeah?” an unfamiliar male voice says.

              “Hey,” I respond, confused.  “Is Miss Gillis there?”

              “No, she doesn’t live here.”

              “She used to.  You know where she moved?”

              “No, but she might of left a number though.  Hold on,” he says, sounding bothered.  “I might be able to find it.  Maybe not.”  He sets the phone down and I hear him yell to someone.  The person yells something back and no one gets back on the line with me for the next several minutes.  I have to insert more change into the phone.

Finally he picks the phone back up and says, “I found a number that might be it but I don’t know.  You ready to write it down?”

              “I can remember it.  Go ahead.”

              He reads me a number with a 479 area code.

              I thank him, hang up, insert more change, and dial the new number.

              It rings a couple times and then my mother says, “Hello?”

              “Hey, Mom?  It’s Brandon.”

              “Brandon?  Where are you?”

              “I wanted to come see you and maybe stay with you a little while.”

              “Sure.  Are you okay?”

              “Yeah, Mom, I’m fine.  And hey, I’m going to bring a girl with me, alright?”

              “Sure, bring her.  How have you been?  What’ve you been doing?”

“We’ll be there soon and we’ll talk about everything.  Just tell me where you live now, okay?”

Chapter Eight

While I was in middle school, my hero was the star football player of our local team, the East High School Eagles.  His name was Terrell James, a six-foot-four wide receiver.  He was lightning quick and on a team touted by the city newspaper as state championship contender.  I attended several games of his, though one sticks out in my mind.

With the clock dwindling in the final quarter of play, the game was tied 28-28.  Both teams were trash-talking each other, a genuine animosity between them.  A few shoving matches occurred between plays which the referees quickly broke up in an attempt to maintain order.  The hostility, however, still lingered.

Terrell was being covered by the opposing team’s star defender, an all-state cornerback who had held Terrell to relatively few catches.  As East High struggled to move the ball down the field for one final game-winning score, Terrell continuously trash-talked this cornerback who he knew to be hot-headed.  With only ten seconds left in the game, with the ball at the 50-yard line, Terrell goaded the defender into throwing a punch.  The referee threw a flag for a fifteen-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and ejected the cornerback from the game.  On the final play of the game, with no one on the defense talented enough to cover him, Terrell dashed down the sideline and caught a deep pass in the end zone for a 34-28 win.

Terrell was beloved in our neighborhood.  Aside from being a star athlete, he was smart and charismatic.  He had a list of college scholarships offered to him and everyone expected he’d soon be playing football on Saturdays for a major university.  However, everything changed for Terrell in the middle of an undefeated season.

The coach of East High was a divorced man in his late thirties.  He was dating a math teacher at the school, a young woman in her mid-twenties.  She came to all the games and even watched many of the practices in support of the team and her boyfriend.  Impressed by Terrell’s athletic performances, she often complemented him for playing well.  And for senior-year math, Terrell was put in her class.  Allegedly, they went from seeing each other every day in class to seeing each other on the weekend as well, their student-teacher relationship turning sexual.  These rumors found their back to Terrell’s coach.

In the next game, with an undefeated season on the line, Terrell was benched.  The game was close and, in the second half, East High fell behind by ten points.  The crowd chanted for Terrell to be put in the game.  His teammates pleaded to the coach.  Terrell only sat on the bench calmly with his helmet by his side, his jersey perfectly clean.

The game ended and East lost, ruining their undefeated season and damaging their run for a state championship.  After the final whistle, Terrell stood up.  In front of his teammates and in front of the crowd, Terrell walked up to the coach and, without a word, spat in his face.  He then stood there, daring the coach to throw a punch.  Instead, the coach angrily stomped away murmuring under his breath and Terrell’s season was over.  When word of this stunt spread, his college scholarship offers evaporated and Terrell’s football career was over as well.

After graduating, Terrell continued to live in our neighborhood in a red house with his grandmother.  His status gradually diminished and he was rarely seen.  No one seemed to talk about him anymore.

When I started high school at East, I was one of only three freshmen to make the varsity team.  I was placed on defense as a linebacker and had great success as a back-up.  By sophomore year I was made a starter.  The team still had the same coach.  His son, who was my age, was now on the team.  His name was Antoine – a short, stocky, but incredibly fast running back.

I found Antoine to be standoffish, often acting superior to the rest of the team.  I saw him in the school hallways or at parties and would say “hello”.  He mostly ignored me though, so I began ignoring him back.

I must admit that Antoine was very talented and drew college scouts to our games.  His name was always mentioned the most in Sports-page articles about our team.  As the season progressed, however, my name was mentioned more and more often as the star of the defense.  I led the team in tackles and grabbed a few interceptions, causing some of the college scouts at our games to see Antoine to also ask our coach some questions about me.  Apparently this bothered Antoine, because he began badmouthing me behind my back.  I tried to ignore it.

During a practice scrimmage, on one play, Antoine came out of the backfield for a pass.  The quarterback threw the ball high.  Antoine jumped and snatched the ball out of the air.  As he touched the ground I nailed him, jarring the ball loose for a fumble and driving him to the turf.  This elicited hollers from our teammates who were impressed by the hit and happy for the egotistical Antoine to have been the victim.  He limped off the field to sit out a few plays, though his pride was hurt more than his body.

The next couple days I heard rumors that Antoine was saying, behind my back, that he was going to kick my ass.  After having five separate teammates tell me this, I decided to find Antoine before that school day was over.  Beside our school was a fast-food burger joint where I knew Antoine often ate his lunch.  During our lunch period, I saw Antoine crossing the front lawn of our school.  I jogged after him and called his name.  He turned around and was wearing a baggy black T-shirt, blue jeans, and a diamond stud in his ear.

I stood in front of him and held out both of my fists at chest level.  “Pick a hand,” I said.

“What?”

“Pick a hand.”

“Left?” he chose, unsure.

I punched him in the nose with my left hand.

He doubled over, holding his nose which began to bleed.  “What the fuck?!” he shouted.  “Why’d you do that?”

“You’ve been saying you’re going to kick my ass.  Try now if you’re going to.”

He looked at me, blood flowing from his nose into his palm.  “Fuck,” he repeated.  “No, I don’t want to.”

If he wanted to fight, I was ready to drill him with another punch and not stop until someone strong enough could separate us.  “Are you sure?” I asked again.

“Yeah.”  He walked away to find a restroom and clean himself up.

I looked around and there were some groups of students watching from afar, silent and awestruck because of Antoine’s status.

After school I walked into the locker room to change for practice.  Our coach noticed me and said, “What are you doing here?”

Confused I said, “Getting ready for practice.  What do you mean?”

“Hold on a second.”  He disappeared.

An assistant coach then appeared and took me into the hallway right outside the locker room.  “I meant to call you out of class earlier so I could talk to you,” he said.  “I hate to tell you this, but we’re not going to need you for the rest of the season.”

“I’m off the team?  Why?”

“Coach didn’t go into it with me.  He just said we’re in the middle of an important season and we can’t have any conflicts within the team.”

“There’s no conflict.  Antoine and I had a problem and it’s settled.”

“You can try to talk to Coach about it tomorrow during school if he’ll see you.  But you shouldn’t come to practice today.”

I shook my head.  “You know what?  Fuck it.  That’s fine.  Can you give him a message though?”

“What is it?”

“Tell him he’s a bitch because he lost one of his best players because he’s too busy coddling his pussy son.  And tell him he’s a bitch for not kicking me off the team himself, man to man.”

As I said this, some of the first players were coming out of the locker room to go out onto the practice field.  They pretended not to listen, though they eavesdropped on the end of the conversation.  What I said quickly spread throughout the team.  The next day it spread throughout the entire school and then throughout our neighborhood.  Antoine and his father actively avoided me.

Weeks after getting kicked off the team I threw on a jacket and walked to a small convenience store down the street from my house.  I walked to the refrigerated section and picked out a carton of chocolate milk.  A few feet to my right someone opened a refrigerator door and took out a six-pack of Corona.  I glanced over and it was Terrell James.  He was wearing black Nike sneakers, black sweatpants with a white stripe, and a white wifebeater under a bulky black coat.  Terrell looked solid, having added about twenty pounds of muscle onto the svelte frame he had in high school.  He glanced back at me and I started to walk to the checkout counter.