“No, sir, you will not,” I tell him, speaking truth. “I have no intention of violating any of these terms or returning to prison.”
He still looks unimpressed. “Why should I believe you?”
I stare at him and decide to tell it straight. “Mr. Overton, I live with my eighty-three-year-old grandmother.” He doesn’t blink. The look on his face would have me believe every ex-con lives with his granny. “I don’t wish to disappoint her again. And I’m pretty sure if I did, she’d skin me alive.”
Five minutes later, I’m walking back to the bus stop.
Because of my meeting with my P.O., Cody told me not to come in today, and now that the meeting’s over, I have no idea what the hell to do with myself. The bus ride only takes about thirty minutes, and after a sweaty, three block walk, I’m back at Grandma Q’s.
But I can’t bring myself to head back up to the apartment, and if I go inside the house, Grandma will just fuss over me.
I need to make myself useful. I scan Grandma’s yard. The grass is cut, the edges trimmed, and her vegetable garden is well tended.
I know she spends at least an hour in her garden every day, and that is most definitely her territory, but I wonder who’s mowing her lawn. If she’s paying for a service, that needs to change. I should be doing it. Of course, I’d need a mower.
With that thought, I check the side door of the garage, find it open, and push my way inside.
And all thought of looking for a lawn mower vanishes when I see it. Anthony’s 1992 Toyota Supra turbo. Black. Liftback two door.
I lean against the door sill as the floor rolls under my feet. A buzzing that sounds faintly like a tornado siren peals through my head. The last time I saw this car — rode in it — was that night.
My vision tunnels, and I back out of the garage. I stagger to the picnic table in the yard and practically collapse onto it. With my face pressed to the wood and my heels digging into the ground, I try to will the dizziness away. Instead, a sinister nausea swells inside me.
Anthony worshiped that car. He worked two summers at Sonic, squirreling away every penny to save for it. He bought it at the end of his senior year and took me everywhere in it.
He worked for it. When Anthony wanted something, he fucking worked for it.
Unless he was with me.
Why couldn’t that old guy have shot me instead? I was standing right there, stuffing his wife’s jewelry into my backpack. Anthony had been at the window, about to toss his bag — with the guy’s laptop, Rolex, and 9mm tucked away inside.
We would have been out of there in twenty seconds.
Why couldn’t he have shotme?
The old guy had fired once. Later, he’d said he hadn’t meant to hit either of us. A warning shot. Just to keep us from running. Well, that warning shot landed in my brother’s neck, and he’d dropped like a stone.
With my head pressed to the wood of the picnic table, I can feel the midday sun beating down on the back of my neck. My eyes are in line with a gap in the table between the red-painted planks. I can see my feet and the hard-packed dirt beneath the table. A carpenter ant moving at top speed tears first over one shoe and then the other before veering right and disappearing beneath the bench.
If I would have been the one who was shot and killed, would Anthony be sitting right here? Wishing he was dead?
Well, he wouldn’t have picked up a lamp and thrown it at the old guy the way I did. That bumped my charges up from simple burglary to aggravated. My lawyer had tried to claim it was self-defense, seeing as my brother had just been shot in the neck and was bleeding out on the floor.
I wasn’t even thinking when I threw it. Not really. I just needed it for cover. Something to distract the guy long enough so I could get to Anthony and try to stop the frantic spurting of blood.
I didn’t think he’d die. Not then. Not when he lost consciousness seconds later. Not even seconds after that when the blood stopped seeping through my fingers.
The guy had called 911. The ambulance — and police — were on their way. They’d save him. Of course, they were going to save him.
I mean, this was Anthony. My big brother. He couldn’t die.
When I heard the sirens approach, I was relieved. I knew we were in a shit ton of trouble. And we’d probably do time, but we’d live to tell about it.
One of the counselors at Angola — Jerry Gunderson, the one I liked best — once told me that denial protects us.
I must have been in the throes of some pretty fucking serious denial to think my brother could survive getting his neck blown open.
I lift my head and rub my eyes as if I could wipe away the image. It used to be all I’d see. Every time I closed my eyes.