Ruby Red Marionette

thirtyfour | cardiac

//: Whole cast in MM. 

"But Tyler said that they weren't shooting at you."

Isaiah was standing on his brand new bed, a queen size that he got half-price from a store where his friend worked. He was jumping on it, pausing every three jumps or so to look at me as I reiterated the story over and over again. Last night, Tyler, Batul and I decided that it would be best if we all just go home instead of congregating at Isaiah's place like we usually do after traumatic events. I couldn't even speak when I walked through the door, but I didn't have to - Tyler had already called him and told him the whole story.

"You can't listen to what Tyler says. He's literally a jackass."

"Yeah, but it makes sense." He started jumping again, a little bit out of breath. "If there were twenty cops shooting at the three of you all at once, including snipers, how did you all make it out without a scratch?"

"We didn't. Tyler got grazed." I said.

He stopped jumping. "You know what I mean, Geneva. If your story was true, you'd all be dead right now."

I stared at him, irritated by his jumping and skepticism. "Well I didn't just imagine cops shooting at us. They spoke to us, Isaiah. They smiled at us."

"You should be happy about this. A bunch of white cops run into two and a half black people, and they smile at them? We're making strides in the movement."

I picked up his sock from off the floor and chucked it at him. "This isn't funny."

He laughed. He jumped. He laughed, and jumped, and kept doing it until I had to storm for the door. If I didn't, I might smack him.

"Okay, Geneva, I'm sorry," He got off the bed and pulled me back into the room before I could leave. "Fine. You want me to be serious? Here's my theory: it's the Red Liquor people. The note that they left for us that said 'wrong move' was them telling us that we did something that pissed them off, so in retaliation they were going to do something to piss us off. This was that thing. They're playing mind games with us. So, they sent a bunch of fake cops to scare you guys. Those were probably fake guns, and they were playing gun sound effects on a stereo somewhere nearby."

"But how did nobody come out of any houses to see what was going on?" I asked him.

"Maybe because they looked out of their windows and saw that it was fake. You just couldn't see that because you were in the midst of it. You were scared. It's understandable. It happens to everyone." He said to me. Then he cupped my face in his hands and said: "See how easy that was? Problem solved."

He let go of me, went back on his bed and started to jump again.

I wanted to tell him that if he kept jumping on that mattress, he'd have to throw it out before he got to sleep on it for a week, but a different thought came into my mind. I watched him, following his excited little body, and realized that there was something not adding up. In a situation like this, the Isaiah I know would be relentlessly trying to figure out what was going on. He'd give me his full attention and scope out all of the worst case scenarios to this. It'd be the topic of the day.

Yet he was in front of me acting like an oblivious toddler.

"Speaking of theories and solving problems," I said to him, "what did you and Yvette discover yesterday on your journey?"

His jumping slowed to a stop. He stood on the bed, still bouncing but keeping his feet on the mattress. He looked up at the ceiling as if it was the person who just asked him a question. This went on for some time, maybe about thirty seconds, and then he got off of the bed, picked up a glass of water on the floor, and headed for the door as if he was trying to bring it to the kitchen.