Children of God

Chapter Four

Al

“You do know what we’re doing now, don’t you?” I asked. Joe shook his head as he opened the door on the driver’s side.

“Picking up groceries.”

He looked over to me again, shook his head. I nodded. He shook his head again. I nodded again. Then he sighed, and laughed softly.

“I’m gonna kill him. I really am.” he chuckled. I felt he wasn’t joking.

Y’see picking up groceries is a hassle on its own, because Robert’s a picky eater. But picking up groceries for Robert days after he’s had an exchange of bullets with cops, after he’s probably killed cops, in a place known for cops, that’s murder.

We started driving. We pulled out onto the road, and let a small blue Corvette pass us by. Joe directed us in the opposite direction and gain a little speed.

“So we’re being bugged right? We gotta be.” Joe droned, flourishing his left hand while his right remained glued to the wheel.

“I don’t know. Could be a couple of people in the family who don’t want Robert, want to be Robert. Someone could just hate us, I don’t know.” I sighed. Joe scoffed, and turned to the right onto a busy road.

“Someone hates the family. Who could’a thunk it?!” he laughed. He kept going, just scraping by an old bus. The rest of the drive was quiet, because I don’t think either of us trusted each other any more.  

We pulled up outside DeMarco Family Fruit Market. Small joint, got just enough room for a refrigerator that held a couple of pints of milk. It was owned by Casey DeMarco and his wife Daniela. Casey was another piece of lint in Robert’s pocket.

We walked inside, and Joe pushed himself over to the milk. Casey, fat piece of crap that he is, was sitting down behind the counter.

“Oh hey Al.” he said, raising his eyebrows. This is code.

If you want to help, in any other life, you use your hand to call someone over. That’s code. Everything we have is code, but that’s a point for another day that may never come. And raised eyebrows are code for a special thing.

They’re code for an incoming cop. I swivel my head to the slightest degree, and saw a tall lean copper coming with a baton the size’a baguette in his hand. He twirled it in his hand. I knew he meant business.

I threw money onto the counter.

“Keep the change.” I blurted quickly, and grabbed Joe, who just managed to grab a pint of milk. I dragged him to the car, and I thought the cop hadn’t seen us. Most of them are blind to things.

I got Joe to drive, and seeing as he had his own grievances, he was more than happy to skedaddle. And of course, to skedaddle meant to leave with two patrol cars right behind you. We were being followed, told to pull over, simple as.

So of course we sped up. We considered two turns, both for opposite directions. I told Joe to go left, he instead took a hard swerve to the right, tapping against the side of an old Hummer. He gained speed as sirens filled our ears, and took a severe right again, almost ramming the car into an oncoming bus.

“This is against our rights!” Joe screamed as he managed to just slip into a little alley that connected two streets. We gained a huge imprint on the front of the bonnet when we smacked into a big dumpster,  but kept going. Crossing Gaiteros Heights Bridge, and down along the Hodgen River, I felt as free as a bird being hunted by bigger birds with bigger claws.

Then we were startled, at least I was. Two distinct sounds.

“They’re tryin’ to shoot us out of it!” I yelled, for the obviousness of course. Joe responded by turning sharply into the left side of the road then driving straight at the oncoming incarceration that awaited us. Bullets hit the windshield, leaving noticeable cracks but somehow by the grace of God we weren’t hit by any projectiles. We rammed past them and sped up the wrong side of the road. We almost flipped as Joe tried to avoid colliding head on with a garbage truck, but managed to regain the car’s composure (but not ours. Oh no, not by a long shot).