story
Volume 26, Number 4

Simple Statistics

Michelle Fiedler

Stretching his pockets for the last dime inside, thought about dinner, thought about breakfast tomorrow. Money slides in and out of his hands like water, never sticking around long enough to quench his thirst. It was dry with that desperation a person gets when they are past desires and move into necessity. The mindset when the mind is already made up, and there is no changing it. The kinda place people make wrong decisions and bad choices, but it was already too late. Walking past the threshold of the open door, the door that was always open for boys like him, he made a conscious effort to think that he would be different; the exception to the rule.

* * *

You could say there was something about her. The way she walked, the way she talked. Her hair swung back and forth, swishing between the shoulder blades poking out of her shirt. Her name was Ashley or Brittany, something without flavor or thought. The name wasn’t worth remembering, but the ass she walked away with left heads turned. She knew it too, purposely adding an extra sway to her step. The kind of steps you take when you are on a mission. Her destination was an apartment on the corner that belonged to a man she neither loved nor wanted, but who had what she needed.

* * *

He had promised his mom that he would stay out of the streets, study in school and find something to be the best at. He struggled the most with the latter. As hard as he tried, he could never seem to find his niche. He tried to hoop with the boys at the park, but his lanky frame and clumsy feet made it near impossible for him to be much of an athlete. School was just a place to be; excelling at it seemed like swimming against the current. It was enough to keep his head above water and survive the mundanity of the school day. Drowning in lowered expectations and constant criticism, acceptance into the group was a welcomed escape. It started small with errands and pats on the back, to blunts and a few car thefts. The first big deal was a rush he never knew before and a high that he couldn’t turn his back on. That niche he was searching for became the vocation of a troubled youth.

* * *

It started at a party. She was 17, and the only worry she could think of was how to make this weekend better than the last. It usually included upping the ante and adding to the lines of worry that were becoming a chronic feature of her parents’ faces. They loved her: yes, but didn’t know the half of it. The thousands of secrets she kept just below the surface, washing them down with the cum and the drinks she swallowed on a weekly basis. Not wanting to know more and not wanting to risk losing her altogether, they thought the money and the quiet worrying would justify their lack of knowledge. The soft kisses of an older man and his offer of an escape were just the push a series of events needed to unfold. The sticky solution proved temporary but caught her feet in a lengthy addiction.

* * *

It started by just selling the green to make the green. The money came in faster than he was anticipating. He had all the things that his single mother couldn’t afford to give him. The shoes, the clothes, the drugs, the bitches, he had it all. That feeling filled him up. The feeling of being somebody that people noticed. He had never been noticed before. He liked the way women approached him when he rolled up with the crew to a party or a club. They would sway over to him like he mattered, inching close to him, smiling. He always felt invisible to the outside world. Yeah, he had his family and some close friends, but to the world he was nothing. Society never expected much, but with this money he felt like he could fly. He was completely and utterly visible, unmistakably a man worth your time. “A man” he would think “Is this what a real man is?” but he didn’t know many men who picked the other option. Dealing was immediate gratification and one of the few visible signs of success he had seen up close.

* * *

Whipping her hair back and forth on the dance floor. She couldn’t have been happier. Even if it was just for a few hours, it beat where she was coming from. She spent most of the day locked away in her apartment with tears streaking her pillow; she was pregnant. Three years since all of this started, and all she really had to show for it was a swelling belly. Even now, between the beat of the music and the numbness of her body, she refused to recognize the life growing inside her. She thought this moment would be different. Remembering the many times she lived her dreams out loud to her friends at 5th-grade sleepovers: “I’m going to marry Jimmy and have 3 kids, 1 boy and 2 girls, and I will give them all ‘J’ names.” Now she had to bury the questions. Not wanting to give the growing limbs inside her a name or face. The father wasn’t Jimmy, her elementary-school crush, but a much bigger demon. Maybe he loved her; it was hard to tell. He supported her with rent, jewelry, gifts and anything she could speak the words to ask for—but nothing is free. His price was high: her dignity, sobriety and sanity were drained straight from the vein and lovingly licked clean.

* * *

Maybe it was the greed or the continued confidence that came with his new lifestyle that made him say yes. He usually wouldn’t agree to such a stupid plan, but that was the old him. He had power now, he was somebody, they trusted him. It was a simple robbery. “Pull out the guns and show them what we can do with them. Show them who we are.” They could talk anything up and make it sound like it was everything and the only thing worth doing. They told him to just be backup, be ready to shoot, keep your eyes open. His hands shook when they gave him the gun. Its weight looked awkward in his 15-year-old hands. They still looked more like a boy’s than a man’s. They walked him out the door, tempting him with recognition to return when the street lights cut on. Later that day, alone in his bedroom, he caught himself thinking maybe this will be what makes a man, pointing the pistol in the face of his reflection in the mirror.

* * *

"Hey baby" she said as her head buzzed rapidly. The secret was getting harder and harder to keep. Her mind ran out of control as her body tried to play it off cool. She knew she couldn't tell him. She justified the whole situation with the thought of getting rid of it, waiting for the day that she could put it all behind her. He kissed her on the cheek with a hidden hostility. It rushed a rigid and broken sensation through her blood, a reminder of the many broken promises, lies and escalating fights they shared. Despite the fear, she felt a need. When she lay next to him at night, she knew he was her only option for survival. What he provided for her was what kept her around. She moved quickly past him and tried to avoid eye contact. Just as he was about to confront her, his phone rang. He answered it and attempted to move out of earshot but she could still hear him. “What the fuck do you mean? Do you know who it was? How could you let a bunch of motherfuckers like that rob your dumb ass? Just let me handle it. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” His voice was husky and harsh on the phone. He had that look in his eyes that automatically made her take a step back when he hung up. All he said was he needed to go, and he walked out the door, leaving her motionless on the other side.

* * *

His mother made macaroni and cheese for dinner. It was his favorite meal. She made it because she sensed something was wrong. He was always out, never giving her a reason or an answer to her questions. She worried less because that’s what mothers do and more because she knew what happened past the front stoop of their two-bedroom apartment. She needed an excuse now to eat dinner with her 15-year-old son and hoped his favorite meal would do the trick. However, he kinda just picked at his food, claiming to not be hungry, but in actuality he was so nervous about what would happen when the sun sank behind the buildings that he couldn’t get himself to eat what was in front of him. Besides, macaroni and cheese was kid stuff, he convinced himself. As soon as he could he bolted out the door, gun clinging to his backbone, leaving his mother with two barely eaten plates on the table in front of her. He might never know it, but she was just as nervous at the setting of the sun as he was.

* * *

She felt a sense of relief when he walked out the door. Not just because the tension was high between them, but also because she was losing her high. As she came down, her head ached. Searching for what she had left buried at the bottom of her purse, she eventually emptied its contents on the floor. She sat on the floor alongside the mess, and the problems and looming appointments to make washed away. After a stretch of activity, she eventually fell face first into the couch. Her dress hiked up to her ribs, exposing the delicate underwear underneath. Her back rose heavily with each breath, each exhale and inhale waiting its turn. The rest of her lay motionless, a stain on every opportunity she had possessed. Hours later there was a knock at the door and then another. “POLICE! POLICE! OPEN UP!” No response. She wouldn’t have known it, but the sun was beginning to peek through the blinds. The world was waking up around her. “WE HAVE A WARRANT.” The door busted open, leaving splinters to fall to the ground. She was shaken awake and thrown to her feet. Unaware of what was happening, her hands were stretched behind her back. Unaware of the child beneath her skin, the officer flung her around, lifting his hands up and down her body, “accidentally” grazing a little too high and a little too low. As she was escorted out of the building, questions she didn’t know the answers to were thrown at her from every angle.

* * *

When he arrived at his friends’s place, that ominous sun left only a light hue to the night sky before it disappeared altogether. It was time. He had the gun tucked in the back of his pants like he had seen done in the movies. Just the thought of it there gave him a sense of power. Five of them piled into an SUV and drove to their destination. He watched the shapes and shadows as they casually moved through and out of their neighborhood. They pulled up in front of a house with brown chipping paint and a screened-in front porch. He knew what to do; he was the lookout. “Just wait here and keep your eyes open for some bullshit.” Their words ringing in his head as he watched them run for the front door. He stood with his back against the car, feeling its engine hum. He watched, he waited, ready, holding his finger on the trigger, but nothing happened. They came running back, bags in hand, and everyone rushed back into the SUV before they sped away. Only after a few blocks, there was an uproar of music and cheers. They were all smiles, turning to each other, sharing the same rush of the theft. It was time to celebrate. They were met back at a usual hangout spot with drinks and women. The night went on from there, a chance to appreciate the money they would make off the evening’s activities. It all went by so quickly, and he knew he needed to be home before morning. His mom would be up for work in a couple of hours. So he stepped out the front door with his hands in his pockets. The cold metal of his gun still pressed uselessly against his lower back. Just steps from the curb, he heard the squeals of a set of tires. Then a pop, pop, pop, and before he recognized what it was he had sunk to his knees. Two in the chest. Retaliating for an event he had neither planned nor done much of anything for.

* * *

The jumpsuit was made up of a scratchy and thick material. It wasn’t orange or striped like she might have thought. Instead it was a dark navy blue. It strategically laid wide enough to cover the symbol of the passing time she had spent there. Her belly just barely peeked through.

She had cried many nights over the tiny human being that was developing eyes and ears inside her womb. Only two more months till he would enter the outside world, but it would be at least another year for her. The weight of her incarceration and addiction on her son were not a welcoming set of statistics. A son; no one told her officially but somehow she just knew. What could he become with a mother and a father behind bars? She still craved her vices, and with a criminal record her options were limited on the outside. Her parents still hadn’t visited her. maybe out of fear or the discovery of tough love; she didn’t know. She was just another addiction-ridden blue jumpsuit behind these walls, carrying a boy that the world claimed would fill the same laceless shoes as her.

* * *

The blood pooled, reflecting the street lights, collecting underneath his dark-skinned body, disappearing into the abyss of the streets. His flesh and bones would be forever tied to the streets he’d promised to stay away from. His memory intertwined in the community and added to the tally of fatalities under the column of black bodies. Statistics often forget about the souls and stories behind the rows of numbers and facts. No one but his mother will cling to the knowledge of his favorite flavor of ice cream or the way he said his s’s at age five. The rest of the world will see the caution tape and the tears streaming down the unknown faces of a city in turmoil over another gone too soon.

~