Читать книгу Man Alive - Thomas Page McBee - Страница 15

7

Oakland

April 2010 ♦ 29 years old

The way the mugger looked through me, I knew he was gripped by that same zombie energy that had made my father’s eyes go vacant, and that’s what tipped me to the fact that I could die. People die every day for less.

The part of me still present, the part that wanted to move, saw another truth: everyone still had a chance. Parker could run, Vader could let us go, Dad could be a different man, I could live.

Down on 40th, a car honked an irritated staccato, breaking the spell. Vader grabbed my bag and skittered a few feet off, clutching it to his chest.

Wake up wake up wake up. I felt the pain radiating waves from my knees, the bruises forming.

Several blocks away, headlights began to make their dull way toward us through the fog. Vader studied the car’s approach with agitation, turned toward it and then away. “Don’t move,” he warned, backing away with the gun trained on me, not Parker.

The headlights grew brighter. Suddenly he was back, a blast of stale-smelling clothes. He grabbed my collar, dragged me from the sidewalk into the bushes of the side street, under the broken lamp. I could finally see Parker, just a couple of feet away. Her eyes, blue and green, met mine. The fear in them was disorienting.

That’s not a real gun, I tried to tell her without words.

“Stay,” he said. He crossed the street just as the car approached, and then ducked behind a parked truck.

We should run, I thought dreamily.

The car slowed, the tires sticky on the damp pavement. Vader had miscalculated the scope of its headlights and I found myself illuminated, hallelujah, on my knees on a residential street, blinking into the light.

I held my breath and shook out a little wave. The car lingered for a minute, mid-intersection. I gestured one more time, the ache of my knees surfacing again into my consciousness, my back pulsing, my body thawing back into place.

I listened for Vader as I’d learned to do with my father, but all was still beneath the sound of the Volvo’s rough engine.

I closed my eyes and the car squealed off, a spooked horse.

No one will rescue you, I told myself. Somewhere far away, a siren screamed into the night.