Bring on the Blessings (26 page)

She met his eyes across the table.

“We all need balance, Bernadine. Took me a long time to figure that out, but it’s one of the best things I ever learned.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“So you’re an authority on me now?”

He shook his head. “Here we go. Draw down, girl, would you. Just trying to get you to slow your roll some before you run over yourself.”

“I’m fine.” With all the stuff she had on her plate, his advice was the last thing she needed.

“Okay, I was just trying to look out for a friend.” He stood, drained his coffee, and left the deck.

Stung by guilt, she called his name, but he kept walking until he disappeared. She dropped her head and felt like crap.

T
hursday night at the rec center was Movie Night. Tamar and her friends ran the concessions, offering popcorn, baked goods, and other small treats. Anybody who wanted to come was welcome. Admission was free.

On screen tonight was the digitally animated film
The Incredibles
for the kids, and the second feature, for the adults, was
Stormy Weather,
featuring the lovely Miss Lena Horne.

As everyone found their seats, Bernadine saw Malachi enter accompanied by a short, well-dressed middle-aged woman she didn’t know. They both had popcorn as if they were on a date, and when he looked over and spotted Bernadine he gave her a cool nod before turning his attention back to his companion.

Bernadine slumped in her seat and focused on eating her popcorn. Was she jealous? She didn’t want to admit it, but yeah, she was, just a little. Was she planning on dealing with her feelings? No.

Lily and Trent came to sit nearby, and she was happy to
have their company. They looked so happy now that they’d finally reconnected after so many years apart, she couldn’t help but be happy for them.

Amari walked down to tell Trent, “Preston and I are going to watch the movie for awhile, then go shoot some hoop in the gym.”

“Okay, but let me know if you decide to head home before the show’s over.”

“Gotcha.”

Once Amari was back in his seat he looked over to Crystal on his right and to Preston on his left and said, “We’re on.”

Riley Curry had had enough of state regulators and their red tape. He was going to get Cletus out of jail and he was doing it tonight. Because this was the plains of Kansas and not someplace like Los Angeles or Detroit, there were no all-night guards, which he planned to take full advantage of.

When he reached the grounds, he backed his old white truck up to the area where the holding pens and barns were, then cut his lights. In the silence, he walked up to the gates. Using a pair of old bolt cutters, he made a hole in the chain-link fence big enough for Cletus to be able to pass through without difficulty. The cutting made his healing collarbone smart a bit, but he ignored it and then stepped through.

Putting the bolt cutters under his arm, he clicked on his flashlight and looked around. He had no way of knowing if his hog was inside one of the barns or in the pens out back, so he moved deeper onto the property to see what he could find.

It didn’t take him long. Cletus was in one of the pens and was lying down asleep. “Cletus,” he called out in a hoarse excited whisper. Riley was so happy to see him. “Wake up, big boy. Cletus!”

He tested the edge of the wired enclosure warily, hoping it wasn’t electrified to give him a shock, but nothing happened so he used the bolt cutter on the hanging padlock and pushed open the gates.

One of the big lights mounted on a nearby barn lit the scene well enough for the now-awakened hog to recognize Riley for who he was, or at least that’s how it seemed because the pig trotted over and Riley hugged him around his massive neck. There was little time for celebration, however, since he didn’t want to risk discovery, so a few moments later, Riley and the hog hurried to the truck. Cletus climbed the ramp into the bed, Riley slammed the tailgate shut, and they were off. Riley had no idea where they were going, but he’d figure that out later. Cletus was rescued. It was the only thing that mattered.

Just as the action in
The Incredibles
began to heat up, Amari, Crystal, and Preston slipped outside. While Preston and Crystal kept watch, Amari took a quick look around the vehicles in the nearby parking lot for a suitable target.

Since he didn’t have a lot of time, he decided Malachi’s would have to do. Unlike some of the others, Malachi’s red truck was old, there was no alarm system, clubs on the steering wheel, or any other visible deterrents to slow down a thief. He quickly got inside, took a minute to
work his way into the steering column, found the wires he needed by touch alone and started that baby up.

His accomplices squeezed in beside him on the front seat, Crystal in the middle. They quietly closed the truck’s doors and rolled away. The way Amari figured it would take fifteen minutes tops to get Crystal to the highway and another fifteen to get back. The thirty-minute window might be tight, but they were under way now, and it was too late to turn back.

“I appreciate this, Amari.”

“Just be careful who you hitchhike with, okay?”

“I will, don’t worry. I’ll call you soon as I get there.”

Preston asked, “You really think you can find her?”

“Yeah, I do.”

They rolled past Tamar’s house and then by the Jeffersons’ and the fence they spent the summer whitewashing. Amari was driving as fast and as safely as the dirt roads allowed because he wanted to bring the truck back in one piece.

“Time?” he called out.

Preston lifted his wrist and peered at his watch. “We’ve been gone seven minutes.”

“Okay.” The wooden blocks for the gas and brake that he’d made last week in the carpentry class Mr. Dobbs ran at school seemed to be working well. They were crude versions of the ones he’d had in Detroit, but he just needed them to stay in place until this was over. He was admittedly stressed but he couldn’t deny how good it felt to be behind the wheel again. Malachi’s truck was no Escalade, but it moved.

When they saw the signs leading to Highway 183 South, the teenage occupants cheered. Almost there.

“Any particular place you want to be dropped?” Amari asked, keeping his eyes on the road ahead and on his mirrors. There’d been no traffic so far, but the ramp to the highway was just ahead and the big lights lining the major north-south corridor could be seen. The last thing he needed was a run-in with the po-pos.

Crystal looked around as they merged onto the highway. “Up there, underneath that big light.”

It was about a quarter of a mile ahead. Even though Amari’s blocks allowed him to reach the pedals, he was still short and he could just see over the wheel. When they came off the ramp, he merged ahead of a semi that moved over to let him on, and when Amari looked up the trucker was looking right down on him. “Shit!”

“What?” Preston called out in alarm.

“Look back and see if that trucker’s on his radio?”

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

Crystal and Preston both turned.

Crystal cried out, “Yeah, he is.”

He cursed again, “He’s probably calling the police.”

The air in the truck was tense. Amari took the truck up to eighty. He could feel the body rattling but he ignored it, focusing instead on getting to the lighted spot where Crystal wanted to be dropped off. Eyes glued to his mirrors because he could smell the police nearby, he said to her, “Crystal, you’re going to have to get out quick. Okay.”

She readied herself and said in a shaky voice, “Okay.”

Preston was praying silently, “Please don’t let us get caught,” over and over again.

Just as Amari eased the truck to the shoulder and began to relax, he spotted a county sheriff’s cruiser ahead sitting with its lights out.

“Dammit!” he yelled and floored the truck back onto the highway and past the cruiser, which of course gunned out onto the road and gave chase.

Preston had never been in trouble with the police in his life, except for the fire, but that didn’t count. He was so scared he wanted to cry. “Drive, Amari!” he screamed. “Drive!”

He didn’t have to tell him twice. They could hear the sirens now, and when they looked back they could see the blue light on the top of the police car spinning wildly. Amari scanned the road ahead for a turnaround or a ramp or anything else that would enable him to shake the car on his ass, but there was nothing. Back home in Detroit he could have used the interconnecting expressways or a nearby neighborhood to lose himself in, but this was Kansas, so he floored it and kept going.

When Malachi’s phone buzzed in his pocket, he took it out and peered at the lit-up caller ID in the darkened movie theater. Wondering what Sheriff Will Dalton wanted with him, he excused himself from his date and stepped outside to take the call.

Afterward, he went back inside to alert the people the sheriff would be needing to see.

In the backseat of the cop car, Amari was understand
ably glum. The sheriff had been nice enough not to throw the three of them in jail, but the family reunion he was driving them to wasn’t going to be pretty.

Needless to say, he was right. There was a lot of yelling, Crystal crying, and privileges taken away: like the video game center, which just about killed Preston, and no more of Tamar’s homemade ice cream, which personally devastated Amari, but it was the disappointment on the faces of all the adults that hurt the most, especially Ms. Bernadine’s.

Malachi didn’t press charges, but he did want to press Amari into a small pancake. “You’re going to owe me for the rest of your life for this stunt, young gun,” he pointed out as he walked with Trent and Amari back to the house. His lady friend had driven herself back to Hays.

“I know.”

“Got a bunch of barns around here that need mucking out. Planning to put your name on the pitchforks as the beginning down payment.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I know I screwed up, but I was just trying to help Crystal.”

“We understand that,” Trent told him.

“Are you going to send me back?”

Malachi looked over at his son. This was entirely Trent’s call. He knew what his son was going to say, but Amari needed to hear it from him.

“No, Amari.”

“You sure? I’m a big boy, I can take the truth.”

Trent stopped and said coolly, “The truth is, you steal any more cars, and people will be asking, ‘Whatever hap
pened to that boy Amari that used to steal cars?’ And the answer will be, ‘His daddy killed him, remember? Funeral was years ago.’”

Amari met his eyes.

“Don’t ever put this town on front street with the police again. You hear me?”

“Yes,” he said softly.

After a moment of silence they resumed the walk, and Amari looked up at Trent, “Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“You just called yourself my dad. Is that who we are, father and son?”

“Would you rather be father and daughter?”

For the first time since being brought back by Sheriff Dalton, Amari allowed himself a smile.

Trent looked down at this boy who would probably make his life way more interesting than it needed to be before he went off to college said, “Yeah, Amari. Father and son. Which makes Tamar your great-grandmother and the old guy next to you your grandpa.”

“I prefer OG,” Malachi said with a sniff.

Trent cracked, “Stands for Old Geezer, right?”

“Do you hear the hate?” Malachi asked his grandson.

Amari grinned and they walked on. He now had a dad, a granddad, and a house with his own room. For a reformed car thief, Amari thought life was pretty good.

Preston was sitting up in his room waiting for Round Two. As if getting blasted by the adults at the rec center hadn’t been bad enough, now he was going to have to en
dure an additional round of torture at the hands of the marines. He’d told Amari from the beginning the plan was bogus, but no, he wanted to help Crystal.

Looking back on the incident, he had to admit he’d been more scared than he’d ever been in his life. If the truck hadn’t run out of gas at the end of the chase, no telling what might have happened. Amari managed to get the truck out of traffic and onto the shoulder. When they got out of the truck, Amari and Crystal immediately raised their hands above their heads, knelt on the pavement, then laid down flat, arms and legs spread-eagled, as if they’d had run-ins with the cops all the time. He of course had been standing up so scared and frozen by the big beams from the cop car that he couldn’t move. Only after the sheriff advanced with his gun drawn and barked, “Get on the ground, son!” did he join his friends facedown in the gravel and dirt on the side of the highway. He never wanted to experience anything like this ever again.

The knock on his door broke into his thoughts. Seated in the chair at his desk, he looked toward the door. He took in a deep breath, steeled himself, and called quietly, “Come in.”

It was the Paynes. He’d expected only the colonel. He was glad Mrs. Payne had come too. Her husband was less likely to commit murder with her looking on.

Barrett asked, “How are you? Quite the night.”

“Yeah. I was terrified.”

Barrett studied him for a moment. “Didn’t expect you to admit that.”

“I don’t see why not. I’ve never been in trouble with the police before, except for setting that house fire. But I had to then! She wouldn’t give me an inhaler and the doctor said I might die if I had another bad attack. Anyway, I told Amari it was a stupid plan from the beginning.”

He saw the adults pass a look between them but didn’t know them well enough to decipher the meaning.

“But you went along.”

“Yeah. There I was lying facedown in the dirt. Amari and Crystal acted like it was no big deal.”

Mrs. Payne stated the obvious. “You children were lucky you weren’t killed in that high-speed chase.”

He looked down at his lap. “I know. Guess you’ll be sending me back,
huh
?”

Barrett asked, “That’s up to you. Do you want to go back to Milwaukee?”

Preston looked into each of their faces. “No, ma’am and sir, I don’t.”

“Good, because we’d like you to stay and grow and mature and do all the things a young man with your great potential is capable of.”

Preston’s mouth dropped. He turned wide eyes to Mrs. Payne, who responded with a smile and said, “Since there isn’t going to be a bloodbath, I’ll let you two men talk alone.”

Once she was gone, Barrett said, “Surprised by what I just said?”

“Yeah. I—I didn’t think you liked me very much.”

“I do. I like that you enjoy books and history and that
you’re great at video games, but I don’t know much else about you.”

“I don’t know much about you either, except that you like books and history, and about your father.”

“And that I’m a hard ass.”