Criminal (9 page)

Dee had weed, so we all smoked up—even Bird a little—all of us chilling, watching TV. The baby rolling on the floor. Laughing. Us all getting silly. Eventually the baby went down to bed and we played this drinking game Dee knows called the Pope Is Russian before we all went to sleep ourselves.

My mouth knew to skip over these things, though my mind didn't.

The next morning, he was on me before I was even awake. Hungry. Needing. Full of love. He finished and we went into the kitchen and I made biscuits. I felt happy, calm. It had been so nice that Bird and Dee got along the night before, that he was in such a good mood. We ate together, tired and bleary but laughing. Dee went to the gym and Bird and I cleaned up, got Jamelee ready so they could go out shopping with Bird's grandma Rose and auntie Melora. I gave the baby a bath so that Bird got some time on her own. And I let myself get a little dressed up too, thinking about what Dee and I might do together, by ourselves.

When Ms. Rose and Melora came to get Bird, I saw Dee pulling
up along the curb too. I expected him to come in, but he didn't. Just Bird's auntie and grandma, without knocking. They stood in the kitchen telling me I should come with them, but I said I was having a special weekend with my boyfriend instead. I saw Melora give Bird a look, but Ms. Rose shook her finger at me in a sly way and laughed. Dee finally got out of his truck as we all came out of the house. He had some kind of overnight bag in his hand, which I know he didn't have when he left. It wasn't the same thing he put his gym clothes in, either. I wondered if we were going to a hotel somewhere.

Bird and them all said hello to him, polite, but he didn't smile much back. As they drove off, Ms. Rose hollered out the window to Dee, “You take her somewhere nice.” He lifted his hand, watching them. I was glad I'd had time to put on one of my cute tops and made sure there were plenty of condoms around. As I stood next to Dee in the driveway, everything felt very . . . special.

I didn't say nearly all of that either. Mostly just that Dee got back from the gym as Bird was leaving. That I knew they'd be away all day.

As soon as they were gone, he asked me did I have those wigs he asked me for before.

“We going to a costume party?” I was feeling light and sassy. But he just scowled, so I told him they were in the closet.

I'd ordered the two wigs, special, from the salon weeks ago: one short brown—almost like a man's—and the other a long flowing red one. I didn't
know why he needed them. These exact styles. All he'd said when I asked was, “I gotta do something.”

I brought them to him. He nodded and took them off their foam heads. He stuffed them into his bag, which I could see had clothes in it, most of them black.

I asked him what was up.

“It's a surprise.” He kind of smiled. “Let's go.”

I asked him where we were going.

“Just on a drive.”

When I locked the door behind us, I saw him looking at Bird's car.

“How long's Bird gone?” he wanted to know.

“Probably all day,” I told him. I put my arms around his waist and rubbed my face between his shoulder blades. Let my hands move down toward his belt buckle. I wanted to go back in the house, restart what we had going on this morning.

“Let's take her car, then,” he said.

I thought he was right, Bird's car would be more exciting, but that we should check with her first. Maybe on this occasion, since it was special, she'd be okay with it.

He put his hand on my wrist as I reached for my phone.

“Baby, you know she don't like me.” He was smiling down at me. Sexy. Winking.

I told him okay, but we had to get her some gas while we were out.

I skipped over the parts about the wigs and the clothes
to the police. I didn't want them to know he'd been planning it, thinking ahead. But everything about Bird's Mustang I made sure to say all of. So they understood Bird had no idea we'd taken her car, didn't know anything about it.

We got in, and Dee put the bag at his feet. We held hands, sweet. He told me to head to the interstate. Dee put the stereo on, loud, but the pulsing music felt good. A kind of holiday, just the two of us.

I didn't pay much attention to what we passed or even, really, how long I was driving. It just felt good, letting Dee lead me wherever he wanted. A surprise. Eventually he told me to get off the interstate, and we drove some more, turned, drove, turned. I didn't really know where we were, but there were brand-new strip malls and steak houses and the biggest Walmart I've ever seen. Eventually he told me to slow down, turn into a subdivision. There was a brick sign at the entrance, the name in cursive. The houses were bigger and newer and farther apart than the ones in our neighborhood. We took another turn and he told me to stop the car just past this yellow house with a pretty front porch. Full of plants. I had no idea who lived there. I thought maybe it was a party, though there weren't many other cars around. Was I finally going to meet his family? His friends? Again, I was glad I'd gotten a little dressed up.

He looked out my window. “You see down there?”

He was pointing slightly behind us, between two other houses. I don't remember what they looked like, but the grass between them
was bright and damp. I thought, for a second, I wanted to lie down in it with Dee.

He told me to follow the road we were on all the way to the stop sign, go through it, and then take the very first left into a cul-de-sac that ended on the other side of those two houses.

“When I tell you,” he said, “you drive over there, and I'll meet you.”

I was starting to get a strange feeling. I asked him what he was going to do.

“Don't you trust me?” he said.

“Yes, of course,” I said right back.

He took out the short brown wig and handed it to me. That, and a big, mildew-smelling flannel shirt. “Then put these on.”

I was trying to keep the idea in my head that this was some kind of funny game—maybe some elaborate trick to play on his mom or something—but I didn't like the creepy way it was feeling. When I asked him about it again, though, he got mad.

“Just put it on and shut up,” he said.

So I put on the wig and watched him as he pulled a billowy ladies' blouse out of the bag and took off his T-shirt. He put on the blouse. For a strange reason I wanted to laugh, but the serious look on his face, and the way he kept looking around at the other houses, it wasn't funny at all. He took out a black miniskirt and put that on too. Tights. His boots back on over those. I knew then something was really wrong.

But when I told him I wanted to leave, he got angry. Yelling things like “shut the fuck up,” and “keep your ugly mouth shut,” and “you'll do what I fucking tell you to do.” Everything around me got sharp and bright. I was blinking, fast, feeling really scared but not knowing what to do. My heart was racing. This was no romantic getaway.

I paused. Those disguises—I'd skipped over them in my story, but it made me feel the same strangeness thinking of them again. How intentional it all seemed. But then I took a breath and remembered my purpose. All I needed to do was give them enough to keep them away from Bird. Just to tell them we were there, but not her. At the scene. I told them Dee was acting strange, and I was scared. I couldn't help that part because it was so true.

He put the wig on and reached into the bag again. Two guns. I started freaking out. He grabbed my wrist, squeezing hard. I thought he might punch me, but he didn't. Instead he leaned in, kissed me hard.

“I gotta do something,” he told me. And it was hypnotizing, how sure and calm he was. “I need you to be cool. I need you to help me do this. Just this one thing. Don't ask me any more questions, all right? Just do what I tell you. When I say, drive past the stop sign, and turn into the cul-de-sac, and wait for me there. That's all you have to do.”

I asked him was he robbing somebody. Was this for his gang. He
put his hand over my mouth, and I could see his eyes, wide and deep. For a minute I couldn't see anything else.

“I need you, baby,” he said.

My pulse was pounding in my neck, but his hand on my mouth, the pressure of his eyes on me, made everything less crazy. A car came down the road behind us. I saw it in the rearview, and I guess I was still freaked out a little bit because for a minute I thought it was going to ram us from behind. I wanted to get out of there, get me and Dee away, and I started the car, which made Dee start cussing again, but then the car behind us started slowly backing into the driveway. In front of the yellow house.

Dee told me to get ready and gripped the guns tight up against his chest.

He wouldn't look at me anymore. He put his hand on the door handle. Through the window I could see the car in the driveway come to a stop.

Dee said, “Go now. Go, go, drive,” and at the same time he was somehow out, slamming the door shut. This all happened in about two seconds. I watched him cross the street. Four strides, five, and then up the driveway, aiming the guns out straight. I heard the shots, loud and fast, and my foot just automatically went down hard on the gas pedal because I didn't want to see what was happening. Bird's Mustang lunged down the road, pulling me with it. For a minute I didn't know what to do with the wheel and was afraid I was going
to crash. The shots kept coming. It was like they were following me. I could barely stay on the road.

The turn for the cul-de-sac came up quick, and I almost missed it. I thought I might've hit a mailbox. I was blinking, blinking so hard. Like I couldn't see. The second I stopped where Dee told me, he came running from between the houses, just like he said. His long red wig-hair was flying, and I remember thinking, “He looks like a god.” Like he was some kind of angry majestic Mexican god of fire or war. And then the driver's side door yanked open and he was pushing me across the seat, bruising me, banging my knee on the shift, shoving me into the passenger's side. The car jolted forward again as he started driving, and he threw the guns in my lap, told me to put them in the glove compartment. He was breathing hard and I knew not to ask him what had happened. I knew what happened. And I didn't want to know at all.

We hauled out of the subdivision, and were back on the interstate in no time. I was shaking, breathing ragged, so stunned I couldn't scream or cry or say anything. His bag was at my feet, a gaping hole of black. I felt the heat of the guns in my lap, and I had to get them off me. I knew enough, though, even in all of it, to hold them with the edge of the smelly flannel shirt so I wouldn't leave any print behind. I slammed the compartment door shut, but it felt like they were sitting there, steaming, watching me.

Finally I could talk. I asked Dee what the hell just happened.

I barely told them any of this. Definitely not about Dee's guns. Only that a car came up behind us, Dee got out, I heard gunshots, freaked out, and drove away. I told them Dee caught up with me around the corner, out of breath, and we left. I told them he didn't say much to me and that we just drove. Because in reality I'd screamed, “What did you just do?” and he answered me in a crazy, too-guilty sounding way. Right now for them, and Bird, I just needed to get the record straight. But I didn't have to tell them exact.

He didn't answer right off. And for that minute, I thought he was going to blow up at me. But then I looked over at him, and he was smiling. This big, beautiful, happy smile. He grinned like that and slapped his hand down on my thigh, started hollering, “We did it, baby!” and, “Woo-hooo, we fucking did it!” Like he just won the lottery and couldn't believe it. He kept laughing, ripping the red wig off and throwing it at my feet, saying, “Oh my God,” and, “We did it right on.” I couldn't believe how happy he was.

I asked who he'd shot. I was still shaking, but seeing him so excited made me shake less. He told me it was just somebody who got what he deserved. A thing that needed to be done.

“I thought you were going to freak,” he said, leaning over to kiss me on the side of the face. “Asking those questions, bugging out, but man, it was perfect.” He slammed his hand on the steering wheel, giddy, narrating how he got out of the car, just walked up to him and
then BLAM BLAM. He held his fingers into gun shapes. He would not stop grinning. He looked at me, so proud.

“And you. Fuckin' Ciree can't even drive like you sometimes, babe, I swear.”

I couldn't help smiling too then. His happiness was like something you could catch. Beside him, I felt all the fear fizzling. I told him how crazy he seemed, running between those houses.

“Baby, I
was
crazy!” he screamed, raising himself off the seat and shrieking at the windshield, face full of victory. “Totally fucking crazy, man.”

He laughed like a kid. A kid being tickled so bad he might wet his pants. It was scary, and terrible, and . . . awesome. I thought of the other girl then, his old girlfriend. The one he came back to me from—and no wonder. I knew she had never seen him like this, this wild. Or if she had, it had made her too afraid. She would have thought he was a monster. Nobody else could see and understand and love this part of him. This, I knew, was all for me.

His hand squeezed my thigh, kneading, moving higher and higher, up to the curved place just before the bottom of my fly.