“His baby shoes are there. A lock of his hair from his first haircut is there. There’s a poem he wrote me in second grade. You don’t understand. It’s all I got left of him. I can’t lose him all over again. I can’t,” Mya said. Her face was twisted into a half frown, half snarl that was moments away from becoming a vale of tears.
“Sis, I don’t think there’s nobody within a hundred miles that understands like I do. But if your house is on fire right now, ain’t nothing gonna be left by the time you get there,” Buddy Lee said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. But I gotta try,” Mya said.
Buddy Lee rubbed his face, then put his hands on his hips.
“Alright, let’s go. But call Ike and let him know we’re leaving,” Buddy Lee said.
“I’ll call him on the way,” Mya said.
They’d tried to call Ike three times. Two times it went straight to voicemail. The last time it didn’t even get that far. Buddy Lee knew there were parts of Red Hill that had spotty service. Then there were parts where you’d be better off sending a message by Pony Express than trying to make a phone call. That knowledge didn’t help calm his nerves. Splitting up had felt like a mistake. He knew going to the house was a mistake. But Mya didn’t give him much choice. He couldn’t make her stay, and there was no way he was going to let her go alone.
He didn’t have many mementos of Derek. The only one he really had was the picture in his wallet, and he couldn’t imagine how’d he react if that suddenly went up in flames. When the people you love are gone, it’s the things they’ve touched that keep them alive in your mind. A picture, a shirt, a poem, a pair of baby shoes. They become anchors that help you keep their memory from drifting away.
Mya turned onto Route 34 doing thirty-five. The first left would be Townbridge Road. The sky was full of stars that twinkled like cast-aside diamonds. Buddy Lee felt his stomach fall to his knees.
Mya turned onto Townbridge.
“Wait,” Buddy Lee said.
“What?” Mya said.
“Where’s the smoke? Where’s the flames? Where’s the god-blessed fire department?” he said. Mya eased her foot off the gas and stopped the car.
“Oh no,” Mya said.
The chrome spokes on the wheels of the fifteen motorcycles idling in front of her house shimmered in the glare of her headlights. The engines sounded like a pack of wolves snarling just before they set out for the hunt.
“Back up,” Buddy Lee said.
Mya didn’t move.
“BACK UP!” Buddy Lee screamed. Arianna began to cry. Mya put the car in reverse and hit the gas. The four cylinders under her hood sounded like a rusty hinge. Buddy Lee grabbed the machine gun from between his legs. He clicked off the safety and lay the gun in his lap.
* * *
“I did what you said. You can let me go now, right?” Randy said. He was in front of his house on his knees. Grayson had the barrel of a .357 pressed against the nape of his neck.
“Yeah, but you’re a fucking rat. Who does that shit to their neighbor?” Grayson said. He cracked Randy on the back of the head with the butt of his gun. He watched as the chick put the car in reverse and started backing up.
“LIGHT IT UP!” he roared. A few brothers set fire to the rags that draped the necks of the glass bottles they were holding. They tossed them through the windows of Ike and Mya’s house. The rest of the brothers took off after the small maroon sedan.
Mya ran off the road, took out a mailbox, then corrected herself and got back on the gravel. The headlights of the motorcycles advanced on them like a swarm of fireflies. Mya rocketed past the stop sign at the end of the road, slammed on the brakes, and put the car in drive.
Buddy Lee saw a new set of lights bearing down on them from the driver’s side.
“Fucking hell!” he said, just before Dome crashed into them with a late-model royal-blue Bronco like a wrecking ball. The car flipped over once, then twice before resting on its side, where it balanced precariously for a moment until gravity claimed what was hers and it ended up upside down on the roof. The bikes surrounded the car like a crowd watching a busker.
* * *
Buddy Lee’s mouth was full of blood. The bitter coppery taste was making him gag. He coughed and tried to spit. The blood splattered across his face. A few of his back teeth felt untethered from their sockets. His body was a live wire of agony. Pain sparked up and down every nerve, every synapse. He spit again, and this time a couple of his blocky back teeth came flying out and landed on the headliner.