It’s 12:58 a.m. When it hits 1:00 I am forcing myself out of this apartment. It has been both my sanctuary and my prison and for once I need to go breathe in the outside air instead of tearing through it to get from Point A to Point B. I have to count trees, maybe sing a favorite song while dipping my feet in the Hudson, and just do my best to be remembered as the young man who died too early.
It’s 1:00 a.m.
I can’t believe I’m never returning to my bedroom.
I unlock the front door, turn the knob, and pull the door open.
I shake my head and slam the door shut.
I’m not walking out into a world that will kill me before my time.
RUFUS EMETERIO
1:05 a.m.
Death-Cast is hitting me up as I’m beating my ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend to death. I’m still on top of this dude, pinning his shoulders down with my knees, and the only reason I’m not clocking him in the eye again is because of the ringing coming from my pocket, that loud Death-Cast ringtone everyone knows too damn well either from personal experience, the news, or every shitty show using the alert for that dun-dun-dun effect. My boys, Tagoe and Malcolm, are no longer cheering on the beat-down. They’re dead quiet and I’m waiting for this punk Peck’s phone to go off too. But nothing, just my phone. Maybe the call telling me I’m about to lose my life just saved his.
“You gotta pick it up, Roof,” Tagoe says. He was recording the beat-down because watching fights online is his thing, but now he’s staring at his phone like he’s scared a call is coming for him too.
“The hell I do,” I say. My heart is pounding mad fast, even faster than when I first moved up on Peck, even faster than when I first decked him and laid him out. Peck’s left eye is swollen already, and there’s still nothing but pure terror in his right eye. These Death-Cast calls go strong until three. He don’t know for sure if I’m about to take him down with me.
I don’t know either.
My phone stops ringing.
“Maybe it was a mistake,” Malcolm says.
My phone rings again.
Malcolm stays shut.
I wasn’t hopeful. I don’t know stats or nothing like that, but Death-Cast fucking up alerts isn’t exactly common news. And we Emeterios haven’t exactly been lucky with staying alive. But meeting our maker way ahead of time? We’re your guys.
I’m shaking and that buzzing panic is in my head, like someone is punching me nonstop, because I have no idea how I’m gonna go, just that I am. And my life isn’t exactly flashing before my eyes, not that I expect it to later on when I’m actually at death’s edge.
Peck squirms from underneath me and I raise my fist so he calms the hell down.
“Maybe he got a weapon on him,” Malcolm says. He’s the giant of our group, the kind of guy who would’ve been helpful to have around when my sister couldn’t get her seat belt off as our car flipped into the Hudson River.
Before the call, I would’ve bet anything Peck doesn’t have any weapon on him, since we’re the ones who jumped him when he was coming out of work. But I’m not betting my life, not like this. I drop my phone. I pat him down and flip him over, checking his waistband for a pocketknife. I stand and he stays down.
Malcolm drags Peck’s backpack out from under the blue car where Tagoe threw it. He unzips the backpack and flips it over, letting some Black Panther and Hawkeye comics hit the ground. “Nothing.”
Tagoe rushes toward Peck and I swear he’s about to kick him like his head’s a soccer ball, but he grabs my phone off the ground and answers the call. “Who you calling for?” His neck twitch surprises no one. “Hold up, hold up. I ain’t him. Hold up. Wait a sec.” He holds out the phone. “You want me to hang up, Roof?”
I don’t know. I still have Peck, bloodied and beat, in the parking lot of this elementary school, and it’s not like I need to take this call to make sure Death-Cast isn’t actually calling to tell me I won the lottery. I snatch the phone from Tagoe, pissed and confused, and I might throw up but my parents and sister didn’t so maybe I won’t either.
“Watch him,” I tell Tagoe and Malcolm. They nod. I don’t know how I became the alpha dog. I ended up in the foster home years after them.
I give myself some distance, as if privacy actually matters, and make sure I stay out of the light coming from the exit sign. Not trying to get caught in the middle of the night with blood on my knuckles. “Yeah?”
“Hello. This is Victor from Death-Cast calling to speak with Rufus Emmy-terio.”