Disaster.
The ’chucks hit the countertop, drop, hit the floor, bounce.
A lunge. A stumble.
Too much too fast for Milo’s head to record.
A shout.
An explosion.
The bakery case glass shatters.
The smell of gunpowder. And apple fritters.
Then Milo watches. The symbol of our entire country slumps on the floor. Green fabric billowing out. A red stain spreading across his chest.
No! Not a symbol.
Not dialogue.
Not a fake scene.
Milo’s knees go wobbly.
Camera off off off!
Shit! What the fuck!
Wave the gun in the air. Slam fist on the counter.
Think, Tyler. Think!
Don’t look at the mess on the floor.
Stupid little Cody. Couldn’t control the numbnuts! Trying to be a hero. What am I always telling him? Wrong place, wrong time. Again.
Tell the other one to open the cash register.
“Now! Pronto!”
Stuff bills in pockets. Leave the coins. Fifty dollars, maybe sixty. That’s it?
Donut kid looking at him too hard. “Take a picture, why don’t ya?”
Fuckin’ jacked up now. Kick the white plastic table set.
Got a big, big problem on my hands.
The old lady. Cody’s mom. Got a soft spot for the kid.
This whole mess is her fault, spoiling him, not smacking him when he gets out of line. And now she’s going be all fucked up and crying and shit and he’s gonna have to smack her and that means more crying and who’s gonna to have to live with that drama?
Him, Tyler, that’s who!
Throw the coffee creamer against the wall. Use the butt of the gun to spider another donut case.
Plus, her birthday’s coming up. Cody once again wrecking it, three years in a row. Coulda won money on that bet.
Hold on! Ding ding ding. Got an idea.
Donuts. That’ll make her feel better. Always does.
That’s the kind of guy Tyler is. When tragedy hits, always right there with something thoughtful.
Order the donut kid: “Get me one of those pink boxes. Start fillin’.”
Two jelly, two blueberry, two old-fashioned, two cinnamon crunch. No, make it three cinnamon crunch. She really likes those. Two chocolate. One apple-filled. What do you mean one more? Oh, baker’s dozen special. Nice.
Seems like an okay dude, this donut kid. Thoughtful. Not a loser like Cody.
Too bad.
Point the gun. Pull the trigger. Feel the kick.
Wipe off the prints. Put the gun in the donut kid’s hand.
Naw. Move it to Cody’s hand.
Doesn’t totally add up. But it’s the best Tyler can do given the circumstances. Cops’ll be scratching their heads over this one.
Open the door. Hear the buzzer. Don’t tilt the donut box. Take one last look at the scene.
Fuckin’ Cody. Look what he made me do.
Part IV
Killer South
The Strawberry Tattoo
by Maceo Montoya
Aptos
When David started barking, Marcela knew something awful was about to happen. His first bark, a sudden low growl, could’ve been mistaken for a man clearing his throat. But by the second and third, it was clear that David was doing his best impersonation of a bulldog ready to attack. When she followed his eyes, past all their colleagues at the hotel bar, she saw that he was staring at her boyfriend, Vicente.
“Shit,” she said.
Someone else added, “What the hell is going on?”
Marcela and David used to sleep together. They were both English instructors in Avanza, a community college program geared toward disadvantaged students, most of them Latino. Marcela and David taught at different colleges now, Marcela in the Bay Area, David near Sacramento — but they ran into each other periodically at these team-building workshops. This semester, they’d gathered at the Seascape Beach Resort in Aptos.
Marcela was married when they first met, and so was David, but their attraction was so strong, at least on her end, that she refused to drink at the conference mixers in case she found her defenses weakened. At the next conference, after her marriage collapsed, she downed two tequila shots, found David, and practically dragged him to her room. He was stocky, muscular, with tattoos all over his body: on his back an Aztec warrior carrying a half-naked princess; on his chest the Virgen de Guadalupe, the rays of her halo crawling up his neck; and on his rib cage a giant bulldog in full color. She knew he’d gone to Fresno State.
“Damn, you got some serious school pride,” she said when she first saw it.
“Something like that,” he said.
David reminded her of the boys she grew up with. He may’ve been a college-level English professor, with an MA in comparative lit, schooling poorly prepared students in basic grammar and critical thinking, but he hadn’t shed his upbringing. With his shaved head and carefully manicured goatee, he looked like a cholo, often talked like one. One unfortunate night, he acted like one too. At a conference in Sacramento, Marcela and David went for a beer run for the after-party. While David went inside the liquor store, she stayed out front to smoke a cigarette. A guy passed by and asked her if she had a light. She fumbled in her purse for her lighter and the guy asked, “Whatchu up to tonight, girl?”
She was about to say something friendly and dismissive, when she heard the door jingle behind her.
“Better back the fuck off, motherfucker,” David’s voice was right at her back.
The guy looked up. “Who the fuck you think you talking to, son?”
She tried to intervene. “David, stop—”
She didn’t even see the punch, just a flurry, and suddenly the guy was knocked out cold.
Marcela screamed. “What the hell, David?” She grabbed his arm, but he jerked it away and she tumbled backward, almost falling. Marcela stumbled in her heels across the parking lot. She made it to the corner when she turned around, hoping David would be right behind, but there he was, holding a case of Tecate in one hand, standing over the guy and barking like a mad dog.
They never talked about the incident. They slept together a few more times, but then she heard he was still married and just had a kid. She avoided him from then on.
Everyone’s attention was on David’s barking act now: their academic colleagues, the bartender, and several recently arrived hotel guests. Marcela stared at Vicente. He was smiling as he mouthed something in David’s direction.
Vicente was the most beautiful man, straight or otherwise, Marcela had ever met, down to the unblemished smoothness of his skin and his thick, shiny hair with never a strand out of place. She wished she had his eyelashes, his eyebrows, his nose and shapely lips, even his permanently minty breath. She was envious of his arms, and his thin, muscular legs. It was unfair so much beauty had been bestowed on a man.
There were drawbacks to his perfection. He heightened her insecurities, even though Vicente soothed her with compliments. But he could also act like the model on a magazine cover — unattainable, enigmatic, as perfect as he was blank. They’d been together almost six months and it drove her crazy.
This current moment was a good example of his inscrutability. What was Vicente mouthing in David’s direction? Why the hell was he smiling?
David was the opposite. He was a man who wore his heart on his sleeve, and right now he was reacting, pure and simple.
“Come on, David, stop it,” a male colleague said.
David’s barking grew more aggressive. He set his glass of whiskey on the bar counter and now both arms were free to emphasize his canine-about-to-pounce stance.