Hands shaking, eyes bloodshot and bleary, stinking of his own feces and hate, Jessie got out of the truck with his daddy’s shotgun in his hands. The rain was cold, and he felt it spitting in his face.
The gun felt good in his hands, made him feel strong. I could have gone pro. Shake and bake, motherfucker. You’re about to meet Marshall.
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
She’d begged him not to go, and Leon listened because he loved his wife and because he didn’t have a good plan anyway. She was conservative, sensible, and she demanded explanations of him, wanted answers he did not have. So he’d waited. The violence in the complex got worse. They ran out of water and food, until she figured out she could trade her medical services for it. She treated gunshot wounds and infections, and the community rallied around her and them, and for a while it was all right, and Leon was glad he’d listened to her. Maybe they could make it and things would get better and the war would end. He was proud of her, proud of his boys. They did not complain much, did not sulk or cry.
At night they told stories and sang songs, sometimes with other folks from the neighborhood. People helped each other out. They prayed a lot, and read from the Bible, and there was a kind of drawing together that made Leon smile. There were Asians sitting next to Haitians belting out hymns in a makeshift church that used to be an office, and sometimes the songs were in Spanish, sometimes in English or French or Korean. They were the same songs, and the language did not matter, for the people understood, the people felt the meaning and power and truth beneath the melody and lyric, and the chorus of “How Great Is Our God” or “Amazing Grace” would swell from the dark, candle-lit room sung in five languages at the same time, everyone understanding each other.
It was beautiful, hopeful, transcendent. When the voices lifted up to heaven, Leon would get chills on his arms and tears in his eyes, belting it out himself, and there was an energy in the air that connected each person in the room until Leon believed for the first time in God. For the connection went beyond mere camaraderie. What unified them went beyond energy, science, or understanding, for it was too vast and powerful and perfect to be defined or explained in those terms. While Leon was no stranger to the church, growing up Baptist and knowing the hymns from the time he could walk, this was something new to him. He yearned to sing.
As resources dwindled, the violence worsened. People killed people for canned soup and dog food and powdered baby formula. Within a short time, Leon lost his voice. He grew angry again.
They’d waited too long, hoping for deliverance and the hand of God, he told her. It’s time. She finally agreed, and they loaded the van with everything they could. The boys were ready for an adventure.
BELLEVUE, TENNESSEE
When Leon hit the truck in front of him, he was annoyed. The guy hadn’t been paying attention. The airbags hadn’t gone off, though, and no one was hurt. It looked like the old truck hit the car in front of it, and Leon hoped whoever was in that car would be okay.
Leon rolled down his window and put up his hands, in the universal I’m sorry gesture, and shouted, “My bad, man! You okay?”
The door to the truck opened, and out sprang a bearded hillbilly with a shotgun. His face was twisted and washed out with the headlights and rain, and there was murder in it.
Leon reached to his holster as the man stepped forward.
“Get down!” Leon shouted to his wife.
Leon opened the door fast, shoving it and pulling the handle at the same time. The windshield shattered, spraying glass on his face, and he felt something hot and wet on his cheeks. His wife screamed, and there was the boom of the shot with the sound of terror from his children and this redneck swearing at the top of his lungs.
Leon dropped to the wet pavement, extending his hands and weapon in front of him. Another shot, this one at the door, and then Leon couldn’t see out of one eye. His face was on fire, sticky and burning, and he was having a hard time seeing out of his good eye.
He fired, aiming for a boot. He missed. Damn. Five feet away. How’d I miss? Or maybe I didn’t. Oh God. My kids. My wife. Oh Lord. He couldn’t move fast enough. Things were happening in slow motion and fast-forward at the same time, like a nightmare. The ones where his weapon ran out of bullets and the bad guys were always faster. The pavement was wet and cold against his cheek and he felt the scrape and sting, and the road seemed to shimmer, wet and red and mean.
The feet were on him then, and the barrel of the shotgun was swinging at his head. Leon fired again, in twisting, desperate agony. His nightmare continued, and he was aware of many things all at once and too late, which is the way of bad dreams and life.
He could hear his boys crying. He thought about how he’d let them down, how he should have been able to protect them and give them a better life than he had, and he wished he could do things over again.
He wanted to sing with his soul to them, to compress his love and hope for them into an instant so they would know. So maybe when they were older, they’d understand. They could open it up like a box and see him, hear him, even though he wasn’t there anymore.
His voice was gone, and there was no more pain, yet still he sang into the night and far beyond, soaring with a multitude and it was joy eternal.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
FATHERS
BELLEVUE, TENNESSEE
The fender bender was unremarkable; they’d witnessed several in the last few hours, so when the wreck began, Henry was not alarmed. Carlos, however, was more observant and attuned. He later explained his reasoning.
“I’d been making goofy faces at those kids for half an hour. Meanwhile, that dick in the truck was so scrunched up on the wheel I could feel him from the other lane. Tight and mean-looking. Even in the dark, man, I could feel him there all bunched up, coiled up like a damn snake. And after that shit we saw earlier that day? I just knew this guy was like that.”
Carlos was out the door at about the same time the guy in the truck decided to go crazy. It was quick, and Henry was opening his own door as the first shots cracked in the night.
Martinez, who’d been sleeping in the back, bolting forward, a step behind, coming out the passenger-side rear door while Carlos was already in front of the vehicle.
The guy in the truck blasted out the front windshield of the van before Henry knew violence was about to happen.
Carlos was shouting and moving. It happened too fast.
Henry scrambled around the rear of the van while Carlos came around the front. The kids were wailing, and then there were two quick shots right on top of each other.
The redneck with the shotgun was falling backwards, and the man on the ground was dead, shot in the face at point-blank range.
Henry shot the murderer once in the chest as the man tumbled. Carlos stood over the guy and stomped on his throat.
Martinez and Henry went to the children and tried to console them, shield them, and they clawed and squirmed and cried inconsolable tears. Carlos held the dead man’s wife while spotlights illuminated the street from above, and a helicopter hovered a few hundred feet overhead.
“Go!” Martinez ordered. “Go! Go! Go!”
Henry left the children and the van and sprinted for the shelter of trees and homes up the slope. They were targets, and if they remained, more people would die. Henry hated it, running, slipping in the wet dark, the helicopters thudding overhead and the children crying, mourning the loss of their father. He wanted to fight.