is, not an official right, but his own right, to allow his conscience to…step over certain obstacles…”
—Fyodor Dostoevsky
This isn’t anything like TV. I’m supposed to have a flashback now, or something important to say, or anything to say at all. Instead, I’m sitting in the heavy quiet of Tony’s garage, and all I have is a hole in my gut the size of a tire, like I used to get when I was a kid and I got in trouble at recess. I can’t stop sweating or thinking about a blue and red body sagging across Tony’s lap. Oh God, he probably had a family. I can hear the principal now—“young man, what have you gotten yourself into?”
Action Jackson’s an efficient blur scurrying around the garage, locking doors, pulling blinds. Then my driver’s side door is open, and Tony sounds as cool as he ever did behind the sandwich station.
“Come on, let’s go, JT.”
I’m following him up three narrow steps to a tall white door, more out of habit than anything. I can’t feel my legs, and part of me doesn’t want to know where we’re going, not now. But I followed him this far, and I don’t know where else to go. All of the sudden the door’s closed, and Tony’s opening a shiny metal refrigerator in a polished metal kitchen, calm as ever. My hands are shaking.
“Take a seat man, relax.” Tony’s space is comfortable. A lot of smooth white walls and dark oak furniture, and bright oil paintings of monkeys wearing headphones and reading books hung tactfully around the walls. But it’s all covered in blood, and I won’t sit still. I can feel a heat filling the hole in my stomach, and I can’t take the silence.
“Tony, what the fuck? What the fuck are we supposed to do now?” Tony’s pouring juice. He’s quiet, but every stiff, jolting movement looks like he’s back from a bad day at work. Maybe he doesn’t plan everything. Maybe he didn’t want this.
“Well, I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do, my man,” he mumbles from behind a tall glass of apple juice on his way out of the kitchen. “We are not going to freak out. We’re not going to run, we’re not going to hide under the bed, and we are definitely not going to call the police. We’re going to chill, and right now, we’re going to sit here and drink our juice.” I want to slap the juice right out of his mouth, but Tony knows it’s hard to argue with a man holding a smoking gun.
He sits across from me on a wide leather couch and sets the heavy pistol on the glass table between us, right between a green Ziploc sack and Darwin’s Origin of Species . Explains the monkeys, I guess. I try to argue, but my mouth’s too dry to talk, and now Tony’s staring right at me over the squat glass table. No, he’s staring through me. I never noticed that his eyes were the same color as his voice—a deep, intoxicating darkness, fixed to me like hooks, and they’re digging into me, daring me to move. But I can’t move at all, not between Tony’s stare and the hollow black eye glaring at me from the table. I was right, Tony doesn’t need to hold up a baby store for two hundred dollars. This was my test, my rite of passage, and I passed, but at what price? I know what he’s up to, and the puppet show is just making me sicker. Fuck this, I didn’t sign up for murder.
“I can’t do this, Tony. You said no one would get hurt… I’m not doing this.” The heat in my gut is twisting and pulling at my stomach, and a cold sweat is starting to break down my neck. Murder. Murder . “Tony, we killed him.”
Tony’s stare narrows as he tilts his head. Maybe he’s wondering what I’m going to do about it. Or maybe he’s wondering why I said “we.” But I’m in just as deep as he is now, and if I know that, then Tony knows it, too.
“A lot of people you don’t know put up a lot of walls around you, JT. You happy where you’re at? You want out? I swear, you’re not going to move an inch as long as you’re playing by their rules.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky
This isn’t anything like TV. I’m supposed to have a flashback now, or something important to say, or anything to say at all. Instead, I’m sitting in the heavy quiet of Tony’s garage, and all I have is a hole in my gut the size of a tire, like I used to get when I was a kid and I got in trouble at recess. I can’t stop sweating or thinking about a blue and red body sagging across Tony’s lap. Oh God, he probably had a family. I can hear the principal now—“young man, what have you gotten yourself into?”
Action Jackson’s an efficient blur scurrying around the garage, locking doors, pulling blinds. Then my driver’s side door is open, and Tony sounds as cool as he ever did behind the sandwich station.
“Come on, let’s go, JT.”
I’m following him up three narrow steps to a tall white door, more out of habit than anything. I can’t feel my legs, and part of me doesn’t want to know where we’re going, not now. But I followed him this far, and I don’t know where else to go. All of the sudden the door’s closed, and Tony’s opening a shiny metal refrigerator in a polished metal kitchen, calm as ever. My hands are shaking.
“Take a seat man, relax.” Tony’s space is comfortable. A lot of smooth white walls and dark oak furniture, and bright oil paintings of monkeys wearing headphones and reading books hung tactfully around the walls. But it’s all covered in blood, and I won’t sit still. I can feel a heat filling the hole in my stomach, and I can’t take the silence.
“Tony, what the fuck? What the fuck are we supposed to do now?” Tony’s pouring juice. He’s quiet, but every stiff, jolting movement looks like he’s back from a bad day at work. Maybe he doesn’t plan everything. Maybe he didn’t want this.
“Well, I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do, my man,” he mumbles from behind a tall glass of apple juice on his way out of the kitchen. “We are not going to freak out. We’re not going to run, we’re not going to hide under the bed, and we are definitely not going to call the police. We’re going to chill, and right now, we’re going to sit here and drink our juice.” I want to slap the juice right out of his mouth, but Tony knows it’s hard to argue with a man holding a smoking gun.
He sits across from me on a wide leather couch and sets the heavy pistol on the glass table between us, right between a green Ziploc sack and Darwin’s Origin of Species . Explains the monkeys, I guess. I try to argue, but my mouth’s too dry to talk, and now Tony’s staring right at me over the squat glass table. No, he’s staring through me. I never noticed that his eyes were the same color as his voice—a deep, intoxicating darkness, fixed to me like hooks, and they’re digging into me, daring me to move. But I can’t move at all, not between Tony’s stare and the hollow black eye glaring at me from the table. I was right, Tony doesn’t need to hold up a baby store for two hundred dollars. This was my test, my rite of passage, and I passed, but at what price? I know what he’s up to, and the puppet show is just making me sicker. Fuck this, I didn’t sign up for murder.
“I can’t do this, Tony. You said no one would get hurt… I’m not doing this.” The heat in my gut is twisting and pulling at my stomach, and a cold sweat is starting to break down my neck. Murder. Murder . “Tony, we killed him.”
Tony’s stare narrows as he tilts his head. Maybe he’s wondering what I’m going to do about it. Or maybe he’s wondering why I said “we.” But I’m in just as deep as he is now, and if I know that, then Tony knows it, too.
“A lot of people you don’t know put up a lot of walls around you, JT. You happy where you’re at? You want out? I swear, you’re not going to move an inch as long as you’re playing by their rules.
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