Toss – A – Cross (4-28 to 4.30-2007)

NNOTE: I was askd to post a sample of my fiction to myblog so here goes. I wrote this over the weekend. It's fiction, all else is accidental. It is th last of 16 short stories fro my Book FREAK TYPE SCENE, scheduled to be relased Jan 2008. Enjoy



There is nothing more certain that a man will be a man, and that for his seed, he is the first line of defense, if there is no dog outside. The simple truth being, such a person is never off guard and the only fear they have is not being able to feed and provide for their children. Unfortunately, this makes such a individual diabolic and sinister – the worse attributes for anyone who feels that all that their children have in the world to protect them is them.

It was one of those nights in between spring and summer, with the night being more reflective of winter than either of the aforementioned. The only difference was that the sun could still be seen allocating pastel hues into the cloudless and anticipating dark. The crickets were in full bloom, just as if they were some species of perennial. It was time now for the rest of the flowers to catch up. The trees all seemed to be the first to bloom, outside of the bulbs, and they$ bloomed in the order of the pink and purple crab apple tree, the whites of the pear trees and the opaque shades of the box woods – which were really shrub, but in his yard, the size of a bush the height of a tree.

He was outside as usual. It was beverage time and a good time to just enjoy life for its own sake. There was no distillate of the Agape plant but rather this time, Sake’. Sake’ and one 24 ounce can of Tecate’ beer. He walked out in the gravel road that in any urban or city area would be a driveway, with the exception that it was 110 yards from his house. He, Jones, Mac Jones often marveled at the symbolism and the distance, since even not being from Harlem. He was a country boy – a Memphis nigga.

He walked inside. His glass was empty. His son and daughter were in his son’s room. He was making music and she was bellowing into the microphone. Unintelligible certainly, nonetheless she was jamming. He walked to his room. The house was large and gave any stranger the locution that the 4,000 square feet was divided into wings. She followed quickly, as quickly as any child a few months before the age of two could waddle in a straight line. To him, she walked like Bobby Cox.

On his floor in front of the television, fully muted he sat down and began to fold clothes. He had been at work since early morning and his son’s baseball game was rained out. Thank goodness for leftovers. But before he could finish the towels, she came in. She only had a few words in her vocabulary but affection was what she communicated best. Crawling over him and placing her head on his chest. She wrapped her legs around his and started to go to sleep.

When she went to sleep, he got up out of the bed. Again he returned outside, to the crickets and the night air. The stares seemed to talk to him but he really couldn’t tell if it was the stars or the sake’.

He looked over by his fruit tree. The backhoe was still there. The plumber needs it to replace the pipe. The $1700.00 worth of pipe. The thought of it in itself mad him sick at the stomach. But he had the lot, and it made his property better, more valuable they said if he replaced the pipe.

He had just broken up with his woman. All he could repeat to himself was their last verbal exchange.

“I’m gone have some one come out her and take care of you,” she said, somewhere in between a manic rage and cynical rant.

“Well send them on,” he said. “If they come out here, let them play cowboy and I’ll make it the Okay Coral.

He erased that from his mind and again looked back at the stars. They made him fill full, restive, placated and at ease – a feeling he had not felt in a while. He walked down the driveway, again, which was really just a dirt gravel road. He sipped his sake’. A few rabbits ran across his path. They did not disturb him. He sat patient I his stance looking at the pine trees and the cars pass by.

It was strange to him, at this time of night to see the lights of a vehicle turn in his direction. Maybe it happened all the time and maybe he was just outside at the time. But they did not seem as if he others, as if it was a mistake, and accident. But maybe it was, for they weighted and dimmed the lights. He thought it was out of respect. Nonetheless, he went to his truck and pulled that yellow bag from under the passenger seat and returned to the spot. He had anticipated that hey would have backed up and turned around, but they had not. They were still there. So he stood and looked, as if to provide the locution that this was his property, the property of Mac Jones.

They approached slowly and then speed up briefly. The car stopped. One man got out. “Hey, who live here, you live here?”

He said nothing and looked.

“Yo Nigga, I’m talking to you, this your place?”

“Main, you in no position to ask, not to mention, you must be a fool.”

“A fool who you calling a fool?” Mac pointed to the sign right below one of the many cameras on his land. It read TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.

“Nigga, I can read, but I aint scared.” He raised his shirt again, this time to show the .380 that was tucked under his shirt held in his pants. Mac laughed.

“What you laughing at? You don’t know who you fucking with nigga.”

“Naw I don’t, but not only are you a fool, but you are obviously a bitch too, totin’ around that bitch pistol.” Mac laughed but continued. “Why you on my property, who you looking for? Would you like some Sake’?

“I’m looking for you.”

“Jones main, you don’t know me to look for me.”

“You Mac Jones aint you? Your old lady asked us to pay you a visit.”

“OK.”

“You don’t recognize me, I’m a rapper main, I’ve been in Video’s”

“Nope can’t say I Have Jones.”

“You heard of ‘Welcome to Murda Valley?” Mac shook his head in disagreement. “That’s my song shawty.”

Then it clicked. He knew that she was incapable of reason, but such should have been expected from a distorted and psychotic mind. He backed back slowly. Jones continued to approach him. He was short but fronted like he was hard as concrete and he was black, so black he could barley see him except for the shine from the parking lights on the vehicle and the glimmer of the moon off of his yellow teeth.

He looked in the car and said something to the other two men that were in the vehicle with him. He closed the door and approached him. It was a slow approach; as if he was uncertain of himself and what he was about to get into. H looked backed into the car and laughed. Now his approach was assertive, like he was the one who owned the land, or as f the bravado of he drive over had made his testicles fortified with concrete.

“Is you Mac Jones nigga?”

“Yep,” Mac said, finishing his Sake’.

“Well I came to tell you something.”

“You can stand where you are and talk sir.”

“Naw, can’t folk.”

“I ain’t yo’ folk.”

“Main, you pathetic, you come on my property, insult me, no, first trespass, come without invite, turn down my offer to beverage, while my children are inside asleep, and you expect me to talk to you. Can’t do it main, but can make you my ho and afterwards send you black ass to pre-K, cause it is obvious to me you a dumb ass fuck boy. You come up in m camp cause some woman thinks you hard and you think you hard. You fake ass wanna be gangster. He laughed.

“Whoop that Nigga’s ass,” was heard coming from the car.

He continued to walk. As he approached, he began to pull something from his shirt. It was more as if he was trying to send a message without action. Mac looked at Jones. The he ran and took a wild swing at Mac. As he swung, Mac sided stepped, dropping is little yellow bag and with a full fist popped Folk in the jaw with his right had and popping him in the left side of his jaw with a full fist from his left hand. He was taught by his uncle that the best punch was not to the face straight on, nor was it an upper cut, but rather a full-balled fist swung like a club to an intruders face.

As he tumbled he grabbed him behind is neck and need him in is chin, immediately grabbing his head and snapping it. He dropped almost instantly to the dirt gravel that Mac had always considered to be his driveway.

His boys didn’t like what the saw and jumped out of the Chevy pulling weapons from under their shirts also. He figured it was move thing for he would never tuck a gat in his pants that aimed at is dick and scrotum sack. Before they could shot he rolled behind a Magnolia tree. Picking up a seedpod from the same tree, he grabbed his yellow bag and pulled out the .44 magnum from the bag and slammed the pod on his barrel and fired two shots. The both dropped. He rolled over father away from the action, breathing deeply and holding his chest. He never knew he was that proficient with a handgun. In fact he preferred rifles and was taught growing up that if he needed a pistol, that he was too close. He was even impressed himself, even surprised, but it was a magnum and the slug was expected to go through a little plastic subcompact and the glass.

But now there where three corpses on his gravel road. It was completely dark now and once again he could hear the crickets. He dragged rapper dude to the other side of his pear trees. Then he returned to the vehicle and pushed what was outside of the auto in appendages back in the auto. Thank goodness one was in the back seat and the rapper Jones was he driver. He drove the car over to the first body and parked it. Walking gingerly, he went to the house to check on is children. They were sound asleep. He went back outside and went to the backhoe. Right then he began to dig a new hole. It took him almost two hours but he had managed to build a hole big enough for the auto to buried 7 feet below the surface. He had hardly worked up a sweat thanks to modern technology, hydraulics and the spirited night breeze. He moved the backhoe in position behind the auto ad got out. Next he placed the real black guy with the yellow teeth back in the back seat and position the car right in front of the hole from the side. Placing it in Neutral, he used he backhoe to push it in the hole.

It was easier to cover the vehicle up compared to digging the hole. As if something entered his mind, he stopped, went and grabbed his yellow bag, and using the material of the pouch, he was able to sling the gun into the open window. He figured that by leaving the windows open, the bodies would be able to decompose faster and larva would have an eaiser time to get to them. After all the gun was a throwaway, a toss-across like they used to say back where he was from. It was only meant for one time use only. He and his boys had always joked that he had enough land to bury somebody and their car. Now he chuckled briefly. He was a Libertarian, so he was not the kind of guy who would call 911. He didn’t need the government to protect him.

When he had finished he sat that, pulled a Kool Mild from his pants pocket and lit it. He repositioned the back and climbed down from its perch. Again he looked in the sky. Now al he would have to do, was take a shower, get some rest and prepare his children for school I the morning. On the way home from work, he could purchase a few boxes of daffodil bulbs, maybe a few lilies, and some lavender to take root in is new flower bed.