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Waiting to Pull the Trigger

W. Scott R. Brownlee

    Bugs chirped in the coolness of the night. Socrates held his brother’s .303 Royal En-field rifle between his legs. Streetlights of the suburban neighborhood gave Socrates an adequate line of sight on both sides of the street. Yawning, he opened the bolt to gaze upon the long bullet in the chamber. The scent of gun grease came into his nostrils. Sliding the bolt quietly closed again, he slid his fingers on the clip as he looked at a stucco building, two stories high. Similar looking houses were on either side of the street, tightly clustered in together and now claustrophobic, Socrates felt an uncomfortable tenseness building in his muscles.
    “Use your anxiety as a tool,” he whispered. “This uncomfortable glob of massive amounts of people living right on top of each other like bees in a hive will keep your senses sharp. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. You are in mission mode, Marine.”
    A car went by. It seemed so loud in the quiet night. The basement light of the stucco house where his brother was at remained lit and upstairs there was television light coming out of the front windows. The house on the left had television light emanating out of the windows as well. Completely dark was the house on the right and all three driveways had cars parked in them. Socrates scanned each of these houses repeatedly. He glanced briefly at the houses directly across the street. A sudden burst of adrenalin filled his body.
    “The license plates,” he whispered.
    Hands trembling, Socrates reached up to open the door but then he stopped himself.
    “Don’t have a screw driver. Fuck.”
    There was movement in the driveway of the house that his brother was in, coming from the back yard. Two white males opened the side door and casually walked into the basement. Socrates fumbled with the rifle until it was hastily in his shoulder. He raised the rifle up. The barrel hit the side of the door. He slid his buttocks backward to lift the weapon up as he kept his eyes on the basement window. Realizing that his window was still shut, Socrates leaned the rifle down quickly so that he could hastily roll the window down. Once done, he rested the tip of the barrel on the door.
    Ten minutes passed. His hands began to cramp. Soreness was mounting at the base of his spine. A slight throb grew in his eviscerated gums. Socrates shook the cramp from his hands and then ate another pain pill, swallowing it down his parched throat. He glanced at the basement window. Nothing. Deftly, he reached up and over the front seat, flipped open the cooler top, grabbed a can of beer, opened it and gratefully drank a quarter of a can down as he kept his eye on the basement window, panting the whole time. Beads of sweat were on his forehead. The dryness of the aging wooden stock absorbed some of the sweat from his palms and fingertips.
    The basement door of the house opened up. Anthony and Ziggy came out into the driveway smiling as they bid the people in the basement a good night. Socrates took a deep breath as the basement door was closed. He lowered the rifle and put the safety back on as his cohorts came upon the vehicle. Socrates threw Anthony the keys once he sat down in the driver’s seat.
    “That was fucking horrible!” Socrates exclaimed as Anthony started the car and drove away.
    “What?” Anthony asked.
    “I saw those two guys just fucking materialize out of thin air and I was freakin’ the fuck out!”
    “It’s cool, little bro,” Anthony said reassuringly. “Dat’s why we were there so long. We were waiting for them.”
    “I was thinking about shooting them.”
    “I’m glad you didn’t because they had your money,” Anthony said. He threw a bundle of cash over his shoulder at Socrates. “Enjoy Woodstock, little bro. Want some cocaine?”
    “I am so full of adrenalin right now that I don’t need no cocaine. I never did cocaine. After tonight I might not never need to do cocaine. I am fucking wired to the hilt. Goddamn!”
    “Somewhere over the rainbow,” Anthony started to sing as he was laughing with Ziggy at Socrates’ exclamation. Anthony’s smile of bad teeth looked like golden sunshine under the streaming city lights to his little brother’s shaken, soulful eyes. “Drugs are free.”

    Several months later on the same NYC streets...


    It was very cold outside. The stars in the night sky were quite bright, shining past the streetlights of the city. They walked the first block without event. Alertly, the brothers passed through the dilapidated section of the city. Frosty panting breaths formed little clouds in the frigid air around their heads. They saw three young black men on the other side of the street. Each party walked quietly in opposite directions. Socrates felt his heart beating faster than usual.
    Downstairs and inside the house, Socrates witnessed the Pagan motorcycle gang world of his brother. A small party of heavily tattooed bikers was gathered together delightfully. Most of the bikers knew Anthony and merrily called him Hippy. Half of the bikers wore long hair, a couple were bald and one had a buzz cut but with a long blond beard thrusting out to his chest. Socrates felt his heart beating fast inside his chest. He awkwardly shook hands with some of the Pagans as he was introduced to them by his brother. Each time he said hello he felt an electric shock going off inside his brain, shooting straight through him to his toes. It seemed to rattle back up into his teeth as his heart pounded harder and harder. An incredible urge to run wildly away overcame him. A shot of electrocuted adrenalin went through him. As he opened his can of beer and took a sip he saw that his hand was shaking. The beer went down fast. No one really spoke to him for a little bit which was assuaging to his fractured nerves. Another beer went into his belly. His brother waved him over to smoke a joint with a few of the Pagan bikers.
    “Oh man, I can’t,” Socrates stammered. “The whole blow job scenario, Anthony.”
    “What?” One of the long haired bikers asked.
    “My little brother’s giving up pot so he can get head from his girlfriend,” Anthony explained.
    “That must be some pretty good head!”
    “Apparently,” Anthony laughed with the raucous laughter of the biker crowd. “C’mon little bro, she won’t know a thing.” Anthony grabbed a hold of Socrates playfully in a headlock and whispered into his ear: “You’re at a drug deal, Socrates. Don’t make the Pagans suspicious.” Then to the gathering Anthony asked with a beaming smile: “If my little brother smokes pot with us, do all of you promise not to tell his girlfriend!”
    The crowd of tough, wild, white men laughed.
    Socrates smoked weed with the Pagans. His anxiety intensified. Everyone was laughing and talking. He steadied his shaking hand to light a cigarette. The electrocuting waves of anxiety were still shooting through his system. He couldn’t look anybody in the eye, instead concentrating his gaze above their heads. Socrates smoked swiftly with hard, fast drags on his cigarette. The alcohol was beginning to sedate his nerves. When he lit another cigarette while he was in the bathroom he studied his hand and now it didn’t shake as much. The marijuana was really good as well, Socrates realized, as he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror.
    “You can do this, man,” he said to himself. “You’re nerves are shot. Can’t help what you’re born with. But there are drugs to help balance it out. Know this, Socrates, this is the last time you put yourself in a freaky environment like this. It might be easier to have gone to war than to hang out in this nest of criminals. Some scary motherfuckers past that door. Pagans. Glad they are on my side.”

    Socrates was playing chess with a frightening looking bald biker covered in tattoos that seemed to dance on the man’s flesh as his muscles moved the tiny black pieces.
    “Ever been to prison?” the bald man asked.
    “Only boot camp, it was like prison,” Socrates responded nervously “You?”
    “Yep. That’s where I met your brother.”
    “Which one?”
    “Which one what?”
    “Which one did you meet in prison?”
    “How many of your brothers been to prison?”
    “All of them.”
    “No shit,” the bald man laughed. He took a hit off of a joint handed to him and then handed it to Socrates who took a hit and then he tapped someone with long hair behind him to hand off the joint. The bald man blew out his smoke. “I met Hippy there. So did you break the family tradition?”
    “Tradition? Oh, you mean going to jail tradition, yeah; I want to be the one son of my mother not to go to jail.”
    “Good luck.”
    “Thanks,” Socrates laughed a little. The bald man looked at him funny. “I’m laughing because I’m going to say good luck to you because I’m taking out your queen.”
    “Fuck, you are good. You know I could never beat Hippy in jail. We played at least once a day for twelve months.”
    “I’ve never beat him either. For my whole life. Sorry about the queen, man.”
    “It’s cool. All fair in love and war and on the chess board. Your brother told me that. You two don’t much look alike.”
    “Different fathers,” Socrates said, concentrating on the board as he waved his now steady hand around his face. “And I don’t have a beard. Came from the same womb.”
    “I’m putting your knight in the tomb,” the bald man said. “All’s fair...”

    Later on that night Anthony and Socrates were stumbling down the street with the lunch bag full of cocaine and marijuana. Socrates was happy that he had beaten the Pagan at chess. They went past the block with the dilapidated houses. Anthony pointed his middle finger at them. Around the corner they walked to a safer block. They passed a house with very large holly bushes rising over the sidewalk. Neither of them noticed a black man sitting on the nearby stairway.
    In an instant he was on his feet with a knife at Anthony’s throat. He pulled at the bag of drugs in Anthony’s hands. Anthony wouldn’t let go of the bag. Socrates jumped back into the street. Two other black men popped up from behind a parked car further up the street. As they sauntered into the street toward Socrates he instinctively walked backwards with his eyes on them. Massive amounts of adrenalin shot through his system. Socrates pulled out his buck knife and held the blade low near his right thigh.
    “Tell dat cracker to stop movin’, yo,” the black man with the knife said. “And let go of dis muthafuckin’ bag!”
    “Don’t cut me, man,” Anthony said. He still clasped the bag in his hand as the knife pressed into his throat. “Don’t cut me, man.”
    “Let go of da muthafuckin’ bag, cracker!”
    “Tell dis bitch to stop, white boy,” one of the other black men said.
    Socrates went behind a car in the shadows. The two black men on the street with their hands in their coats split up. Closing in on either side of the car, the black men watched Socrates leap onto the hood of the car and then scamper with bare hands onto the roof of the car. It sank in a little as Socrates stood straight up in a cloud of his own panting exhalation. He could scarcely perceive the two black men with white eyeballs and white teeth. They weren’t moving anymore.
    “Don’t cut me, man.”
    “What da fuck is dat cracker doin’ on dat car?”
    “Don’t cut me, man.”
    “Crazy white muthafuckas, let go of dis bag and we be gone, white boy.”
    Anthony let go of the bag. The black man lowered the knife, called to his cohorts and the three of them began to run away around the corner. Socrates leapt onto the pavement, did a tuck and rolled toward his brother. Anthony pulled the pistol from beneath his coat. He sped for the corner. Rounding it, he lifted his pistol and fired five times.
                    Crack
                        Crack
                            Crack
                                Crack
    Crack into the night. The black man with the bag collapsed just two parked cars up from them. One of the others cut back to help up his wounded friend. The bleeding man got onto his knees. Anthony came closer. The healthy black man ran at them, causing Socrates to jump back. Then the black man swiftly plunged his hand around the bag of drugs. He pivoted but Anthony was on him, tackling him. The pistol fell onto the asphalt. Anthony and the black man struggled with each other on the frozen surface. Socrates retrieved the pistol. The third black man continued to run down the street. The wounded black man was crawling away from them. In the streetlight Socrates saw one of the bullets stuck in the black man’s winter cap, protruding out of his skull. Blood streamed down the man’s neck.
    Socrates kicked the black man wrestling with his brother. A large black hand was curled up in a knot in Anthony’s beard. Socrates pulled on the black man’s coat with his free hand. The black man let Anthony’s beard go yet he went for the bag again. Socrates grabbed the adversary’s coat collar and yanked hard, straining the muscles in his arm. Anthony scrambled onto his feet, bag in hand. He ran over to Socrates, switched gun for bag as his opponent ran away. Anthony strutted over to the wounded black man. He bent over him, flipped him onto his back and the man gurgled blood from his mouth. Anthony put the pistol on the center of the wounded man’s forehead. He was panting clouds in the frigid wintry night air.
    “I am a white man,” Anthony said to him. “Not a boy.”

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