RICOCHET
Lizette Wanzer
On my ‘leventh birthday Rain gave me a spent pistol shell. He polished it up with the mink oil sheen he used on his ‘rows and told me if I held the shell up close, I could see my reflection wrapping round it, even my new gold button earrings Mom gave me at breakfast.
“Where’d you get this?” I asked him. We were sitting on the curb round the corner from my house.
“I found it. You know that hold-up Thursday at the corner pharmacy? Got it from there.”
“Cops usually collect that stuff from the scene,” I said, waving a hornet away. Insects liked my jojoba-smelling hair.
“Missed this one, sister. I found it day after.” Rain was fourteen and his voice jumped up and down. He kept clearing his throat like the jumpy voice was a defect he could fix.
“Ain’t never found nothing before. What were you doing over there, anyway? And if there was a stick-up, how come it wasn’t on the news?” Mom let me stay up summer Fridays to watch the ten o’clock show. I’d’ve seen.
“A gang thing, it was. I mean, that’s what I heard it was. Nobody’ll talk ‘cause nobody wants to get --”
“Usually still a report that a stick-up went down. It’ll say, ‘Police have no suspect. They hope a eyewitness will step forward. If you have information call eight-hundred blah-blah-blah. Don’t gotta give your name.”
Rain’s body squirmed with scorn. “You know how slow them reporters are. Look how long it takes ‘em to catch on to stuff. Them uppity white anchors got some slow-ass synapses.”
I put the shell in my skirt pocket. Had a trunk ‘neath my bed I could lock it up in. “Going down to The Zephyr later?” I asked. Dad was taking me that afternoon. He promised me three extra rolls of quarters on account of my birthday and all.
Rain rose from the curb without using his hands and bopped away. “See you there, sister,” he called, not looking back.
Rain lived six blocks away but it might have been six miles for the difference in neighborhoods. I lived in a split-level with a fenced-in yard; Rain lived in a small cluster of walk-up buildings. The cluster’s pocket park was strewn with works and rubbers, and the cops and the pros prowled the area. Mom often drove past on the way to where that stick-up pharmacy was at. Though we never shopped at that pharmacy, just in the Chinese take-out place beside it.
First time Dad took me to The Zephyr I was eight years old. It was a place of navy blue walls, low lights and mirrored ceilings; a flickering effect came from the pinball machines lined ‘gainst the walls. Bells and cracks sounded everywhere. Zephyr’s where Dad showed me how to play the pinball machines. He was a excellent player, and not much time passed before I was a expert, too. Mostly, only boys played at Zephyr so Mom wouldn’t let me go without Dad as a escort. He’d take me on weekends and even on one or two days after school. Cause of Mom, I could only go then if my homework was done. Fine thing ‘bout it was, after I began beating Dad on all the machines, it got so he’d only play a game or two with me. Gimme a roll of quarters and head for the winey sports bar across the street. Yankees in summers, Rangers in winter. Seemed to always make friends in there but myself, I wasn’t in the business of buddy-making. My Zephyr time was a serious affair. I put supreme effort into improving my scores on each machine, charting ‘em out in a red memo pad I kept in my side pocket. Soon, the boys took notice of me without Dad and gathered round to watch me play. I’d be so tunneled in on the silver ball slinking through the barriers I wasn’t even nervous with the audience. I coiled over the tables like a church worshipper waiting for the preacher to scream Alleluia. I rattled and tilted the tables just like Dad did, and cussed just like he did too when a ball slipped tween the flippers ‘fore I’d got full play outta it.
Word got round ‘bout me and sometimes a boy would get in my face and issue a challenge. That’s what they called it, a challenge. Boy would pick a tough table like No Mercy, cause that machine gave only three balls ‘stead of five and the table was dizzy with gadgets and mirrors, lights. Got no eye-hand coordination? Wasn’t no need for you to be at the No Mercy machine, then. Do just as well to chuck your quarters down the toilet.
Met Rain at Zephyr last year. He was part black, part Korean and had cloudy gray eyes like a murky puddle. He was the undisputed Zephyr wizard. No one had beat Rain’s high score on No Mercy and Zephyr’s manager, Rio, made a sign to that effect, with the highest-score date on it. Sign’s been right beside the change machine ever since.
Everyone at Zephyr wore a uniform, and Rain’s always included a black Harley Davidson tee and a green visor turned at a odd angle. Silver cross dangling from one ear. Had a unusual look to h im all right but his pinball prowess was where the true glamour was. He lifted and shoved the machines while playing, his sugar-melt hips had
a crooked rocking going if rap was piping in. His shoulders and acne chin hitched up and down with the beat, the whole while that shiny pinballl rung through targets, off rebound bumpers, through flags, launch lanes. Once he got fifteen minutes of play off one ball with still two more to come. And this at the ninth and highest level.
I’d hit my first fifteen-minute No Mercy day ‘bout six months after I met Rain. He was not there to be a witness but his posse was, and I counted on ‘em getting the word back to him. Next time I saw Rain in Zephyr, couple days later, I stayed at a low-track table, half-playing, waiting for his homies to split for other machines and leave Rain concentrating by himself. Then I turned my baseball cap backwards and folded a fresh gum stick into my mouth before crossing my goosebumped arms, going up to him and issuing my first challenge. His ass and shoulders rocked to “Rapper’s Delight,” his orange sneaker cut two taps per beat on the purple tiles, slender forearm muscles rippled ‘neath the motorcycle tatt he had there. Still, he took time to give me a once-over and cracked his own chew hard.
“I know all about you. Hear you’re pretty good for a girl.” Thousands of bonus points rung up while he talked. He didn’t even see it happen.
“I’m more than pretty good.” I spoke loudly to push my voice through my throat. “And I’m good for anybody.” I bounced a bit to the spicy lyrics, counting on
my knees not being able to both bob and tremble.
“You’re on, sister,” he said, turning his attention back to the table. “Monday, three o’clock. Bring your crew.”
Truth was, back then I didn’t have no crew to invite to the event. None that could appreciate it, anyhow. Whenever I stepped outside for a tangy sodapop break, I’d see the girls moving in tight knots down the avenue in their pastel jumpers. Knew some of ‘em from school and they had the every-which-wayest hair I’d ever seen. Colored balls, fuzzy rainbow ribbons festooned through their plaits, each head a circus of its own. Heads looked like they were ready for takeoff. Chicks would aim for the pizza joint at exactly noon, letting the clock tell ‘em when to eat ‘stead of their stomachs. Could smell however-old onion ring grease all over that dive. Chicks would stare at me and put their busy heads together, whispering, pointing. Giggling. They didn’t like my uni, which was black Converse high tops, black high-cuff jeans with pockets down the legs, white tee. Pulled my hair back into a ponytail and slapped a cap atop. Nothing fancy. This was not a show-off outfit, it was a working outfit. These dainty chicks? Wouldn’t begin to comprehend. All prettied up in cutesy color s, and for what? For who? Wasn’t ever no boys with ‘em. They’d drop five bucks on a glittery jump rope at the hobby store when a old clothesline worked just as good, made a smarter slap on the blacktop, too.
On that showdown day it was okay not to have a audience after all, since Rain beat me. But only by 5,000 points. I remember how I reacted real low-key ‘bout it. I’d given his ass a good run and he respected me after that; we played a lotta the machines together. Rain had said I was skateboard skinny like a white girl, but that I did everything that counted like a boy. I kept Rain a secret from my parents cause I knew they’d say a kid like Rain is no company for a young lady like me to be keeping. Rain and me got used to doing the circuit, playing all the tables in sequence up to No Mercy and then staying there for a hour at a go. Folks started gathering round every time we reached No Mercy, watching us take turns. They called us the dynamite duo.
One sticky Saturday when I stepped outside for my soda break, I saw Rain yakking with a Spanish girl on the opposite side of the entrance doors. Damaris somebody-or-other. I’d seen her before; was a weird-ass chick who hung out in front of Zephyr but was too chicken to come in. She looked way older, like sixteen, and she wore tight shirts with vertical ribbing that showed the outline of her bra. Her rutty jeans were snug and smooth and she wobbled on chipped brown pumps. (I ask you: who wears pumps to a arcade? Course like I said, she never came in). Was always a cloud of gnats and bees round her on account of the quart of cologne she wore. “The bees are distracted to me,” she’d say, fanning frantically, to whatever boy got out there with her first. Often--like on this day--it was Rain. They talked real low, not touching each other but with their heads close. Rain turned his visor backwards so it wouldn’t be in the way of his leaning. Whole time they whispered they took turns looking over their shoulders, round the street and even in to cars slowing for the stop light. Flighty as she was, Damaris was as watchful as Rain. The pair of ‘em acted like they were working undercover on some classified case. I felt the small dip I get in the center of my tongue whenever I was ‘bout to say something uncouth. But all I did was burp loud grape soda. Rain glanced at me so fast his eyes seemed blurry; but he didn’t say nothing.
My head started hurting from trying so hard to overhear ‘em. I looked across the street at Dad’s bar. Could see the blue-white flicker of three TVs. I’d finally turned and gone back into Zephyr.
Damaris only showed up a couple of Saturdays a month, but that was bad enough cause if Rain was the first to see Damaris gimping round the front door, he’d let me play his quarter out while he left me and went to jaw with her. That could take a hour and sometimes Dad would come and collect me before Rain ever got back in to finish our circuit.
On this ‘leventh birthday, Dad gave me the three birthday quarter rolls and when he went to the sports bar Rain slid over and we started circuiting. We’d just got to Riverboat, the third table, when four Hispanic guys in light silver jackets and identical shades shoved into The Zephyr. Red bandanas tied round their left kneecaps. They even all walked the same step, synched like that dance troupe over at the arts center last month. Quartet bops on a beeline to Rain and me. I’m playing and the short squat one pushes his shoulder hard ‘gainst Rain, sorta leaning into him.
“Rain, know something? You need to learn how to take hints. Signs.” Squat’s voice is heavy, froggy. “Red Fly’s gave you plenty, and he thought you was a bright kid who’d pick up on ‘em.” He turned the corners of his mouth down.
A medium skinny one flanks Rain’s other side. “That’s right. Red Fly’s sorta outta patience, my man.” Puts his elbow on Rain’s shoulder but it’s clear to me that it is not a chummy gesture. “You ain’t showed yourself to be as sharp as we expected.” Rain yanked a unlit cigarette from his mouth. He licked his lips real slow, like ole Mrs. Soren’s calico does when he’s got a fine bead on a sparrow. My pinball drained tween the flippers.
“Shit,” I said real loud and smacked the machine’s glass casing, stinging my palm. None of ‘em paid me no mind.
“All we ever did is talk,” Rain said. “She came around every couple weeks. She works at Mickey D’s around the corner. Last I checked, talking’s not against any law.” His voice was hard, edgy. I ain’t never heard him use that tone before.
“Except for ours.” The third punk grinned like a fun house clown, spoke a quick octave higher than Medium Skinny.
Rain draped himself back over No Mercy’s casing, sorta pouring over the top. He leaned on the motorcycle arm, one foot raised ‘gainst one of the table legs. Course this blocked a huge chunk of my view and I lost another ball.
“She ain’t branded, is she?” Rain spat. “Christ. She hung around and I kept her some company, that’s all. Let’s not make a federal case out of it.”
“The feds are better at reading signs.” Fun house’s grin slipped a notch. “Feds don’t mistake a unmistakable sign. Red Fly spoke to you three weeks ago. Said hands off and it couldn’t’ve been clearer.” The grin dimmed altogether.
“Hands off? Hands were never on. “ Rain’s foot was sliding down the table leg but he hoisted it up and replaced it in position.
The first one spoke again. “She’s one of our crew and you was told to stay--”
“I don’t take orders very well.” A thin rope of muscle popped out from the side of his jaw. His motorcycle pitched slightly on his arm as if it had run into sandy dunes. “Threats neither.”
My hands slipped on the flipper buttons; suddenly I wasn’t breathin’ no more. I watched Rain reach slow into his back pocket and shimmy out a gum stick. Unwrapped it as if someone pushed the Slow button on the VCR remote.
The fourth biggest one never did speak but his arm shot out and grabbed Rain’s Harley Davidson logo. Rain nearly flew off his feet, head snapped back, gum dropped on the floor. The squat froggy one rapped his elbow into Rain’s throat and the lot of ‘em began dragging Rain out not the street door but the rear parking lot door, and some folks peeked over their shoulders and some stepped away from their tables but most just glanced quick then kept on playing. I followed the struggling huddle, looking round for some of Rain’s posse but not seeing ‘em there. My face crumpled like Mom’s morning bread dough, my voice pitched so high I couldn’t hardly place it as mine. “Here Rain, I got five dollars. I got five dollars right--”
They practically carried him out the door. I kept swallowing, my chin bucked back ‘gainst my throat. Rain grabbed one of the door handles but couldn’t hold on; the closing door hooked his visor off and it swung on the handle like a Don’t Disturb sign. I removed the visor at the same time I heard first one crack, then another. The four silver jackets sprinted across the lot. Rain turned towards the door and since his arms hung straight down not clutching at nothing, I thought he was okay but then he fell gradual to his knees, toppled over, folding into a soft S. I ran ahead of the Zephyr stampede only now thundering to the door. Got down on all fours to lean close to Rain’s face. Blood came out of his ear, trickled past the silver cross even as his fingers curled up from the ground into a spidery cup I knew was for permanent. My throat ached as if I’d drunk a icy root beer too quick. I slipped my left palm beneath his head to cradle it in my lap, barely feeling the rough pavement under my knees. His blood was warm on my fingers. The memo pad pressed painfully against my hip as the Zephyr crowd circled and pressed around me. No one had said anything ‘bout that stick-up pharmacy and they’d likely say even less about this. Someone’s hand gripped my shoulder with crisp authority, urging me to stand. But my limbs and mouth and eyes and heart went dry and dead; was no telling when they’d come back to my control. I heard the crazy ringing of Zephyr’s abandoned machines, left to settle their own scores. Rain’s mouth opened in a semi-smirk revealin’ the bottom edges of his fine white teeth, his pretty gray eyes open and all shiny shiny shiny.
