Abducted Chapter Twenty-Two: The Cart
In which Tabby faces the consequences of her actions.
Chapter Twenty Two: The Cart
Other than the time we met Brenny, there was only one time we had to take out our guns cut bait jump ship and get out. It was on entry to a small town in RI where the houses were half-kept on cracked foundations. They needed reroofing and mowing but weren’t too close to the edge. I supposed need is everywhere, it’s true but our expectations of joyous reception were dashed on sight. In the dark, Jeff, Brenny and I’d gone door to door dropping wad after wad on doorstep or in mailboxes and rang the bell and ditched. Couldn’t have been more than an hour and a couple dozen houses in before one neighbor called the other and the other called the other to inform them of the charitable gifts and deny the authenticity of its being no strings attached.
Paradoxically, the Christian work ethic is so strong the idea of a cash windfall is mindboggling. Each they opened their doors, took up the comically perfect bundle of bills, and went to the end of their unsealed driveways, and called into the night asking each other if they’d gotten a surprise stack as well. Soon lights in every living room in the suburb were lit with rolling bellied dads and bathrobe-ed smoking moms clutching themselves in fear they’d gotten what they deserved. This disconnect, this disbelief sent a crowd of 40-50 somethings to inspect the cool night air for the giver. The obvious liar and jokester.
At our last few stops, a mob collected at the end of a Cul-du-sac preventing our departure. These Bob’s and Janice’s, they’d found their target and locked in on us like a drone over Libya. Standing there, each with their wad in hand, they scowl and inspect us in silence. Half in and half out of the van Jeff, Brenny, and I are in the headlights of an oncoming train. To the crowd nothing is this easy, nothing is free, or given, or taken, without a price. All of this’s been drummed into them by Fox news and the church and all that since birth. All of this falling cleanly under the dictates of The Cart from Magnanimous book.
Wasn’t prepared for how perfectly they performed.
They asked, “where did you get this?” and, “was this stolen?” and, “is this drug money?” all with faces of pinched disgust like they’d never tried ecstasy or coke in their lives. Hippocrates. “We’ve called the police.” They shouted, closing in. Without even pitchforks or torches they’re maniacal, ready to eat us alive to defend a system that’s kept them from joy. Can’t imagine what it’s like getting a leg up and not believing you deserve it. Oh, wait. Yes I can. But that didn’t change our circumstances.
Taking his gun from the holster like before, Jeff pointed indiscriminately at the crowd, said, “back away, all of you!” Not one of them moved.
Of course Brenny’s smiling. But the crowd hasn’t flinched, as if people throwing money on their doorstep and threatening them into keeping it is a daily occurrence. Again they swelled like a hive mind closer and closer. Even I’ve drawn my gun and aimed like Halcyon taught me. Brenny hopped in the back of the van.
Jeff, says, “it’s a gift. Just take it and go home.”
“Where did you get it?” A particularly squeezed woman said, letting her bathrobe open to reveal she’s armed to her eyebrows with guns at her hips ready to send us three to kingdom come. She asks, “did you abduct that little boy? Are you sex traffickers?” Spittle caking the corners of her mouth.
“Nothing in life is free, man,” One said, then another said, “I’m not going to jail because you robbed a bank!” One boxer shorted Homer Simpson shouted.
He too was armed. They all were. Seems they’ve taken their second amendment rights so seriously they’ll defend their own thieves. Namely us. Jeff and I. No one becomes a trillionaire without crunching some bones underfoot. Not without toppling some government or stealing from already destitute people. I think of every dollar skimmed from every paycheck unbeknownst to the payee. Not government taxes, but an unseen obscene amount of money never given, unacknowledged for century after century, millennia after millennia until our family’s bloated bank account explodes with world ending amounts of money.
Closing in, they’ve drawn their guns against us giving us no choice but to scrabble into the bulletproof van and slam the door shut. Once inside they’ve surrounded us and bang on glass with the buts of their snub noses and Desert Eagles. The whole time Brenny is giggling, chuckling like as if his life being in danger is a joke. At that point we’d already discovered his hope club and put a stop to it. Bored and disillusioned, our boy takes anything as entertainment.
I’d asked Jeff, “what do we do?”
Though the van was impenetrable, that didn’t stop the mob from rocking us, shaking us side to side like a matchbox with a few unused tips inside. Wasn’t long before they realized they could tip it on its side to prevent our escape. God knew then only Halcyon could rescue us but since we weren’t disguised it’d be revealed who we were and what we were all about. But I’m not about to give up our ritual of shoveling away fortunes into the night.
Jeff said, “drive through them.”
I’d asked, “what?”
He said, confidently, “there are no kids here and they’re all armed. Drive through them.”
Hated to say it, but he’s right. If given the chance they’ll rock the van tonto its side and pummel us to death for the pinata millions in the back. Might even they’ll light the van on fire and roast us. Probably even after killing us they’d forget their vigilantism and keep and divide the money amongst themselves for a job well done. A whole town with secretly fixed windows, and newly sealed basements, chemically treated lawns, and new Land Rovers all with their fingers to their lips about where they got the money and why it wasn’t taxed.
Kicking the van into gear, I lunged it a few feet forward sending a some of them flying back. Confused that anyone being assailed would defend themselves, these Bobbie-Jo’s, and Mr. Smiths, they sat up with rage in their eyes like as if they’d seen a trans black couple buy the house next to them. That’s when a John pointed his Luger at the windshield and fired. Though the glass is bullet-proof the rapport and resultant ricochet silenced everything. Through the spider-webbed windshield, the John unhindered raised his gun and fired again. They all did.
Brenny laughs like a villain clutching his stomach.
It was the dumbest thing I’d ever seen. All these Martha’s and Richards, delighted at the idea of shooting at something non-target practice, something human, they began emptying their chambers and forgot themselves. This is what the television told them to do. The maniacal look in their eyes was everything disgustingly suburban. People without the wherewithal to understand they’d been trained to believe they didn’t deserve more. Propagandized to believe they deserve less than what they’d earned. I couldn’t believe my eyes when even after the ricocheted bullets pierced their own friends and family and co-workers they continued to fire unhindered.
Out of breath, Brenny took a puff on his inhaler.
The John in the front took one in the belly and collapsed spread eagle in the headlights. A Martha took one to the chest. So too a Daniel, a Fred, a Jennie, Jenny, Joseph all got their Punisher on and sent their neighbor to the ER with a GSW. A particularly swarthy sullen cowboy of a man smoking a Marlboro spun his guns about like as if he was Revolver Ocelot and thinking himself invincible fired point blank at the passenger window and the rebound popped back into his own eye dropping him dead right there.
Our boy’s standing in the back of the van watching the carnage and pointing like the child he is. Can’t stop his trauma inducing ab workout. Boy’s seen worse and we didn’t want him to see more. I’m a terrible mother and there’s nothing I can do about it. Try and fix me money, I’ve got more than the world can spend and spending it all would destroy the world. But maybe that’s what’s needed.
After long the few who were left realized themselves and the pavement charcuterie they’d made of their neighborhood. A whole mess of the company baseball team and it’s overweight cheerleading squad in a pool of blood around the van all clutching their bellies and hearts or dead from blood loss.
Cold but truthful, a whispering Jeff said, “we should just leave. We’ll pay for their hospital bills and funerals and…” he paused, watching what was left of the mob run silent into the night, then he said, “…we’ll set their families up for life.” Looking around out the windows and counting with his eyes, he said, “thirty four families. Eight million each plus hush money lawyers contracts that’s about forty million. Maybe we could build them a new school with a playground…it’s not too much so it won’t… upset the… balance.”
He stopped because he knew I wasn’t listening. Out beyond the dead mob, lying flat spread eagle on her back is an elderly woman with a gardening hat tied to her head. I open the door and step out. Careful not to disturb the mess I tiptoe around them groaning or dead to the edge of the circle to the woman. Still clutching her old fashioned bodice around a flower print dress, Charity is gasping for air. Below her ribcage is a grievous wound to her diaphragm. She’s slowly suffocating as blood pools into her chest cavity.
I like to think my hearts closed off after everything that’s happened with my family but it’s not true. Looking at me, watching me there’s familiarity in Charity’s eyes and it’s like she’s wounding me back. The poor old lady who wanted nothing more than to decorate a room, and celebrate her husband’s timely death, and live out the rest of her years sipping tea with ferns and reading books, she turns pale. Bluish. Not only did she not have a gun, the only thing she held was my heart.
Over the moaning, groaning crowd, Jeff had tiptoed aside me, asked, “do you know her?”
Kneeling over I touched her freezer-cold skin. Already, it’s too late.
“Tabby, we have to go,” Jeff’d said, touching my shoulder.
I’m not even halfway back to the car and I’m set crying.
Jeff says, “there was nothing we could do, dear.”