Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Bear Gets Knifed

Bear was walking home from the gym in pain. She had a slight limp from the blister on the balls of her feet and she was suffering. She rounded the corner to her spider infested suburban house, exhausted and terribly overheated. She touched her hand to the doorknob. It was locked. Fuck, she thought. She could envision her house keys lying on the couch cushion right behind the door. She was locked out and her roommate wouldn’t be home for another two and a half hours. Bear did the only thing she knew; she used the keypad on her car door and unlocked the trunk. It had an open trunk so if she put the back seats down she could stretch out and take a nap until her roommate rescued her. And that’s what she did, but she had to keep the trunk wide open or the car would heat up beyond a reasonable temperature.

She awoke suddenly to an unfamiliar voice. “Hey Pappi!” the heavy Spanish voice said, “h’what are you doing in de trunk?” Bear sat up, disoriented and afraid. “H’oh my gad,” the voice laughed, “Is’a girl. What you doing in de car, chica?” Bear instinctively tried to grab the leather strap to close the trunk door from the inside but her reflexes were slow from just waking up. Her heart beat so hard in her chest it hurt. Meanwhile, the Spaniard came closer to her car in a serpentine fashion, she couldn’t figure out what direction he meant to come at her from. What time is it, she thought, why isn’t my roommate back yet?

Bear had just grabbed the leather strap but the strength she needed to pull the door closed was worked out of her hours before, damn that fucking class, and she fell out of the trunk. “Was’a matta, chica” the voice said, now considerably closer to Bear. She was nervous and scared; she’d never fought before. Bear stood up; she was wired and every neuron was firing. She could see everything so clearly. The sun was setting, the neighbors windows were open, people were swimming in the nearby pool, the Spaniard was definitely moving close, too close, and his tattoos covered his neck and arms. The night was warm but the breeze was cold. Bear shivered, she saw the Spaniard brandish a dull switchblade.

“I like yo car, chica,” he said, waving the tip of the blade towards her face. He cocked his head as if he were looking through a sniper-scope and continued to wave his knife in Bear’s face. Without warning, the Spaniard lunged at Bear and jabbed the knife into her side, splintering between two ribs and perforating her right lung. Bear didn’t begin to gasp for another few seconds before she dropped to the floor. She felt so tired all of a sudden. Grow up in Harlem and die in a fucking suburb, she thought as she saw the distant footsteps of her roommate rounding the corner. She had a bewildered face as she was nearly side-swiped by a car nearly identical to her roommate’s car, except that there was a man driving this one.

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