Pitch-black.
The Scaredy Bugs were running like crazy beneath Trevon’s skin, and his mouth tasted salty from the blood, but he was trying hard not to notice. The little knife slit in the trash bag over his head was just enough to let the air trickle through if he worked really, really hard. His glasses were crooked, and he could tell they were foggy from his breath even though he couldn’t see almost anything.
He wondered why they were doing this to him, but then he remembered that Mama always told him that bullies were just jealous of people who were special ’cuz they didn’t feel special themselves.
Mama.
He bit his lip to keep it from trembling, but only for a sec, ’cuz he needed his mouth open to try’n get air.
They’d been in a car for a while—actually a truck or SUV, ’cuz he’d had to step up to get in the back. So far they’d turned left, left, right, left, right, left, left—and then he’d lost track ’cuz he thought of Mama.
Mama.
There was a slurping sound from the front seat.
Raw One’s voice said, “What’s that shit?”
And then Muscley One said, “Protein drink, fifty-four grams. Check out these sick gains.”
The seat belt made creaking sounds.
Raw One said, “Be sure’n take lots of gym selfies before your kidneys fall out.”
The trash liner was wet against Trevon’s face. “Um,” he said. “Excuse me? Could you please take this off?”
They both laughed, and Muscley One said, “Sure, we’ll get right on that.”
“Thank you,” Trevon said.
They laughed again, and he waited for them to help.
He kept waiting.
* * *
When they tore the garbage bag off his head, he gasped and gasped. As soon as he caught his breath, he said, “Thank you.”
They were standing in a gravel lot in the middle of nowhere. There was a tall fence surrounding them, and on top of the fence there was barbed wire, except not the type that looks like little stars but the big swoopy kind with razor blades.
Muscley One shoved him hard in the kidney, and he said, “Ouch,” but he moved where they wanted him to, toward a big cinder-block building that looked like a warehouse. It was dark, and there were no lights except for one over the only door he could see.
At the door Raw One tapped a code into a panel, and they stood there. Trevon looked at Muscley One’s half-skull tattoos, and Muscley One said, “The fuck you looking at?”
“Your tattoos. They’re scary.”
“Not as scary as what you’re about to see.”
Trevon said, “Oh, no.”
The door buzzed open, and they stepped inside.
They were in a front room, and there were seven other guys like Raw One and Muscley One, and they all had guns strapped to their hips like it was nothing, and they were leaning against the walls and tables and looking all sullen-like. The walls were covered with eleven thick metal plates like it was some kinda shelter to protect them from a alien invasion.
Raw One said, “How’s his mood?” and Rat-Face One said, “How the fuck you think his mood is?”
Fat One flicked his chins at Trevon and said, “That the poor fool?”
Before anyone could answer, a voice came over a loudspeaker and said, “Bring him in here.”
Raw One and Muscley One pushed Trevon toward a closed back door that was all thick and metal. Next to it was a big mirror that took up half the wall.
The voice came back on and said, “Did you frisk him?”
“Believe me,” Raw One said, “it’s not a concern.”
And the voice said, “It’s always a concern.”
Then Raw One and Muscley One touched Trevon all over like they weren’t supposed to, and he thought about Stranger Danger and that he’d have to tell Mama later.
Mama.
Instead he could tell Gran’mama or Leo, because they were family and family will take care of you. He wished Kiara was here instead of running around helping folks in Guatemala ’cuz she was the oldest and the sweetest and his favorite, and she always understood him better than anyone.
The big metal door buzzed, and then Raw One and Muscley One pushed him through. It was a nice office here in the middle of the warehouse with a desk and a blotter and tables with scales on them like they weighed lots of stuff in here, and there was a man sitting behind the desk with his boots up on the blotter.
He had a big face.
Muscley One and Raw One shoved Trevon down into a leather chair facing the desk. Behind the desk were doors that opened onto other corridors with other doors, like the building kept going forever.
Trevon was sweating a lot, and he wiped at his forehead and straightened his glasses. He looked behind him and could see right through the mirror into the front room like magic, and then he realized it was like a interrogation room on a cop show. The other men were relaxed and joking, with big hand gestures and big smiles, and Trevon watched how happy they looked and couldn’t imagine ever feeling like that again.
Big Face let his boots thunk to the floor, and he leaned forward over the blotter. “Do you know what you did wrong?”
Trevon didn’t, and he wanted so bad to cry but he didn’t, because we don’t cry and we don’t feel sorry for ourself.
Instead he said, “No, sir.”
“I’m an importer. In a particularly cutthroat business.” Big Face’s voice was calm, but it was fake calm, like when Uncle Joe-Joe got real mad. It sounded weird, stuffed-up-like but also deep. “Do you know how long I’ve been doing business successfully?”
Trevon shook his head.
“Forty-four years. How do you think I’ve gotten by this long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think it’s by letting myself be taken advantage of?”
“No, sir.”
“Last Friday you were working the night shift at SoCal First Bonded Warehouse when my container arrived from Suriname.”
“Yes, sir. Intermodular container, series one, number BL322-401. It weighed in at 29,456 kilograms. External dimensions: nineteen feet and ten point five inches by eight feet by eight feet and six inches. Internal dimensions—”
The voice was quiet, but it cut him off like a blade: “Do you know what it held?”
“Frozen fish.”
“Sure,” Big Face said. “Eighteen million dollars of frozen fish. My profits of forty-four years put on the line for this deal.”
Trevon said, “That’s expensive fish.”
Big Face breathed a few times. A vein squiggled in his throat, and his face was red. He looked like he might explode, but then he breathed himself back to calm. “Yes,” he said. “And this container—my container holding my profits of forty-four years—was supposed to go in the front and right out the back before the customs officials got there for the CBP examination. That was my understanding with Chava.”
“Chava got food poisoning.”
“But he told you what you were to do.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I had another container, a replacement container, right there, ready to be scrutinized. You just had to smile and look the other way.” Big Face picked up a letter opener and put the pointy tip into his finger and twisted it. “But you didn’t, did you?”
Trevon’s throat was dry. He couldn’t find his voice, so he shook his head.
“Instead you called customs and went home for the night. And now here we are. Me with my problems. And you with yours.” Big Face’s teeth clenched. “Do you think my … trading partners will cover my losses? Do you think they’ll say, ‘Oh, there was a mix-up? That’s okay. We’ll cover your losses. We’ll send you another shipment.’”
“Oh!” Trevon said. “One time I bought berries at Trader Joe’s, and when I got home the ones on the bottom were all moldy like, and so I took ’em back.…”
Big Face’s eyes got wide, and Trevon figured he didn’t like his story so he stopped telling it ’cuz that was something Mama had taught him about reading social cues.
Mama.
Big Face said, “You didn’t listen to Chava.”
Trevon wiped at his forehead again. “Where’s Chava now?”
“Chava? Chava is dead.”
Trevon felt his throat closing up, trying to make him cry, but he wouldn’t. “He is? Oh, no. Musta been really bad food poisoning.”
Muscley One and Raw One laughed behind him, but then Big Face looked up at them and they went silent.
“In direct violation of Chava’s orders—of my orders—you called customs,” Big Face said. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“’Cuz that’s what the rules say. And it’s the right thing to do.”
“Are you happy with where that got you?”
“I don’t … I don’t know. What are you gonna do to me?”
“To you ? Oh, I’m not gonna touch a hair on your head.” Big Face leaned forward, and his chair made a creaking noise. “Instead I’m gonna tell you a story. When some piece of shit commits an act of terror in Israel, do you know what the Israeli army does?”
“No, sir.”
“They demolish the houses of the raghead’s family. Every last family member. Every last house. Because, you see, merely punishing the offender doesn’t work as a deterrent. It doesn’t help ensure that this will never happen again .” Big Face took a few more breaths. “What the Israeli army does is a fine policy. But my trading partners? They make what’s going on in the Middle East look like a playground. They could well imagine that with my coffers low and my merchandise flow interrupted I am weak. They are uniquely attuned to smelling weakness. So I require a show of strength. One that reminds them that I am not weak but that I am to be feared . Which requires measures much more severe than those used by the Israelis.”
Trevon felt pins and needles all over his body.
“Jesus Christ.” Big Face looked up at his friends. “I’m dealing with someone who is literally too stupid to appreciate how fucked he is.” He stood. “I’ll try’n break it down for you clearly, Trevon. Everything that happened to your family? Everything that is going to happen? It’s all your fault.”
Trevon tried to talk, but his throat was all dried up. He swallowed and tried again. “What else is gonna happen?”
“I’m going to eliminate your people from the face of the earth. I will kill every relative and loved one you have. Wipe away any trace that you exist outside of the terrible thoughts bouncing around inside your damaged, useless skull.”
Trevon thought of his cousin Aisha on the lawn chair and Auntie Tisha on the lawn and Mama in her chair.
Mama.
Big Face interrupted his thoughts. “Your grandmother? In the nursing home?”
Trevon’s voice sounded like a croak. “Gran’mama?”
“My associates mixed weed killer into her morning yogurt. She’ll die, certainly. But it will take hours .”
Trevon shook his head back and forth hard, trying to make the pictures in it go away.
“Your brother Leo? Home right now with his jaw wired shut? My friends here replaced his meds with emetics. Can you imagine what it’s like to vomit again and again when it has nowhere to go?” Big Face twisted that letter opener into the pad of his finger, bringing up a tiny bead of blood. “It took him nearly twenty minutes to suffocate.”
Trevon waited, forgetting to breathe, his chest burning and burning.
Somewhere inside his brain, he realized that Big Face hadn’t mentioned Kiara which was good, ’cuz Kiara was his favorite and she was in Guatemala helping folks and she barely never even checked e-mails no more.
She was safe. Kiara was safe.
But Gran’mama. And Leo. And Mama.
Mama.
Big Face was talking some more. “Your lineage has been exterminated. And not just backward but into the future. Forever. If you ever date, if you ever marry, if you ever have kids, we will be there. We will take everything and everyone from you as you took forty-four years of hard work from me.”
Big Face nodded, and Muscley One and Raw One came forward and grabbed Trevon’s wrists to control his hands. He screamed and tried to fight, but they were way, way too strong.
They shoved Raw One’s folding knife into Trevon’s hand and made him grab the sticky handle before taking it away. Then they did the same thing with a machete and a gun and a pill bottle. They put all the stuff into a plastic bag.
Big Face nodded at the bag. “Do you understand what this means?”
Trevon shook his head.
“These murder weapons have your fingerprints on them. If you go to the cops, if you talk to anyone , we will make sure these weapons are found. You will be known as the psycho retard who murdered his entire family. And I can promise you, you will not fare well in prison among real murderers. And rapists.” He licked the dot of blood from his fingertip. “Do you understand now?”
It took some effort for Trevon to make his head move up and down.
“Maybe one day you’ll decide that you can tell a police officer. Share your burden with a co-worker. Maybe you’ll think you can run away, leave the city, go to Mexico. If you think I won’t find out, think again. You don’t do what I do over four decades without building connections everywhere. I will know. ”
Big Face walked around his desk now in front of Trevon and crossed his arms and looked down at him. He smelled of fancy cologne.
“You exist now for one purpose and one purpose only. To be an advertisement to my trading partners, to my workers, to the world in which I move that no one is ever to take steps to harm my interests. You will wake each morning and breathe and suffer as a living testimony to my power.”
Trevon leaned over and vomited on his shoes.
Big Face said, “Get this imbecile the fuck out of my office.”
Muscley One and Raw One lifted Trevon by the arms. His legs didn’t work, so they carry-dragged him back out through the front room, into the gravel lot, and over to the truck.
Muscley One reached into the backseat and threw a little towel at Trevon’s face. “You’re cleaning your ass up before you get in my new truck.”
Trevon wiped at his mouth and his shirt. Then he held the little towel tight in his hands as they put the trash liner back over his head and pushed him in. The air smelled like the blue tree he’d seen dangling from the rearview mirror.
As they drove off, the Scaredy Bugs went crazy inside Trevon, running around so fast he wished he could unzip his skin and crawl out. He tried to hum to himself, but it didn’t help any. His hands were shaking and his arms were shaking and his legs were shaking. He twisted the little towel between his fists and rocked himself, but that didn’t help any.
The Scaredy Bugs had won.