YNs

Corbitt Darlington sat in the car and breathed. He felt the cold steel in his hands. It felt colder than the 1989 February afternoon where he found himself in the South Bridge section of Wilmington, Delaware. A knock on the glass startled him. He physically rolled down the window to the gray midlevel Korean sedan.

“What is it?” Darlington asked.

“It’s Tykwana. She wants me over there so we can do some things,” Fareek Bundt intoned.

“Alright. After this hit, though. Then you can hit, though.”

“Alright.”

The sun wheeled downward as the night fell. Cars moved in between the places on the highway. The street was littered with stems and matches and lighters and shattered pipes. Bundt’s beeper went off just as he cocked the gun. It seemed like the night came upon them even quicker, now. The trees obscured the view from the apartment complex. These young wolves prowled the land with intent and increased effort. They knew their target. To devour him meant nothing. Darlington waited until the sun extinguished in the tray of the sky. Cold. Dark. The scene almost creeped him out of doing it. Almost.

Bundt and Darlington both stepped to the apartment. They waited around the corner for Gavin Rottam to present himself. The condensation from their breaths remained the only signature from naked eyes. They walked around the place twice waiting for him. They looked at one another. Closely, they crept. Their approach seemed like deathstalkers. Whisps of breath collided against the wind, the bitter wind.

Bundt kept a .22 caliber pistol on him which Darlington chided him for carrying. Though it appeared small, Bundt argued, it still fulfilled its purpose. The door opened. A man appeared. He stepped twice out from the entrance to the apartment. Darlington and Bundt rushed. They each withdrew their firearms and pumped shots into the body. They flipped the body. It wasn’t Rottam. The two looked each other in the eyes and jetted back to Darlington’s car.

“I can’t believe it! He was supposed to walk out right there at the right time. What the hell happened?!” Bundt asked with his chest rising.

“It’s okay, man. We got someone and that should scare the hell out of him. He probably says what’s up to him on the regular. What were your plans with Tykwana?”

“Are you serious? We just caught a body.”

“Relax.”

“Man, I’m hungry. Let’s go find something.”

Bundt looked into Darlington’s dark eyes. He saw him bare his teeth and swore the man growled low and simple. They pulled up to a fast food restaurant drive-thru.

“Alright. You can get what you want, I’m not eating,” Bundt proclaimed.

Darlington sucked his teeth.

“Hey let me get the Supreme Deal. Everything must be large.” he spoke into the drive-thru speaker. “You sure you don’t want anything?” Bundt flipped. “Okay get me an apple pie.”

“You heard the man.”

“Your total is fourteen-fifty. Please drive around to the window.”

A thin, chocolate nineteen-year-old, two years younger than Darlington and Bundt had her hair cut short and presented the food with a smile. Darlington looked at her figure.

“What’s happening after your shift?”

“Boy, don’t play. Here’s your food.”

Darlington smiled and drove off from the window. Bundt bit into his apple pie and then threw out the carton. Darlington bit into his burger. The juices spittled down his chin as he savored the bites. He reached for some fries. Bundt put his head between his knees.

“What we did was tragic, sir,” Bundt admitted. “We should’ve got Gavin. Instead someone else’s family’s going to feel pain instead of his.”

“Okay, so we’ll see it on the news tonight. ‘Young black man shot to death by an unnamed gunman. If you have any information….’” Darlington mimicked with an accent and everything. “I thought you wanted to meet up with Tykwana….”

“Man, I do. I want to, I mean I wanted to. Now….”

“Now, you’ve become part of the fraternity of killers,” Darlington pointed out, car and traffic lights flickering in his eyes and a new gold tooth.

“Just drop me off at my house, man,” Bundt instructed.

“Alright, man. I’ll drop you off at your place.” The car rolled up to the small house. Bundt sat for a long time. “What we did was reprehensible.”

“What we did was responsible. We got rid of someone that should put the most fear in Gav’. Whoever that was, it’ll put some ice down Gav’s back.”

Bundt looked at Darlington. “And we could be nabbed for the whole thing.”

“You can’t snitch,” Darlington commanded. His eyes met with Bundt’s with intensity and grave, undeniable severity.

“Whatever, man. I’m getting out of––” Darlington snatched Bundt’s chest after he opened the car door. It shut with force.

“No. Snitching.”

“Alright, man, whatever.”

“No, whatever. No snitching. I dig holes.”

“Alright. I got it.” Bundt exited from the car. He walked the tiny path to the squat one story structure. Darlington peeled away. He noticed that Bundt had forgotten his beeper. It had Tykwana’s number flashing on the green screen.

It read 911 after that. Darlington smiled. He pulled over to a truck stop and used the payphone.

“Fareek?”

“No. This is Corbitt. Remember me from the Christmas party?”

“Right. Where’s Fareek?”

“He’s busy studying. You know he has to get his grades up if he wants to stay on the team.” Darlington whistled slightly. “I’m saying, why don’t we do something tonight.”

“Like what?”

“You know…we can just chill at your house.”

“Did Fareek put you up to this?”

“Baby, this is all me.”

“Okay. If Fareek isn’t coming around, you can come my way.”

“Cool.”

“Let’s get your address.”

She provided him with an apartment he knew about from a few summers ago.

“I’ll leave the door unlocked so hurry up and get here.”

He hung up the phone and then proceeded to his vehicle.

Once he put the car in park outside of her home, he looked himself in the mirror and howled. It was a guttural, haunting howl. He smiled and winked and kissed at the mirror before opening the car door. The single gold tooth glistened in the light. His stroll belied the fact he had just left an innocent man slain in the cold concrete of the sidewalk just moments ago.

He opened the door and headed into the backroom. The TV flickered. Tykwana had been on the bed rocking back and forth. She had been sobbing. Tears streaked her face. Darlington approached her with quickness and sat to comfort her.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just got the call from my mother and now I’m seeing it on the news. My…brother. Someone shot my brother!” Her body convulsed. Wracked with grief, she felt the sting of a loved one’s death pervade her consciousness.

Darlington shot to his feet. His mouth hung slightly agape. He looked at his watch. It was a few minutes past eleven. The images of the newspeople interviewing witnesses jolted him.

“Yeah, I saw a light skinned black guy and a dark skinned guy, the lighter one had a gold tooth that sparkled in the light. I don’t know if they did it, but that’s what I saw,” one witness proclaimed. Tykwana turned around to see Darlington’s face.

His eyes widened as he shut his mouth and ran for the door.

“Wait!”

He made it to his car and with black knuckles, gripped the steering wheel. He pulled over to an adjacent lot. He saw a gutter and tossed the firearm in it. He sped off from that spot.

The next day he called Bundt after the latter finished hockey practice.

“Man, it’s hot.”

“What are you talking about? It's the dead of winter.”

“I’m saying that your girl is going to snitch.”

“How is she going to snitch unless you…Did you…?”

“Nah, we didn’t even have time like that. I just went over to her house and she had the news on and I just flashed a grin just as someone was describing the both of us.”

“So, you were about to hit it with my girl and then you tell me you got caught for what happened?”

“I’m just saying.”

“You’re not saying anything. Later.”

Bundt hung up the phone, a bit shaken but able to function nonetheless. He walked out of the First State Community College doors and waited for the bus. Instead, Darlington picked him up from where he stood.

Bundt threw all his gear in the back of the car and entered the front passenger seat.

“What the hell man? What happened?”

“It was like I told you. I wanted to get with Tykwana, I’ll admit that, but I wasn’t counting on her brother being the one we killed!”

“Jesus!” Bundt exclaimed.

“We’ve gotta do something. We’re going to get interrogated and––”

“We? She saw you. I don’t have anything to do with that.”

“Look, you’re not going to be the one to say no to this situation. You are very much a ‘Yes’ with a target for the cops to capture,” Darlington stated almost breathlessly.

“You’ve got yourself in knots now because you think you’re Mr. College Man on the hockey rink. But look, you are just as guilty as I. You’re going to be with me on that long walk.”

Bundt swore profusely. He then inhaled sharply. “Man, I don’t even want to see you right now. You can take me home.”

Darlington exhaled and followed Bundt’s suggestion. When Bundt walked up to his house he tried to pull out of the driveway when two police cars blocked his exit. He remembered that Tykwana would have Bundt’s address and he lured the cops right to his doorstep.

Bundt used his athleticism and jumped over fences and around kiddy pools. He eluded the police who could not catch him.

Darlington’s face smashed against the ground under the officer’s heel. His gold tooth shot out from his mouth. Blood trickled on the pavement. After the cold, steel bracelets of justice fitted around his wrists, Darlington was taken from the Bundt residence to a police squad car. He then sat in an interrogation room.

“We know your buddy, Bundt. Number ninety four on the team. We suspect you and he had some kind of connection to this homicide. What’s the issue here?”

“I’m going to need a lawyer.”

“No, you’re going to answer the question.”

“I don’t have to tell you a damn thing.”

“We’ve already got evidence on you. Where did your buddy Fareek go?”

Darlington stayed mum.

“You don’t want to talk,” Officer Plymouth Tardigan darkish with a small ‘Afro and of slight build, grimaced, “That’s okay. You’ll get a lawyer, but that won’t save you. We’ve got prints, eyewitnesses, and that pretty little brown thing who got her brother taken away from her, she’s ready to give up all the information we need to put you away for a long time. Understand?”

He remained quiet and then….

“Alright.”

The detective’s eyes turned to saucers. “Oh? Now, you find your tongue….”

“He’s probably at his grandmother’s house. She lives in Newark. He’s probably almost there now. If you can catch him, you’ll be able to get more information out of him.”

“Was it like scratching off a scab?” Officer Tardigan asked with a slightly pouty face.

“I didn’t want to give you that much. All we were trying to do was take out this guy….”

“Gavin Rottam, twenty-three. Wanted for rape and sexual assault of a seven-year-old girl. What made you think you were doing our job? We picked him up as he ran away as well. You all might even be cellies in Pennsylvania.”

“You got him?”

Tardigan nodded his head. “It’s good, too because when Bundt gets his, you all can trade stories about how this all transpired. But we’re going to let your lawyer handle that. Or is it too late for him to show up?”

Darlington hung his head. He scratched it and brought it back up with vim. He looked at the mirror to the interrogation room and thought about the idea of going up north and being part of the dour statistics. With him remaining in the room, he cursed himself for breaking his own word.