Us Kids Know by JJ Strong

Author:JJ Strong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2017-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

Ray

CULLEN AND I hurried toward the store, and I wasn’t thinking at all about God or Heaven or life before or after death, because none of that meant anything to me in that moment. What I felt, above all else, was emptiness. I trusted the emptiness. I had faith in the emptiness. Bloodfire, I thought. Bloodfire. Bloodfire.

“Get in and out,” Cullen said. “No distractions. Got it?”

I nodded, even though I wasn’t really listening to the words he was saying. They were just sounds, but I agreed with the general feeling coming from them.

“And do not shoot the gun. No matter what happens, for the love of God, Ray, do not shoot that fucking gun. You want him to think you’ll shoot it, but you’re not going to.”

“Okay.”

“You’ve shot it before. You know how to handle it. Show him that. Show him this is your gun and you’ve used it a thousand times before and will not hesitate to use it on him.”

“Okay.”

“We get in and get out, and you don’t shoot the fucking gun, and nobody gets hurt.”

We stopped at a crosswalk and waited for the light to change, even though there were no cars. Behind us a slope of muddy grass covered with broken liquor bottles and losing lottery tickets rose to a small wooded area. The road to our left followed a line of green traffic lights into the depths of East Orange. In front of us, across the street, was the store.

Cullen nudged me with his elbow. “We’re out there now, kid,” he said. “You feel it?”

The whole thing took maybe three minutes, but it felt much longer. We paused at the curb to let the store’s only customer amble into his minivan and pull out of the lot, then we put on our masks and marched inside. Without breaking stride, and without thinking about it, and with my head humming from a violent rush of blood, I sprinted up to the counter and held the gun at the guy and screamed at him just like Cullen had told me to do—just like we’d rehearsed in the garage of his grandmother’s house.

“Show me your hands, hands up, show me your hands, motherfucker!”

The clerk was a dark-skinned, broad-chested guy who seemed somehow familiar. He looked about Cullen’s age, considering that Cullen looked almost five years older than he really was. The idea was to submit him to my will. Tonight I was going to puppet someone else the way so many had done to me. To flex and then watch someone cower.

The guy put his arms over his head and tried to duck away from the gun’s aim. “Okay!” he said. “Okay, man, don’t shoot.”

“The register!” I said.

“Okay!” On the way to the register, he touched an alarm button under the counter.

“What are you doing?” I shouted. “What the hell was that?! You want to get shot over a few hundred fucking dollars?!”

“I’ll get the money!”

“Get it now!”

I looked to Cullen to see about the alarm and what to do next, but Cullen just stood there staring at the clerk, not saying anything.

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