With Prejudice by Robin Peguero

Author:Robin Peguero
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2022-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

“Where’s my dad, Mom?”

In the darkness of their vehicle, he could not quite discern her reaction. The streetlights on those roads—old, flickering, and dim—failed to illuminate her profile. But her body, sprawled in the front seat though it was, appeared stiff.

“Nowhere you need to be.”

She was uncharacteristically quiet. In his younger years, Sam had accepted this nonanswer. But adolescence had instilled in him a recklessness that urged him to push further.

“That isn’t enough anymore.”

Sam looked at her out of the corner of his eye. It’s how he caught sight of the hunk of metal, ensconced in blackness, barreling toward the front passenger side, moments before impact. He slammed on the accelerator. There was a pop, crunch, and screech, so loud they became the only sounds in the world. The Earth spun on its axis: one revolution, two revolutions, three revolutions in a matter of seconds, before the hot, spiraling box in which he sat came to a rest against a palm tree. Sam lost focus. The scene blurred, melting into nothingness.

Light and color reentered his eyeline. He threw his shoulder up against his driver’s-side door. It shrieked open, bottom corner clawing at cement. He lurched forward on shaky footing. Soreness gripped his muscles. He stumbled out onto the street.

And for one beautifully tranquil moment, as he staggered down an empty, darkened street in a vacuum of noise, he was the only living soul in the universe.

Two male hands sandwiched him, one flat against his chest, the other on his back. The man was yelling—that Sam could see—but he could not hear what. The dial tone in his ears drowned out all else. The man’s eyes shook with alarm. A stream of blood fell from his temple. White powder caked his nostrils.

Sam snapped back into his muted surroundings. He flipped around, stared at a heap until he recognized it as his mangled car, and ran toward it. Using a shattered window as a reference point, he distinguished the outline of the passenger door. Drops of viscous red and leaking gas dripped from its bottom corner. He summoned all of his remaining strength and pulled on twisted steel that would not budge. The hands reemerged, this time shoving him back and away from the leaking coffin. Sam was now yelling. He depleted his voice raw until sirens replaced it.

The vehicle had to be pried apart with fire and brimstone. The body was removed and blanketed. Sam watched while seated on the curb. He heard next to nothing of what adults directed to him. He said nothing in reply, handing them his wallet for identification and explaining little else. They came to suspect that Sam was deaf.

Two officers holding down the perimeter droned on in mindless conversation in heavy accents near him.

“Did you see the driver try to run off when units arrived? That man was stoned out of his mind. Had to be gunning it. It sent that car spinning. He has no license, either. No papers. Just a passport. El Salvador, Guatemala—some place near there.

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