The Anarchists (6 page)

“Not this mornin’!” Teanna crossed the room. “Babe, I told you a million times not to be out here half-dressed. At least act like you half-Christian up in here.”

“Relax.” He stroked Teanna’s shoulders. “She’s going to see it sooner or later. You probably have already, haven’t you?” 

Meleasa audibly gagged and crossed her arms over her breasts. If she knew. “I ain’t old enough to date, Theodore.”

“I didn’t say you dated one. Don’t be ashamed. It’s natural. Admit it.”

“Not gonna tell you again, go put somethin’ on!”

Teiji waited for Tiny to disappear before speaking. “Mom, when's he getting out of here?”

“I don’t know, later? Why? Need him to drop you off, Tay?”

“No, I mean for good. He’s useful when he’s working, but now? Wait a couple days and you’ll be complaining about how he doesn’t do whatever. Again.”

Meleasa watched her mother’s flush of embarrassment morph into anger.

“You 17-years-old,” Teanna reminded him. “What you know? Nothin’ ‘bout nothin’. Wanna waste your life on some blue-eyed white girl?”

“You’d know about it,” he said underneath his breath.

Teanna raised a finger to her son’s face. “What’d you say?”

“Momma.” Meleasa drew closer. “It’s okay Momma. He ain’t say nothing.”

Teanna clutched Teiji by the shirt and pulled him close. “Mind your business, Meleasa. I wanna hear him say it to my face. Now, what’s it you say, Tay? Say it again. . .to my face.”

Teiji clammed up and dropped his head. “Nothing,” he muttered.

“Come again?”

“Nothing,” he repeated louder. “I didn’t say anything important.” 

Teanna slowly backed away until her nerves relaxed. Teiji fled the room and bumped into Tiny. “Easy,” he joked. “Open ‘em up, slant eyes.”

Meleasa trailed her brother, careful not to touch Tiny or allow him to brush up against her. Tiny stood behind Teanna, his breath tickling the hairs on her neck. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “Trouble is I ain’t know how to fix it.”

“You need to get away.” Tiny produced two full sniff containers. “This always makes it better. Well, this and other things. Both of them are available. . .in the other room. Let’s fly.”

Just give me somethin’ to take it all away. She followed him into her bedroom, where they indulged in a haze of copious sniff and alcohol.

Teiji’s music drowned out his mother’s foul mood. Lately, Meleasa joined him. It wasn’t because she enjoyed his brand of music, which ranged from soft and relaxing to bubblegum to hardcore and violent. But it completely drowned out the raunchy sounds.

After a half-hour of mellow tunes, Teiji switched to a song with an upbeat, driving tempo. At its most frenetic parts, he slumped down further into his chair.

“How long you think he’s staying this time?” he yelled. “It’s been a week.”

“That’s all?” Meleasa quipped. “That’s a record. He’ll be out soon and then things’ll be back to normal, whatever that is.”

“Yeah, but when he comes back, then what? If I go to the capitol, I’ll be an eight hour flight away for months. You’ll be here by yourself.”

Meleasa pondered that possibility. “You can’t stay.”

“We’ll call the cops,” he suggested. “Once somebody comes in here and sees what’s really going on, there’s no way they’ll let us stay.”

“They always clean up before they can get caught,” she argued. “It’s almost better if we just wait until he goes away again.”

“Or. . .” Tay produced a fully-charged Ordnance from a bag. Meleasa stifled her surprise.

“Where’d you get that? You ain’t 18.”

“I’m under 90 days out. That’s close enough. I got a license. Wouldn’t call me ‘slant eyes’ or ‘rice eater’, if he knew I had this.”

“You gonna shoot him?”

“I’m not going to part his hair with it.”

“Put it away, Tay. You scarin’ me.”

Teiji set the Ordnance’s safety. “We need some kind of help. Besides, when Mom’s high, she won’t protect you. Trust me on this one.”

Tiny burst through the door unannounced, still in his boxers but without an undershirt. “I keep telling you kids the soundproof's out. Turn it down!”  Tay’s sudden movement to hide his hand drew Tiny’s attention. “What you got there?”

He vaulted toward the boy, who dropped the bag, aimed at Tiny and shot him. A blue laser struck and vanished in Tiny’s left arm. Tay shot him three more times in the chest. Tiny stumbled into the hallway, his hands covering the sizzling flesh.

Meleasa’s screams and the sight of Tiny crawling to the living area drew Teanna to his side. “Baby. . .what’s wrong? Why. . .you cryin’?”

He cursed, pointing at Tay, who aimed at Tiny’s head. Teanna offered herself as a shield. “Son, this ain’t the way. . .to go,” she slurred. “I ain’t raise. . .no killer.”

“Somebody’s got to look out for this family,” he said coldly. “Mel, go next door.” He tossed his holophone to her. “Call 9-1-1.”

“Are you crazy? They’ll arrest you.”

“Tell them what he did. No judge would convict me.” Teiji’s heart rose in his throat. “You’re wondering, aren’t you?” He stared down at his mother. “Never once crossed your mind once before right now, did it?”

A moment of clarity hit Teanna and she moved to the side. What’d he do?

Teiji flipped the setting on the Ordnance to
kill.
“As long as he brings you what you want, you don’t care what he does.” His eyesight blurred with tears. “Mel, get out of here. Now!”

His sister’s legs were living concrete. Teanna moved, but not enough to clear a shot. She stared at Tiny with bloodshot eyes. “What’ve you done?”

“Nothing,” Tiny grunted. He glanced up at Teiji. “You don’t have it in you.”

Teiji wiped away his tears with his left hand. “Watch me, Theodore.” 

“I didn’t do anything she didn’t want,” Tiny grinned. “Look at her.” He eyed Meleasa. “She’s sexier than you.”

Visual pictures of Meleasa’s account filled Teiji’s mind. His finger pressed against the trigger, but not enough for the ammunition to release. 

“Tay, please?” Emboldened, Meleasa moved into his line of sight and in front of Tiny to spare her brother’s life.

“No!” Teiji fired around his sister until Tiny flopped face down on the hardwood floor.

Teanna trembled with fear, as she attended to Meleasa, who had been struck by a final, stray shot.

Hours later, after being whisked away in an ambulance, after the buzzing and whirring of medical droids, the rush of emergency resuscitation, the heartbeat recovered – just for a brief moment – the crashing back of reality, more emergency procedures, successes and failures; Meleasa Marianne Santana was pronounced dead. Teanna authorized the finalities, for her and Tiny, who had listed Teanna as his next-of-kin and emergency contact. 

Dressed in a pair of baggy black jeans and a coffee and cream camisole blouse – the two topping a heap of her clean clothes – Teanna posted up along a wall. She wanted to leave, but her son was locked up, Meleasa and Tiny were dead, and her home had been quarantined for evidence.
Where else I gotta go?
Teanna bent over, burying her ashen face in her hands. A small hand caressed the breadth of Teanna’s back. She looked up. 

The counselor compassionately spoke and handed Teanna tissue. “Meleasa didn’t suffer.”

The grieving mother used it to clean her raw nose. “Who’re you?”

“A psychiatrist from the Genesis Institute.” She offered a hand, which went unshaken. “My name is Kareza Noor.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Know what, exactly?”

“She ain’t suffer. How you know for sure?”

Kareza eagerly pulled up the medical report on a 12-inch long holographic computer processor. “The attending medical droid from the hospital‘s pilot program, he. . .”

Teanna cursed her and knocked it from Kareza's hands, shattering its projection surface. The fall triggered the device’s security alert system, which rang every two seconds. Its sound resembled Ordnance fire and sent Teanna into hysterics. “Help me!” Teanna’s bloodcurdling screams drew the attention of everyone within earshot – long after the signal stopped. She knelt in the broken glass; her arms bent, as if holding a limp 12-year-old’s body, until she passed out.

Teanna later awoke to white desolation and a sleeve of tubes strapped to her right arm. One of the intravenous fluids was an entrancing, ice blue liquid. She sweated profusely and her heavy eyelids drooped.  “What the. . .” Her wrists were chained to the bedrails.

Immediately to her left, a scowling Indian looking to be in his 50’s, with
Dr. Nandor Adharma/Psychiatrics
knitted on his jacket pocket, reached over and wiped her face with a moist cloth. “Can’t have you harming yourself.”

“Who said I’d ‘harm myself’?”

Adharma tugged on the hard plastic linking her wrist to the hospital bed. “I can’t tell you how many patients have gouged out their eyes, tried to escape. . .”

“I’d never do that. Maybe escape, but not the other stuff.”

“You’ve been through a great deal of trauma,” he snickered. “We removed an eighth of a cup of glass shards from your knees. Give yourself more credit.”

“Where’s my son?”  

“Jail, I imagine. How are you?”

“I gotta pee,” she lazily responded. “How I do that?”

“Go ahead. It’s totally sanitary and soundless.”

“No thanks.”

“Accelerated hydration means you won’t be holding it long. Other than continent, how are you?”

I wanna see Tay.
“What’s this blue one called?”

He took her arm and turned the tube in question face up. “The name is long, scientific – it’ll help you regain your bearings. Now, how are you?”

Teanna remained silent.
Why’s he keep askin’ me that?

“Talk is all you have.” Adharma repositioned his eyeglasses. “You won’t be released without my consent, and I will not consent unless you talk.”

“Why you wear glasses, Nandor? Get laser surgery. What are you, Indian?”

“I like my glasses. A quarter-Indian. How are. . .”

“Pissed off, upset, irritated, sad. . .that what you want me to say?”

Adharma motioned his fingers over the computer screen projection. “It’s a start. Why sniff?”

Teanna paused. “My momma traded me for a hit one night. Figured I’d see the appeal.”

“Make your story more believable next time,” he said without looking up.

Teanna used the bed’s reclining controls to maneuver it into a more comfortable position. Usually, her lies passed muster.  “Ain’t know my daddy,” she somberly said.

“Continue.”

She paused for a moment and shifted. The doctor spoke the truth. She could no longer hold it and relieved her bladder while talking. “One night, Momma say he’s comin’. Put me in my best dress – braided my hair.” Teanna’s reminiscing brightened her eyes. “She’s tellin’ me, ‘Just wait, baby girl. He gonna take you out for ice cream, buy you toys’. . .do this, do that. Couple hours pass. I fall asleep in my dress watchin’ TV. When I wake up, Momma’s face down in sniff.”

“So, why do you do it?”

Pestered by the doctor’s interruption, she turned over into her pillow.

“How long do you want to be in here?”

“You waitin’ on a big reveal, but there ain’t one. One of Momma’s men came over years later. They’d passed out and I stole some. I like the high. Makes me forget.”

“Forget what exactly?” he persisted.

“Stress, bad news. Ain’t much more rhyme or reason.”

“The dead boyfriend, Theodore Mitchell. Did you want to forget him?”

“Not really.” She shot him a warning look, but he did not relent.

“How did you two meet?”

“Church,” she snapped. “Look, why don’t you just leave? Ain’t you got other patients? Stop botherin' me.”

“I suppose that's enough for now. Command call if. . .”

“Yeah, I got it. Not a first-timer here, thanks. Bye-bye.”

As soon as the door slid closed, Teanna activated the room's HTV. The local news coverage had probably exhausted the murder. Shootings were popular. She selected a comedy to watch. The most watched shows featured Blacks and Latinos. She wondered where all of the white people had gone. 

After an hour, channel flipping got old. Teanna called for assistance, and a medical droid rolled into her presence. Its technical sophistication contrasted with its crude physicality. “My name is Stan Witmore, of the pilot medical android program. What can I do for you, Miss Kirkwood?”