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“I
wish there was some other way,” Cecil
muttered.
“Yeah,
me too.” Raymond dipped his head and rolled
his eyes at Cecil in a kind of guilty way.
“You ain’t scared, are ya Cecil?”
“No!
No! Uh, well, maybe a little bit.”
“It’s all right to be scared a
little bit. I’m scared just a tiny bit. But
that’s good, cause if you’re scared a tiny
bit, you’ll be on your toes and won’t make
no mistakes.” Raymond stood up from the
concrete block and patted his shirt pocket to
see if he’d overlooked any cigarette butts he
could relight. There weren’t any. “Let’s
go, old buddy. It ain’t gonna get no
easier.”
“It’s
the guns that I don’t like, Raymond.
Couldn’t we just hide them under them weeds
there. I doubt if mine’ll shoot anyhow.”
“We’ve
been over all this. It’s gonna be alright,
you’ll see. Guns’ll make um know that we
mean business. We won’t have to shoot ‘em.
Know what I mean?”
“Okay,
okay, but wait a minute.” Cecil pulled off
his right shoe and stretched a waxy sock to
fold over a hole so it wouldn’t strangle his
big toe. Then he rearranged a heavy cardboard
over a ragged window in the sole.
Raymond
watched with increasing impatience as a broken
lace had to be threaded with painstaking
precision so the knots would not compromise
comfort. When Cecil untied his other shoe,
Raymond could stand it no more.
“Quit-ya-stallin’ Cecil. You can do that
later.”
“There
might be sit-u-ation whereby we’d have to
run, Raymond.” He serviced his left footwear
with the same diligence as he had with the
right, in spite of the heat of Raymond’s
irritation bearing down on his neck.
Raymond
folded his arms and set his jaw as he scowled
at Cecil. “Well gol-durn-it, hurry up, will
ya?”
At
last Cecil stood up and exhaled loudly,
“Okay, let’s go.” He lifted his toboggan
cap and ran knurly fingers through
gray-streaked hair.
On
a darkened sidewalk across the street from a
neighborhood convenience store, Raymond and
Cecil watched several cars come and leave the
store.
Raymond
said, “When that last car pulls out there
won’t be nobody in there but the clerk. Get
ready to move, Cecil.”
A
faded blue bandanna streamed from Cecil’s
pocket and he ignored the sour smell as he
started to tie it over his face.
“What
the hell you doing? That’s a dead
give-away.”
“I
don’t want him to recognize me, Raymond.”
“Damn!
Alright, you’ll have to bust in fast before
he has a chance to get to the phone or
anything.” He fidgeted while Cecil tied the
bandanna. “Don’t get it over your eyes, you
won’t see where you’re going.”
“I
can see.”
“No
you can’t.
“I
can see.”
“Gol-durn-it,
your head’s harder’n a hickory nut.”
“I
can see. I can see.”
“Okay,
it’s like this. I’ll go in first and go to
the back of the store like I’m gonna get some
beer. Then you bust in and it’ll get his
attention and the next thing that clerk knows,
I’ll have my gun aimed straight down his
nose. Then you can run behind the counter and
empty all the bills out of the cash register.
Got that?”
“So
I won’t have to pull my gun then will I?”
“You
just concentrate on collecting the money.
You’ve got that grocery bag for the money,
ain’t you?”
“Yeh,
it’s in my pocket.”
“Lookie
there,” Raymond whispers. “that last guy is
leaving. I’ll saunter on over there. You wait
about thirty seconds and follow me, okay?”
“Alright,
Raymond.”
“You’re
a sight, Cecil. You sure you can see?”
“I
can see.”
Pulling
up his britches seemed to give Raymond an extra
shot of courage as he walked toward the store.
Cecil
felt abandoned as though his last friend had
just turned his back on him. A shudder rippled
through his shoulders. It wasn’t because he
was cold because his jacket was plenty heavy.
Ten seconds felt like thirty to Cecil, so he
started walking toward the store. His body
jarred and he stomped three steps when he
walked off the curb that he didn’t see. The
jostle sparked a moment of panic and he’d
have given anything if he could just turn
around and run, but Raymond would never forgive
him for that.
He
paused at the door. He could see through the
window. Raymond was crouched behind a bread
rack and was waving frantically for him to come
on in. The door felt so heavy that Cecil
thought it might be a final warning not to go
in at all. His hand lay on the door bar for one
full second. After a deep breath, he pushed
against unseen forces to go inside.
The
young blond-headed clerk saw Cecil with his
toboggan cap pulled down almost to the faded
bandanna and froze like a stone statue. His
eyes bulged like a walleye’s and that seemed
to hypnotize Cecil. Raymond’s elevated voice
finally sunk into Cecil’s consciousness and
he looked in that direction.
Raymond
was waving his gun all over the place, but it
was mostly in the general direction of the
clerk. “Don’t you move one muscle, buddy. I
got ya covered,” Raymond screamed. The clerk
couldn’t have moved a muscle if God had
commanded him to. “Get around here Ce…, er,
er, Joe, and fill that bag.” Raymond
commanded.
Cecil
didn’t move. Maybe waiting on Joe to take his
place, whoever Joe was. He leaned his head
forward as though deeply engrossed in watching
a movie.
“Ce…,
er Joe! Get your ass around here and fill that
bag.”
Cecil’s
dark eyes, buried in a slit between a toboggan
and a bandana, studied Raymond for a second
before he suddenly sprang into action. He dug
in his pocket for the grocery bag as he passed
Raymond. As fate would have it, the gun was on
top of the bag and Cecil fumbled to get it
un-hung from his pocket. The gun fired with a
muffled pop sound.
“Owwoo!
Cecil, you idiot, you shot me in the leg.”
“No
I didn’t.”
“You
did too, you dumb ass. See the blood?”
Raymond doubled over holding his left leg.
“I
don’t see any blood.”
“Take
off that damned bandana and you’ll see it.”
Cecil
pulled the bandana down a bit. “Well I’ll
be. I did shoot you, didn’t I?” Both men
forgot about the clerk but it wouldn’t
matter. He was petrified and would later become
the sorriest witness in the history of Knox
County. Cecil said with great sincerity,
“I’m sorry, Raymond.”
“Sorry
don’t cut it, Cecil.”
“Well,
I know how you feel.”
“It’s
my
leg, you can’t know how I feel.”
“I
do too know how you feel.”
“Okay,
this is how it feels.” Raymond took
deliberate aim and shot Cecil in the leg.
“Oh,
oh, oh!”
“Now
you know how it feels.”
Cecil’s
voice was high pitched. “Raymond you didn’t
hav’ta to do that.” His pants’ leg turned
red at once.
“Come
on Cecil, you done ruined all my plans. Let’s
get out of here.” Raymond turned to the clerk
and said, “Don’t you tell nobody about
this, if you know what’s good for you.”
The
two men hobbled out of the store and hop
scotched across the parking area. A lot of
“Oh, oh’s,” mingled with other
descriptive language painfully faded away as
they hopped and limped down the darkened
sidewalk.
After
about a block all they have breath for is
huffing and puffing. Cecil slowed down and then
stopped, “I can’t go no further,
Raymond.”
“You
gotta. Just one more block and we’ll hide
under Jessup’s loading dock.”
Cecil
took a few more steps and dropped to his knees.
“I can’t go no further Raymond.”
Raymond’s
expression revealed his shock when he looked at
Cecil. Even in the darkness he could tell that
all was not well. “God, Cecil, your white as
a sheet.” He drug Cecil around behind a
hedgerow. In the dim light he could see that
Cecil’s injured leg had marked a red-black
trail on the ground. The wound pulsated with
each heartbeat. Raymond ripped off his belt.
Cecil
gasped for breath, but otherwise seemed calm,
“Raymond, you always admired this jacket I
got at the Good Will Store. I want you to have
it.”
“Cut
that talk out, Cecil. You ain’t going
nowhere.” Raymond threw the belt around
Cecil’s leg and pulled it very tight.
“It’s
about all I got to give away and I want you to
have it. My billfold is falling apart, but in
it you’ll find a two-dollar bill. I’ve been
saving it for good luck. You can have that
too.”
Raymond’s
eyes were glassy, “Come on Cecil. Stop
talking like that. You gotta. You’re the only
real friend I got.”
“I’m
so tired, Raymond. I don’t much care if I
make it or not. You’ll make new friends, you
always do.”
Raymond
held the belt and watched the wound. “It’s
slowing down, Cecil.” There was a touch of
excitement in his voice.
Cecil’s
head relaxed to one side. A faint, “I’m
sorry, Raymond.” preceded total limpness.
“Come
on, Cecil, stay with me, buddy.” Cecil’s
eyes were wide but lacked understanding.
Raymond put his arm under Cecil’s head and
watched intently as Cecil’s chest collapsed
in a long exhale. Raymond’s heart raced while
he waited for Cecil’s next breath. He
swallowed hard and whimpered, “Ce-cil?”
The
Knoxville News-Sentinel had a small article on
page five the next day. It stated that two men,
whose names were withheld, shot each other in
the leg in a Quick-Check for unexplained
reasons. Both men were found huddled together
about a block from the Quick-Check. One man is
in satisfactory condition and under guard at UT
Hospital. The second man was dead when the
police arrived, supposedly from shock and loss
of blood.
CECIL
How’s
a man to leave a mark in this world?
With goals and dreams so hard to hold.
There’s
a way I’m told.
When
flesh and bones have blown away,
A heart of gold will sparkle and stay.
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