The Long Ride by James McKimmey Page A

apart, staring at that stupid, resolute look on that kid’s face. He’d turned and run to the car. He’d screamed at Charissa to drive off. She had, with an angry screech of tires.
    She drove across town, into the country, her otherwise soft and full mouth a white, tight line. When she stopped, she looked at him, at the way the gun in his hand was shaking uncontrollably. Her dark eyes glinted. “Ah, little boy—I didn’t think you would do that. What you are, that didn’t really show before, did it?”
    He’d tumbled out of the car and staggered to the edge of the road and been sick. He’d been blind with sickness, shaking so badly he could hardly hold on to the gun in his hand. Then he stumbled back toward the car, and that was when he’d accidentally shot himself in the left arm.
    Charissa, swearing bitterly, had pulled him into the car and yanked the gun out of his hand. He’d bled badly on the way back to the shack. The next thing he’d realized was that the sun was up again, hot, smoldering through the dirty windows as he lay in bed. Charissa was quietly and coldly explaining to him that he had not really done very well. They had no money, no food, no liquor.
    “This arm,” he’d gritted, “is killing me.”
    “I will do something,” she’d said.
    She disappeared for twenty hours. He’d lain in pain and utter fright. Finally she’d come back with a tall, raw-boned Negro woman, saying, “You know what one must do, little boy, when one has no money—someone like me, little baby? I do not like to earn money that way.”
    “What the hell is she doing?” he said, seeing the flash of the knife in the hand of the large, funereal-looking Negro woman.
    A glass was pushed close to his chattering teeth. “Drink, little boy. Keep drinking.”
    He had. But it hadn’t stopped realization of the nightmare that followed. When it was over, when both the tall Negro woman and his arm were gone, he knew he’d lost more than an arm. He’d lost something inside himself that he was never going to get back.
    The days following were painful, dreary, nerve-racking. Charissa had been cool toward him, yet careful to take care of him properly. He was certain he was going to die, but he did not. Finally, when she had bathed him and stood looking at his bare body with a flashing look in her dark eyes, she’d said, “You are getting stronger, little boy. We have held up the trip to Mexico for you to get stronger. But my friends are getting impatient.” She’d smiled brightly, then disappeared into the bath. He’d listened to the shower running. Pretty soon she’d come out, her good, full body gleaming in the hot shafts of sunlight flowing into the small room. “Now,” she’d said, “let’s see just how strong you’ve gotten again.”
    He’d finally said desperately, “No use.” He could not even keep his mind on it, because he kept hearing drops splattering on the galvanized metal that formed the shower’s floor. They hit and splattered in an infuriating regularity, and that was all he could keep his mind on.
    She’d smiled sadly and got a bottle of whisky from the cupboard.
    “It’ll come back,” he said, a pleading note in his voice. “Everything’ll come back, all of a sudden.”
    “Sure, little baby,” she’d said softly. “Have some of this to help it along.”
    He’d tasted the whisky. “Can’t you stop that shower from dripping?”
    “I’ll see,” she’d said. “Have some more whisky while I do. There is nothing else to do anyway, is there?”
    He’d gotten drunk lying in bed. He’d finally gone to sleep, listening to that dripping in the shower that Charissa had been unable to stop. He woke up realizing he was being moved from the bed, through the house, to a car. He was certain that he was being moved by the two men he was supposed to accompany to Mexico. But it was vague; he’d drunk too much. The last he’d remembered was Charissa’s face close to his, those bright, white