The runt tree nearly snaps me across the eyes before I duck. Right in the middle of the sidewalk. It’s real pretty, though. Sun popping through its leaves like it’s gonna beam me up. Like a flashbulb, taking my picture. Not like Big Brother. Like a proud Ma. She’s proud of me and the tree ‘cause we’re making it. This city keeps trying to brick us over but we push through.
I reach out to rub one of the leaves between my fingers, but I stop. God knows what they been spraying on the little bastards.
Terence is watching me, shaking his head.
“They did something to you,” he says. “Cut the wrong wire or something.”
I finger the scar behind my ear and tell him maybe he’s right.
We find Jimmy behind the library, face in his phone. We creep up stealth-like ‘till we’re almost on him and yell real loud in his ear. Jimmy jumps and his phone hits the sidewalk. Breaks into a dozen pieces. Terence and I get quiet. Jimmy drops to his knees. He gathers the pieces into a pile.
“My contacts were in there,” Jimmy says. “How we gonna move the cache? Door-to-fucking-door?”
Terence and I look at our shoes, feeling bad. Jimmy’s phone is like his girl. Keeps the damn thing in his front pocket, right next to his privates. I can’t get over that. We tell Jimmy we’re sorry.
“We’ll get you a new phone,” Terence says. “A real nice one. Take it out of our cut.”
We walk the next few blocks in silence. Jimmy’s still sulking when we get where we’re going.
“It better be fucking gold-plated,” he says, throwing open the doors.
“Of course, Jimmy,” we say, and we all three pull on our masks.
Refe Tuma lives in Kansas City. His fiction has appeared in Bartleby Snopes (voted Story of the Month, March 2013), WhiskeyPaper, Johnny America, and elsewhere. His non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times and all sorts of blogs. He serves as a contributing editor at Paper Darts. His daughters call his bedtime stories “kind of sad,” and, “too scary sometimes.” He goes by @Refeup on Twitter if you’d like to say hi.
–Art by Peter Lamata