Black Buck(85)

“Are you out of your mind?” Rose asked. “You have to be if you think they’re not going to arrest a bunch of Black people parading in front of the precinct with open beers. We’re giving them a reason to do something when they shoot people for less.”

“Open your beers,” I ordered.

They turned to one another, stalling. Brian’s hands trembled, but then two quick hisses came from beside him: Rose and Ellen.

“Fuck it,” Rose said, taking a sip of her piss-flavored beer.

Ellen raised her can to Rose’s, poker-faced. “Catch me if you can.”

Brian and Jake followed suit, nervously pulling on aluminum lids, sending sprays of foam into the air, then taking hurried swigs.

“Single file,” I commanded. People on the sidewalk stared before turning their strolls into light jogs.

“Now march.”

The group, led by Rose, walked up Third Avenue and turned right onto Twenty-First Street. A crowd of policemen stood in front of the precinct smoking and laughing.

“Onward,” I ordered, watching their bodies shake with fear in the freezing winter night.

“You sure about this?” Brian asked, turning around for one last glance.

“Nope.”

Once they reached the cops, they each took a swig from their cans. I moved closer to get a front row seat.

“Hey,” a short Black cop with a moustache said, turning away from his pals toward Rose and the others. “That’s not beer, is it?”

The four of them froze, at least twenty cops staring them down. Then Brian, like a moron, said, “Just, just—PUSSY!—drinking a beer, officer.”

The cop turned to his buddies, laughing, then spun back around gripping a taser.

“Run!” I shouted, reversing direction and bolting down Twenty--First Street.

Jake, with his Gumby legs, stretched past me; Brian, asthmatic, wheezed behind me; Ellen caught up to Jake; Rose zigzagged in the middle of the road like she was dodging bullets.

Chauncey saw us running toward the Tesla, started it up, and four of us hopped inside before he peeled away.

“Brian!” Rose shouted, pointing to a shadow on the corner, hands on his knees.

“Open the door!” I screamed.

We grabbed him before the cops caught up, slamming the door shut. Chauncey pulled an illegal U-turn and drove down Third Avenue toward Union Square. We collectively exhaled after we realized the cops weren’t chasing us. Cans clinked. Laughter ensued.

“Woohoooo!” Rose shouted, hanging her head out the window like a dog in the wind.

“Dang, that shit was wil’,” Jake said, biting his fist.

“I thought I was done for,” Brian said, traumatized.

Ellen stared out the window, unfazed.

We headed back to my place and whiteboarded basic sales theory for a couple of hours. Believe it or not, Jake and Ellen were naturals just like Rose. They still had things to work on—Jake needed to enunciate more, Ellen needed to be less stiff—but they were solid. Even Brian was taking what he learned and applying it with finesse.

Eventually, they all knocked out, so I ushered them out of my place into the Tesla. I hopped in to make sure they didn’t take advantage of Chauncey’s kindness by asking him to make random stops at fast food spots or anything else like that.

After dropping Brian and Ellen off in the East Village and Jake in Williamsburg, there was only one left.

“Where to for you, miss?” Chauncey asked Rose. She was passed out on my shoulder in the back seat.

I nudged her, and she shot upright, hands in the air. “Relax,” I said. “Chauncey just asked where to drop you off.”

Rubbing her eyes, she looked around the dark car as we crossed the Williamsburg Bridge back into Manhattan. “Oh, you can drop me off at the bottom of the bridge, thanks.”

“But where do you live?” I asked.

“Not far from there. In”—she paused—“FiDi.”

“FiDi? Why would we drop you off in the Lower East Side then? We got you, sit back and relax.”

“No!” she shouted, sitting up. “I mean . . . no thanks. I can walk. Seriously. You’ve done enough, spending all of this time on us.”

I stared at her, trying to figure out what the deal was, why she was so guarded, but I gave up. “Fine, have it your way.”

She hopped out at the bottom of the bridge, and we turned up First Avenue.

“Long night, huh, Chauncey?” I asked, stretching out in the back seat.

“Yes, sir,” he said, his eyes staying closed for a few seconds, then fluttering open. “But it is not over, at least for me. When I go home, I will wake my daughter to sing happy birthday to her.”

“Oh, when’s her birthday?” I looked down at my phone; it was past midnight.

“Yesterday, sir.”

“Yesterday as in a few minutes before it turned twelve or the day before?”

He laughed, flashing those ivory teeth in the rearview. “As in a few minutes ago.”

Whatever I ate earlier turned to concrete in the pit of my stomach. I grabbed it and pushed my head to the front of the car, turning to Chauncey. “Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have asked you to drive all night if I knew it was your daughter’s birthday.”

Without taking his eyes off the road, he gripped the steering wheel, holding his smile. “It is okay, sir. My job is with you; she understands.”