Initiation Night

"You're going to fuck up and shoot yourself in the balls," Leshawne said.

Jason ignored him, playing with the gun like a damn kid, flipping the cylinder out, spinning it with his index finger, snapping it back in, then holding it up to aim at an imaginary target through the windshield, saying, "Pow, Pow, Pow." The cheap .38 Smith & Wesson was a piece of trash. The sight was broken off and the imitation wooden grips were cracked and wrapped together by black electrical tape. The serial number was half scratched off.

Truth was, Leshawne was less worried about Jason shooting his balls off than he was about getting the weapon back in one piece. He had given it to him when they had climbed into the car and was now sorry he had.

Jason responded by giving him the glare, the prison don't-fuck-with-me glare that was supposed to put people in their place, but Jason had never been in prison (yet) and he was only 14 years old and cursed with chubby cheeks and soft blue eyes and baby smooth skin, so the glare came off as a teenage pout that wouldn't intimidate his own ten-year-old sister back in the projects.

Bobbie J. sat in the back seat, saying nothing, looking sullen and mean. Bobbie J. never said nothing and never let up on sullen and mean. Washington, Jason's cousin, sat next to him. He had a sloppy bong his mouth that he said was good weed but smelled like wet hay that had been pissed on by a herd of cows. It obviously worked for him. He was giggling and talking to himself and only now and then focused on what was going on around him, which at this moment caused him to repeat, "Shoot yourself in the balls," which led him into another giggling fit.

The three of them were getting on Leshawne's nerves. They were not respecting his vehicle. Somebody should compliment him on this sweet ride with its conspicuously clean vinyl seats and the heavy duty sound system that was pounding out a high volume of intense rap. He had boosted this dark green Lincoln Navigator SUV off the street last night and liked it so much that he had driven over to New Jersey to snatch plates from another vehicle, throwing the original Pennsylvania tags in the dumpster behind the Wal-Mart. That would confuse the cops for a day or two, at least.

The plan for tonight was simple: They would drive around until some jerk flicked his beams at them in a well meaning effort to tell them that they were driving without their lights, then follow him until Leshawne could corner the sucker with the bigger SUV, letting Jason earn his chops by stepping out of the Lincoln to shoot the unlucky asshole in the head. Simple plan, quickly done.

Then they would celebrate Jason's deed with a few beers, smoke a little of Washington's cheap weed, take the kid downtown to get tattooed on the forearm with the devil's head with bleeding fangs, underlined with the initials KD. With a little luck they might find some sisters to get the young man laid and played, making him one of them, a man and full member of the righteously feared KillDevil gang. The rest of them would get it on, too, except probably Washington who was already too far out of it to find his own dick.

It didn't take long. They had gone only four blocks when a blue Ford Taurus going in the other direction flicked its lights, twice, as if telling them they were fuck ups for driving around without lights. Leshawne didn't hesitate. He cranked the SUV into a U turn right in the middle of the intersection, ignoring the cars honking at him, then hurried through traffic to catch the Taurus.

"You gonna do this, Jason?" Bobbie J. asked from the back seat in an intimidating voice that would not accept no as an answer.

"He's gonna do it," Leshawne said, not taking his eyes off the blue Taurus.

"He, he, he, My cuz Jason gonna to do this, ain't you, Cuz?" Washington giggled.

Jason flicked the cylinder out and in, in and out, staring at the Taurus.

"I'm gonna pass him and cut him off," Leshawne warned, pulling the SUV into the left lane. But as they passed the Taurus Jason said, Oh shit, it's a woman!"

Bobbie J. sneered, "So?"

"I thought it was gonna be a dude, not some old white woman!"

"Who give's a fuck?"

"Shoot your stupid balls off, he, he, he."

"She looks like one of the teachers over at Truman Middle School!"

"Cut her off, Leshawne," Bobbie J. ordered.

Leshawne swerved far left and then cut back hard right to force the Taurus to a screeching stop. He was rewarded with a blaring angry horn.

"This ain't right. It oughta be some dude."

"Just shut up and do the bitch, Jason. Do it now!"

Jason shrugged, pretending it didn't matter to him. He opened the door to step down, holding the .38 straight out.

Then nothing went as expected.

The woman behind the wheel didn't flinch, didn't shield herself with her arms, didn't try to back away. Instead she stomped on the accelerator and aimed straight at Jason, who barely managed to scramble away before the Taurus dinged into the side of the Lincoln. In his panic, Jason tripped and fell on his face, banging his forehead and skinning his hands. He picked himself up, dazed and disoriented, and stared in disbelief as the woman backed up to come at him again. He scrambled back into the perceived safety of the SUV. The Lincoln rocked as the Taurus hit the passenger door.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" Leshawne screamed.

"SHE'S TRYING TO KILL ME!" Jason screamed back.

Bobbie J. cursed, "That dumb bitch!"

"JESUS, SHE'S COMING AGAIN!" Jason shouted. The SUV rocked a third time.

"She's destroying my car!" LeShawne shrieked.

Washington passively watched the Taurus back off for another ram. "That woman's got anger problems."

"Turn around and get out of here," Bobbie J. ordered.

"I got a gun," Washington remembered, fumbling through his baggy pants. "I'll show her. Where's my fucking gun?"

Leshawne tried to reverse the SUV, to straighten it into the street, but Jason was climbing on top of console to get away from the oncoming Ford Taurus. Bobbie J. was shouting, "MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!" Washington found his gun, saying, "there it is. There it is." But he accidentally squeezed the trigger as he pulled it out of his pants pocket, blowing a hole into through the floor, causing everyone in the car to grab their ears from the blast. "Oh, shit, sorry, sorry."

Leshawne managed to push Jason off the console but the woman slammed them from behind before he could get the SUV in motion.

"I've had enough of this shit," Bobbie J. said, pulling out his own gun and firing over the back seat, blowing out the rear window. But the Lincoln Navigator was so much higher that it passed harmlessly over the Taurus' roof.

"Oh. Man, my car, my car," Leshawne whined.

The woman rammed the rear once again, jolting them hard.

"Stop the car," Bobbie J. said, his voice evil incarnate. He stepped down to face their attacker, gun in hand. But the woman swerved around the SUV, slam banging along the side as she went straight for him. He jumped back up inside just as she tore the door off at high speed.

Washington was waving his gun around, yelling, "Oh, shit, Oh, shit," and then aimed it out the side door that no longer existed and fired again.

"OH, OW, OW, OW. YOU JUST SHOT ME IN THE FUCKING FOOT, YOU SORRY SON OF A BITCH!" Bobbie J. yelled.

"Oh shit, man. Sorry. Sorry."

The Taurus stopped 100 feet in front of them

"Now what is she doing?" Leshawne asked in utter amazement.

Jason peeked over the dashboard and saw smoke spinning off the Taurus' rear tires. "She's going to ram us with her trunk," he said, totally impressed. "I saw this on ESPN. Demolition Derby. She is gonna smash in our radiator so we can't drive no more!"

"Where's my gun? The one I gave you?" Leshawne shouted at Jason. "Shoot the bitch while she's in front of us!"

"I don't have it! I don't have it! I musta dropped it in the street when she tried to run over me!"

The Taurus smashed full speed into them, totally crumpling the trunk of the Taurus but shoving the SUV radiator back into its engine compartment. The Lincoln Navigator died in a hiss of steam and a grinding of metal as the woman pulled away, trailing the Lincoln's bumper. It dropped limply onto the road. She again stopped 100 feet in front of them and started spinning her wheels for another backward bash. Jason was now hiding under the dashboard, fumbling with his cell phone. Leshawne was holding his broken wrist to massage the pain but managed to ask, "Who the hell you calling?"

"The cops. Before the dumb bitch kills us."

The cops were already arriving on the scene and didn't take long to sort it out. The four men from the SUV were taken into custody, two of them in an ambulance, Washington was too confused to realize that he was being arrested. Jason was glad to have the policemen around him.

Later, when both vehicles were pulled over to the side of the road with cops kicking debris off the street surface and waving passing automobiles past the flashing squad cars, one of the older cops wrapped a blanket around the shoulders of the woman and handed her cup of coffee. "Why did you do that, Mrs. Davis? That was an extraordinarily dangerous thing to do."

Mrs. Davis did not respond for a long moment, as if searching for the words to explain it but then glanced at the forearm of the older cop and smiled when she saw the tattoo USMC.

"What was the first thing the Marines taught you to do when caught in an ambush?"

The older cop hesitated, puzzled by the strange question. "Attack. Don't try to retreat because you would drop your defense and there may other ambushers lying in wait behind you or to the side of you. And most ambushers do not expect you to attack, so you have the element of surprise, taking theirs away. That's Marine Corps doctrine. But has that got to do with this?"

Mrs. Davis shrugged the blanket off her shoulders to lift the short sleeve of her blouse, showing her shoulder tattoo: An eagle, globe, and anchor.

"Semper fi, Mac."

Jerome W. McFadden has won Honorable Mention in several national fiction contests and his work has appeared in two anthologies. He also received a 2nd place Bullet Award for Best Crime Fiction to appear on the web in June, 2011 and his stories have been read on London stage by the UK Liars League. He also was the Featured Author of the BWG Writers Roundtable on-line journal's March, 2012 issue.

The author has appeared in Over My Dead Body! with his short stories "Car Wash" in June, 2012 and "The Viewing" in August, 2011.