St. Elias Read online

  “This thing’s heavier than I thought…” she said, sweating and giggling as she tossed the gun back and forth from one hand to the other.

  “Let me see.” Ce’Rainitee took the gun from her. “It’s not even loaded.”

  “How do you know?” Giddy, Elias put both her hands to her head now as she tried to slow down her breathing.

  “Because it’d be heavier.”

  “Whatever.” Elias laughed. “You could tell if it’s got bullets in it by feeling its weight? I don’t believe it.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Ce’Rainitee pointed the gun at a wall and pulled the trigger. Elias was at once seized by a loud and explosive popping sound. She recoiled and ducked. She could tell something metallic had shot away from the barrel and hit the brass shelf standing along the wall because of a clanking noise.

  “Jesus,” Elias cursed. “You were wrong.”

  Ce’Rainitee laughed at first, but then she stopped and screamed, “Heavenly!”

  Elias turned to the little girl, who had slumped over on the couch, and blood poured profusely from a hole in her temple. Ce’Rainitee, appearing mortified, sank her knees to the ground. Elias, heart racing, face numb, couldn’t feel her legs, either. She dragged herself over to the child.

  “Heavenly?” She called out with fear. She put her ear to the three-year-old’s chest, hoping to hear a beating heart, but all she heard was silence. “Oh, no! Heavenly?”

  She didn’t want to believe it. She felt like all the air was sucked out of her and she couldn’t breathe. Heavenly was dead.

  Ce’Rainitee dropped the gun and came over. She scooped the limp body of her little sister into her arms, tears flowing from her eyes, as profusely as the blood from Heavenly’s temple.

  Elias took in a long and agonizing breath. Time stood still as she tried to overcome a whirling sensation and make sense of what happened. The gun was loaded. A bullet was fired, and it had ricocheted off the brass shelf and hit Heavenly in the head. She rubbed her eyes and blinked, hoping to wake up from the nightmare. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t exit this bad dream. It was real, painfully real.

  Maybe, Elias thought, they should call 911. The ambulance could take Heavenly to the hospital and bring her back to life…

  But she’d seen too many deaths in her neighborhood to be naïve about these things. She imagined Heavenly being zipped up in a body bag and taken away on a stretcher, and then she imagined the police talking to Ce’Rainitee to find out what happened. She imagined her friend being handcuffed and taken to jail, tried in front of a jury, convicted, and then sentenced to the harshest punishment possible on account of her skin color—everyone in the neighborhood believed, given the same crime, a dark-skinned person would receive a more severe penalty. And so, Elias imagined the worst. Ce’Rainitee could be locked up for life, or worse, get the needle. Was it possible to be sentenced to death for killing someone by accident? She tried to shake off the fogginess inside her head. She didn’t know the laws. She only knew she couldn’t let Ce’Rainitee die. After all, it was her, Elias, who wanted to play with the gun in the first place.

  Instinctively, she picked up the pistol and wiped it with her shirt, and then, in as calm a voice as she could muster, she said, “We have to say I did it. You hear me?” She reached to turn her friend’s wet face toward her. “It was me. I did it.”

  Ce’Rainitee, holding her sister whose arms hung lifeless, stared at Elias and shook her head.

  “Listen,” said Elias. “They’ll never let you out of prison. But they’ll let me out in a few years tops. You can’t go to prison. Your mom’s lost one daughter. She can’t lose you. I can’t lose you.”

  Ce’Rainitee kept on shaking her head and trembling, speechless, her eyes fearful. She neither agreed nor disagreed.

  When the police came, and the Flournoys returned, Elias did all the talking, feeling feverish and achy all over at the same time as if she were hit by the flu in addition to the horror in front of her. Both girls were taken to the police station. Ce’Rainitee became mute and was released home after a professional evaluation. Her diagnosis: extreme stress reaction in response to witnessing her sister killed by her best friend. Elias, on the other hand, was charged with, and later convicted of, manslaughter, a second-degree felony, for having recklessly caused the death of a child under the influence of an illegal substance. She was handed a twenty-year prison sentence, much, much worse than the lesser punishment she anticipated. But she held on to her word. She would keep Ce’Rainitee safe.

  Mr. Flournoy was also charged with negligence for failure to keep a firearm out of the reach of children. He was fined four thousand dollars but no prison sentence because the judge said he had been punished enough already for losing a daughter. Elias heard that if she were killed, Mr. Flournoy might have been sent to prison for a year on top of the fine. Although she didn’t like the idea of Mr. Flournoy or her best friend going to prison at all, she indeed wished she were the one, instead of Heavenly, shot dead and stuffed into the cold and lonely dirt hole at the cemetery’s babyland.

  Ce’Rainitee’s parents, unaware of the arrangement, soon turned against Elias. The day Elias was sentenced, the Flournoys packed up and moved to California. Helen, who was kept in the dark as well, had informed her of the news. It broke her heart. Seventeen years later, she still ached. Ce’Rainitee’s fearful look was the last thing she saw of her childhood pal. Mr. and Mrs. Flournoy never allowed their daughter to come into contact with her after that day, the day on which the two girls were going to make a miniature model of the Mississippi River out of Styrofoam boards, decorate it with scenes from Mark Twain’s famous story, and blow everyone’s mind in their Honors English class.

  Well, everyone’s mind was blown, but not in the way Elias imagined.

  Quickly, she turned her gaze away from the dilapidated structure and entered the clinic.

  Chapter Three

  “I’m nervous,” said the woman sitting next to Elias in the clinic waiting room. “I’m not used to a place like this. People look so—different.” The woman shifted in her chair and lightly touched her hair, a cascade of golden curls. She wore a sophisticated dress suit and patent leather shoes, her mahogany skin smooth and radiant.

  “How so?” Elias, conscious of being the only white person in the lobby, did not understand what the woman was talking about.

  “I used to have great insurance under my ex-husband.” She glared at the other patients with disdain. “The clinic I used to go to was upscale and quiet, with nice décor and beautiful furniture, and everyone dressed with taste. Not like here.”

  Elias was offended by the woman’s criticism. But instead of firing back a snarky comment, she decided to do the mature thing of looking away and caught the glance of a young man, who wore a red baseball cap with its visor turned to the side of his head, white tank top, baggy pants, and a gold chain around his neck. He was bobbing his head rhythmically to the music blaring from his phone. When he flashed Elias a smile, the gold grill behind his lips glimmered under the fluorescent light.

  Elias was happy not to have to listen to the woman anymore when the medical assistant ushered her into the exam room. “Dr. Thomas will be here in a moment,” he announced after he took Elias’s vital signs and stepped out.

  Elias’s eyes widened when Dr. Thomas came in. How wonderful it was her doctor was a woman! All the doctors who visited her prison were men, and Elias had a feminine question.

  But Dr. Thomas obviously took Elias’s expression the wrong way. “I know, you don’t think I look like a Dr. Thomas. Yes, I’m from India, but I have done all my medical training in the US, and I know what I’m doing.”

  Elias was perplexed by the outcry. “I do not think you don’t look like a Dr. Thomas. I’m just glad to meet you.”

  Dr. Thomas seemed taken aback. “Sorry. Some patients are not happy to see me. They think because I don’t look like them, I won’t understand their problems.”
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br />   Elias nodded. Her community, historically and still majority black, was a tight-knit one, and people didn’t trust outsiders so readily. “Give them time to know you. Once you gain their trust, they’ll be your most loyal patients.”

  “I hope so,” said Dr. Thomas, glancing at her laptop. “Did you know in Alaska there’s a mountain with your name?”

  Elias shook her head.

  “It’s the second highest mountain in the country, inside our largest national park,” Dr. Thomas explained. “I was just there for two weeks. It was wild.”

  Elias had never seen anything other than the flat north Texas prairie, let alone a mountain. Before she went to prison, Helen talked about going to the Hill Country or the Gulf Coast for a vacation, but they were never able to gather enough money to do so. Elias had no idea what wild meant.

  “What do you want to talk about today?” asked Dr. Thomas.

  Elias lifted her left pant leg. “Just these bumps. They hurt.”

  Dr. Thomas took one look and asked, “How have you been shaving?”

  “With a razor blade, soap, and water.”

  “You should use a dye free, fragrance-free, moisturizing shaving cream with vitamin E, formulated for sensitive skin,” said Dr. Thomas.

  “I’ve seen it advertised on TV, but where I can buy it?” asked Elias.

  Dr. Thomas looked surprised. “You don’t know?”

  Elias’s ears warmed. She was never properly educated on shaving while incarcerated, and before she went to prison, neither Helen nor Ce’Rainitee saw the need to discuss the subject because their legs were almost hairless.

  “Well,” said Dr. Thomas. “Most grocery stores should carry it.”

  “There are no grocery stores within walking distance here,” said Elias. “And I haven’t learned to drive.”

  “Don’t all Americans learn to drive as teenagers?”

  “Well.” Elias hesitated for a moment. “I was about to learn, but then I got locked up.”

  Dr. Thomas let her jaw drop slightly. “I see. When did you get out?”

  “Yesterday.” She showed Dr. Thomas the monitor on her right ankle.

  Dr. Thomas nodded, her eyes full of pity. “If you need help with housing or jobs, our social worker has all the resources to help a former felon. Just let her know, okay?”

  “Sure.” Elias shrugged, thinking over the term former felon in her head as if trying it on for size, wondering whether that was the label people would know her by for the rest of her life.

  »»•««

  Elias heard someone call her name as she walked out of the clinic after her appointment. She turned and saw a man wearing a cowboy hat, plaid button-down shirt, jeans and western boots. The face brought up a sweet and tender memory. “Big Ray?” Elias said timidly.

  “The one and only.” The man grinned. “Helen said you were coming home.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Nothing but to see the doctor for my heart. I already had two heart attacks.”

  “No way.” Elias shook her head, frowning.

  “Come on,” said Big Ray. “Let me get you some hot links. You used to love those.”

  Elias followed Big Ray to the barbeque man on the street adjacent to the clinic parking lot. She decided not to press Big Ray about his heart attacks as he clearly didn’t want to discuss them. They stood in line in front of a black barrel charcoal grill on top of a trailer hitched to a pickup truck. The barbeque man, wiping sweat from his forehead with his arm between filling orders, seemed not to have aged at all. “Grills on wheels,” said Elias. “I can’t believe he’s still around.”

  “Where do you think he’d go?” said Big Ray, and Elias wondered whether he was hinting at the fact no one in the neighborhood seemed to have left. No one, except Ce’Rainitee…

  They got smoked sausages, drenched in Louisiana Hot Sauce that glistened in the sun. Elias ate hers in a few bites. She licked her lips. She’d missed the hot links. She’d missed home.

  “I still can’t believe the FBI shut it down,” said Elias, her chin pointing to the deserted building across from the clinic.

  Big Ray sighed. “It’s a shame. Mama Z was counting on her brother to run the nightclub and make honest retirement money for her. She didn’t know he was dealing crack and heroin right out of there.”

  Elias was reminded of the time in her life when many of her friends were experimenting with drugs supplied by Mama Z’s brother, who turned out to be a distributor for a notorious crime boss in Fort Worth. “Are they just gonna let it rot?” asked Elias.

  “There are supposed to be changes coming,” said Big Ray. “Well, it’s great seeing you, but I’d better go home now.”

  Elias had a crush on Big Ray when they were in school, and she wasn’t ready to let Big Ray go yet. Although she had neither faith nor experience in love between a man and a woman, she was curious and anxious to give it a go. After all, that was what grown women did, wasn’t it? Falling in love, sleeping with a man, having children, though not necessarily in that order.

  “Maybe we can see each other again? Like to have dinner or something,” said Elias, sure that her face was red at the moment.

  “Of course, you have to come over to my house for dinner. My wife makes the meanest chicken and dumplings. And wait till you try her greens.” Big Ray smacked his lips together. “How about tomorrow night?”

  Elias’s face tingled as she tried her best not to show her embarrassment. “Uh, that might be too soon. I’m still trying to settle in.”

  “Give me a call when you’re ready. Helen has my number.” Big Ray walked toward a paint horse tied to a live oak in the clinic parking lot. Elias almost forgot that besides chickens, some in the neighborhood also kept horses and rode them as transportation. “You want a ride home?” asked Big Ray.

  “Nah,” said Elias. “I’m good.”

  Big Ray mounted his horse and tipped his cowboy hat.

  “Idiot,” Elias cursed at herself as she watched him ride away.

  »»•««

  Elias stood patiently in the cramped but very busy kitchen of a nationally known fast food restaurant, waiting to be interviewed by the manager. It had been almost a week since she came home, and she had been busy applying for jobs. There were only a handful of independently owned chicken-and-seafood places in the neighborhood and an even smaller number of franchised eateries within walking distance of her home. She had tried all of them, and nobody wanted to take her on. This was her last chance to see about getting hired.

  Elias watched as sizzling burger patties got turned over on the griddle and perfectly julienned potatoes got dropped by the baskets into the boiling oil of the deep fryer. Every step seemed mechanical, from the moment an order was placed until the minute the tray, on which wax-paper wrapped sandwiches and vacuum-sealed pouches of condiments were thrown together, was presented to the customer. No thought was required for this job, Elias gathered, and she wondered why the human hands hadn’t been replaced by robots but was glad that, because of this technological delay, she was afforded an opportunity at employment.

  “Okay, Miss Dotson, is it?” said the manager in a shirt and tie, a young man who seemed a decade younger than Elias, walking back from the rear of the restaurant. They were short-handed, and he had to man the to-go window during lunch hour. “Step into my office.”

  Elias followed him into an enclosed space no bigger than the janitor’s broom closet at her old high school. The terracotta tiles with black grouts reminded her somewhat of the moldy floor of the showers at the prison. There was only one chair, and the manager sat down. Elias tried to breathe normally, but she never could be at ease during job interviews. For one thing, she still hadn’t figured out what to do with her hands, trembling from nervousness.

  “So,” the manager started. “I looked over your application. You haven’t worked in the last seventeen years at all.”

  “I worked in the kitchen in…in prison, as I said there on my appl
ication.”

  “But not in the real world. The real world is very different from prison. We’re fast-paced, and we’re very intense.”

  How would he know that prison was different from the real world? Had he been to prison? Elias mused.

  “For one thing, we always have to make the customers happy. You don’t have to do that in prison.”

  Elias pressed her lips together. She did try to make her fellow inmates happy despite it not being a decree. She certainly enjoyed times when they complimented something she cooked. She never thought of doing a haphazard job at preparing meals for the inmates.

  “I would appreciate a chance to learn and grow in a real-world environment,” said Elias.

  “Tell me.” The manager tossed her application on the desk and leaned back into his swivel chair. “Why should I hire you when there are truckloads of more qualified, experienced folks out there, with no criminal records at all?”

  Elias wanted to kick herself. She had been asked this question at job interviews before, and still, she had not thought of a great response that would persuade the power that be to employ her. And so, she went with her usual. “I will work harder than anyone you hire. Believe me. And I will not disappoint you. Because I’m new at this, you can train me however way you want. I follow directions well, and I’m a good team player—”

  The phone rang, and the manager put a hand on the receiver and said to Elias, “I’ll give you a call when I make a decision.”

  Elias knew it was her cue to leave, and so she did, as the manager picked up the phone and kicked the door closed behind Elias.

  »»•««

  Helen was working on a woman’s hair when Elias got home. Another woman had her head inside a clear, steamy plastic bubble.

  “Thank the Lord. You’re home,” the woman Helen was working on said with a warm smile. “Come give your Aunt Eloise a hug.” Elias went over and hugged Eloise, adding a kiss on the cheek. Eloise was not related to Helen by blood, but they had been like sisters to each other for over three decades, and Elias was always appreciative of Eloise’s doting gestures and supportive presence in their lives.