‘Convenience Stores and Ancient African Empires’

All Ronald Tremayne wanted that day was a Snapple. A Bali Blast Snapple, a tang of tropical fruit — exotic kiwi, the staple pineapple, the rush of lime. It was an excruciatingly hot day in May, the first heat wave of the summer, and Ronald Tremayne had just sat through two 90-minute classes in a row. All he wanted was a Snapple.

What he got was far different.

A block north of Portland State University sits a 7-11, at the corner of Broadway and Market. Into the 7-11 went Ronald Tremayne. He wouldn’t come out for over 24 hours. When he went in, he figured he would be less than a minute, and then back outside and down to Madison to catch the number 14 bus home. That’s the way it began. Ronald went immediately to the back, brushing past another customer who turned his eye. She was about his age, whip-thin, in a long flower-print dress. He only caught a glimpse of oak-brown hair; long, sinewy fingers; a tattoo on her exposed shoulder blade. Then he was at the row of coolers that held the drinks, and the girl was behind him, rustling the chip bags delicately with those fingers, making them purr with pleasure. Ronald was engrossed with the sound, and the thoughts spinning haphazardly through his mind. He didn’t notice the man enter the store.

It wouldn’t have mattered if he did. The man was entirely unremarkable. Until he pulled out the gun.

The clerk saw it immediately. “What the f –”

“Shut up, man!” the newcomer shouted. Ronald spun around. The woman by the chips was stone still.

The door opened; the bell announcing a new arrival sounded unnaturally loud. A man in a business suit stepped through and also froze.

“Get in here, motherfucker!” the gunman yelled. He waved him over to a wall. The man in the business suit shuffled over, never taking his eyes off the gun. Ronald looked around the store. The two exits were between him and the gunman. He sighed.

The gunman turned and indicated Ronald and the girl. “Here.”

They walked forward, and Ronald smelled a flowery fragrance on the woman he hadn’t noticed earlier. He shuddered, despite the situation. The girl was beautiful.

The clerk was herded from behind the counter, and joined Ronald, the girl, and the suit in a magazine nook across from the register. The gunman made no attempt to empty the cash. He just leaned against the counter, as if trying to decide what to do next. Outside, a few people had gathered, obviously aware something was amiss. One man was on his cell phone. Ronald hoped he was calling 911.

The clerk rolled his eyes. It was apparently not the first time he’d faced a gun. “This is where you rob us,” he said quietly.

The gunman grabbed him and shoved the gun into his mouth. “Shut up,” he whispered. Ronald studied him. He was about six feet tall, wearing a dark green army coat that must have been unbearable in the 90-degree heat. He had black jeans and combat boots on. Ronald examined his chocolate-colored face. Clean-shaven, even teeth, a freshly shaved pate. Obviously not a bum. Especially with the shiny automatic he was carrying. He still looked nervous.

“Can you lock the door?” he asked the clerk he took the gun out of his mouth. “Don’t be a shithead just ’cause I told you to shut up. Answer me.”

The clerk’s mouth twitched up in a smile. “We never close, man. Why would the doors lock?”

“Don’t fuck with me, smartass. Lock the fuckin’ door.”

The clerk carefully went behind the counter, keeping one eye on the barrel of the pistol, and fished out the keys. He scuttled to the doors and locked both of them. He returned sheepishly to his place by the biker mags.

“All right, all right,” the gunman murmured. “That’s nice. We got a nice little hostage situation here.”

The suit said, “What? Shit. My wife’s gonna be pissed. Fuck –”

The gunman leveled the pistol at his head. “Are you holding this?” he asked calmly. The suit shook his head. “Then shut the fuck up!”

***

The police showed not even fifteen minutes later. “YOU IN THE 7-11!” a megaphoned voice shouted from the street. “THIS IS THE POLICE! WE HAVE THE STORE SURROUNDED. IF YOU COME OUT NOW THIS WON’T GET ANY WORSE FOR YOU!”

The gunman chuckled devilishly and muttered curses to himself.

Ronald was sitting next to the girl, his left hand inches from her right. His pinkie was aching to reach out and stroke it. He resister. She did not look like the kind of person who would take kindly to flirtation in a hostage situation.

The police megaphone returned. “WE WANT TO HELP YOU. WE CAN’T DO THAT IF YOU HAVE HOSTAGES.”

The gunman leaned against the counter and coolly took a magazine from the metal rack next to the register and flipped through it. Ronald felt a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead.

After a few minutes, the gunman threw the magazine away and motioned for the clerk, who stood and went over to him. He asked for duct tape.

“Excuse me?”

The gunman explained wryly that they would have to be tied up for their own protection.

The clerk went behind the counter and dug through the shelves below it. He pulled out a metallic-gray roll of tape and handed it to the gunman. He walked back around the counter and was the first wrapped up. In less than five minutes, the other three were also mummified around the wrists and feet and mouth. Ronald tasted glue and tried to keep his lips as thin as possible.

“Perfect,” their captor said.

***

Outside, the circus had begun. All the local media were there, as fast as the cops. The man with the cell phone had called them, in quick succession, before calling 911. He was now a minor celebrity.

Greg Hambly of Channel 8 News was interviewing him. He claimed it was his civic duty to alert the media. Greg promised more coverage as it arose.

The cops were frustrated. “Anything?” Captain Lucy Sawyer asked her man on the scene.

“Nothing,” said Ted Breasket, who had been the first to arrive. He was clutching a megaphone and sweating and waiting patiently for the hostage negotiator.

She told him to keep trying. Meanwhile, the rest of Portland’s finest were keeping the crowd at bay. Market had been blocked at Tenth, and Broadway at Columbia. Traffic was being diverted around the scene, and pedestrians were being herded away from the corner. The post office across the street had been evacuated, as well as the AAA a block southeast of the store. Portland State was being cleared out, as were the apartments around the store. It was slow going. Most people wanted to stay and watch, and some were chanting “Attica, Attica,” to the hoots of others. Breasket shook his head.

“Damned comedians.”

***

The gunman had thought things through. The only two exits were in the front, and the bathroom in the back had no window. He told them they could stay in the store for days with the junk food supply they had, but there was a chance someone could try to shoot him through the windows. So he released them, and under his watchful eye, they taped open magazines to the bay windows on the store’s south and east sides, piled up small bags of chips, stacked newspapers, and created a miniature fortress. The gunman seemed satisfied.

“Now. To business.” He pointed at the suit. “You. Where is your cell phone?”

The man looked confused and shook his head.

“Where?”

Moments later, the gunman made contact with the police through the 911 operator.

***

Three hours passed, and the sun had sunk toward a horizon of gauzy clouds, and the gunman had spoken only once to the police. He had not issued any demands, just told them to back off, that he had killed before, and he wasn’t afraid to kill again. No one on the outside or the inside of the 7-11 knew his name yet.

Ronald was still thirsty. They weren’t allowed to move, and Ronald’s ass was aching from the hard floor, his knees were sore from the cramped sitting position, and his pinkie still yearned to touch female flesh, which hadn’t been more than a foot away from him at any time during the crisis. The woman, however, still refused to look at him, which galled Ronald. Here they were, in a situation that could conceivably end in death, and there was no solidarity. It was this thought that spurred Ronald into action.

He caught the gunman’s eye and mumbled something through the tape over his mouth. Their captor walked over and ripped the tape off. Ronald stared up at him.

“Um, listen, we’re hungry and thirsty, man. And this doesn’t look like it’s gonna end anytime soon. You gotta let us eat.”

The man considered this and nodded. He ripped the duct tape off the girl’s wrists and ankles and told her to go eat something.

She got up, limping from the disuse of muscles, and Ronald felt the breeze of her dress brush against his face. Lilacs, he decided. The girl smelled like lilacs.

She brought back a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, a box of six Hostess chocolate donuts, and a 20-ounce bottle of Dr. Pepper. The gunman released the businessman and told him to go.

“What about me?” Ronald demanded.

“Wait your fuckin’ turn.”

Soon the woman, the suit, and the clerk were munching ravenously on junk food. Ronald sat with a growling stomach.

***

The sun had set by the time the gunman called the cops again. The boredom inside the store was beginning to grate on Ronald. He hadn’t realized how boring a situation like this would be. Whenever one of them cleared their throat, the gunman would look up with menace, making it clear for them to keep silent and that the fact that he hadn’t re-taped their mouths was a privilege. Ronald contemplated for about a second rushing him and making a grab for the gun, but he decided he would rather live than impress a girl.

He looked at his watch. 9:25. Almost five hours. And no talking for two. Until the gunman made his second call. Ronald listened carefully. The gunman was talking to the police hostage negotiator and getting mad. Ronald heard him say something about Parkrose and MLK Boulevard, but not much else. Finally, the gunman hung up angrily and leaned against the counter with his fists pressed against his temples. He walked back behind the counter and opened a packed of two Excedrin. After washing the tablets down with coffee, he faced his hostages.

“Looks like we’ll be here for a while longer. Portland’s finest want things cut and dried. Not me.”

“What do you want?” Ronald asked. “If you don’t mind telling us.”

“I do mind. I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to tell you anything, because you’re the least important part of this equation.” He grinned. “Of course, I’m only slightly more important.”

“I don’t understand,” the suit said.

The gunman looked, to Ronald, very sad. “Join the club,” he said quietly.

***

At eleven the gunman called the police again. This time he asked for a representative of the city government. Captain Sawyer told him that the mayor would be there in less than thirty minutes. The exchange was brief.

The clerk was asleep. The businessman was reading Vanity Fair. Ronald was, finally, drinking a Snapple. The woman was painting her fingernails.

“Hey,” Ronald whispered to her. “Do me.” He held out his left hand.

She stared at him. “Metallic blue?”

“What the hell.”

So she did. He watched, fascinated by her bent-over head, like she was a praying mantis stooping over her prey. Her strokes were bold and even, and he felt no pressure on his nails. Her hair fell over her face, so that Ronald could only see thin rivers of brown tickling her forearm. He clenched his right fist.

The gunman asked what was going on.

“Well, I’m not sitting here with my thumb up my ass all night,” Ronald said, immediately aware of how stupid he was being. Fatigue had dulled his caution.

The gunman muttered something to himself. Then, he looked at Ronald and said, “Why don’t you try to pick up chicks on your own time? I got more important things to worry about.”

“Yeah, like killing us all.”

The gunman got off the counter where he was perched and knelt down in front of Ronald, gun ready. “What’s your name, boy?”

Ronald told him.

“You a student at PSU?”

“Yeah.”

“What you studying?”

“Criminology.”

“Isn’t that just fuckin’ ironic. Listen, Ronald, I never went to college. Do you know why?”

“I hope it’s not because you’re black and ‘the man’ kept you down.”

Quick as a snake, the gunman whipped the pistol across Ronald’s cheek, and Ronald felt a tooth crack. He tasted blood and spit a chunk of enamel onto the floor. The girl sat still; the businessman pretended not to notice.

“You think you have any idea what the fuck you’re talking about. What do they teach you in those classes?”

“Fuck you.”

“Perfect. Good job, Ronald.” He pointed with his gun to the girl and asked her name.

“Anise.”

“Stupid white girl hippie name. Take care of my man Ronald.” He stood up and went down the line, waking the clerk up rudely. The businessman’s name was Kurt Reeves and the clerk’s name was Basil. The knowledge seemed to satisfy the gunman for the moment. The clerk went back to sleep. The businessman soon nodded off as well. Anise finished painting Ronald’s nails, not looking at him.

***

When the mayor arrived, she spoke through the megaphone and got the gunman on the phone. Basil and Kurt Reeves were rudely awakened by the piercing power of her voice. Ronald was in the bathroom, nursing his sore cheek. He missed the whole exchange between the gunman and the mayor. By the time he came out, the gunman was smiling, Basil and Kurt Reeves were trying to sleep again, and Anise was gazing at their captor. Ronald looked at her eyes. They were dark chocolate brown, and larger than her face should have allowed. She looked vaguely like a Japanese animation figure.

He asked quietly what she was looking at. With a strange ethereal voice, she answered that there was power in the gunman. Pure violence, pure bile. Sexual power.

Ronald looked questioningly at the gunman. He had heard of Stockholm syndrome, but he thought Anice was taking it too far. “There’s a fine line between sympathy and stupidity,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“You feel sympathetic. Maybe it’s natural. He has power, but so what. He’s dangerous, and you’re acting stupid.”

He felt her cold stare. “You don’t know anything about me. So don’t even think to offer insights like that.”

Ronald turned to the gunman. He had read somewhere that hostage takers don’t learn their captives’ names, because it makes them easier to kill. This hostage taker knew their names, so Ronald was emboldened. “Hey,” he said. “What do you want?”

The gunman walked over to him and asked what he meant.

“You come in here, take four people hostage, issue no demands. So what do you want? Why do you need us? What do you have to say?”

“Do you have any black friends?”

“Do you have any white friends?”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, well, fuck you, too.” It didn’t sound as defiant as he wanted it to, as his cheek was beginning to swell.

***

At midnight, the gunman got cozy. He sat down with his back against the counter, biting contentedly into a Twinkie. Ronald was the only one still awake. They stared at each other with measured hatred.

“You want to fuck her,” the gunman said. It was not a question.

Ronald said, “I’m too tired for this. All I wanted was something to drink. I live a couple of blocks from a Plaid Pantry, for God’s sake. I could have waited until I got home, but no, I had to come in here, and fall into your little melodramatic passion play. Jesus.”

“There’s nothing melodramatic about this, Ronald. This is life.”

He stood up and made a phone call. Ronald watched him move toward the front of the store, the blinking lights of the police cars seeping darkly through the taped-up magazines and newspapers, coloring the 7-11 like the set of an eerie porn movie. Ronald looked at Anise, sleeping next to him. Her nostrils flared slightly as she breathed, and her bone-thin arms were wrapped around her fragile frame. She looked like a baby bird. Ronald shivered for her.

The gunman finished his phone call and walked back to the counter, smiling. He seemed pleased with himself, and Ronald said so. The gunman sat down again and looked evenly at Ronald. “My name is Sundiata,” he said.

Ronald shrugged and said he didn’t care. Sundiata lowered his voice and told him that his namesake founded the Empire of Mali in the early thirteenth century, an empire that became legendary in Europe. While Europeans were slaughtering each other in France and England and the bubonic plague was killing a third of the population, the gunman told him, the Muslims of Mali had contacts with the Middle East, Ethiopia, and Asia. He said that they might have explored the Brazilian coastline.

“Mali?” Ronald said.

Sundiata laughed and continued his story. The great Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta visited Mali in the middle of the fourteenth century, he said. Battuta described a powerful kingdom; a stable government ruled by Muslim principles, supplying the nascent European desire for gold from Timbuktu; an opulent tribal court; an empire stretching for over a thousand miles across the southern Sahara grasslands. This was almost at the precise moment of the first hideous battles of the Hundred Years’ War, the almost complete destruction of European civilization.

“Can you even begin to appreciate the irony?” he finished.

“What the hell are you talking about? Some African country that existed six hundred years ago and vanished without a trace –”

“The country still exists, asshole!” Sundiata hissed. “The point is: We don’t need to believe that Aristotle was black, or Cleopatra. Fuck ’em, they were Greek and we should accept it. There are heroes in this world, heroes everywhere. They don’t need to be invented.”

“That still doesn’t explain this hostage-taking. This is not the action of a hero.”

The other three hostages had woken up and were staring at the two of them. Ronald knew they were thinking that Sundiata would snap at any moment and kill them all, but something kept pushing him forward, further into argument. He watched his captor’s eyes. The man wouldn’t kill them, he suddenly realized. He may have killed before, but he wouldn’t now. He wanted someone to understand him, anyone, and if one of them did, he would let them go. If they didn’t, he would still let them go. Ronald knew this with concrete certainty. He suddenly felt very curious to know about Sundiata’s motivation.

***

One of them was bound to snap. Kurt Reeves was the first.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!” he screamed, his voice exploding out of him like a geyser. The other three hostages stared at him with sudden fear and wonder.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck!”

Basil scurried away from the businessman like a crab, shouting for Sundiata to shut Kurt up.

Kurt stood. Ronald hadn’t taken much notice of him before now, despite the intense circumstances of their forced introduction. Kurt was about thirty-five, about six feet tall, and entirely unremarkable in his physical appearance.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck!”

Sundiata had the gun on him and was talking softly, trying to calm Kurt down. It didn’t work.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck!” Kurt screamed as he leaped. Ronald was momentarily blinded and deafened by the thunderclap of the shot. When he could see again, Kurt was leaning against the counter, blood streaming from his shoulder. Sundiata had sidestepped him and was standing off to the left.

“Jesus …” he whispered.

“Fuck,” Kurt said, wincing in pain as his dark gray suit became darker with blood. His white shirt was already crimson.

“Jesus …” Sundiata whispered again. The moment was like a panorama Ronald used to construct in elementary school. He was looking into a violent scene, but a frieze nonetheless.

Anise choked back a sob. It broke the spell. Kurt dropped to one knee, fat tears blobbing down his cheeks. “Fuck,” he said, one last time, before dropping forward onto his chest. Sundiata immediately bent over him.

Basil asked if he was dead.

Sundiata punched numbers into the cell phone. “Yeah, I got a wounded man here, Ms. Mayor,” he said. “No, he’ll be fine, just passed out. I didn’t want to shoot him, believe me. He flipped out. You can ask the others when this is over. You get someone — unarmed — in here to bring this guy out. No tricks.”

He hung up and motioned to Anise and Basil as someone pounded on the door. Sundiata had Basil and Anise drag Kurt over to the door, holding the gun on them the whole time. He unlocked the door, keeping Anise between himself and the aperture, and shoved Kurt halfway out with his foot. A hand grabbed the businessman and pulled him the rest of the way. Sundiata pushed the door closed, locked it, and Kurt was out of their lives.

“Seems rather final,” said Ronald to Anise after the routine had been re-established.

She looked at him with a perplexed gaze.

“Kurt,” he said. “Suddenly he’s gone. Excised. We’ll never see him again. And yet we’re linked forever.”

She shook her head. “You’re nuts. Sundiata’s right.”

He laughed at the use of his name. “You’re the one who wants to fuck him.”

“Go to hell.”

“You’re the one who said it. I think you should give me a chance, but that’s just me. If you want him, go for it. Maybe it’ll get us out of here.”

She looked past him and sarcastically asked Basil if he also wanted to have sex with her. Then she looked up at Sundiata, who wasn’t listening. “You’re all fucking pigs,” she said bitterly.

Basil, who had been paging through Vogue, crawled over to them. He said she was living in a dream world if she was trying to understand their captor. If he’d had such a hard life, he should just suck it up like everyone else. Basil felt a presence by him and turned. Sundiata was standing over them. He flashed his predatory grin at them and told them made him sick for thinking they had some kind of hard life.

“So why don’t you just kill us, motherfucker?” Basil said.

Sundiata reached down and grabbed Basil by the collar, wrenching him up. Ronald saw fear in the clerk’s eyes and wondered if Sundiata would really shoot them. Sundiata said, “Maybe I should, you shit. Maybe I will. What have you contributed? Shit. What have you accomplished? Shit. Working in some shit dead-end job, wasting everything you were born with — fuck, maybe you’re just naturally stupid, but I doubt it. You’re a worse parasite than people on welfare.” He threw the clerk to the floor. Basil stared up at him.

“Fuck you, man!” he hissed. “Just … fuck.”

Anise reached over and patted Basil’s wrist. She said quietly that Sundiata was just trying to rattle him. Sundiata told her to shut up. He was trying to rattle Basil, with the truth. But no one who lived a lie wanted to hear it. There were white folks, black folks, rich and poor, and they were all lying to themselves. Race didn’t matter. Seeing past race mattered.

“How can we see past it,” Anise said, “if you won’t tell us anything?”

He smiled. “In time, girl. Maybe. Unless the cops burst in here with rifles blazing. But,” he lowered his voice, “I don’t think they have the balls.”

***

Around four o’clock in the morning someone outside found the balls. A canister shattered the side window above the hostages’ heads. Smoke immediately poured from it, choking the three terrified captives. Sundiata was on it instantly. The black man scooped up the canister in one hand and Anise’s wrist in the other, dragging both her and the canister to the front door. He unlocked it and threw the canister back out onto the street, pushing Anise in front of him violently. “Motherfuckers!” he screamed. “Do you want their deaths on your hands? Don’t fuckin’ push it! Don’t fuckin’ push it!” He slammed the door shut again, threw his hostage against the wall, and pulled out Kurt Reeves’s cell phone. Angrily punching in the numbers, he stepped over Anise, who was crawling back toward Basil and Ronald. Ronald scuttled over to her and took her hand. A bruise was developing on the wrist Sundiata grabbed.

Their captor snapped the phone shut after shouting at the mayor, his breathing labored. Only then did he notice Anise.

“Jesus, girl, I’m …”

“Fuck you, man!” she hissed. “Don’t pretend to be sorry! You knew what you were doing! You’ve known since you came in here! So just shut up!”

Sundiata sat down, his gun hand trembling slightly, nodding his head sadly. “We have a problem in this city, in the whole fuckin’ country,” he said. “I don’t want money — money’s at the root of most problems anyway. I don’t want to kill you — I will if I have to, but I don’t want to. And if I kill you, the last bullet will be for me. That’s a promise.”

The three hostages were silent. Sundiata laughed bitterly.

***

At dawn the mayor called. The phone buzzed shrilly, and Sundiata tore it from his jacket pocket and hissed a curse into it. Ronald watched as his face changed and he moved away from the hostages, toward the front of the store.

Anise was awake. “Hey,” Ronald said, tapping her gently. “I think he’s talking to someone he cares about.”

She just stared ahead. Ronald asked if she was okay.

She looked over at him, a strange glint in her eye. Ronald felt uncomfortable.

“I don’t want to die,” she whispered. It was a defiant wish.

“Neither do I.”

She reached out and stroked his cheek. Despite his fatigue, Ronald was immediately aroused. Anise looked over at Basil, who was snoring. She looked at Sundiata, who was still on the phone and ignoring them. She took Ronald by the hand and stood up quietly. She led him to the door that led behind the coolers at the back of the store. By the time Sundiata got off the telephone, Ronald and Anise, slightly more disheveled, were back in their spots by the magazines. They were both flushed, but if Sundiata noticed, he said nothing.

***

A few hours later their captor become talkative again. As the morning sun filtered through the paper cracks in the magazine-lined windows, he told them he didn’t understand how people like them, who had all the advantages of life — they were young, smart, and lived in a liberal city near centers of learning — could fuck everything up, then whine about fucking it up. They never had a reckoning, and life would continue the same way, and they would grow old, bitter, and cynical, and then start bitching about the next generation. A vicious cycle.

Basil asked if breaking the cycle was what he was all about. Sundiata said he had turned Portland on its head, because it, just like all cities, all countries, were based on lies. He wanted to expose it.

“So what?” Basil said. “You think anyone’s going to remember you after all this shit ends? You’re not even a footnote, you’re just some wacko who cracked and had to be put down like a rabid dog. You think they’re going to negotiate with you? You think they’re even going to give you the fuckin’ time of day? You’re insane.”

“I used to be a cop,” Sundiata said. Ronald was astonished. He didn’t think they would ever know anything about the man. “Not here. Back home. I was a good cop. I worked hard, wanted to uphold the law, believed in the United States and the Constitution and all the stuff they teach you in civics class.” Ronald watched as his face relaxed and he got a faraway look in his eyes. He knew he could rush Sundiata and maybe get the gun, but he was too interested in what he had to say. “I was respected by society, I had a wife, we were planning on a family. Everything the government tells us we should want. Everything society tells us we should want. And I wanted it.”

Ronald was in between Basil and Anise. He felt them huddle closer to him. It was as if Sundiata was a master storyteller and they were gathered around a campfire. Sundiata continued, “It sounds boring, but it wasn’t. It was great.

“My wife got pregnant, and we bought a house. Everything was going well. I came back from work one night and found … my wife. She was dead.”

The three hostages were too scared to say anything. Sundiata looked ready to kill them, but he slowly drew back and relaxed again.

“She had been raped. More than once, the doctor said. She was dead, my child was dead. I thought nothing could make it worse.

“Then I found out who did it. It was a cop. One of my fellow officers. A white guy, if that makes any difference. I didn’t have any evidence, but enough people knew about it that I didn’t need any. My so-called friends back him. Said it would be handled ‘internally.’ They didn’t want the scandal of publicity. I believed them.” His voice was very quiet now, and the three of them strained to hear. “They never did anything to him. He had to quit, obviously, and leave town, but I found out he moved to another state and just got a job and lived normally. Even married. I knew I had to do something.

“I left my job, left town. What else was there? I found the cop who had killed my wife, broke into his house, and tortured him to death. I didn’t care that he was married. Did that stop him? I let his wife go. My mistake.”

Ronald didn’t want to listen anymore, but he knew that he would. Sundiata’s clipped, precise words were riveting. “His wife ran away,” their captor continued. “She told her father and uncle what had happened. They were members of the local … well, they didn’t like my kind, I can tell you. I had left town, but they cast a pretty wide net. They caught me. Let me live, so I guess that’s something.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes. The three hostages stared at him. Ronald wanted to speak, but he didn’t want to break the spell. He wasn’t sure what Sundiata would do if he did. Finally, he could resist no longer.

“Why here? Why now?” he whispered.

Sundiata’s eyes snapped open. “That was almost eight years ago. I haven’t done anything bad since. Here, in this town, everyone pretends to be concerned about equal rights and caring about the less privileged. Since that time, I have tried to work within the system. I … They have someone. Someone I care about. That person should not be in jail. They will release that person. They will.”

He stood up, the sadness and tenderness in his eyes gone. “We are all dead,” he said. “It’s a question of what we do before we die. You think I’m a footnote. I’m already part of history. None of this can be erased. I won’t allow it.”

***

Ronald felt, around noon, that the situation was coming to a head. He didn’t know why, but he felt that Sundiata was about to crack, or negotiate, or just release them. Their captor was exhausted, and couldn’t subsist much longer on Mountain Dew and donuts. He shuffled over to Basil and nudged the clerk, who was taking another nap. Basil appeared able to sleep through anything.

Ronald nodded at Sundiata. “Want to rush him?” he whispered. “He’s looking punchy.”

“Fuck you.”

Ronald shrugged and moved back over. Anise had her eyes closed, but Ronald could tell she was awake. He looked at her breathing, her small breasts moving regularly underneath her dress, her thin legs ratcheted up beneath her. Hours earlier those legs had been wrapped around his hips as her arms clung to him like a life preserver. The tensest situations made the passions and cruelty even more severe. Ronald had never fucked a girl as urgently as he had Anise. It was as if all the terror both of them felt exploded through sex. Ronald knew why men took hostages. Sex. Power. Violence. He shuddered.

Anise opened her eyes when she felt his gaze. She looked at him and smiled grimly, as if to say the worst was yet to come. Her left hand snaked out and found his. She clasped it in a vise-like grip for less than a second, and he felt her sadness seeping into him. She was right about the situation — it wouldn’t end happily. He reached up to touch her hair.

She pushed his hand away. “Don’t,” she said. “Please.”

Sundiata saw the gesture. “Ronald,” he said. “Come here.”

Ronald stood up reluctantly and walked over to where Sundiata was leaning casually against the hot dog counter. He was flipping through TV Guide for about the hundredth time.

“Leave it alone,” Sundiata said when his captive reached him. “Don’t push it.”

“Now you’re giving me advice on romance?”

Sundiata looked more exhausted than ever. “She won’t stay with you. This means nothing to her, and it should mean nothing to you. You think fucking in the back of a convenience store is a solid beginning to a relationship?” Seeing Ronald’s surprised look, he nodded. “You still think I’m fucking stupid. Why should I care if you go off and bang her? There’s no exit back there, so go fuckin’ nuts. It’s the situation that’s exciting, not you.”

“Fuck off.”

“It’s not criticism, it’s the truth. Maybe right now you’re her lifeline, her only friend. Shit, I was married for three years and I don’t know women. But once this is over, and you both walk out of here, she won’t have anything to do with you. Just accept it now, and it’ll hurt a lot less later.”

“What if you kill us all? Then I won’t have to accept it.”

“There’s a finite amount of everything in the world, Ronald. I have learned that the hard way. Even emotions. Don’t use everything up. Your hatred of me, you lust for her, your love for a phantom girlfriend. She’s not like that. Don’t fall into the trap.”

“Can I go now?”

“Ronald, listen to me. There is very little that matters in this world. This means something to me, and it should, maybe, mean something to you. But you and her? Not everything means something.”

“Can I go now?”

“Sit down. Get your fuckin’ heart broken. And remember I told you so.”

***

The end came quietly. Sundiata chuckled as he watched the 7-11 dominate the screen of the black-and-white television. All day the local news had been updating the story, and the nerves outside seemed to be much more frayed than they were inside. Carl Holt, a local news anchorman, had done a half-hour special after the noon news, and now, at almost five o’clock, all the news people were descending yet again on the corner of Broadway and Market.

“I always liked that phrase from that Doors song, ‘a face from the ancient gallery,’ even though it’s crap,” Sundiata said suddenly. “Morrison was full of crap, but he hid it well.”

He cocked the pistol, and Ronald felt his heart pound. He’s finally flipped, he thought. Their captor placed the gun at his own temple. Anise’s left hand went to her mouth. Sundiata grinned. “You’d all love that, wouldn’t you? The crazy nigger goes and blows his fuckin’ brains out after keeping us here for a day. Isn’t that just like them coon?”

He leveled the gun at them. “Or maybe I just wax you all. Maybe the world would be better off without three fucks like you, heads so far up their own asses they never realized what a shithole they were living in. Maybe wasting you is the right thing to do.”

Then he grinned. “Shit, I’m not going to kill you. They’re not going to give in. So maybe this is the right thing to do.” He placed the gun on the counter and began to take off his clothes. The three hostages stared in amazement as he stripped off his jacket, his shirt, his pants, and his boxers. He stood in front of them, completely naked, lean and wiry, barely a paunch, an ugly scar running across both thighs, and no testicles. “I told you they let me live,” he hissed. “Here, in this city, people I love are in jail. Why? Because they walked on the wrong side of the street, because they refused to give in, because I came here and tried to open some eyes. Did I lie? Was I ever really married? Is my wife dead, or is she held here in jail by my ‘brothers’? Does it really matter? Fuck you all.”

Without dressing, he strode majestically to the papered front door of the 7-11. He picked up the key that had been dropped there when he threw the smoke bomb out, unlocked the door, and opened it. Immediately a shout rose from outside. “It’s over, motherfuckers!” Sundiata shouted. “I’m coming out.” Ronald, Anise, and Basil scrambled for a view, and saw two cops with shotguns cover their captor, grab his left arm, spin him around, and handcuff his wrists behind him. Then a female officer was in the store with them, asking if anyone was hurt.

None of them answered. They were too busy watching the black apparition who had invaded their lives for 24 hours. Sundiata was wrapped in a blanket, getting pushed into a waiting patrol car. Then he was gone.

***

There were questions. And answers. And more questions. And angrier answers. Then they were alone in the station downtown, trying to figure out what had happened to them.

Basil was the first to leave. He cursed, told Ronald and Anise that he was sick of the shit, and said he hoped Sundiata “went to the chair.” (Oregon, Ronald knew, used lethal injection.) “Fuckin’ politics” were his last words to his fellow captives. Ronald wondered if the next time he went into the 7-11 Basil would acknowledge him. Or if the clerk would even be there.

“So,” he said after Basil’s departure, knowing he should say something to Anise. “A strange day.” His words sounded stupid.

“What do you think will happen to him?”

“He’ll become a celebrity. He’s articulate, smart, and that story he told us … if he was telling the truth. And someone he loves is being held by the police? He’s the perfect new millennium anti-hero. He’ll end up on news programs, talk shows, probably write a book.”

“Is that all you can say? Don’t you want to know if he’s telling the truth? Are you that cynical?”

“I prefer ‘realistic.’ ”

“It’s still a horrible thought. I know, he committed a stupid crime, and I doubt if he needed to take us hostage to free this person, but did you even listen to him? What kind of world does he live in? Is it the same world you and I live in?”

Ronald sighed. “Sometime the gap is too wide.”

She stood. “No. That’s just an excuse. I’ll see you, Ronald. It was … interesting.”

“Wait a sec. What about … you know.”

She nodded, and he heard her words before she said them. Sundiata was smarter than Ronald thought. “Ronald,” she said, “what happened … please don’t take this the wrong way, but it was just … the situation. You know. Trying to ward off death with the most life-affirming thing I could think of. That’s all it was.”

“It meant nothing?”

“Of course it did. Why is it, with men, it’s either true love or casual sex? There’s so much more to it than that. Please, just … let it go. It’s a memory of … a time we had. Isn’t that enough?”

He didn’t answer, just stared at her and blinked. She touched his cheek affectionately and smiled, then turned and walked away. Ronald sat on the hard plastic chair in the fluorescent tomb of the police station and felt all emotion drain out of him. He needed to sleep. And he had a craving for Snapple.

**********

[I don’t love this story, so I apologize if you don’t either. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it. I was terrified writing it, and I’m a bit terrified posting it. I don’t think that people of a certain race should only write about that race, any more than a certain gender can only write about that gender, but I was still quite young when I wrote this – I was probably around 27 – and I certainly didn’t know what I was doing with regard to Sundiata. But, onward into the breach and all. It is a bit depressing how relevant this story still is – it would have been nice if I re-read it and thought, “Man, I’m glad shit like that doesn’t happen today!” But, of course, here we are. I hope if you did read this, you’ll excuse the vulgar language and my use of that one word – you know the one! – that I hate using. Generally, when I write, I don’t use a lot of vulgarity (some, but not a lot!), but I felt like it was called for in a story like this. I also had an issue with dialogue versus narration in this story. I could have had a lot more dialogue, but I don’t love reading dialogue, so I try to use it sparingly. It was hard in this, and I’m not sure I struck the right balance between dialogue and simply summarizing what the characters were saying. You can be the judge!

The 7-11, alas, is no longer there. Although it is now a Plaid Pantry, so presumably you can still get Snapple there. Although it doesn’t appear they make Bali Blast anymore. It was too Nineties to live!!!!]