I point the gun and shoot his son and toss his body off the balcony. He wails in grief and he cradles his son in his arms. Before he can gather himself to come inside and possibly try to kill me I grab another family member, his wife. When he looks up again and sees her with me I know he understands what is about to happen. He will not make it back to the US and neither will any member of his family. There will be no bodies buried, we’ll have a good ole fashioned bonfire tonight and I intend to roast a whole bag of marshmallows with it. I don’t enjoy killing nor do I dislike it, I have no feeling about it at all. I let him try to run for it but he stands his ground surrounded by his family's dead bodies. I waste no time playing with him and put a bullet between his eyes. Fuck this, it’s time to go home and face this boogyman, head-on.
True
I wake with a start and sit quietly to try and figure out what it was that woke me up, when I realize it’s Atlas. He is having a nightmare, he’s talking but I can’t make out what he is saying but he is crying.
“Altas,” I say while I gently shake him to try to wake him up. “Atlas, baby wake up.”
I recall many nights that I thought I heard him talking in his sleep and just thought I was imagining things. I reach over and wipe his eyes and call his name again and before I could get his whole name out he grabs me and holds me to him while he cries gut-wrenching tears. I have no idea what he was dreaming about but I ended up crying with him and comforting him as best I can. We lay in the bed for hours just holding each other and healing each other with our presence and love.
We finally got out of bed, got dressed, and headed out to eat. As we were driving I suddenly find myself sliding across the seat as Atlas made a sharp right into a plaza parking lot.
“Where are we going?” I ask him as I squint looking out of the windshield.
“I heard about this place from some of the guys I work with, I want to try it,” he says as he finds a place to park.
“This looks like a children's place baby, there’s a giant mouse on the front. You can’t be serious,” I say looking at him like he has grown two heads.
He pays no attention to me as he gets out and comes around to help me out of the SUV.
“Atlas?” I say to try to reason with him. All that gets me is dragged inside. When we walk in, with no kids with us, people look at us like we’re crazy, which Atlas ignores. He finds us a booth and orders us two large pizzas and fifty dollars in tokens. Two hours later we’ve eaten both pizzas, drank three pitchers of pop, and used almost all our tokens. I am doubled over in laughter looking at Atlas on his knees in front of the skeeball games because his big ass is too tall to play the game. At this point, he’s throwing the ball and not rolling it.
“Cheater!” I yell
A little girl comes up to him and tells him “you know you’re supposed to roll the ball and not throw it, you’re going to get in trouble and have to sit in timeout for that,” and walks away but not before Atlas sticks his tongue out at her.
“Really Atlas?”
“She started it!”
“Wow,” I say as I walk away.
We take our tickets to the prize counter and pick out gifts for ourselves and the family. We grab our bounty and head out to the car.
“Thank you baby, I was a little worried at first but I am glad you forced me to try it out.”
“I knew it would be fun; if kids always want to go it must be fun to go to. He tells me as heads home. We sit in silence listening to the music he’s streaming from his phone.
“True, what are you going to do after all of this is over?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean once Victor is gone, what are our plans? Are you willing to stay here with me? Will you leave to live the life you planned if you had been successful in killing Victor? I want you to stay with me but obviously, that decision would be up to you,” he says.
“Honestly I was looking into going to colleges here so I could get that degree we talked about and I wanted to work in DV shelters either with you or start my own,” I said bashfully.
“Hmm, I would be more than happy to help you open and operate a DV shelter here in Mississippi and possibly expand into Georgia and Texas. Did you apply to school yet?
“No, not yet,” I said with excitement bubbling up inside me.
“I think you should asap, but you don’t have to wait to get your degree to begin working towards opening a shelter. We can buy an existing building or we can build it for you. Also, I am sure all the brothers would like to be a part of something like this or it can just be ours. Think about it and let me know what you would like to do, OK?”
“OK,” I say.
He has put so much out there until thoughts are swimming in my head making it hard to focus on just one. Having the brothers involved would open a lot of doors not just with financing, but with exposure and support.
“Do all the shelters have to have all the brothers involved or can I start with everyone and expand and have a shelter be just ours?”
“Even if all the brothers are involved there participation can be as little or as much as you want it to be they would never overstep, this is your project, your baby.” He says. “But I think the Mississippi chapter of True’s Shelter would benefit greatly from all the brothers' involvement.”