Page 109 of My Heart Still Beats

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Sometimes, when I look down at myself in the shower, I see not drops of water sliding down my body but rivulets of blood.

And I remember…

I remember all the blood…

…

Fifteen years earlier…

“What the fuck did you do that for?” I demand.

“You said this place would be empty, Black. You fucked us all over.”

I thought itwouldbe empty. Just a warehouse where my father bought supplies at rock-bottom prices that had a big stash of cash behind some loose drywall.

I don’t know who it belonged to or where it came from, but I didn’t care. If it had been legally obtained, no one would be hiding it.

So I figured, what the hell? Rather than a grand from a convenience store safe, I had an easy mark worth so much more.

I knew how to get in and out of the warehouse, and no one knewIknew about the cash.

So we went for it. None of us had guns, or any other weapons, for that matter. At least that was our agreement beforehand.

But Dirk—he had a switchblade.

I didn’t know about it. Carlos and Jerry might have known, but I didn’t.

And…someone else was in that warehouse. Why? I don’t know, but he was there.

When the man came at us—big and burly—Dirk went crazy.

Pulled out a switchblade and ran at him, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing…

And the blood.

The spattering blood. From his chest, from his mouth…

All over my face, my arms, my clothes.

All over my fucking shoes.

The blood, the blood, the blood…

But I held steady.

Carlos threw up, and Jerry looked away for a minute.

I gulped it all down.

It isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

No.

When I first saw my mother’s face after she was burned, flesh and skin dripping from her.

What I’m seeing now? Blood spurting out of this big, burly dude?

It doesn’t look nearly as bad.

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