After School

He never let the little girl go by herself to the liquor store even though it was just around the corner. The little store was equipped with leaks, rusting stands, and creaking doors. Still the little girl was fond of that liquor store for it had been her cozy after-school haven filled with Ding Dongs, Twinkies, Bazooka Joe’s, and Tootsie Rolls. However the man knew that the liquor store was an easy target for the amateur thugs in the neighborhood to practice their future escapades on as its only source of security was a cracked dome mirror precariously dangling from the corner. In addition, a passive Korean family who was not exactly known for their bravery or combativeness had run the store.

Just a month ago in fact, a short Hispanic man had shot the previous store clerk in the head while robbing the liquor store. The bullet did not kill the clerk instantly. After being shot, the clerk managed to stay conscious, attempting to articulate his helplessness through a wailing sound as a frothy trail of saliva oozed from the corner of his chapped lips. The robber, annoyed by this display of desperation, delivered a hard blow to the clerk’s face with his muddy Timberland boots, breaking the clerk’s jaw and yet still unable to force the life out of him. The short, and increasingly furious Hispanic man, as a final resort, fired another bullet into the clerk’s head, finally stripping the clerk of his being. The short Hispanic man then opened the cash register with his crow bar and took a total of $187.53. The robber cursed the dead store clerk for the lack of funds and delivered another hard blow to the store clerk’s face, this time breaking his nose, ejecting a waterfall of blood, and staining his beige leather boots. The exasperated man took a six-pack of beer before finally leaving the liquor store. After reading this story in the newspapers the man solemnly forbade the little girl to go to that liquor store after school.

The man first encountered the little girl three years ago when he was released from prison after serving a five-year sentence for assault when he paralyzed a man in a fight at a party. After being released the man moved into a low-housing apartment complex assigned by the prison. In his first week at his new home, a fierce little girl approached him asking the man to care for her fish, Sammy. The man refused at first but later that night heard a soft taper at his door and upon opening it, found a little blue fighter fish in an empty jam jar with a napkin enclosing a neatly made peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Later that night as he was feeding the fish, he had noted how there was just enough peanut butter to compliment the jelly while it swished smoothly in his mouth.

Everyday after school, the little girl came by the man’s apartment to check up on her fish. She had talked secretly with Sammy, asking him how his day had went and whether or not the man had been nice to him. Apparently Sammy had thought so for the little girl would show up sporadically in the middle of the night with a freshly made peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The man had, at first, been very irritated by the girl’s visits but after a couple of weeks of becoming accustomed to it, integrated it into his daily routine.

The man inquired as to why she could not keep the fish at her house and the girl said that her father became livid at the thought of keeping pets even if it was only a fish.

“You’re Dad sounds like an asshole,” the man had commented.

“It’s just hard for him to be happy. Kind of like you.”

The man had amusingly considered this, and then asked, “What about your mom?”

“What about her?”

“Well, is she an asshole like your Dad?”

The girl irately replied, “It’s not nice to say things like that about people’s mom’s. How do you know if she’s good or bad?”
The man asked a little more gently, “Well, is she?”

“Maybe…but probably not. She left before I can remember.”

There was a moment of silence when the girl finally said, “Don’t feel bad, everyone has bad things that happen to them. I’m sure you have some too.”

The man looked crookedly at the girl and said, “You shouldn’t assume such things about me.”

“I guess I shouldn’t, but I’m sure you do.”

“Like you said, who doesn’t?”

“No one, I guess,” the girl replied half dreamily.

The girl once asked the man what he had wanted to be when he was a child and the man effortlessly answered, “A fireman.” The girl said that she always wanted to be a ballerina and when the man asked as to why, the girl said, “They always seem so light like they could fly. They must be able to, right?” The man simply nodded in agreement with a lazy smile on his face.

One late night, the man heard clumsy knocks on the door. When he opened it the little girl was standing before him with a bloodied nose, tears watering down the blood, washing it away. When the man calmly asked what happened, but the girl said nothing and went straight to the bathroom to wash up. He stood there, listening to the suffocating chokes of tears echo from the bathroom. The man got up and lit a cigarette. He went outside to get some air and wandered through the courtyard. He saw the little girl’s apartment across the way next to a bag of beer cans. He approached the door and knocked on it. A fat man with glasses appeared at the doorway.

“Whatchu want?” He said.

The man calmly said, “I don’t know yet,” while smoking his cigarette. A football game was underway on the television.

“Who’s playing?” The man asked.

“Who the hell are you? You that man my daughter is always talking about? The ex-con?” The fat man asked.

“Yea. I am.” He squinted his eyes to look into the fat man’s eyes but couldn’t find anything useful.

“Who’s playing?” The man asked again.

“Green Bay and Chargers…” The fat man was confused.

“Oh.”

The man took his final drag on his cigarette and stubbed it into the fat man’s cheek. The fat man screamed, stumbling back, eventually tripping to the ground. The man pinned the fat man onto the ground and punched him in the face, shattering his glasses, inadvertently shoving a couple of pieces into the fat man’s face. The man had punched away into the chubby face, ignoring the cracks and breaks under his bare knuckles. A fountain of blood began to pour from every cavity in his bloated face but still, but the man remained focused in his actions and did not begin to slow down until after the fat man passed out. After staring into the unconscious face imbedded with bits of glass, and soaked in blood, the man stopped and left.

When the man returned home, he found the little girl already sleeping on the couch in front of Tom and Jerry cartoons. He placed a blanket over her and sat beside her on the couch watching cartoons, his torso spotted with drizzles of blood and knuckles with shards of glass stuck in between. However the little girl was only pretending to be asleep. She saw him when he arrived and stayed up for nearly an hour before finally falling asleep.

Three years later the girl craved a gumball after watching one of her classmates succulently chomp away at one during snack time. She decided to temporarily ignore the admonitions of the man for a chance at the fruity juices being spurted into her bored orifice by buying a whole bag of gumballs with the lunch money the man gave her. She did not think anything would occur in daylight where she felt safe from the depravity that she imagined transpired under the cloak of darkness. When she went to the counter with her sack of gumballs, a man bombarded the store shouting and screaming, wildly waving a gun in the air. The man was extremely agitated and anxious. Demanded money from the clerk, his eyes raced from side to side, expecting to find a monster lurking in the corners. He was obviously affected by some sort of drug because the girl recognized the same wild face on her father after he had inhaled the magic white powder. The old clerk, whose movements were not fast enough to appease the robber, was trembling uncontrollably. The girl, on the other hand, was calm and only whimsically noted the luck she encountered. The girl heard a muffled explosion like lightning in a jar. She didn’t feel anything except for lightness, as if on the verge of flight. She was lying on the cold white floor without knowing how she made the journey. She saw Sammy’s iridescent blue tail shimmering against the man sitting in front of the cathode glow of the television, mottled with patches of blood, with red crystal towers hovering over the cracked flesh of his knuckles.