SORRY

Victor Kreuiter

When Ernell’s grandma died, his mom got drunk and stayed that way. It wasn’t something new for her; it was where she went when life got tough. Ernell cashed his grandma’s life insurance policy – five thousand dollars is a lot of money – and headed down to Kentucky. He had a friend down there, Bryce, who kept calling.  Bryce was staying with this guy, Wallace, who was born and raised in Kentucky. Wallace was twenty-nine. Ernell was twenty. Bryce was nineteen.

Couple days after Ernell arrives, Wallace says to Ernell: “We got us a plan, if you’re interested.” They’re living in a farmhouse Wallace says has been in his family for over a hundred years. It’s a dump and ain’t near a hundred years old. Wallace’s girlfriend, Cynthia, is there, too. Cynthia’s eighteen.

Wallace says he knows some guys that stole munitions from an army depot there in Kentucky and he’s gonna get ’em. Then he says what they’re gonna do with ’em: “We’re gonna set ourselves up,” he says. “We can take out a bank … easy as pie. I know two banks don’t have no security at all.” Bryce and Ernell are half-listening. Ernell doesn’t know what to think about robbing banks. Then, Wallace says he knows about this armored car company that drives all over Kentucky, moving money. “We can get into an armored car – get all that money – once we get our munitions.”

Wallace keeps saying munitions and Ernell thinks he means ammunition, but he don’t say nothing. Him and Bryce been smoking up the legal Illinois weed he brought with him. It’s almost all gone and Ernell’s thinking he’s got to go back up into Illinois for more. He can drive stoned pretty good.

“That stuff ain’t legal down here,” Wallace tells Ernell. Wallace chain smokes and drinks. He starts drinking early most days. He don’t like weed, says it affects his manhood, telling Ernell and Bryce that Cynthia wants to have his babies. “She don’t get out of line on me,” Wallace says, and he winks at Ernell and Bryce, and when Cynthia hears that she gets all giggly.

Ernell ain’t never had a girlfriend. Him and girls done stuff, but it didn’t mean much. Cynthia is different. He catches Cynthia looking at him and when he smiles at her she smiles back. At night, he can hear Wallace and Cynthia doing what they’re doing. Daytime, Wallace don’t pay much attention to Cynthia, unless Cynthia is talking to Ernell or Bryce. He’ll snap at her if she gets friendly like that. Ernell thinks Wallace should treat Cynthia better. He don’t say anything, but he’s thinking on it. He’s also thinking he ought to go back and see if his mom’s okay. Bryce tells him to go on back and get more weed, and Wallace warns him he could bring the law down on them with that Illinois weed. “You gotta be careful down here,” Wallace says. “This ain’t no candy-ass state, hear me? And don’t you ever think about smoking that stuff with Cynthia,” He’s looking at Cynthia when he says that. Cynthia shrugs that off and then Wallace grabs her by her hair and twists it and says “Don’t you never smoke that stuff, hear? You wanna have my babies?” Cynthia goes on up the stairs – it’s just the one room up there – and Wallace looks at Ernell and Bryce and says “I’ma go up and make babies with Cynthia. You boys find something to do.”

Ernell is thinking Cynthia is hooked up with the wrong guy and he says that to Bryce and Bryce looks at him and says “Don’t tangle with Wallace. He’s mean.”

Ernell goes up into Illinois, buys more weed, then drives by the house to see his mother. It’s mid-afternoon, his mother’s on the front steps, drink in hand, and there’s a man on the steps right behind her. His hands are on her. Ernell’s not out of his car before she starts shouting: “You run off and spend grandma’s money? My mother’s money? That what you do?” She tried to stand, wobbled a bit, and the man behind her steadied her, stood up and moved toward the car.

“Boy, come on out here,” he said.

Ernell pulled himself back into his car, started it up, backed it out.

“You steal from your own mother?” It was his mother, screaming. “That’s what you do? Steal from your family?”

Ernell’s mother never had a problem finding boyfriends, but they never lasted long. Where’d she find them? How’d they find her? This one fit the mold … couple tattoos, cigarettes in the pocket of a cheap cowboy shirt, blue jeans, expensive boots, dull eyes and long hair.

“Hold it there, boy!” he yelled. He yelled like he had a stake in something, like he could ever matter to Ernell, like he’d be around longer than two months, or three months, or four … before he got sick of the drunk he was sleeping with and left without saying goodbye.

Ernell backed the car down the block and watched his mom’s loser boyfriend put on a show for her, pointing at Ernell, calling him boy. She got on her feet and started screaming, walking toward the road, still working on that drink. Crying. Wobbly. She finished the drink, dropped the glass and held her hands out to her boyfriend … he wouldn’t last long … doing her part to play the scene to its dramatic conclusion. Ernell had seen this performance before, too many times. He gunned his car at the boyfriend, the tough guy hollered at Ernell’s mother and jumped out of the way, Ernell swerved around him, honked his horn and was gone. He’d played his part in the family drama. Coming home, what had he expected? He still had most of grandma’s money … he could maybe give some back to his mama, but no way he was letting that deadbeat cowboy spend family money.   

On the way back to Kentucky he stopped for gas, bought some pop and junk food, and two-and-a-half hours later he was smoking weed with Bryce. While they’re smoked up they talked about Wallace and his plans to take on a bank, or even an armored car. “Wallace ain’t fooling,” Bryce tells Ernell. “He can think things through good.” They’re in the house Wallace says belongs in his family. It’s off a county road, down a dirt lane, with a tumbling-down barn behind it.

The next day, after Cynthia makes breakfast, while she’s washing dishes, Wallace says “We get them munitions, we’re getting after it.” He’s already drinking. He’s muscled up and tatted up and has those eyes that don’t ever get all the way open. Ernell and Bryce are already stoned. Cynthia turns to the three of them and says “I’ma take a shower” and Wallace looks at her over his shoulder, then looks at Ernell and Bryce and says “You boys want to watch Cynthia take a shower?” and he laughs and Cynthia – she likes hearing stuff like that – she slaps at him like she’s offended but she’s not, and Wallace grabs her hand and hauls her down on his lap and says “you can’t never let no woman get out of line on you” and he almost lets her get up before he pulls her back real hard and says “Go get it all cleaned up for me, hear?”

She goes up the stairs, looking over her shoulder at Ernell.

Couple days later Wallace goes out and comes back with the munitions: a machine gun, a rifle with a scope, and a handgun. “I told you,” he says. Cynthia comes downstairs and just stares at them guns. She’s been upstairs all day and Ernell thought about going up there and seeing if she’s okay, but Bryce tells him that ain’t a good idea. Wallace walks back out to his truck, comes back in and gets everybody over to the kitchen table and he puts a hand grenade on that table.

“See this?” he asks. “This here is Kentucky munitions,” he says. “You can open up an armored car with this, like it’s a tin can. My buddy’s gonna call me when that armored car is full of money,” he says. “We gotta be ready.” He tells them his plan and makes it sound good and tells them how it’s gonna be easy and don’t nobody get nervous, there’s no need to get nervous because he’s been thinking on this plan a long time.

Couple days go by before Wallace gets the call. He talks on the phone, one hand around his mouth like he’s being careful, and when he hangs up he tells Ernell and Bryce and Cynthia: “It’s tomorrow. Get your mind right. We’re going to a four-way stop out there between Murray and Mayfield. Aint nothin’ around there.”

The next day, Ernell’s car is pulled off the road, just past the four-way between Murray and Mayfield, like it’s broke-down. Ernell don’t like that it’s his car they’re using, but what’s he gonna do? Him and Bryce been smoking weed, and after a while Wallace tells Ernell, “Let Cynthia have a puff on that stuff, hear me? She’s nervous as hell.” He looks at Cynthia; Ernell gives her the bong and Wallace says “Go on now, girl. Just puff on it the one time. You got to settle down, hear?”

Cynthia is the bait and she’s nervous. She’s wearing a tight red top and short-shorts and her job is to wait until that armored car stops at the four-way, then step out and act like Ernell’s car is her car and it’s broke down, and can’t them armored car boys come outside that armored car and give her a hand or something? It sounded easy when Wallace first said it. It sounded exciting.

It’s late afternoon when that armored car pulls up.

Wallace is crouched down behind Ernell’s car; he’s got the machine gun. He ain’t never fired a machine gun in his life. The handgun is stuck in his pants, in back, like they do in the movies. Bryce has got that rifle with the scope and he’s on the opposite side of the road of the armored car, back a ways from the stop sign, crouched behind a big stand of honeysuckle that has some pin oaks growing in it. Ernell is opposite Bryce, off the road, same side as the armored car, kneeling in a ditch filled with pokeweed and hogweed. He’s got to use that grenade when he gets the sign.

Cynthia does good. The armored car pulls up and stops. She walks away from Ernell’s car, into the intersection, waving and trying to look worried, talking loud like them in the armored car can hear what she’s saying, and she puts her hands on her hips and starts acting like ain’t you gonna help me? and can’t you see I’m all alone with my broke-down car? and the armored car don’t move. It beeps its horn one time, then the driver flashes the lights. Cynthia acts like they’re blinding her. She thinks that’s cute. She puts her hand up by her eyes and looks at the armored car, acting flustered and worried. Wallace told her act innocent and that’s what she’s trying to do. Things get real quiet at that four-way between Murray and Mayfield and finally the driver in the armored car beeps that horn one more time and races the engine. Cynthia gets a little bit more nervous, trying to act helpless and fearful and desperate. The armored car ain’t moving and nobody looks to be coming out and inside that armored car a suspicious feeling is going around. There’s two in front and one in back.

Wallace decides he’s had enough.

He steps out, walks out into the intersection, stands next to Cynthia – he don’t say a word to her – and he points that machine gun at the armored car and takes a step forward, showing that gun real good, then takes another step forward, like he means business, and that’s when that armored vehicle takes off and runs right over him and Cynthia. Wallace don’t fire a single shot. That armored car rolls right over the both of them and keeps going.

Bryce sees this, throws his rifle down in the honeysuckle and runs out into the intersection, to Wallace and Cynthia. He’s shaking all over. Ernell climbs out the ditch and runs to stand beside Bryce. Wallace looks dead. Cynthia is on her side, grunting, breathing hard and trying to move her legs. There’s more blood on her than on Wallace.

Ernell’s nervous as hell. He’s been smoking too much weed; he knows that’s what’s making him nervous. He looks at Wallace and Cynthia, looks over at Bryce, looks down and he’s got that hand grenade in his hand. He’s panicked, and without thinking, he pulls the pin on the grenade. That’s what he was supposed to do if the armored car stopped and nobody would come out. He was supposed to roll that grenade under the armored car. He’s thinking to himself: I forgot to do that. Would that have worked? Now he panics some more because he’s pulled the pin. Can you put a put a pin back in a hand grenade? He don’t think so. Without thinking – he’s nervous and stoned – he throws the pin back behind him somewhere, then wishes he hadn’t done that. Bryce says “Now hold on a minute here, Ernell …” and he puts his hand on Ernell’s shoulder, like a friend would do, but Ernell is getting more panicky and he starts to shaking and he drops that hand grenade right down at his feet and he looks down at Cynthia – Wallace should’ve treated her better – and he’s wanting to say “I’m sorry about all this, Cynthia” but he don’t get the words out in time.

Victor Kreuiter’s stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Bewildering Stories, Halfway Down the Stairs, Yellow Mama, Literally Stories, Tough, Rock and a Hard Place, Del Sol SFF Review, The Windhover, Straylight Literary Magazine, Crimeucopia’s “Let Me Tell You About” anthology, and other online and print publications. His story, “Miller and Bell,” was included in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of 2023.