Page 2 of Property of Bull
“I got him. Don’t forget to take your cut off this time,” the man who told me to stay hidden says. He’s made his way back to my line of sight and has paused near the doorway, holding the cart in front of him as if to block the other man.
“No shit. When you finish up, make sure you don’t got any blood on ya, then grab the extra jacket from my office. About time you started shadowing me.”
“Dad, I told you that I don’t want …”
“Don’t care and you ain’t so big yet that I can’t beat the shit out of you.” The hidden man’s words almost make me shudder, until I realize that his tone of voice sounds just like my dad does when he’s proud of me.
“Keep telling yourself that.” The retort comes easily, along with the smirk on his face. “Sure, I’ll be out in a few.”
“Don’t forget to…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Check my boots for blood. I know the drill, old man.”
He walks around the cart and pushes it into the room ahead of him, right up to the metal drawer I had just used to take my photo. Holding a hand out in my direction, he indicates that I should stay put before he starts to transfer the body from the cart to the shelf. Right as he starts to slide the body inside, we hear the door at the far end of the hall open and close.
Leaving the body where it is, he crosses to peek into the hallway. “Dad?” he calls out, checking to see if we’re alone.
After a moment of silence, he waves me out from behind the door and stands there glaring down at me. “What the fuck do you think you’re playing at? Do you have any idea what they …”
“I’m sorry,” the words burst out of me at the same time as my tears. “My cousins dared me. And I didn’t know that, I mean, what was happening. The door wasn’t locked.”
“Calm down,” he says, reaching his arm out and awkwardly pats me on the head like I’m a puppy. “What’s your name?”
“Margo Tucker,” I gasp out, trying to control my breathing.
“That your grandma’s wake?” he asks, putting everything together.
“Yes, sir,” I answer, looking up in time to see a smile crack his face.
“No one’s ever called me ‘sir’ before. Everyone calls me Bull,” he says. “I’m still in high school. How about you?”
“Fourth grade.”
“Fourth grade, huh? I can’t remember, are fourth graders any good at keeping secrets?”
I nod my head as rapidly as the bobble head doll in Granddad’s old station wagon.
“You’re not going to blab to your cousins either, are you? Trying to brag?”
“No, sir. I mean Bull.”
“Okay then. I’ll walk you out of here, but you never tell anyone about what you’ve seen, you understand me? The Kings are everywhere, and you’ve seen what they to snitches.”
Wiping my sleeve across my eyes, I take a deep breath and look up at him the same way I do my Dad when I’m trying to play innocent. “What do you mean? I didn’t see anything.”
He studies me for a few seconds before snorting. “Good girl.”
Turning, he shuts away the body and motions me to follow him down the hall, holding up a finger when he opens a door and ducks inside to grab a suit jacket. I look him up and down as he pulls it over his leather vest and quickly point down to his left boot.
“Damn if I didn’t forget to check,” he says, patting me on the head again before pulling a bandana from his back pocket and swiping it over the bloody residue a few times. “Thanks, Margo.”
“My dad calls me Go-Go,” I tell him, wanting him to know I have a nickname also, but I only get a shrug in response.
With that, he precedes me out of the door. At his wave, I dart into the crowd of people and look around. No longer interested with impressing my cousins I hurry to join my dad and granddad.
I spend the rest of the day nestled between them except when Dad sends me to get them coffee or water. It’s those times that I see Bull standing beside his own father.
The man responsible for the scene I overheard in the back area. A man who can easily order a death, then put on a jacket to comfort a mourning family and community.
