This time he heard the jingle of approaching keys, slowly scraping into the lock. A fat redneck officer appeared in the window of the steel door.
“Get up, you’ve got a visitor,” the redneck told him, voice dripping with contempt.
“Get up?! Man my ribs feel broke. I need to see a nurse,” Messiah said.
The redneck shrugged. “She ain’t here. She’s busy stitching up the officer you cut. Maybe you can see her tomorrow…or the next day. Maybe. Now get up or I’m coming in there to get you up,” the redneck growled.
Messiah knew he was in no shape to buck, so he struggled… painfully…to his feet, walking like an elderly man, gritting his teeth and holding his ribs with every step.
The redneck opened the tray slot in the door.
“Turn around and put your hands behind your back to cuff up,” the redneck’s orders were like snot sneezed onto a hand.
“This some fuckin’ bullshit,” Messiah mumbled, as he turned his back to the door.
When the redneck snatched his arms behind his back, the pain was so intense that Messiah saw stars, but he refused to give the satisfaction of hearing him cry out, so he bit his lip until it bled.
“Open 211,” the redneck squawked into his walkie-talkie. The steel door slid open as smoothly as the rock in front of Jesus’ tomb. Messiah stepped out, eyes red with pain, but a smirk on his lips. “QB we take it and smile.”
The redneck shoved him forward. “Just walk!”
He led Messiah to an interrogation room. As soon as he walked in, the first thing he noticed was the two-way mirror that covered the entire right wall. He hadn’t even noticed the two detectives sitting at the deck, until Spagoli remarked, “Remember us?”
Messiah turned his head to the sound of the voice and his heart sank. He knew the game was over. O’Brien read his expression.
“No smile? And here I thought you’d be glad to see us, after we came all the way from New York in your honor,” O’Brien remarked. The redneck sat him down hard. He grimaced.
“What’s the matter? You don’t look so good? But then again, you never look good,” Spagoli cracked.
“Fuck you. I need a doctor, my fuckin’ ribs are broke,” he seethed.
Spagoli shrugged. “Imagine how it feels to be buried alive, suffocating, begging for air. Did you let him see a doctor?”
He glared at Spagoli.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Spagoli shot back, slapping four 8 x 6 glossies on the table in front of Messiah. He refused to look.
“Look at it,” Spagoli ordered in a menacing tone. He shifted in his chair, refusing to look.
“I need a doctor!”
“Look at it!” Spagoli spazzed, grabbing him by the neck and forcing him to look at the photo.
The body was sprawled out on the ground beside the hole he had been buried in. The body had decayed badly, maggots having eaten away at his face, but he knew exactly who he was…Tyrone.
Three Years Earlier
“Yo Messiah, you ain’t gotta do this!” Lil’ Earl pleaded.
“Man shut the fuck up and just dig!” Messiah ordered, his gun held down by his side.
Lil’ Earl chopped down with the shovel, lifting another chunk of earth, and flopping it down onto the growing pile, but Messiah could see his heart wasn’t in it.
Knowledge, Messiah’s twin brother, sat in the passenger seat of the rented Taurus smoking a blunt, leaning out of the open door. Messiah was called Messiah because he was the first twin. The King Twin. The One and Only First Power. His brother called himself Knowledge because his wisdom was knowing who was the best. Both of them claimed superiority over the other for different reasons. Everyone else just called it a draw.
There was a steady bumping noise coming from the trunk. Lil’ Earl paused and leaned on the shovel.
“Come on, cuz! I swear we ain’t got to worry about Ty,” Lil’ Earl repeated for the thousandth time.
Messiah stepped up to Lil’ Earl and put the gun to his forehead for extra encouragement. “You damn right we don’t, ‘cause that’s exactly why you diggin’…cuz. I don’t give a fuck about that nigga. He fucked up. We told him not to take that shit and he took it anyway! You think I bailed that nigga outta jail ‘cause I like him? I bailed him out to keep him from rattin’ us out! You my cousin, and blood mean something to me, but don’t get it fucked up and make me choose blood or money, E.,” Messiah spat coldly.
The whole time he spoke, he had the gun pressed to Lil’ Earl’s head. Every word made the gun metal press into his flesh, and despite the cold wintery night, Lil’ Earl was starting to sweat like a nun in a cucumber field.
Tyrone laid in agony, stuffed in the trunk of the Taurus. His whole face felt like it was bashed in. He could hardly breathe because the blood had caked up and congealed in his nose. Deep down, he knew he was about to die. He felt it the moment he walked out of the county jail and found Lil’ Earl outside waiting for him.
“I told you I got you, my nigga,” Lil’ Earl had smiled and said.
He had known Lil’ Earl ever since first grade, but something screamed at him don’t get in that car! Now it was too late to listen.
Tyrone cursed the moment he saw the gold nugget watch. He had to have it. Messiah had told him, “No, we here for the guns,” but Ty couldn’t resist. He used the butt of a magnum .357 to break the counter and in the process, cut his hand on the glass. The police used his DNA to trace the robbery back to him. Now, he was about to pay for his greed with his life.
“Dig!”
Lil’ Earl was bone tired when Messiah, looking down into the crazy edged hole, finally told him, “Alright, that’s deep enough.”
Lil’ Earl crawled out of the hole. By the time he had finished, Knowledge was knocked out, the extinguished blunt stuck to his bottom lip.
Messiah hit his leg. “Man, wake yo’ ass up! We gotta get this nigga out the trunk,” he said.
“Man, fuck that nigga!” replied, then went back to sleep. Their ma had to get Knowledge out of bed with a glass of ice water sometime. It got him up, but it rarely got him all the way to school.
Messiah gestured to Lil’ Earl. “Open the
