Hunchback

© 2008 by Preston L. Allen


After Prettyboy got out of Juvenile, he called his buddy the hunchback.

“I’m out,” he laughed over the phone.

“Well, did you get any?”

“Only from yo’ mama.”

“She any good?”

“Not as good as yo’ daddy, but give her another week with my dick up her ass, ‘cause she a fast learner.”

“So what’s going down?”

“Liquor store. A guy in Juvee told me how.”

“Teach me,” the hunchback said.

At fifteen, neither was old enough to drive, but they stole a car, switched the plates, then drove to the liquor store that night and waited until just before closing. They carried nines, a shotgun, and stocking masks. When the last customer left the store, Prettyboy said, “Let’s roll.”

They pulled the masks down over their faces and jumped out of the car. Prettyboy went in first. He had a nine in each hand. He put the barrel of one of them right under the nose of the old woman working the register. She put her hands up. Prettyboy snarled, “Open da register, beautiful.”

The hunchback, who had the shotgun, locked the door, put up the “closed” sign, and pulled down the shades. Then he moved to the middle of the room, watching the door, watching the store, checking to see if anyone else was around.
Prettyboy was watching the old woman, who was pulling money out of the register and calmly setting it on the counter in neat stacks of bills and even piles of coins. She had been robbed before. She knew the drill.

Prettyboy said, “Anybody else in here wid you?”

The old woman shook her head no, and kept on stacking the money.

“Don’t lie,” he warned.

She kept on stacking. “Nobody in here but me.”

Prettyboy rolled the barrel of the nine under her chin, lifted her chin. He wanted her to look at him. He said to her, “You’re pretty, you know?”

The old woman, who was calm before, now began to look a little nervous, but she smiled a thank you, lowered her eyes and went back to scooping money out of the register, though a little bit faster than she had been doing it before.

“Pretty as a cow’s ass,” Prettyboy snickered under his stocking mask.

She had eyes and skin that sagged, and blue veins showed on her blotchy face and hands. He lifted the woman’s chin with the nine again and pulled up his mask so that she could see his face. Looking at his face, the woman began to scream.

Prettyboy hit her in the face with the butt of one of his nines, and she fell back against the shelf behind the counter, slamming into liquor bottles, sending them crashing to the floor. There was a loud groan and the sound of liquor bottles shattering against the tiled floor before the old woman sank behind the counter. Prettyboy jumped over it going after her.

The hunchback could see the piston-like rise and fall of the fist holding the pistol. Prettyboy hit her again and again. He hurried behind the counter to pull Prettyboy off the old woman, who was facedown in a pool of broken bottles and spilled liquor. Prettyboy was atop her, angrily tugging off her pants. Her buttocks were blue-veined and splotchy.

The hunchback grabbed him up by the shoulders. “Stop that!” he shouted.

When he got Prettyboy off the woman, he knelt and dragged her pants back up. Then he turned her over, lifted her to a place on the floor that was free of broken glass, and leaned her up into a sitting position against the wall. Her face was red and swollen. Her nose was knocked flat to one side and leaking blood. She was trying to tell the hunchback something, but her top lip was ripped and hanging straight down the side of her mouth and her mouth was filling with blood from the torn lip, so he couldn’t make out her words.

The hunchback looked up at Prettyboy, who was stuffing the cash into his pockets. He said to him, “Why did you do this?”

Prettyboy sniffled, “I don’t know.”

It sounded to him like Prettyboy was crying, but he couldn’t tell because his mask was back on.

They heard sirens.

They fled.