The Free World Page #3

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- There you are.

There you are.

His name was Ronnie.

That was his name.

Ronnie.

Anyway...

we'll get it all settled.

We always do.

- Hey.

Hmm?

- You asleep?

- No.

- Who are you?

- What?

- I mean-

- What, you want to know

why I got locked up?

- No.

No, I don't care about that.

I just mean,

I spend all day here

surrounded by

your things, and...

I don't really know who you are.

- I ain't no one.

- Well, that's not true.

I mean...

You don't like furniture.

Obviously.

You work with dogs.

You like to pray.

A lot.

And you're nice to me.

So that makes you someone.

Right?

Don't you have any family?

- I got a sister, I think...

Somewhere in Alabama

last time I heard.

- Well, what's she like?

- She can draw real good.

Ever since she was real little.

- Yeah?

- That girl draw like

it was takin' a picture.

She'd come up with paper.

Draw a fence or whatever

in front of her.

And she'd hand it to me,

like it was a test.

"Now you do it."

She'd hand it to me 'cause she

knew I was gonna mess it up.

I always messed it up.

That was a long time ago.

Long time.

- I have a brother.

His name is Darren.

And he's what they call

a "tree doctor."

And he had this big book

of different types of trees.

And he would quiz me

on them, too.

He was always

much smarter than me.

And better looking.

He was very handsome.

Like a movie star.

- Are we friends?

- Sure.

- I ain't never been...

been really good

talkin' to women.

They locked me up when I was 15.

I had no practicing.

Ain't never really had a chance.

- I hope I'm gonna be okay.

- You're gonna be okay.

- Charlie?

Charlie?

Charlie?

Charlie, come here.

No, no, no, no, no.

No.

Sh*t, sh*t, sh*t.

- Yeah, make sure

you tag everything.

I'm gonna check out the back.

- Are you okay, hon?

- Mm-hmm.

- You sure?

- Thanks.

- I'm sorry, I got locked out.

- What're you doing outside?

- I made a mistake-

- Why are you outside?

- Why are you outside?

- I got locked out.

I'm sorry.

- Come on.

- I made a mistake,

Mo, I'm sorry.

- She saw me, she saw me-

- What? Who?

- She's gonna call the-

you're neighbor.

She looked right at my face.

- Why did you go outside?

- I don't know,

I don't know, I-

I thought I saw Charlie, okay?

- What?

- I thought I saw him!

I swear to God, I thought

I saw him outside.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I ruined it.

I ruined it.

I'm sorry.

The cops are at my work.

They're here, they're coming.

Okay"

Okay, I'm gonna have to go.

Because if they catch you here,

I know they'll

put you back away.

- Hold on!

Hold on.

- If they catch you here,

they can take you back

and I don't want you to go back!

- Listen, I ain't going back.

And you're not gonna turn

yourself in, all right?

- I'm not?

- No.

No, no, no, no.

I don't-

I don't want to go back.

- I know.

- I ain't talkin' about prison.

I ain't sayin' that.

I don't want to go back.

You understand?

- Me, neither.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

I know somebody.

I know somebody that's

gonna help us.

- Okay.

- Yeah?

- Get your stuff.

Okay.

- Back up.

Back up!

How many with you?

- Just her.

- I saw something in the trees.

- It's just us.

- As-salaam alaikum.

- Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.

You a whole lot more paranoid

than I remember.

- You don't remember much.

- Want to put the gun down now?

- More than anything, brother.

More than anything.

Come in.

Mm-mm.

No.

Absolutely not.

- I wouldn't ask you if-

- If what?

You actually cared about

protecting my way of life?

- No, if I had other options.

- You bring a murderer

into my home.

- She's not a murderer.

- And ask me to risk my life.

My freedom.

Not just sheltering her, but

taking you across the border?

Why not north?

Most of that border's

just a wire fence.

- 'Cause they gonna find us

there and you know that.

I'm not asking you

to get us across,

I'm just askin' you to get

us to someone who can.

- Who?

- Those Low Riders

from Corpus Christi.

You did business with them.

They move things.

- Yeah.

Heard those charmers did

Crispy Black real bad.

Cut him up like

a f***ing carrot cake.

- It's just yard gossip, man.

Low Riders are punks.

Brotherhood errand boys,

you know that.

- How you gonna pay 'em?

Oh, I'm gonna pay 'em.

- Brother, I'm callin' in

my favor right now.

We can't make it across

on our own.

Too many people lookin' for us.

- Why don't I just take you?

- You been having much luck

at the border these days?

- Fair enough.

Okay.

- Okay?

- Yeah, what, you want me

to say it twice?

- Yeah.

- I don't know, man, it was his

purity that I admired most.

The way he never gave up.

Livin' alone for

all those years in caves,

cold-ass nights

in the desert.

Ugh.

Only ever wanting one thing.

One thing.

And riskin', dedicating

his whole life to it.

Like Sisyphus.

Rolling that f***in' boulder

up the hill

just to watch it roll back down.

Drove me to tears, bro.

You know, in a way,

Wile E. Coyote taught me more

about loss and righteousness

in a way that prison

never could.

But that f***in' Road Runner.

That stupid, ostrich-looking

little piece of sh*t,

with that stupid smile

and that noise.

Always f***ing with him.

I liked him.

He was always happy,

even though he was being chased

by some maniac who always

wanted to kill him.

- Yeah.

Easy to be happy when

you win all the time.

- Surviving and winning

aren't the same thing.

You got a smart one here.

Hey.

I heard from Akasha.

- No.

- My my brother-in-law said he,

uh, came to Brooklyn

lookin' for work

or a girlfriend or some sh*t.

- Is he still cross-eyed?

- Who's Akasha?

- So, Akasha-this poor f***er

used to get in trouble

with the screws all the time,

because they could never tell

if he was lookin'

at them or not.

Drove 'em f***ing apeshit.

So, one day, to f*** with him,

me and a few brothers

told him that if he

got hit real hard,

it might straighten out

his eyes.

And he's not too smart,

so he believed it.

Kid was f***ing desperate.

So, naturally, we told him to go

get the Cyclops to hit him,

because this motherf***er

was a terror.

I mean, Aryans wouldn't even

sneeze at him.

- Khalil...

- What? Come on,

the past is the past.

So, he goes up to this brother,

and starts shovin' him

at chow, you know?

And this was before

Brother Mohamed

become Brother Mohamed.

When he was still breaking bones

like a f***ing ogre

in a kid's story.

- Khalil.

- So he starts shoving him

and pushing him around.

And Brother Mohamed just

looks at him like an ant.

Mm-hmm.

Like less than an ant.

Like a sh*t that an ant takes

and looks at

and is like,

"Oh, that's a small-ass

piece of f***in' sh*t!"

Whole place stops.

But the Cyclops does somethin'

no one ever saw him do.

He laughed.

He f***in' laughed.

And this was huge.

Oh, a huge moment.

It was like seeing

your dad cry or somethin'.

Something you never

thought possible.

He never did hit him.

They almost became kind of

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