Nina, the Bandit Queen. Joey Slinger

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СКАЧАТЬ She waggled the crutch. She took a deep breath. She rose way up on one toe. She squeezed one eye into a slit and took dead aim at the exact spot where the kid’s nose was behind the glass.

      D.S. groaned louder.

      She focused every particle of her being. And swung as hard as she could.

      She spun around so wildly, she landed on her butt. She’d spun around because she missed the windshield. She missed the windshield because the truck was no longer in range.

      It was backing up.

      It swerved one way then another, collecting side mirrors from parked cars. She wasn’t surprised. She’d figured the kid was driving it for the first time that morning. It looked as if it was the first time he’d had it in reverse.

      The girls came down from the porch looking so hurt that she told them they made her feel like she’d used the crutch to beat their new puppy to death. Since they’d never had a puppy, or a pet of any kind, she said it in the hopes of giving them the kind of emotional perspective that would help them deal with the far more despicable thing they’d seen her do. But they made it clear she was wasting her breath. Her shoulders sagged. Behind her, down the street where she’d kept the truck from going, there were nasty shouts. Harsh adult voices started rising above the tear-filled wails of children. The voices shouted “Ignorant bitch!” and “Mind your own business, you cunt!”

      JannaRose gave them the finger, then seeing Nina making her way sadly between parked cars, hurried after her. “What was that all about?” she said.

      “They” — Nina’s shoulders sagged even more. “Their kids … I guess they really wanted them to hear their names called out.”

      “No. All that stuff. With the truck and the crutch and everything.”

      “Yeah!” D.S. was scowling. “What the fuck was that all about?”

      Nina rounded on him. “You watch your language, D.S.,” she said and began herding the girls into the house with little flaps of her arms.

      “Tired?” JannaRose said, plopping down on the step beside Nina. It was the next morning.

      “No!”

      “You were asleep.”

      “No, no. I was trying not to sweat. I was concentrating.” Nina opened her eyes so wide they bugged out. “But I keep falling asleep.”

      Nina had gotten out of bed long before the electric tootles and personalized sales pitches to the little children could be heard. She’d sat outside and let her anger pump up like another set of lungs. Now, here was the truck, almost on top of her.

      “Aw, shit.” Knots of kids pressed right out on the road, hardly able to wait for it to stop. Every one held up a fist stuffed with money.

      Her front door opened and the three biggest girls came out. A weird creature with four legs and two heads teetered across from Zanielle’s house: it was Fabreece and Zanielle, still Velcroed together. When the truck called Zanielle’s name out along with the names of her two brothers, the mix of pure happiness and despair on her face made Nina’s insides clench. “That’s you!” Fabreece said in wonderment, and they tightened their holds on each other.

      JannaRose spoke sharply. “You stay right there!” She pointed across at the three kids who had tumbled out on her step. “I’m warning you!”

      “Mom?” Merlina said.

      “No,” Nina told her, without looking around.

      Then the truck spoke to them. To Guinevere and Merlina and Lady and Fabreece. And to JannaRose’s Jewell and Eddie Jr. and Tyrone. It said they were missing out on some really delicious things, things they would absolutely love. Things other kids would give anything to taste. Their favourites.

      JannaRose whipped across the street and grabbed her three in a bear hug.

      “Mom?”

      “You heard me the first time,” Nina said. Today there were two people in the truck. Somebody was in the passenger seat and they didn’t move from it when the driver went to the side counter to handle business.

      “He’s got backup,” JannaRose shouted, trying to keep hold of her armful.

      The truck drifted slowly past. Really slowly. The passenger was holding a baseball bat. The driver brandished one of his own. They both kept their eyes on Nina.

      “Jesus,” she said.

      “They’re wearing, like, football helmets.” JannaRose sounded as if it was the most amazing thing ever. “You see that?”

      Three

      Not even Nina could say exactly when the idea of robbing a bank came to her, but it looks as if it was introduced into the process when the subject of robbing banks started coming up all the time in conversation. This happened after she concluded that the only way to stop the direct-sales ice cream truck permanently would be to organize an attack on the lot where the trucks were parked overnight. This would teach the ice cream company a lesson about the economic situation in SuEz in general, and in her house in particular.

      She never passed up a chance to teach economic lessons along this line, although this was the first time it had occurred to her to reach beyond her immediate family and JannaRose, who usually didn’t mind as much as her children. It was hard to say which of her daughters was the whiniest, Guinevere or Merlina. But they whined in different ways. Gwinny whined about how everything that happened in the world was designed to ruin her life. Merly whined about things that Nina would have liked to do something about if she possibly could. She had no idea where to begin when it came to setting Gwinny straight, but with Merly she waded right in.

      “We don’t have any money,” she said when Merly asked why they couldn’t at least once buy some things the ice cream company made exclusively for them.

      “You always have a bit,” Merly said.

      “But every day I somehow —”

      “A little bit.”

      “ — every day I somehow manage to come up with something for you to eat.”

      “Today the truck is like, ‘Merlina, too bad you can’t have this fabulous Pecan Frosted Freeze-O-Reeno.’ That would have made me happy. You never think about making me happy.”

      “I don’t want you to starve and get sick. So today I’ll find something else for you and for your sisters.”

      “Who cares about them?”

      “We all do.”

      “Fuckin’ assholes.”

      “What?”

      “Nothing.”

      “What did you just say?”

      “Nothing.”

      Not that worrying about Guinevere didn’t take up a lot of her time. Mainly it was because Gwinny lived so СКАЧАТЬ