A Short Story by Dennis Lynds
Nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Short Story of 2001

At the time of the murder of the ninety-one year old woman who lived alone in Pittsburgh, the two girls were in a county residence center for abused and neglected children.

The taller girl, Kristy, was a fifteen-year-old who dyed her spiked blonde hair blue and orange, painted her nails black, wore tight black imitation leather short skirts with silver nail studs, black high-heeled pumps, mesh stockings, and had liked her mother. If she didn't have a date, the mother had nearly always stayed home on her nights off from the all-night diner where she waited table, and most of the time when she went to work she left something good from the diner on the kitchen table of the two-room apartment for the girl's breakfast.

If the taller girl, Kristy, went to school, she didn't come home until after three in the afternoon when her mother had already gone out to shop or meet friends before going to work. But if Kristy skipped school, hung around listening to one of her girlfriend's blasters, cruised the shopping malls, or piled into an afternoon movie if anyone had money—or even went riding with whoever her boyfriend was then if he happened to have a car or a bike—she came home earlier, and then her mother would talk to her while her mother got ready to go downtown. They both enjoyed those times a lot.

Kristy would straddle a chair and smoke and have a beer. She'd watch her mother paint her toenails, and blow dry her long blonde hair, and model her sexiest bikini underwear, or even a red lace teddy if she had a big date that night after work, and they would both laugh hysterically. The mother left Kristy’s dinner on the stove, or gave her money to go to McDonald's or Jack-in-the-Box or Bob's Big Boy, and made sure she had the latest TV Guide. Sometimes the mother gave Kristy enough money to take a friend to a movie, but her mother didn't have much money so the girl usually stayed home. Most of her girlfriends couldn't crash out at night, and if she didn't have a boyfriend that week it was no fun wandering around alone downtown, or in the shopping mall with the cops and storekeepers always watching so she couldn't grab stuff or have a beer or anything.

The nights were when she, Kristy, felt the most alone. Especially when she finally turned off the TV, and tried to go to sleep. Then, in the dark, she would lie naked and imagine a hot boyfriend with money and a car, imagine how they would drive all over the country and never stop.

"The old woman had what you wanted, is that what you're telling me?" the judge in Pittsburgh said. "So you robbed her, tied her up, and left her to die."

The young black stud in the baby blue '87 Honda Civic drove under the palms and palmettoes, cruised through the hibiscus and bougainvillea and skyscrapers of Florida looking for action, for some sharp fox to go on a big time blowout now he had hot wheels and cool green.

In the crowded Pittsburgh courtroom Kristy stood on the toes of her high heels to see over the heads of all the people. She waved her long black fingernails above her orange and blue hair. Grinned, and jumped, and waved to the cool young black in the blue Honda.

"She had what you wanted," the Florida judge would say to the young black, "so you had to beat her to death."

In eighty-seven-year-old Leila Cooper's baby-blue '87 Honda Civic, the scrawny young black with the pocketful of sudden money drove looking for a girl who wanted a boyfriend with wheels to bust out and kick ass, to wail and roll.

"Hey, what's your name?" he called to Kristy.

"Kristy," the taller girl in the Pittsburgh courtroom said. "That your car?"

"Is now," the young man laughed. "Climb in 'n we rolls."

The Florida detective said, "How far you think you're gonna get in that nice blue car, boy? She lived in that house seventeen years, that old lady. She was eighty-seven, you fucking punk, the house and the car was all she had. A car and a little house. Four times she beat off goddamn thieving punks until you had to kill her. In your own fucking neighborhood."

"She got more'n I got," the young black said. "More'n anyone else 'roun there got." He waved to the taller girl in Pittsburgh. "Hey, Kristy girl, climb in 'n fly!"

"She was white," the Florida district attorney said. "You know what that means, you black son-of-a-bitch? Old and white and I know damn well you raped her too, no matter what that fucking stupid Medical Examiner says."

"Hey, what the fuck I want to screw with no damn old lady, man? I'm lookin' for old Kristy there. I got wheels 'n some big green. We gonna ball, me 'n Kristy."

"She had what you wanted," the Florida judge said. "So you had to beat her to death."

"How'd I know a damn all eighty-seven-year-old broad was gonna go fight back? Shit, she done ruin both of us."

"Ninety-one," the Pittsburgh judge said to the smaller girl in the courtroom. "You left her to die."

The smaller girl, Tammy, was younger and heavy. Long straight hair. Short nails dull and bitten. Ankle socks. Proper skirt and demure pastel blue blouse to hide her breasts. Flat-heeled shoes. Baby face and baby fat with full defiant lips that laughed around exposed teeth that had bitten, would bite, wanted to bite, were ready to bite. Big, bright eyes. Wide, brilliant, startled, excited, exhilarated eyes. Baby-fat belly and buttocks under the skirt, and baby-fat breasts if they could be seen.

Baby fat under the scars that would teach Tammy to walk in righteousness and obedience and humility and respect for the loving mother who bore her. Respect for the hardworking man who had come to save them from a barren life of loneliness, and give her mother what she needed and wanted and thank you, Jack, thank you. My daughter will learn to thank you, and to know what a good man means to feed and clothe and protect and instruct and discipline and fuck. A good man to walk down the street with as he watched the other men, hard-eyed and belligerent. Tammy's dear mother, on Jack's arm, smiling at the other women and the men, too. He fucks and feeds, protects and leads. Tammy's mother had her Jack who only beat her and Tammy if they needed to be protected from themselves. You got to listen to Jack, Tammy. He's our man, Tammy. It's for your own good, Tammy.

Teacher: What are those bruises on your legs, Tammy?

I was bad.

Principal: Child abuse is a serious matter. Tammy is bruised in many places.

It hurts, but I'm afraid.

Mother: The Bible tells us we got to control a child.

I'm afraid to go home.

Jack: The Book of Proverbs says straight out you got to whip a kid. Proverbs 23:13—Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die. Proverbs 23:14—Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from death. There ain't nothing works like a good whipping.

Teacher: She's a child. Do you ever talk to her? Listen to her?

I'm bad, he says, and he hits me. I'm sinful, she says, and she lets him hit me.

Mother: A good whipping is the only way. God's way to make us humble our arrogance.

He hits my mother too. She likes it.

Jack: You hear that! I've seen what happens when you try to talk to 'em. Arrogant, disrespectful, and mouthy. You hear her?

I hate him! I hate her!

Mother: Parents may wish for a more humane way, but there is none. Beating children is God's way of getting parents to gain control over their children. Before Jack came into my life she was out of control.

Jack: It comes down to what you gonna believe, God's word or some so-called atheist expert calls himself a psychologist or psychiatrist. You look around at all these teenagers on dope, liquor, cigarettes, God knows what else. Stealin', killin' their parents, committin' suicide. That's what these modern experts done. We'll take the Bible.

I hate them all.

The young, cruisin' black youth parked under the palms and skyscrapers with his big grin and eager eyes. One black foot out the window of the baby blue Honda that had been the pride of eighty-seven-year-old Leila Cooper of South Palm Beach. "Come on, Tammy. Me 'n Kristy and you gonna wail 'n book 'n ball all fucking night."

The Florida detective swore. "They're in Pittsburgh, you asshole. You dumb fuck up. You ain't gonna make the county line, boy. She was white and you're dead."

"Why, boy?" the judge in Florida said. "An eighty-seven-year-old lady who hurt no one, just lived quiet in her own little house and had her baby-blue car she loved."

"Where else I gonna get wheels, man? I needs me some wheels like ever'body else. Hell, a nice little house like that there, man, she got to have cash stashed away somewheres, right?"

"Why?" the judge in Pittsburgh and the judge in Florida said to the two girls and the black youth. "Two harmless old women a thousand miles apart. Alone and helpless. Innocent."

"You wants us to rip off one o' them millionaires in the big houses got gates 'n guards 'n dogs? A crazy Cuban dope boss cuts up chickens for the voo-doo? That old lady she was there, man, nothin' personal. How else I gonna get wheels so I gets to howl 'n fly with Kristy 'n Tammy, man?"

The black young man in the baby-blue Honda Civic drove around and around the Pittsburgh courtroom under the distant palm trees and blue sky of the high glass skyscrapers of Florida.

Tammy jumped up and down in her baby fat.

Kristy balanced on her high-heels. Her black fingernails waved above her blue and orange spiked blonde hair.

Kristy who had awakened one morning after a night alone with television to nothing special from the diner for breakfast and no mother in bed. Came home to no mother to talk to, and the next day a postcard to say that her mother had found the right man at last and she was sorry but Kristy was a big girl and would find her own man. Maybe her mother would be back to get her someday, but right now there wasn't enough money, and her man didn't want a kid around and...

Tammy, her broken bones and internal bleeding dedicated to God, lonely at the center when they took her mother and Jack to jail, scared without the heavy hand of the Lord, afraid of what God would do to her, fear and hate . . .

They wanted.

Something bright and gaudy.

Rich and sweet.

Fun.

"What's the State's charge," the Pittsburgh judge said.

"They are accused of robbing and binding Mrs. Mary Smith, aged ninety-one, leaving her abandoned for four days during which period she died and was found dead by the police."

Kristy mocked. "Robbing and binding and leaving abandoned during which period . . . La-de-da. Hey, the old broad didn't have nothin'. We didn't get nothin'. We just tied her up, and got out of there. How'd we know she was gonna croak?"

"Yeah," Tammy giggled. "I mean, we didn't want the old hag chasin' after us."

"Can you just see that?" Kristy shrieked. "The old witch runnin' her ass off after us!"

"Probably would've tripped and busted her neck."

"Yeah, we had to protect her so we tied her up."

"She didn't have nothing. Maybe we done her a favor."

"Yeah, we done her a real favor."

"Hey, what'd she need money for anyway?"

"No teeth, no nothing."

"Hey, Florida! Come an’ get us. We're ready!"

"Ready to howl! Ready to fly!"

In Florida the young man in the baby-blue Honda cruised and cruised, looked and looked. For Kristy and Tammy.

"You ain't going nowhere, boy," the Florida detective said.

"In my court," the Florida judge said, "you get the God-and-free-democracy-given right to tell your own story."

"If he knew his story, your honor," the assistant public defender said. "If he had the education. If he'd gone to any college or even a high school. If he hadn't gotten all the education we gave him from game shows and half-hour melodramas, soap-operas and beer commercials."

Before the black young man could get to Pittsburgh in the baby blue Honda Civic the police grabbed him and the district attorney charged him with the felony murder of an elderly white woman. The judge pronounced sentence and he became the tenth black man in line to die in the Florida electric chair.

In Pittsburgh, Kristy and Tammy, aged 15 and 14, saw the reporters, the cameras, the glare of the TV lights. Tammy turned her baby fat to the camera eye and wiggled her buttocks. Kristy raised her arms above her head, hips curved sideways, legs bent with one slim leg slightly in front of the other, like a famous movie star she'd seen once in some dumb old movie.