Terrell Johnson is in the Corn

Kieran Shea

When Shanice Johnson picked up her brother at Jessup, she still couldn't believe the sight of all that razor wire. Just bands and bands of it, gleaming long in the hot September sun like the whole prison sizzled in a cruel set of shiny curlers. She used to wonder maybe that was why Jessup inmates called the prison "the Cut". On her third visit to see her brother she asked Terrell about this and he just dead-eyed her from behind the smudged glass like she was the dumbest bitch in the world. Shanice then asked a guard and discovered the prison was nicknamed "the Cut" because of a railroad line cut into the hills close by. Later the name was associated with the prison's plague of violence, and two years after she picked Terrell up that afternoon the newly elected governor of Maryland shut down Jessup for good.

Terrell Johnson's sentence was one hundred and twenty months followed by five years of supervised release, nothing new there for being a street lieutenant running hypnotic and red cap regular, and Terrell's attorney had expected worse. But then, last month, after a meager three years inside, Shanice and Terrell's mother got word that Terrell was being released for cooperative behavior.

Momma wept, "Terrell must've snitched…."

"Momma…"

"They gonna kill him. You watch. They're gonna kill my boy. He gets out we need to get him away. Down to Aunt Lucy's. Down Carolina. Promise me, Shanice."

Shanice stroked her mother's thick, dark hands, "Momma, he can't. We can't. Terrell has to meet with his parole officer, he'll go back inside if he doesn't do what the court tells him."

"Dead boys don't meet no parole officers."

"Momma…."

"Pray with me, Shanice."

"Momma…"

"On your knees, girl. Pray with me. Do as I say."

***

Terrell sat quietly in sister's white Hyundai Azera as they swept out of the visitor parking lot and headed east toward the Baltimore Washington Parkway and points south. There was a brief hug at the prison transfer station, but that was it from her baby brother. Terrell was never all that affectionate before, but now with serious time under his belt Shanice knew she better not push. A hard man and only twenty-one.

Terrell slid lower in the reclined passenger seat.

"Need anything, T?"

Terrell had his right elbow "v"-ed on the door's arm rest, his finger tips tapping his lower lip.

"Ter?"

"Huh?"

"Need anything? Want me to stop at McDonald's or somethin'?"

He smelled the new Polo shirt Shanice bought him.

"A'ight."

"Sure?"

"Sure."

They were halfway home before Terrell said another word.

"Damn," he said wiping his lips, "Missed McDonald's. Fuckin' fries in Jessup tasted all wet newspaper and shit."

"Good."

"Yeah…"

"Glad I could accommodate."

"Accommodate?"

"Uh-huh."

Terrell straightened, "Y'all speaking uppity nigga shit now? Y'all professional an' shit working in DC? Fo' some association?"

Even with the air conditioning Shanice felt her neck dampen up with a prickly sweat. Shanice was the first in her family to finish college and worked for a national teachers union. An executive assistant, true, but she was the first and there was potential.

"Just a word, T, baby."

"Jus' a word my ass."

"T— "

"And stop calling me "T" like we's all cool and shit. I hate dat shit. Now what? What!? Yo, d'fuck you cryin' fo', bitch?"

"Terrell…don't—"

"Don't? Y'all tellin' me don't?!"

Terrell smacked his sister in the back of her head before she could say that she missed him, before she could say their mother was terrified he'd be killed, that she wanted Terrell to be ten again and playing hide and seek with her.

Terrell hit Shanice again and Shanice's scalp burned with the blows and she started shrieking for him to stop as his strikes became faster and more vicious. Shanice yanked the car over onto the highway's shoulder and jammed the Hyundai into park. The car's light frame wobbled with the drafts of passing trucks.

That's when Terrell started beating her real good. Skin on skin. Blood on blood.

*

Truth was, after he got home, it took about a week for Terrell to work up the nerve to leave his mother's basement couch. On Sunday when his sister and mother were at church, Terrell found some of his mother's chronic in her bedside table and smoked until his eyes itched and serious craving took over reason. Just slipped out mid-day to the Royal Farms convenience store for a bottle of Raspberry Snapple, a couple of TastyKakes and maybe some Cheetoes. Yeah. And that muthafuckin' chicken parm special.

Big mistake.

When Terrell entered the store, Lamarr Daniels eyeballed him from the opposite street corner. Lamarr dodged through slow moving traffic and met Terrell inside at the store's counter.

"Damn …"

Lamarr made it a point to step in front of Terrell as he said this. Lamarr purchased a pack of Salems and after the exhausted Pakistani clerk handed him his change Lamarr stepped aside and allowed Terrell to move up.

Lamarr hissed.

"Snitchy-ass nigga."

Terrell refused to acknowledge Lamarr's comment or his standing beside him smack packing his pack of cigarettes. Pure panic and adrenaline cleared Terrell's high and his brain dominoed into full prison survival tactics. Slowly Terrell slid a foot back, a small pivot, bracing himself to block and throw. Lamarr nodded at the clerk.

"Yo, muthafuckin' Ghandi— check it. Y'all hear 'dis nigga all over sucking dick up in the Cut? Word 'dis snitchy-ass-faggot take up the butt too." Lamarr leaned in, "Gotta watch 'dem snacks, boy, yo's girlish figure an' shit."

Terrell pocketed his change and looked past the clerk's shoulder out at the hot blue sky beyond the store's gas pumps. Half a dozen people, scattered. Broad daylight. Security cameras.

No way, not here.

Terrell bolted from the store and Lamarr ran out after him.

"Ha-haaaaaaa! Run, snitchy-ass-faggot! Runnnnnnn!"

*

The next morning Terrell took a county transit bus to meet with his parole officer. The state building's modern, hospital-like exterior didn't negate the fact that waiting area was stacked with a bunch of scabbed-faced crazies. An old man with a milked over right eye kept asking Terrell for a cigarette and Terrell's arms hurt for not throwing down and beating the old man's gimpy ass straight. The case officer herself was a sorry sack of shit who stunk of fast-food grease and gin sweat and looked like a bleary Santa without the beard. Whole lot ofnothing. Telling Terrell to try to visualize, to think of his future, to set short term goals like everything was just peachy. She gave him a list of contacts, half the names in Korean the other half in Osamabinladenese.

When he arrived home Terrell asked his momma to call Aunt Lucy. Momma started bawling again.

"My boy…sweet baby Jesus… my boy…."

Terrell descended into the basement.

"Jus' call her," he said.

***

Aunt Lucy's thick silhouette loomed behind the frayed gauze of her screen door.

"Y'all can stay a night or two but you ain't stayin' longer than that, that fo' damn sure. No, no, uh-uh, no way. I knows po-lice. Go family first, friends second. Won't take a mastermotherfuckinmind to find y'all's gangsta ass down here. Tomorrow y'alls goin' west. My friend Simon's place. Simon needs a bunch of work. Talked to him 'bout y'all but I said nothin' and I mean nothin' 'bout the whys s'keep quiet, hear? Simon give y'all food, room, maybe lil' money y'all work hard. Smart man Simon. Good man. Y'alls momma says y'all gots money too, so Simon's deal works out, maybe y'all get a stake together and I reckon we'll talk 'bout what's next. Maybe Atlanta. But mind! Keep quiet 'bout Jessup."

"Yes, mam…"

"Now go. Wash up. Fixed a plate."

*

"Lucy says y'all work hard. Plenty work here."

Terrell picked at his baggy jeans and squinted at bald Simon in his brown stained Carhartt overalls surveying his small farm. The property buttressed up against a larger farm of high grain corn, and Simon's place, a mere six acres, looked rocky and steep, a parcel of land sold off as a worthless afterthought. But Simon had put his back into it. Small neat doublewide with a plate of fly-buzzing scraps on the porch for a mean-eyed tabby. Cleared some woods and brush and built up a sizable garden with two pigs, a rooster and a few chickens too. Pigs and chickens smelled bad and the cat hissed at Terrell, but Simon's place seemed like a good enough place to lay low.

"Come on, day's wasting."

"Wha?"

Simon turned.

"Repairin' a shed this afternoon."

"A shed?"

"Ain't stayin' here free, son."

*

A week later, after some morning sack grits, fresh eggs and black coffee, Simon stood on the trailer's porch and watched Terrell lope back from feeding the chickens.

"Lucy didn't tell me y'all on a serious parole violation."

Terrell stopped and wiped his brow on his shoulder.

"D'fuck?"

Simon sipped from his mug and gave a reproachful shake of his head, keeping his eyes locked on Terrell.

"Don't need me none of that kind of trouble. I mean, I had me my suspicions. Seen it in the way y'all carry. Me, I thought it was jus' some street trouble, but now I know. See, I ain't always been dumbass country nigga, I been inside too so I reckon' sooner or later you'd make your move. Slit my throat and steal my truck or some shit."

"D'fuck you talkin' 'bout?"

"Yesterday I made some calls. That Lucy, she a fine fuck for fifty-seven, but I sure as muthafuckin' hell don't need to be harboring me no drug dealin' snitch fo' some wrinkly ol' pussy nohow."

Behind Terrell about three hundred yards away, two sheriff cruisers bounced and rounded a dusty bend that led to Simon's place.

Simon nodded at the approaching cars, "They ain't seen y'all yet."

Terrell looked behind him, then back at Simon.

"Where's my money?"

Simon tossed Terrell his bag.

"Not much but I'm fair. It's in there. I'll tell 'em y'all left last night."

"Old man, I'm gonna gut yo' ass when I get a chance."

Simon spat a laugh, splashing out the dregs of his coffee in the dry grass, "Doubt that. Doubt your stupid snitch ass live long 'nough to try."

"Fuck you, ol' man."

"Be gone, boy."

And like that, Terrell Johnson was in the corn.

© Kieran Shea 2008

Brooding outside of Annapolis, Maryland, Kieran Shea is constantly bewildered by foofy coffee choices and casually sacrificed intellects. His short fiction has appeared in Thuglit, Word Riot and upcoming in both Demolition and Anthony Neil Smith's relaunch of the crime bellwether, Plots with Guns. He takes a lousy picture.