The Guardian Read Free

green leaf on the front.  The others were transparent and brightly colored.  The mechanics and the single battery visibly seen.   The pagers were positioned close together in the case.  The only counter with merchandise, she observed.   The unit positioned right next to this case was littered with dust bunnies and that’s it.   There was another cabinet expanding the entire wall on the other side of the room, but it was completely empty as well.  And random posters were hung indiscriminately on the walls.  One poster read: CRACK IS WHACK !  A second pictured Bob Marley smoking a joint.   The image of his face was pictured beside a large marijuana leaf and the name BOB MARLEY was tri-colored red, yellow and green.   Something just didn’t feel right.  Dawn focused her attention back on the man standing behind the glass encasement.
            He chuckled quietly.  Almost timidly.  There was something strange about that laugh.  As if it’d been forced.  He stood six feet four with long dreads gathered in a ponytail at the crown of his head, yet the sides of his head – all around his head – were closely shaved.  His hairstyle reminded Dawn of a rotting pineapple.  He wore a faded red and black paisley button down shirt with dark-colored shorts.   Said his name was Kendrick.  Didn’t look much like a Kendrick to her.  With that long oval face, he looked more like his name should’ve been Felix or better yet, Quincy.  Dawn didn’t see the shoes he wore.  She wondered now if they’d matched his ridiculous ensemble.  He probably wore long black socks and slides.  She felt inclined to peer over the counter, but as nervous as he was, he’d probably turn and run past the curtain hanging behind him.
            Into that room she couldn’t see. Around the pot-bellied man standing beside him.  The fidgety one.  The man Kendrick addressed as Big John.
            “ What ? I think it’s nice.  Just because there’s a marijuana leaf on the front doesn’t mean I can’t like it.  I want it.” She gave Big John one last look.  Saw him eyeing her.  But she was used to the attention.  Thought nothing of his furtive glances.  Then she looked at Amos and exited making her way back outside.   Almost as if the air itself ushered her out of the building.  What am I doing here, she thought catching a glimpse of Amos exiting behind her and snacking on a fried chicken leg.  His words were stern: Stay here and don’t even think of leaving without me.   Why?  What is he afraid of?
            Dawn obeyed.  She had no choice otherwise.  He hadn’t even given her any gas money or the five hundred he owed her yet.  She was penniless, which is why she’d agreed to bring Amos here in the first place.  An easy five hundred dollars to pay a late car note and a day off work seemed pretty appealing at the time.  But the longer she sat in the parking lot, the more irritable and concerned she became.  She sat alone in her fire red 1995 Mitsubishi 3000GT listening to Tupac’s So Many Tears and waited for Amos to do whatever it was he was doing in that beeper shop with Big John, the pot-bellied pig, and Kendrick, the rotten pineapple head.
            Suddenly, a disembodied voice whispered: “Leave.”  A voice soft as cotton.  Gentle as a feather.  A voice of serenity.   The voice was so close; Dawn could feel it’s cool breath brush across the tiny hairs on the side of her face as if upon delivery of its message it’d been whisked away heeding its own advice.   Fleeing from danger.
            Running from what was coming.
            Dawn could feel it.  Sense it all around her like a living, breathing thing.  An evil force eager to devour what little spirit she had left.  At twenty-years old, she hadn’t achieved much in life.  Attended the local university in various majors from nursing to