Free The Innocents by Ace Atkins Page B

meet me on tribal land or we can meet down at the coast. Doesn’t matter a good goddamn to me.”
    “What’s your trouble?”
    “Tell him I just got a visit from the fucking junior Rotary Club of Jackson,” she said. “Someone down there is under the impression that Johnny Stagg still runs the show and I should step right in line.”
    “We don’t work with Stagg.”
    “No shit.”
    “I’ll see what I can do.”
    “Good,” Fannie said. “Because I got a feeling they won’t be sending a kid to do a man’s work next time. You tell Mr. White that?”
    “Who’s Mr. White?” the man said, a little coy this time.
    “Son of a bitch,” Fannie said. She clicked off on the phone and tossed it facedown on her desk.
    •   •   •
    W ill you open up a fucking window?” Milly said.
    “Can’t take it?”
    “I’m so damn high, I think I’m gonna puke.”
    “Don’t you puke,” Nito said. “Not in my car.”
    “Slow down,” she said. “Open a window. Please.”
    “God damn,” Nito said.
    Ordeen sat in the front seat, giggling, finally cracking that window a bit. It had been Ordeen’s idea to hotbox after they rode the Square for an hour and then headed on back to Blackjack. He had in a Ying Yang Twins CD and then switched it out with Yo Gotti while they followed that long white highway line.
    “You at your momma’s?” Ordeen asked.
    “Nope.”
    “Daddy’s?” Nito asked.
    “Y’all just take me back to my car at the Gas & Go. I got to work tomorrow.”
    “I drop Ordeen, then I drop you,” Nito said. “Cool?”
    Nito’s eyes shifted up in the rearview to connect with Milly. Milly didn’t like Nito or his staring, but she wanted to get back to her own piece of shit, find some place to park for the night, and then figure it allout in the morning. She had things needed to be done, some money to get, and then she could get free of Tibbehah County.
    Ordeen lived off ReElection Road with his family, about fifty of them crowded in a dozen trailers on his granddaddy’s old land. The Davis family had the nicest stretch of road in the county, as their supervisors had paved it in exchange for the whole bunch of them casting their vote on Election Day. Nito slowed the old car to a stop, turning down the music to a soft bass bump. Ordeen popped open his door, spilling smoke out into the warm night. Crickets and frogs making a racket.
    “Y’all OK?”
    “Cool,” Nito said.
    Ordeen looked to Milly and Milly nodded. He slammed the door and Nito Reece asked Milly why didn’t she crawl up front with him, riding on the way back to the Gas & Go.
    “I’m good.”
    “Come on.”
    “No,” she said. “’Cause you’re going to try and mess with me.”
    “Ain’t like that,” Nito said. “Shit. You don’t want to be seen with a black boy?”
    “You know that’s not true,” she said. “And I just got seen with two black boys circling the Jericho Square. Who the hell’s gonna see us up in Blackjack?”
    “Your daddy.”
    “Fuck my daddy.”
    “Whew,” Nito said. “Come on up, girl. Ain’t much longer to go. We about to run out of road.”
    “I don’t need no shit,” Milly said.
    “I ain’t gonna give you no shit.”
    They rode up the curving county road, on the way to Blackjack, YoGotti pumping from the speakers.
I done been through it all / I done been through it all.
Milly had the window down, hot wind blowing in and washing out all that weed, air rushing against her bare arm, feeling good to breathe again, and get free of all that pressure in the club and at her daddy’s house. Old ranch houses and busted trailers whizzed by, old wooden barns and brand-new metal sheds. Dogs barking in the middle of the night and deer waiting, glowing yellowed-eyed, to cross the big road.
    She closed her eyes, nearly falling asleep, until the car stopped cold back at the lone Gas & Go and Nito killed the engine. He didn’t wait two seconds before he’d pressed himself on her and slid his hand