Narc by Crissa-Jean Chappell

Sheryl.
    We passed a string of pawnshops, Big Daddy’s Bail Bonds, and an abandoned car wash. When we bumped across the train tracks, I looked for a house that might qualify as “family friendly.” I only saw wooden shacks, doomed for the bulldozer.
    “Are we coming up on your place?” asked Sheryl.
    I pinned my gaze to the window. “Yeah. Almost.”
    The houses were choked by fences and barbed wire. That wasn’t going to help. Despite the smell of desperation—sofas rotting on the front porch, laundry flapping in the rain—satellite dishes were bolted to every roof.
    I spotted a house with a chain link gate, swung open. No cars out front.
    “There,” I said.
    Sheryl pulled up to the sidewalk and parked. “Honey, can you pass Aaron an umbrella from the backseat?”
    Morgan handed me an umbrella with a duck’s head on the handle. I got out and fumbled with the lever. When I finally popped it open, I was already soaked. Morgan got out, too. There was a diaper in the road, smothered in something that resembled hay. I kicked it to the side.
    “That’s so freaking gross,” Morgan said, scooting next to me. “I’m going to throw up.”
    “The neighbor’s dog messes with our garbage,” I said as we walked toward the door. Was she going to follow me the entire way?
    “Whose baby?” she asked.
    “What?” I caught the glow of a television blinking in the window. Either they left the TV on or somebody was home. “Oh, the diaper? I don’t know where it came from. Next door, probably.”
    We looked at each other.
    Morgan said, “Aren’t you going inside?”
    “My mom’s probably freaking out. It’s going to be ugly,” I told her.
    “Okay,” she said. At that moment, I thought she was onto me, but she turned and marched back to the car, leaving me in the drizzle. I watched her hop into the front seat. The car still didn’t leave. I waved. Sheryl cracked the window and wiggled her fingers at me.
    I ducked around the side of the house, praying nobody saw me standing on the doorstep like one of those freaky Bible salesmen, the dudes in the dark suits who used to pedal through my neighborhood, two by two, on bikes.
    The yard was a wreck. A deflated kiddy pool was crumpled in the weeds, along with a plastic slide. Next door, a dog yapped behind a plywood fence, setting off yips and howls across the block.
    Something pressed into the back of my leg. I spun around. A small boy stood in the rain, clutching a toy gun. He pointed it at me.
    “What have you got there?” I said, reaching for it.
    The kid took aim, making shoot ’em up noises with his mouth. I tried to scoot past him, but he wouldn’t move. I smacked his hand and the gun soared into the grass. As the kid bounded after it, I took off running.
    I cut through the neighbor’s yard, ducking under a clothesline. A pregnant woman was pacing in the driveway. She was talking rapid-fire into a cell phone, holding a dinky umbrella over her head. How stupid was this? I was running like a god damned fugitive in an episode of Cops .
    I kept sprinting. As I ran, I got a glimpse of other
people’s Sunday afternoons: the smell of laundry detergent, smoky meat roasting on the grill, portable radios pumping out salsa and reggaeton.
    When I got to the Shell station on the corner, the rain had stopped. I crossed the street and followed the gleaming train tracks near the apartment. The rails glinted silver in the sunlight. I hunched down and pressed my ear against warm steel, listening for wheels that had already come and gone.

9 : Sweet
    The next day, after driving through what felt like miles of swampland, I found the abandoned missile site near Krome Detention Center, on the edge of civilization. A concrete guard shack jutted above the sawgrass. I parked behind it, got out, and crunched through mounds of paintball shells the color of melted crayons.
    The cop was waiting near the trenches. Guess that’s where they used to launch rockets. Who knew?
    “Let’s