Two Roads — A Short Story

Marcus Everett fid­geted with his tie as he stood before the mir­ror.

“Loop it right, under, then over, ah! I can never get this right,” he said to him­self.

He strug­gled to remem­ber how his father taught him to tie it. After sev­eral tries he was finally suc­cess­ful. He eyed his reflec­tion.

“Not bad,” he said with a grin.

He wanted it to look per­fect. Today was a very impor­tant day. He heard keys jin­gling and real­ized his older brother Damon was at his front door. Since they were kids Marcus and his brother were close, and now they lived in the same build­ing. He often came home and found Damon and one of his many girl­friends’ in his apart­ment. He had learned to tol­er­ate Damon’s fre­quent vis­its because he was away at col­lege sev­eral months of the year and only returned home for week­ends, but now he had grad­u­ated. He made a men­tal note to lay down new rules now that he was home.

“Yo! D,” Marcus yelled. His big brother walked in bounc­ing a bas­ket­ball.

Damon whis­tled, “Wow man, you look sharp as a tack. The ladies are gonna love you.”

Marcus laughed, “Man, I’m not try­ing to impress the ladies. I need to impress Mr. Jacobs.”

David Jacobs was Vice-​President of Synergy Corp. He had offered Marcus a job with his com­pany as soon as he got his degree in account­ing. All his hard work was finally pay­ing off. Long hours in the library and week­ends spent study­ing instead of par­ty­ing. Damon scoffed one Saturday night when he came in Marcus’ apart­ment and found him pour­ing over his text­books.

“Man, do you do any­thing besides study?” He asked.

“I have to study hard Damon, so I can get my degree and get a good job.” Marcus replied.

“You’re goin’ about it the wrong way lit­tle brother. I always told you Poindexter that you need a hus­tle to make it in this world. You ain’t never gonna make no money workin’ for some­body else. You need to do what I do.”

“What do you do Damon?” Marcus retorted.

“I do what­ever it takes. I don’t need no white man to cut me a check. I make my money. Tax free.” Damon laughed.

“I don’t want to do any­thing ille­gal. I like my free­dom.”

“Man, what you talkin’ about? I’m free.”

“Yeah, for now. ” Marcus mum­bled.

“Little brother, I’m going to always be free. I ain’t ever going to jail. No way. I’d die first before I’d go to jail.” Damon said. He lifted his t-​shirt to show Marcus the 9mm. hand­gun that he kept in his waist­band. The expres­sion on his brother’s face showed that he was seri­ous. Marcus cringed at the thought. The sound of Damon bounc­ing the bas­ket­ball brought him back to real­ity.

“Bro, I don’t think you have to worry about impress­ing Mr. Jacobs.” Damon chimed.

“Thank you for your sup­port man,” Marcus replied.

“You don’t have to worry because they ain’t gonna give it to you.” Damon laughed and pre­tended to make a jump shot. He acci­den­tally let go of the ball and it bounced off the wall hit­ting him in the head. Marcus snick­ered.

Damon scowled, “Anyway man, you know there ain’t no way they gonna give that job to a black man. He gonna take one look at you and change his mind.”

Marcus looked at his brother, “Man, why is every­thing race with you?’

Damon smacked his lips, “Because every­thing is race, lit­tle brother.”

“Damon my skin color has noth­ing to do with any­thing. I worked hard for this.”

“Man, say what you will, but you know I’m right,” Damon con­tin­ued, “So while you go beg the man for a job, I’m gonna keep mak­ing real money. Later Bro,” he said and walked back to his apart­ment.

Marcus checked his watch, it was 1:20 pm and his appoint­ment was at 2:00. He grabbed his brief­case and hur­ried out to his car. He turned the key in the igni­tion, noth­ing hap­pened. He tried it again. It was dead. Marcus looked at his watch; it was almost 1:30. He jumped out the car and ran into his broth­ers’ apart­ment.

“Hey man I need to bor­row your car, mine won’t start.”

“I was about to go han­dle some busi­ness lit­tle bro.” Damon said as he was get­ting dressed.

“Please man, I never ask to bor­row it. I can’t miss this appoint­ment with Mr. Jacobs.”

Damon saw how anx­ious his brother was. He hes­i­tated for a sec­ond, and then threw him the keys. “Don’t scratch it,” he said.

Marcus caught the keys, “Thanks man, I won’t, and I’ll bring it back soon as I’m done,” and quickly ran out the door. He jumped in his broth­ers’ car and took off.

His brother drove a brand new black SUV. Damon would say Marcus could be dri­ving one instead of his old beat up Ford Taurus. Marcus remem­bered the day Damon picked him up from col­lege in it.

“Fresh off the lot lit­tle Bro.” Damon bragged as they drove the thirty min­utes from the dorm to their apart­ment build­ing. “Twenty-​inch rims with spin­ners, sound sys­tem, tinted win­dows, a GPS, and a DVD player.”

“How can you afford this?” Marcus inquired.

“Are you gonna be book smart and street dumb all your life? I had some really big deals go down. I paid cash for this ride,” Damon informed him.

Marcus looked at Damon and won­dered how he and his brother were raised the same way but had become so dif­fer­ent. Their par­ents were both pro­fes­sion­als, their mother a nurse and their father a local busi­ness­man. They encour­aged he and Damon to go to col­lege and get a degree. But Damon always liked to make fast money. He did grad­u­ate high school just to please their par­ents, but since then he made his money deal­ing drugs. He was noto­ri­ous in their city for it. How he had man­aged to avoid jail and stay alive was a mys­tery to Marcus. Many nights Damon would recount to him sto­ries about drug deals gone wrong and his nar­rowly escap­ing arrest. Marcus wor­ried about his brother.

“Man, aren’t you wor­ried that one day all this stuff you’re doing is going to catch up with you?” Marcus asked him one night after Damon told him how he had been the tar­get of a drive-​by shoot­ing.

“Man, what you wor­ry­ing about me for? You ain’t got noth­ing to worry about. Nothing is gonna hap­pen to me lit­tle bro. I won’t let it.” That’s what wor­ried him.

Marcus pulled up to an immense office build­ing. On the lawn was a large gold statue that read, “Synergy Corporation”. He smiled to him­self as he got out the car and walked into the busy build­ing.

A petite blonde recep­tion­ist greeted him warmly, “May I help you?”

“Yes Ma’am, I’m here to meet with Mr. Jacobs. I have a 2:00 appoint­ment.”

The recep­tion­ist scanned the appoint­ment book. “Yes, Mr. Everett. I’ll let him know. You can have a seat right over there,” she said motion­ing to the main foyer.

“Thank you,” Marcus said.

He walked over to a row of brown leather wing­back chairs and sat down in one. He looked around and saw three large plasma TV’s on the wall of the recep­tion area. One scrolled stock quotes, the other CNN, and the third was a local news chan­nel. On a mahogany table in the cen­ter of the seat­ing area were var­i­ous mag­a­zines; Fortune, Time and U.S. News and World Report. He reached to pick one up when the recep­tion­ist said; “Mr. Jacobs will see you now.”

Marcus walked down a long cor­ri­dor that led to a large office.

Mr. Jacobs approached him with his hand out­stretched, “Marcus, I’m David Jacobs. I’m so glad to finally meet you. Have a seat.”

Marcus shook his hand and sat down in a large chair in front of his desk.

“Marcus,” he began, “your let­ters of rec­om­men­da­tion are very impres­sive. Your pro­fes­sor said that you were his best stu­dent and your work ethic was impec­ca­ble. You are exactly the kind of young man that we want here at Synergy Corp. Of course your posi­tion will be entry-​level. You will start as an assis­tant to one of our senior asso­ciates, and work your way up. Here is a copy of our ben­e­fits pack­ages as well as your nec­es­sary tax doc­u­ments,” Mr. Jacob’s said hand­ing him a stack of paper­work. He con­tin­ued, “My sec­re­tary will set up another appoint­ment for you and we will work out the details. There’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll fit right in here at Synergy Corp.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Jacobs,” Marcus gushed.

Marcus left Mr. Jacobs’ office beam­ing ear to ear. He couldn’t wait to tell Damon that he was wrong. His being black didn’t keep Mr. Jacobs from giv­ing him the job. He pulled up to their apart­ment still beam­ing. He turned the car off and sat there for a moment. This was the first day of the rest of his life, he thought.

Marcus breathed a deep sat­is­fied sigh and reached for the door han­dle. As he did he heard tires screech. A blue car with dark tinted win­dows had come to a sud­den stop behind Damon’s. He turned to look back and heard a loud pop. A man wear­ing a gray ski mask was point­ing a gun at Damon’s car. Before he could react he heard another loud pop and glass shat­tered all around him. The man walked up to Damon’s car and shot point blank at Marcus. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Then silence. The shooter jumped back in the car and sped off.

Marcus sat there bewil­dered as to what had hap­pened. Twenty-​three years worth of images flashed through his mind: His mother’s face smil­ing at him; his dad teach­ing him to tie a tie; he and Damon laugh­ing and talk­ing in his apart­ment; his col­lege grad­u­a­tion; the appoint­ment with Mr. Jacobs; and a man point­ing a gun at him. Remembering, Marcus looked down and saw blood on his clothes but he didn’t feel any pain.

Damon had heard the shots and came run­ning out the build­ing.

“Oh my god! Marcus?” he yelled.

He ran up to the car and there laid his lit­tle brother with a hole in his chest and blood was pour­ing out of it. His eyes were open. Something in the seat next to Marcus caught Damon’s atten­tion. There, splat­tered with Marcus’ blood, was his paper­work from Synergy Corp. Damon picked it up and looked at it.

He shook his head, “You got that job,” he said cry­ing, “I was wrong Marcus, all this time I should have been more like you. I’m so proud of you and every­thing you’ve done. I wanted to set a good exam­ple for you, but I was in it too deep. You were on the right road man. You set the exam­ple for me lit­tle bro. I promise I’m gonna do what­ever it takes to get out of this life.”

Marcus wanted to tell him that he was okay but when he tried to speak blood came out of his mouth instead. He felt like he needed to yawn, he was very sleepy. Damon could see him strug­gling to keep his eyes open. He watched as Marcus heaved a heavy sigh and exhaled his last breath.

He shook his lit­tle brother and yelled at him, “No, you can’t die man!”

Damon tried to per­form CPR on him but it was no use. Marcus was dead. He laid his head on Marcus’ chest sob­bing. He care­fully cra­dled his lit­tle brother in his arms. He said, “I am so sorry lit­tle brother. This should have been me man, not you.”

Marcus’ fears had been real­ized. Damon’s lifestyle had caught up with him. But Marcus was the one who paid the price. With his life.

Photo Credit: Theilr