Seeing Red

The gun behind my head clicks. Safety coming off? Trigger cocking? Don’t know enough about firearms beyond what I’ve seen in movies to gauge how terrified to be. I brought a red Taekwondo belt to a gunfight. The cold barrel shoves through my hair to my flesh, jabbing against my skull. Why’d I expect it to feel hot? Thank God, no bullets have been shot so far. One of our two captors—the male one—barks orders and threats. All I hear is a blur of syllables refusing to organize into words as my focus remains squarely on the gun poised to blow through one of my favorite organs.

This is the last time I do a quick bank favor for my mother.

Closing my eyes to regain some calm—give my heart a chance to slow and breathing to deepen—bright summer light shines through my lids. Red the color of rage—appropriate. Red the color of passion, less fitting. Red like the sun through my lids when Ma took me on the bus to the Jersey shore; for a moment I almost hear it, waves babbling as they recede, gulls squawking in the wind, and kids erupting in giggles as the water tickles their toes.

Even though my specific captor isn’t speaking, she punctuates her partner’s every word by thunking the gun barrel into my head again.

I sigh and open my eyes, willing my limbs to stay as still as possible. Able to process words again, we’re being told to stay put, be quiet, to be agreeable hostages so we can all get out of this alive.

While tellers empty cash drawers on the counters, the loud partner demands us 15 or so patrons take out any money we have. He snatches it greedily from others’ hands, shoving it into a satchel. I pull out the only cash I have, the $13,856 Ma’s worked for five years saving to go towards a car—a used 2014 Basque Red Pearl Honda CRV with only 34,000 miles on it and a new battery. Basque Red Pearl, the color of her freedom—the windows down, hair blowing, P!nk blasting from the stereo kind, safe from the manspreading and ‘splaining of public transportation. It took her an hour to extract the small bundles of bills from her hiding places throughout the apartment so I could deposit it for her here, the bank that turned her down for a car loan, and get the cashier’s check to buy her new baby.

Holding stacks of cash out in front of me in both hands, a red heart drawn on a $5 bill stares back at me. Red, the color of love. Love, the reason I’m in this bank.

Something clicks inside me. I cannot let these bullies take away Ma’s chance for a car—the dream she’s been scrimping and saving for since my father took the family vehicle and left us broke and beaten. Glowing red, the color of the cherry of my father’s cigarette before he held it to my leg. Red, Ma’s love—more powerful.

The female bank robber probably chose me because I look vulnerable. At 5’4” and 120 pounds, no one expects me to fight back. This thought lodges in my brain like armor against the bullets poised to destroy it. Years of martial arts and self-defense embolden me—lessons we bartered and cajoled for, that added years to Ma’s saving efforts.

The male robber has almost reached me. I remember my training. Distract—I’ll throw the bundles of cash in different directions. Attack. When someone’s got a knife, you control the arm. When someone’s got a gun, you control the weapon. I envision the steps ahead: surprise, disarm, control the situation. Of course, our training weapons were rubber.

Before my rational brain can talk me out of it—before the male bank robber gets too close, I lunge at him, away from the gun pressed against my head. Ma’s cash—her dream—just leaves my hands when his gun’s muzzle flares, bright hot red. Red like my favorite marble from the set Ma gave me the year my father canceled Christmas. Red the color of her love. The red of unbridled joy. Maybe the last red I see