Honor Road Jason Ross (any book recommendations .TXT) 📖

accidents happen when guns are involved. He wished he could just tell the cops and save them the bullets and the grief. Cops were suckers for doing things the hard way.

Willie and the Panthers owned the CVS pharmacy as well as the market, but it was lunchtime and all but one of his lookouts had beat it over to the Ranch for lunch. His last remaining dude on top of the pharmacy lobbed rounds over the side of the roof, but three of the cops were keeping his head down pretty good. Willie would have to position a guy on top of the strip mall behind the pharmacy after this skirmish—another ring of defense.

Willie countered every move the cops made. It was like playing rock-paper-scissors with guns. He win again, and then they’d come back three days later with “Okay, best out of seventeen?”

Each day, he and his Black Panther boys strung out further around the neighborhood. They currently held down four little malls, a school and a water tank over on Baseline Road. His men and their families had already eaten up most of the food in the Ranch Market. They’d soon need to find another place to scavenge. Willie worried that they wouldn’t find it this time. In Phoenix, two months after the collapse, scavenge had become scarce, and there were a lot of dead bodies to prove it.

Most died inside their homes instead of in the streets, which didn’t make a lot of sense to him. Phoenix homes were hot-as-hell without air conditioning. Even with all the windows open in December, they were hot boxes during the day. People had resorted to removing big chunks of their roofs so their homes could breathe. These days, most anyone still on their feet had fled the city seeking water. Those who had stayed were bulging corpses, splayed out in their beds, naked and stewing in their juices. There wasn’t anywhere in Phoenix a man could go without smelling them.

The Harbor Freight next door to the Ranch Market had been pretty damned useful, and Willie would hate losing it when they moved on. The cops had no way of knowing the market was almost tapped out. They risked their lives over empty shelves.

“Yo, dawg.” Will’s nineteen-dollar WalMart radio beeped then chirped. They still hadn’t figured out how to get the radios to stop chirping before every transmission. They’d thrown away the instructions.

“How many times I gotta tell you: we don’t know who you mean when you say ‘dawg.’” Willie explained into the radio. A smattering of rifle fire popped around the burrito joint. Gunfire was so common these days that it’d become like a barking dog; no big deal.

“Well, whatcha want me to call you? You are da Big Dawg.” Chirp.

“Just call me Willie.” Chirp.

“Then dey know your identity.”

Willie sighed. He had twenty IQ points on most of these guys. That’s why they’d put him in charge. But, sometimes, it was painful being the smartest guy. “What do you want, Mo?”

“Them cops is backing off.”

“Good. Send someone for your lunch, and hole up inside the Harbor Freight in case they rally.”

This was getting old. Even the adrenaline of a gunfight barely got his blood moving. It’d been weeks since anyone had even taken a bullet.

They skirmished with the cops. They skirmished with the Arizona State Militia. They even skirmished with the damned Neighborhood Watch, before they split out of town. Food was running out and the threat of the Mexican cartel hung over all of their heads. It’d been weeks since they’d seen a convoy through their hood, but that didn’t mean the cartel was gone. They’d come back, and he wouldn’t stop them with his ragtag bunch of brothers. Aside from Terrence and maybe Mo, there wasn’t a street soldier in the whole group. They’d all been workaday, middle class black Americans when everything went to shit. Willie drove a forklift for Costco. They called themselves Black Panthers because what the hell else were a bunch of black guys supposed to call themselves? Willie had voted for Trump. Twice. But that was then and this was now.

“Yo. Boss Dawg,” the radio chirped again. It was Mo. “One of ‘em is comin’ out with a white T-shirt tied to a pipe.”

“Hold up, Mo. I’m coming. Don’t shoot him.” Willie jumped up and trotted back toward the Ranch Market. He used the tire shop like a bullet shadow between him and the pharmacy, where the cops were still trading rounds with his man on the roof. He ducked into the Ranch, went out the back door of the breakroom and ran around to the side of Harbor Freight. Mo was there, beside the tan-painted cinderblock wall, watching with suspicion.

Mo pointed toward the burrito joint. “He stepped back behind the Mexican food place, but he’s still hanging that T-shirt out. You see?”

Willie used to eat at that place at least once a month. He loved their smoked chicken and cream half-pounder.

“Come on out. We ain’t gonna shoot ya,” Willie shouted. “Tell your guys at the pharmacy to stop shooting.”

The cop holding the pole with the T-shirt leaned out then ducked back, probably trying to tease a shot if one was coming. Nobody fired. The skirmish died down and the corner quieted. After a few seconds, the cop stepped all the way into the clear. He waved the flag, as if to punctuate the sincerity of the truce.

Willie stepped out from behind the Harbor Freight and pointed the barrel of his gun at the ground. They walked slowly toward one another and met in the middle of Central Avenue.

“What makes you think you can loot the market?” the cop argued when he reached the yellow line in the middle of the street.

Willie barked a laugh. “That’s what you start with? Bitching at us for looting?” He wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Brother, you need to get with the times. There’s those who get and those who get got. That’s it. There ain’t