Last Man Standing

Edgar Lee Masters—SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY

Amazing what kind of dull, dreary errands a sixteen-year-old boy with a new license would run with his grandmother, so long as the opportunity to drive was involved.

Martha Taylor grinned, taking good care to keep her amusement out of sight behind the muscular shoulders of her newly adopted grandson. Already they’d been to the cleaner’s, the post office, and now the grocery store without a single complaint about boredom or getting up early on a summer vacation morning. She’d gone through this same spate of volunteerism with all six of her boys, starting more than two decades ago. Some things never changed.

A young man’s appetite didn’t change, either, she noted, following Alexis Pitsaeli Taylor as he pushed the shopping cart across the parking lot to her teal van. He’d already dug into the sacks and opened a box of cream-filled cupcakes. The first one had disappeared in two bites and now he was working on his second.

“Let’s put the sacks in the back, Alex.” Martha opened her new straw purse and fished out her key ring to unlock the doors for him. But he already had his shiny new keys—a spare set copied and given to him by his grandfather—in hand and had pushed the unlock button. She halted a step as he lifted the hatchback and started unloading the cart. He paused just long enough to pop the last of the cupcake into his mouth. Martha grinned. “I think we’d better go home and get some lunch before all these groceries disappear into that bottomless pit you call a stomach.”

Alex made a choking sound and spun around, apparently downing that last bite without chewing first. A stricken look dulled those soulful onyx-colored eyes that were going to make women weak in the knees as he matured. “Sorry, Grandma. I was hungry.”

Grandma. Was there any sweeter word?

Martha curled her fingers around the handle of her purse, resisting the urge to reach out and hug the teenager in public. “Oh, honey, I’m teasing you. I do that with all my boys. I just don’t want you to ruin your appetite.”

“Not possible.” His rare smile gleamed against the olive tint of his skin. “If you’re cooking, I’m eating.”

Martha laughed at the compliment. She was used to shopping for a big family—she’d raised six boys and a girl, after all. But a whole week watching her four newest grandsons while their parents, Gideon and Meghan, finally took a well-deserved honeymoon worried her that she might be a little out of practice. “I hope I bought enough food.”

He eyed the seven sacks. “This should get me through the day. And I’d be happy to run to the store again tomorrow.”

Ah, yes, another chance to drive. Sharp kid. Thank goodness he could joke with her. Alex seemed like such a serious boy. No wonder. He’d already outlived his abusive birth father, and his birth mother had lost her battle with drugs long before he’d joined a gang and eventually reformed himself. Martha’s smile became forced as she watched him diligently unload the groceries and push the shopping cart toward the cart corral. He’d seen far too much of life for a boy his age.

She hoped he knew how much he was loved. That he had a family he could depend on now. She hoped he knew how lucky he was to be part of the proud Taylor tradition, and how proud she was that he had become a part of that tradition.

A dark figure hurtled between two parked cars and slammed Martha into the side of the van. When she felt the tug at the end of her arm, she screamed.

“Shut up, lady!”

The assailant shoved her down to the pavement and snatched her purse from her pain-shocked grip. Then he was off, running into the glare of the midday sun, keeping her from making any sort of identification.

“Help! He’s stealing my purse!” Her sons who were cops had told her to make a lot of noise if she was ever attacked by an unarmed assailant—draw attention to the creep. Her knees and palms burned from where they’d scraped the pavement, and her sixty-three-year-old joints throbbed from the jarring impact of steel and concrete. But her mouth and her brain and her temper worked just fine. “Stop that man! Help me! Somebody help!”

“Grandma!”

Martha crawled to the edge of the parking stall and saw Alex hurl his stocky, compact body against the taller, lankier attacker, who clutched her straw bag in his fist. The two hit the concrete with a frightening thud.

“Alex!”

A kaleidoscope of images bombarded her senses. Black gloves. A stocking cap. The crack of a fist against a jaw, a spew of foul curses.

Urgent hands reaching down to help Martha stand. A kind voice. “Ma’am? Are you all right?”

The space-age tones of a cell phone being dialed. “I’ll call 9-1-1.”

Squealing tires and the stinging odor of burned rubber as a dingy white pickup truck skidded around the corner and screeched to a halt beside the two men rolling on the ground. Alex had the purse-snatcher in one of those neck-holds he’d learned on the wrestling team. He pulled him to his feet. He had the upper hand. He was reaching for her purse.

“No!” Fear churned in Martha’s stomach. Her bravado evaporated in an instant as the driver of the pickup threw open his door and ran around the hood of the truck. He, too, wore gloves and a stocking mask. “Alex!”

But her warning came too late. The second man punched Alex in the kidney. Martha flinched at the vicious power of the blow that arched Alex’s back and freed his hold. The man with the purse spun around and slammed his fist into Alex’s mouth.

“Stop them!” Martha clenched her fingers convulsively around the forearm of the good Samaritan who had stopped to help her. “Oh God. Take the damn purse! Don’t hurt him.”

Alex sank to his knees. The man who’d taken her bag raised his hand to strike again, but the driver of the truck snatched him by the collar of his black, long-sleeve shirt and dragged him to the truck. He shoved him inside, scrambled behind the wheel and took off at interstate speed across the parking lot.

“Looky here, Grandma!” The man with her purse stuck his head out the window, shouting a vile taunt through his mask. He ripped open her wallet, sending a handful of bills fluttering to the pavement. He waved the plastic sheath that held her precious family photographs, tore one of them in two, crumpled it in his fist and tossed the memories beneath the wheels of the speeding truck. As they careened around the corner onto the street, he pointed a finger at Alex—her brave, young grandson had climbed to his feet. “Watch your back next time, Taylor! We won’t leave you standing!”

The driver gunned the engine and quickly lost the truck in traffic. One kind citizen tried to gather the shredded picture and money before the wind carried them off, while the man with the cell phone hurried to Alex’s side.

Alex nodded at something he said, then brushed off the man’s hand and jogged back to the van. “Grandma?”

“Oh, Alex. Honey.” She didn’t care if they had an audience. She didn’t care how cool a teenager needed to be. Martha hugged the boy, hugged him tight. “Are you hurt?”

His arms squeezed briefly around her shoulders before he pulled away. “I didn’t get your purse back.”

A frown marred his handsome face. Blood ran from his split bottom lip. He inhaled short, hissing breaths as if the action pained him. He was apologizing? Maternal anger blazed pure and potent through her veins, masking the remnants of her fear. Martha pulled a floral handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it against his wound. He flinched at the pain, but she ordered him to hold still as she tended him.

“You did an incredibly brave thing. Your mom and dad will be so proud of you. I’m proud of you.” She reached into the back of the van and dug out a bag of frozen peas to hold against his lip. “But nothing is worth you getting hurt. Certainly not that silly purse. It wasn’t big enough to hold everything I like to carry, anyway.”

Alex took over holding the icy package against his swelling mouth. She followed his glance down to the blood oozing through the serrated skin on her knees.

“But he hurt you.”

“Yeah, we’ll have to talk about what a tough old fart I am sometime.”

He grinned at the idea of someone her age using a word like that. But the glimpse of humor quickly disappeared beneath a serious frown. “Something isn’t right about what just happened.”

“You mean stealing a woman’s purse in the middle of the day in a busy parking lot?” She’d never believed that petty criminals were terribly bright.

The sound of sirens in the distance alerted her to approaching help. The man with the phone had rejoined them.

“I got the license number of the truck and reported it to the dispatcher. I’ll tell these officers, too, when they get here,” he said.

“Thank you.” Kansas City was a growing metropolis, busting at the seams in nearly every direction. But it still maintained that small-town neighborhood feeling it had enjoyed since the days when Harry Truman served as the county’s presiding commissioner back in the 1930s. She turned to the young mother who had stopped to help as well. “Thank you all.”

“Grandma.” Alex said the word and demanded she listen. “I know what it is. Those guys called me by my new name. Taylor.”

Martha tried to grasp the significance of what he was saying. “They knew you? Were they part of a gang?”

He shook his head impatiently. “They were too old. The guy I grabbed was in his twenties or thirties, even.”

She didn’t laugh at his skewed conception of old. “They didn’t call you Alex or Pitsaeli?” Though Gideon and Meghan had been his foster parents for several months, his adoption and legal name change had gone through less than a month ago. Now she was thinking what he was thinking. And hating it. “I heard Taylor, too. And why would he throw away money but keep pictures?”

This was something a little more complicated and a lot more personal than a routine purse snatching.

She turned to the man with the phone. “May I?”

He handed her the phone and she punched in a number she knew by heart—that of the office of the police captain of the Fourth Precinct. She kept her gaze riveted on the wise eyes of her grandson. “I’m calling Mitch and reporting this.” She brushed a lock of his wavy black hair away from the corner of his bruised mouth. “And then we’re going to the hospital.”