Shattered

Ray stood before the gray house with the sagging front porch--one of hundreds if not thousands of decaying structures in Detroit--and thought of Trisha. With his parents gone and his sister dead of that overdose last year, Trisha had been his whole world. That world was shattered by a hail of bullets when her SUV was confused by a hit man for that of a rival gang member.

A hot breeze blew down the deserted street. One street light, two blocks down, still glowed. The only other lights came from the few houses on the street that still had power.

It had taken him three months to track down the guy who shot Trisha. The cops hadn’t been any help, and Ray had used up a lot of favors from the old neighborhood to find her killer.

His left hand tightened around the bottle he’d filled with gas and stuffed with a rag, and his right hand flicked the wheel on his Bic lighter. A metal baseball bat leaned against his right thigh. Maybe the wind will blow the fire to the next house and the whole block will burn, he thought.

He knew that if he did this, he would not walk away. But if he was lucky, maybe he would see Trisha’s smile again soon. He thought of that smile and how much he missed it. The sorrow that gripped his heart turned to a cold clarity.

“I’ll see you soon, baby,” he said and lit the rag.