The Power of Testimony

RUINED
“I don’t have any pot.” As soon as I said the prim words, I regretted
them.
His tone was suspicious. “You sayin’ you never smoked pot in
your life?”
“That’s not what I said.”
He wasn’t listening. “I go out there and axe your friends, do she
smoke pot? What they gonna say?”
“I said I don’t have any pot.”
“Booze then. Liquor.”
“There might be a beer in the fridge,” I said, knowing there
wasn’t.
From upstairs I heard a thumping noise. The other one is up there.
With the other gun. Suddenly the utter futility of the situation hit
me. There was no way we could escape alive—not all of us, not alive.
He jerked me to my feet and shoved me back into the dining
room. The other intruder was returning, and I could see that he had
Karen. He was pushing her from behind with his gun.
In his rough voice, he yelled, “Why you got her up?”
He’s the one in charge. The leader.
“She ain’t got nothin’.” The one who was holding me spit out
the words in disgust. “No money. No pot.”
The leader shoved Karen onto the floor at the other end of the
room. The other one pushed me down with a similar show of force.
Then he kicked me, for good measure. My skin goose-​fleshed. I
wondered what else he might do to please the one in charge. I buried
my face in the comfort of the clean carpet.
“Get up.” It was that rough, low voice again. This time I thought
it was Marty who moved.
Oh God, not Marty.
w
Marty and I had a complicated relationship. We met in fifth grade
when my family moved from Illinois to New Jersey for my father’s
14