Dopendo Isbubeetwrapped

Dopendo Isbubeetwrapped

By

Gavin Matthew

“Dopendo. . . . . .Isbubeetwrapped.”

The words were mumbled. Jumbled. Discombobulated. Tulip tried to pull them together but she couldn’t decipher it. Whatever happened to Harrison had left the husky man bleeding on the floor.

“Try it again. Slower,” Tulip pushed as she knelt.

“Dopendo. Isbubeetwrapped,” Harrison repeated, his eyes rolling around. Tulip picked at her cropped afro with frustration.

“This suckah’s broken,” Tulip spat as she stood up. “Oil, how did you talk me into this? These chumps are second-rate.”

“Hold up, T. You said we needed a crew to start doing B & N jobs, right? Well, here we are. Harrison has good eyes,” Oil spoke as he fanned out his hand. “And May is the business with locks. She is almost as good at picking locks as you are with stealing cars.”

“Okay. Then why is this fool here?” Tulip said as she pointed to a young man dressed in white.

“Dennis?” Oil replied. “Oh, he came with Harrison.”

“Hey,” Dennis scoffed. “I ain’t taking too much of that, ya dig.”

“Shut up, Dennis,” Tulip and Oil said simultaneously.

Tulip sighed hard at the thought of this group ever becoming her crew. She and Oil had been running buddies since grade school. They partied together. They went to class together. Then, when the new decade kicked off with re-electing Nixon, they ended up stealing cars together. After a few years of hard running and a close call with a shotgun-wielding gangster, Tulip had decided to try a new hustle. Oil went along without argument. 

“Now that I think about it, what are you bringing to the table?” Tulip asked, crossing her arms.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Oil. If we aren’t jacking cars anymore, there is little need for a driver.”

“Like all I’m good for is boosting hogs. I found this house, didn’t I? Scoped out that the owner was gone for the holidays, right? I’m carrying my weight.”

Tulip shook her head at Oil. Even if the change in their hustle had rendered him obsolete, he knew she would never leave him behind. The thought of separating from Oil brought a jab of pain to the young woman’s bosom. She couldn’t bear the idea.

“Alright,” Tulip sighed. “Figure out what spooked his big-ass so we can get to the safe and get out of here.”

“Why wait?” Dennis asked.

“Yeah,” added May. “I get that the owner is out but we need to agitate the gravel as soon as possible. We’re not trying to get busted, you know.”

“True,” Oil replied before his partner. “But better safe than sorry. If we can get Harrison to talk straight then we can avoid his fate happening to us, ya dig. Just be cool while we get it out of him.”

Tulip’s eyes roamed over the small house while Oil attempted to get more than “Dopendo isbubeetwrapped” out of Harrison. Brown wallpaper decorated with black dots clung to dusty walls. The wooden floor, much to the young thief’s chagrin, cried when somebody walked across it. If the resident had been home it would have made it impossible to sneak about undetected.

“Look at him!” fussed May, her skinny arms pantomiming like she was directing traffic. “His head is cracked. We ain’t getting any answers!”

May reminded Tulip of a match stick, all lines with a plume of black hair atop her head. She wore a thick pair of Coke bottle glasses that seemed to always stand out. 

“She’s right, T. Harrison can’t even tell me where he is right now. Let alone what happened to him,” shrugged Oil.

Tulip observed the scene. Harrison was found lying on his back. Fresh blood, appearing to have blown out, sat where his head had been. A room door rested slightly ajar before him.

“Something scared him and he fell back,” Tulip sighed, rubbing frustration from her temple. “This fool knocked himself for a loop.”

“Enough of this shit,” Tulip continued. “We checked everywhere else except for this room. If there is anything worth having, it’s probably stashed in here.”

“Yeah, but we’re flying blind unless we figure out what ‘Dopendo isbubeetwrapped’ means,” chimed in Oil. “Whatcha say?”

“Honestly,” Tulip replied. “I say we scrap this whole thing. We grab up Harrison’s big ass and split. If this ain’t a sign that we should stick to snatching cars then I don’t know what is. Come on. Lets . . .”

“No, I ain’t lifting that round mother nowhere!” interjected Dennis. “Forget that fool. If he got spooked then that’s on him. I came here to score.”

“Dopendo isbubeetwrapped . . . Dopendo isbubeetwrapped,” mumbled Oil as he tried to figure out the phrase. 

“Hey! You hear me?!”

“We hear you, Dennis. But we’re ignoring your dumb-ass,” replied Tulip, waving as if a bug was pestering her. “Getting any closer to putting that puzzle together, Oil?”

“Nope. May?”

“I feel like it’s right there but I ain’t getting it. I’m cool with whatever we do but I vote to cut loose.”

Tulip took a moment to think, closing her eyes in contemplation. It was just a first try. Today’s debacle didn’t mean the end of it all. Nobody starts out an expert and no crew is perfect. Still, she thought, she could do without Dennis.

“Screw this!” stated Dennis, as if to emphasize Tulip’s silent thoughts. “You cats ain’t got the balls for this work. Move out the way and let a man run this show.”

Dennis straightened up his clean white clothes before brushing past Tulip to reach the room door. Tulip backed up to stand with Oil near Harrison and May, the man’s brazen attitude rubbing her the wrong way. Dennis irritated her to the point of declaring this to be the first and last time she would work with him. His peacocking was bad enough (who brings an all-white outfit on a heist?), but she refused to work with anyone who couldn’t take an order. Tulip was just about to demand their exit when Dennis stepped into the unexplored room.

Sudden and cacophonous, Dennis was blown back by the explosion of a double-barrel shotgun. His white clothes were soiled with crimson as his body hooked against the corner of the hallway wall. An odd silence had nearly replaced the quick boom of the gun, but the victim’s whimpers added a low noise in the backdrop of smoke and powder. Tulip and Oil craned around the corner to see Dennis writhing in pain, buckshot peppering him like divots in a steel drum.

“Oh,” Tulip said, snapping her fingers. “That makes sense.”

The revelation bounced from her head to Oil’s, and suddenly Harrison’s words were as clear as day.

“Don’t open the door. It’s booby-trapped,” said the pair simultaneously.

END