Concrete and Steel

"Racecar," the woman said softly as the tall, soft-spoken teenager sat down.

He picked up the phone and her voice immediately broke.

"How are you doing, sweetheart?"

He shrugged. "You're not getting out, are you?"

"The pigs got me," she said with a smirk. "But hey, they didn't charge you which is good."

The kid shrugged. "I saw dad today. He looks bad."

"Yeah, they've been waiting to catch us for years," his mother's sly smirk filled the kid with warmth and longing. "Pigs finally caught us."

A guard watching watched them angrily. The kid could remember the first time he saw those eyes. He was three when they did their first heist with him. It was a mall like no other. The Galleria in Houston. He remembered being intrigued by the place, so much so that he almost forgot to slide his hand into the pocket of the man who was clearly scouting his next target. The eyes of the police officer had been watching the man sitting next to him, talking casually as though his hand wasn't slowly creeping towards the boy's knee. He didn't know how good the kid's eyes were.

"What's your name again?" the man was saying.

"Louis." A common lie.

"You're a cutie. Where'd you say your mommy was again?"

The kid had pointed at a random lady whose back was turned. The man smiled, not knowing that in the few seconds that he had looked away, his wallet had been swiped and hidden behind the bench. The man had kept talking for a few minutes before the cop had come over, smiling.

"Hey, your mom said you were lost," he said.

Taking the bait, the little boy looked at the ground. The man, noticing that the cop was onto him, quickly excused himself and scurried off. He was replaced with the cop. The boy's parents had always warned him to never talk to pigs, but he knew it was helping their cause.

"You know, I've seen you do that a few times today," the cop confessed.

"I know. Do you want his stuff so you can follow him? I just want the money."

The cop chuckled. The boy pulled seventy dollars out of the wallet and handed it to the man.

"Thanks, mister," he said politely. "I think your perp is getting away."

The boy had walked off into a random store, leaving the cop dumbfounded. Now he was watching one watch his mother behind bars. His mother noticed and cleared her throat.

"I don't get all day, Race. How are things with Jen? She still a bitch?"

Her son smiled and nodded. He droned on about his new life, high school, his cousin and her friends. His mother noticed when he stopped just shy of talking about his new friends.

"What's her name?" she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Juliet. I really like her, but I can tell she's scared of something."

"I taught you well, babe," his mother said with a starry look in her eyes. "Well, you just ignore everything your father and I taught you about being a bad guy and taking people for everything they have. We named you after a villain, but we didn't raise one. Right?"

It was a reference to the first time he asked about his name. Before they started big heists, the kid's parents had tried to put him in school. Though he could tell they hated it, he acclimated well, and rarely got any backlash about knowing to read better than anyone else in kindergarten and his weird name. Though, one day, he just had to ask.

"Why'd you name me Iago?"

"What do you mean?" his mother had asked as she put broccoli in her mouth.

"My teacher said it's a weird name for a kid. Why's that?"

"You aren't supposed to learn Shakespeare until you're older in her eyes," his father had explained. "They're all idiots."

"So, I'm named after the guy in the play we read at night?"

"Mhm. It was how your father and I met, and I always told him I thought it was a perfect baby name."

"What if I was a girl?"

"We would've named you Carmen. It was the opera we went to the night Uncle Mickey got killed. Hard to commemorate that better than naming your baby after it."

"Am I a bad guy?" the kid had asked after a few minutes.

"Do you feel like one?"

"No."

"Then, you aren't. You don't have to be a bad guy to have a bad guy's name. You just have to own it and move on from it."

"Oh."

"Race?"

"Yes?"

"I have to go soon. I love you, okay? Good luck with your girl. I'll have to bribe the guards to come to your wedding."

Her son smiled, pressed his hand to the glass, and watched his mother be dragged away by a smiling guard. She waved as she was dragged off, then he heard the sounds of fighting then more guards. He dipped his head and walked out of the jail, back to a life he wished that he never had to lead.