As strong as my bond with Jason was, my relationship with my sister, Melanie, was the opposite. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sister. But we were both too strong-willed to accept the other’s narrative of our family’s history. Mine being that she disliked my father because he was black and transferred that hatred onto me, his son. Hers being that my father broke up her happy family, sending Jason spiraling into mental disorder.
“How’re you, Jason?”
He giggled schoolboyishly. “It’s all good, nigga.”
“Jason, what’d I tell you about calling me that?”
“But it’s cool, man. We brothers, ain’t we?”
“Yes, we are. And if you want to stay my brother you’d better lay off the ghetto act.”
He began to laugh and I knew he was on something. His eyes weren’t as glassy as the woman’s but his laugh was as cracked as a crocodile’s skin.
“I want you to meet my woman, Marsha.”
I stuck out my hand. “How you doing, Marsha?”
Her eyes shifted slowly to mine. “I’m awright.” She looked me over carefully, as if contemplating whether to offer me the extent of her wisdom. “So you’re Blades. Damn. You a good-looking muthafucker.” She exploded in laughter, a hoarse, deep-throated baying. I waited until she was finished.
“Come on in,” I said.
I closed the door behind them. Marsha stood in the atrium looking around, again with that smile of satisfaction on her face. It made her seem almost ghoulish. She took off her coat and handed it to me. Jason took his off but kept it in his hand. I led them into the family room behind the stairwell.
“Do you want me to hang your jacket, Jase?”
“No, it’s okay. You know who signed this jacket, man?”
I pretended not to know. “Who?”
“Guess.”
I’d given him the jacket so I knew who’d signed it. “Phil Simms?”
“Eeengh!”
“Michael Strahan?”
“Wrong again. Man, who’s the greatest Giant ever?”
“Lawrence Taylor.”
“Right oh!”
I left to put Marsha’s coat in the closet. When I returned they were sitting together on the sofa kissing as if locked in some passionate yearning left over from a Jackie Collins miniseries.
“Can I get you guys something to drink?”
“I’ll have a beer,” Marsha said, unlocking her lips from Jason’s.
Jason leaned back and leered as if he’d been caught loitering. “Me too.”
“You’re not supposed to drink, Jason. Remember?”
“Oh yeah.” He looked at Marsha and they both giggled.
“I have V8 Splash. You like that,” I said.
“Yeah, gimme some Splash.”
I left them and went to the kitchen. Today I had no patience with Jason’s silliness. How many times can you lead a horse to water and stand there waiting for him to drink, only to have him puff and grimace and turn to stone? I heard the wind clucking away outside, bullying the eaves into an uncivilized whimper.
Toting two tall bottles of Coors and a glass of tropical V8 Splash on a tray, I returned to the den. I almost felt like clearing my throat to alert them to my coming. To my surprise Marsha still had her clothes on as this time they were merely holding hands.
Marsha took one Coors and Jason the V8. I watched Marsha cram the beer bottle in her mouth, which seemed to lodge in the dimples of her jaw. Her body quaked as she gurgled the beer without a ripple of her throat. I sat across from them and sipped my beer slowly, looking at Jason. He was watching her with puppy eyes.
“Mom called to tell me you were coming to see me,” I said.
He pulled his eyes away from Marsha’s suctioning mouth. “Yeah. I wanted to ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“What do you think of Marsha?”
I waited for a second before speaking. “What’s there to think?”
“You like her?”
“She seems like a nice person.”
“Why you two talking about me like I ain’t here?” Marsha burped.
Jason leaned over to kiss her. She giggled, combing her fingers through his blond hair.
Impatience was getting the best of me. “What’s going on, Jason?”
“I wanted Marsha to move in with me.”
“Move in with you where?”
“Jersey. Mom said no.”
“And you want me to talk to her?”
“No. I was thinking. This house is pretty big. You got lots of room. It’s only you three living here. You could let Marsha and me stay here for a while. I’ve got a job. I want to save some money and get my own place.”
“When did you get a job?”
“Today. I interviewed last week. They called me today to tell me I got the job.”
“Where?”
“The mailroom of a law firm in Manhattan. I’m gonna go back to law school.”
“That’s a lot of work, Jase.”
“I’m feeling it, man. I know I can do it. I feel good. My head feels clear. This new medication I’m taking, it’s working great. I feel on top of the world. And Marsha here, she’s the best, dude.”
“Where do you live, Marsha?”
Marsha showed me a lazy eye. “I just lost my apartment.”
“So where’re you staying?”
“In a shelter.”
“You doing drugs, Marsha?”
Anger quickly melted the glassiness of her eyes. “Who you think you are, muthafucker?”
I replied calmly, “Just trying to protect my brother.”
She jumped up. “Later for you, nigga!”
“I’d prefer if you don’t call me that.”
“What? You think you too good?”
“Get her out of here, Jason.”
“Blades, come on . . .”
“Fuck you, nigga,” Marsha shrieked. “Come on, Jason. We don’t need him.”
Jason hesitated, looking foolishly at me then Marsha.
Marsha slapped his face. “You gonna stay here with this stuck-up nigga?”
“But where’re we gonna go?” Jason protested lamely.
“I got friends,” she snorted.
“Blades, please, man. She gets a little emotional sometimes.”
Marsha pushed Jason roughly. “I told you not to talk like I ain’t here.”
I could feel my anger growing but I sat where I was. Jason was a big boy. He should be able to take care of himself with Queen Kong.
“Jason, I don’t have a problem with you staying. But she can’t stay in my house. Not if she’s doing drugs.”
“She’ll be good. I promise.”
“I don’t wanna stay here anyway,” Marsha said. “So I don’t know what the fuck you two puppies barking about. Get me my muthafuckin’ coat.”
Before I moved I glanced at Jason to see what he would do. He sat silent as stone. I left the room to get Marsha’s coat. When I returned they were in each other’s arms, Marsha’s pulpy body mashed down on top of Jason stretched out on the couch. With some difficulty Marsha lifted up off Jason when she realized I was back in the room.
Jason grinned sheepishly. “Marsha changed her mind. She doesn’t want to leave right now.”
“What does that mean?” I said.
“She wants to stay here with me.”
“I told you, Jason.”
“I don’t do drugs, okay,” Marsha piped. “You think every black woman living in a shelter be doing drugs? Man, you as racist as them crackers out there. Hell, anybody would think you the white one and he the black one.” She started to laugh, the rasping cackle of someone who didn’t give a damn what you thought about her.
I set the coat down on the arm of the couch. “You working, Marsha?”
“They got me doing workfare. In the fall they had me doing stupid shit like clearing leaves from the parks. Nothing but slave work. Now the leaves are gone they ain’t got shit for me to do. I gotta find me a rea
l job. Maybe I can work at your club.”
I said nothing, just stared at her in amazement.
There was a self-contained unit in the basement with two bedrooms. I might’ve been able to convince Anais to let Jason stay, but no way in hell would she agree to having his screeching paramour along, not even for entertainment.
Before they left I told Jason I’d give the matter some thought. At the very least I could let them stay in the apartment in Carroll Gardens once I made sure the current transient had moved out.
SIXTEEN
w hen someone threatens your family your first thought is to neutralize that threat as fast as possible. It was with that determination that I stormed my apartment on President Street to confront River. I rang the bell several times and when I got no response Negus’s house was the first place that came to mind.
Ever since I left the NYPD, I’ve been searching for a new way to live. What I’ve discovered is that there are no easy ways of seeing the world and, no matter how clever you are, no new ways to tell a story that didn’t have an end. But there are new ways of dreaming. And since I had the bounty of dreams, a beautiful wife and daughter, I was determined to find a new way to live, away from the ugliness and the brutality that ruled my life as a cop. Seeing drug addicts die in their own pee. Seeing innocent children pimped by their relatives for a fix. Seeing mothers wail for young men and women who died trying to live the only life they dared dream: the life of a gangster, the life of a victim.
An earlier search for a new way to live had led me to seek out my father who had disappeared when I was fifteen. What I found was another story. New dreams and old deaths. Here I was faced with another ugly story. Another threat to finding the peace of mind I sought.
It took me ten minutes to get to Negus’s on the other side of Flatbush in Fort Greene. His crib on South Oxford, recessed from the street on a rise and surrounded by trees and a high iron fence, was practically invisible from the street. I parked the Volvo on the inclined street, got out, and opened the gate leading to the steps. At the top of the first set of steps Negus’s yellow house came into view. His silver BMW and black Bronco were parked in the driveway.
I reached the house and hopped into the verandah, which circled halfway around the two-story house. Negus lived upstairs. I rang his bell.
He came barefoot to the door dressed in a black jogging suit, his expression betraying no surprise at seeing me. He unlocked the door and stood like a sentry, his body stiff, his feet planted hip wide.
“Is River here?” I said.
“What makes you think she’d be here?”
“Don’t play yourself, man.”
He swiveled his head, shifting his gaze to the top of the stairs. “Come in.”
I stepped through the door and waited for him to close it behind me. Then I followed him up the stairs, the old staircase creaking under our collective weight. At the top of the stairs he turned right and walked along a thin corridor between walls covered with posters of popular reggae and soca artists, most of whom Negus had worked with at some time or another.
The living room looked out onto the front lawn. It was a busy room with lots of chairs and cushions and pictures and speakers. The furniture was very modern, shiny and new. Negus lived alone and I think he decorated this place with the help of a Modern Living magazine. There was a mishmash of colors: reds and grays, mostly. A large-screen television in a corner and a print of Bob Marley holding a guitar as if it were a gun on the wall above.
River was curled up on a stone-colored sofa watching television in a sea-blue dress of wrinkled cotton, her locks collected in a bun and twisted at the top of her head. It was odd to see her dressed so femininely. No leather jeans. No boots. No sweaters. She kept her gaze focused on the television when I entered the room, as if she’d been expecting me.
“Can you leave us alone for a moment?” I said to Negus.
He stared hard at me then to River as if seeking her approval. She did not acknowledge his yearning in time to save him, retreating in embarrassment back along the corridor we had come.
After he left I walked over and switched off the television. River kept staring at the blank screen for a moment and then rose up and smoothed her dress, which had bunched around her buttocks.
“So you’re living here now?” I said.
“You wanted me to leave. I left.”
“Have you explained to Negus why you can’t go home?”
She sat down and drew her legs under her carefully. “What do you want?”
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Look, I’m sorry I got you involved.”
“You’re sorry. Is that what you’re gonna tell Negus when Lizard-Face shows up with piss in his eyes?”
She tilted her head to one side and there was loneliness in her eyes. “What’re you talking about?”
“This guy shows up at my house this evening. He walks as if he’s got a catheter stuck up his ass and is as endearing as a maggot. He says you’ve got his property. And either I give you up or my family pays the piper.”
Her eyes receded and she gulped hard. “Did you tell him where I was?”
“What is he looking for?”
“I don’t know.”
“He seemed pretty sure you have it.”
“Fuck him. I don’t. He’s looking for me because he thinks I might be able to identify him as Maxwell’s killer.”
“He said your boyfriend stole his property.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“You think I’m here to fluff you? This sonofabitch threatened my family. I will protect my family, you hear me? From any danger. If you know anything about this shit, then you better clean it up.”
She glared at me, her eyes wide and dewy. “I’m sorry I got you into this, alright? But don’t you be talking to me like I’m your maid. If you’re concerned about your family why don’t you take them on a vacation? Just leave me the fuck alone.”
I wanted to smack her in the mouth. “I don’t believe you’re telling me the truth.”
“I didn’t know you were my priest.”
“What about Negus? Do you care what happens to him at all?”
“Nothing’s gonna happen to Negus.”
“Oh, you can guarantee that, huh? Well, if you can guarantee his safety, what about my family’s? Can you guarantee theirs too?”
“Just leave it alone, Blades. I’ll take care of my own problems.”
Negus came into the room looking lost, a bag of Tostitos chips in his hand. “What’s up, Blades? Why you shouting, yo?”
“Why the hell you think I’m shouting, Negus?”
“Relax, man,” he squawked.
I turned to speak to River. “I’m not going to let anything happen to my family, you understand? Unless you lay the shit out so I can understand, I’m gonna tell them exactly where you are if they come back.”
Negus looked at me, bewilderment scrawled over his brow. “What is your problem, man?”
“You should be careful what you let crawl into your bed, Negus.”
River jumped up and marched from the room. I watched her go, my anger gaining momentum. I took a step to follow her.
Negus stepped into my path breathing heavily through his flared nostrils as if he wanted to blow me down. “Why’d you have to say that, man?”
“I could’ve said worse.”
“I think you should leave my house, cuz, before I have to put you out.”
“C’mon, Negus, the pussy can’t be that good. Don’t be an ass over this bitch.”
“Where you get off being so disrespectful?”
“Negus, this woman’s trouble. You don’t know her. You can’t handle her shit.”
“You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
I could’ve stood there and argued with him, but the cold hard look in his eyes told me there was no point. I don’t know if it was love or lust, but River had his balls in her mouth. There was no one more irration
al than a man who was balls deep in a woman.
NEXT DAY Anais had a breakfast meeting with prospective investors in the play she was thinking of doing. After running a number of errands I met her for lunch at the Kitchen, a seafood place in Boerum Hill. When we lived in Carroll Gardens we often ate dinner in their garden in the summer. It was too cold for the garden today, but the interior was cozy, even at lunchtime, with its crisp white walls and red linen.
Anais had pulled her hair back into a ponytail, exposing the dramatic curves of her angular face. She wore a tawny brown pants suit that hugged her body pleasingly in just the right places, the pearl necklace and matching earrings giving decisive accent to the outfit. No way to miss it. She was stunning. And when she walked in I forgot my troubles for a moment and wished I could’ve made love to her right there.
I got up to pull her chair out. She kissed me and we sat down. Our table was positioned in a corner near a window where we could look outside. The sky was filled with charred clouds, and the sound of construction going on a block away was intrusive enough for us to comment that we should’ve gone somewhere else.
We each ordered a glass of merlot, which came two minutes later.
“You look lovely.”
She beamed. “Thank you.”
“Frankly, I would rather be home eating you right now.”
“You have such a dirty mind.”
“I can’t help that my first impulse is always to ravish you.”
“You can help. You just don’t want to.”
“Well, why should I? You’re my wife. And you taste first-rate.”
Love and Death in Brooklyn Page 12