The truth was, she, along with the rest of my family, had heard it all before, my tossing around promises as if they were poker chips. Edrick and Danita were the only two in my life who hadn’t turned their backs on me while everyone else got sick and tired of cleaning up my messes, which I didn’t blame them for, considering I had doused gasoline on the bridges I’d built with them and set them aflame.
Knowing what booze did to Daddy, I swore to myself that I would never end up a drunk like him, but a drunk is exactly what I became when I got laid off my job at Tallahassee Transit three years after Joelle’s third birthday. Frustrated that I could no longer provide for her and Danita, I couldn’t deal with Danita being the only provider for our family. It got so that I was drinking rubbing alcohol, anything that would numb the inadequacy of not feeling like a man who could provide for his wife and daughter. After two interventions and two rehabs to follow, I would come out, only to end up falling on my ass from stumbling off the proverbial wagon no matter what I did, and how much Danita and Edrick sought to get help for me.
On the day I told Danita that I was going to get straight, I prepared a special dinner for us. Fed up with my drinking, she took Joelle and moved in with her sister, Lavondra. Danita had reservations about having dinner, but after thirty minutes of pleading with her to break bread with me, she finally gave in. I had cleaned and scrubbed the house from top to bottom to a high shine, something I had never done. I prepared Danita’s favorite: barbecue chicken with dirty rice and red mashed potatoes with the skin on. She used to love how I made barbecue chicken. The trick was broiling it in my famous homemade, special sauce. I wasn’t so good at baking, so I bought a pound cake from Publix and placed it on a cake platter to make it look like I’d spent all day in the kitchen. I wanted to make a good impression, show Danita that I was putting my best foot forward in getting her and Joelle back.
I made sure that everything was perfect. When I noticed myself in the living room mirror, wearing Danita’s cherry-printed apron, I chuckled. The entire house smelled like barbecue chicken. My stomach was doing cartwheels, somersaults, and hand stands, I was so hungry. All I had to eat that day was half a bagel for breakfast. The time of our dinner was seven o’clock. I was anxious to see Danita, to throw my arms around her, and kiss my baby daughter. I had missed them terribly and had a whole lot of making up to do.
Seven had come and gone. I was starting to worry, so I called Lavondra to find out what was going on. I had this feeling that she had convinced Danita not to join me for dinner. She never liked me and often attempted to wedge her big ass in between our marriage. Lavondra had an opinion about everything and was always in Danita’s ear telling her I was a no-good drunk and that she should leave me. She was always talking to someone about leaving somebody, which was understandable being that she could only keep a man around for all of five minutes before they hit the road running. As much as Lavondra tried, Danita never left me, but stuck it out, cleaning up my messes, putting up with my drunken tantrums, and mopping throw-up off the bathroom floor.
I dialed Lavondra’s number and it rang three times before she answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Lavondra, hey, long time, no hear from.”
“Hey, Raymond,” she said in a less than enthusiastic tone.
“I was wondering if Danita is there.”
She sighed heavy on the phone like I was the last black man she wanted to talk to, but I didn’t give a damn. I didn’t call to talk to her anyway.
“Danita left here about an hour ago. I thought she would be at the house by now,” Lavondra said.
Hearing that an hour had elapsed since she had left Lavondra’s made my heart drop. “No, she’s not here. Did she take Joelle with her, or is Joelle there with you?”
“She took the baby with her. Joelle is so cute and she’s getting so big. She’s a spitting image of her mama.”
That was Lavondra’s way of throwing a dig. Everyone thinks that Joelle looks like me.
“Yeah, she’s growing like a weed,” I said with a tone of frustration. “Okay, listen, if you hear from her, please call me and let me know.”
“Okay, I sure will. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. She probably just stopped off to the store to get some stuff for the baby.”
I wasn’t sure what was going on. I was getting one of my bad feelings. “You’re right. I’m sure everything is fine,” I said as I studied the cookie jar clock that hung above the kitchen sink.
“If I hear from Danita, I will let you know.” It was nice hearing Lavondra be cordial to me for once instead of being a high-riding bitch.
I hung up. “Come on, ’Nita, baby, where are you?” I said to myself. It was killing me not knowing of her whereabouts.
It was a little after eight when I went to go look for her. I didn’t have a clue as to where to start, but it was a hell of a lot better than sitting around, staring at that damn clock like a madman.
Before I left, I blew out the candles and put the barbecue chicken in the oven to keep warm. I grabbed my coat and my keys to the truck. As soon as I opened the door, two police officers pulled up alongside my pickup. Both of them were white. One was fat with a potbelly and dark hair, and the other was much younger with blond hair like he was fresh out of the police academy. I knew with the sullen, sad expression on their mugs, that something was wrong, that something had happened.
“Sir, are you Mr. Raymond Parker?”
“What’s wrong? Is it my wife?”
“Mr. Parker, sir, I’m sorry to tell you this, but your wife was in a car accident.”
Their words were like a crowbar to my head. I felt a part of me dying with her, the part of me that loved Danita to my soul.
“My baby…what about my baby, Joelle? Was she in the car?”
The two cops looked at one another like it was news they didn’t want to give me.
“I’m sorry.”
It felt like my life source had been taken away from me. “Danita, noooooooo!” I hollered. I broke down in a heap of tears. The cops had later informed me that they had been struck by a hit-and-run driver.
“We apprehended him and he’s being held without bond at the Leon County Jail.”
All I could think about was that I had lost the two most important people in my life who were my everything. As far as I was concerned, a big part of me had died with them that night.
Edrick had gone with me downtown to the morgue to identify Danita and Joelle. When it came time to see my baby girl, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want my last image of her to be of her lying on some cold metal slab.
The day of the funeral, it felt like I was in a daze. Edrick kept me together as much as a little brother could, being that I had picked up the bottle again in a need to numb the pain I was feeling. I drank until I blacked out, wishing that with enough liquor, I could numb the memory of losing my wife and daughter. When booze wasn’t enough, I started using crack. No matter how much drinking I did, or how much crack I smoked, none of it was enough. I eventually became addicted and pawned everything I had, including Danita’s jewelry, to get money so I could get high. I blew through money as if it was candy, eventually losing my house and truck to the bank.
Edrick took me in when he saw how bad off I was. He made me promise to get some help, and that if he saw me doing drugs in his house or if I stole from him, he would kick me out.
“I swear. I’m going to get clean this time, Ed,” I told him.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
I got clean for a good week before I started to do crack again. I often laid a guilt trip on Edrick if I couldn’t get what I wanted. I was careful about doing drugs in front of him, heeding his threats of kicking me out.
Edrick would always tell me how I had hit rock bottom. He was just like Mama, while I took after Daddy, who spent much of our childhood running the streets. The streets were surely what killed him when he was shot by a pimp named Butter. Everybody c
alled him Butter because of his yellow teeth. Daddy got into it with him after some mess with one of his hos. Butter took out his gun and shot Daddy clean through the heart. He knew that no one would say a word, being that the rule on the street was snitches get stitches.
Edrick and I were sleeping when these two cops came to the house and gave Mama the news that Daddy was dead. I remember her screaming so loud, she woke the whole neighborhood up. Her hollering echoed through the house. Edrick cried while the rage I felt because of Daddy’s murder burned in me like hot lava. Revenge was what I wanted. I took Daddy’s pistol from a shoebox he kept in the attic. He didn’t know I knew that’s where he kept it. I tucked Daddy’s gun in my waist, put on an old ski mask so nobody could make me out, and stole Mr. Perkin’s bike to ride up to the bar on Basin Street where I knew Butter hung out. He didn’t even see me coming when I rode up alongside his Thunderbird that was blacker than the devil’s asshole. I pulled out the gun and shot Butter point blank in the head. Blood and brains splattered everywhere.
I never told anyone what I had done. I didn’t tell Edrick until much later in life when we were in our twenties. I told him what I did and we never discussed it again after that.
• • •
Edrick finally got fed up when I started pawning his things in the house to get money for drugs.
“I’m done with you. Get the fuck out, Ray. I told you what I would do if you stole from me. I love you, but you have to go. You can’t stay here. I will do what I can for you, but I can’t do this shit anymore.”
“You just going to throw me out like that? I’m your family. We’re brothers. What was all that shit you were saying about family over everything?”
Edrick wasn’t going to be a passenger on another one of my guilt trips. He really was done. “You have until the end of the week to find somewhere else to stay.”
I left with nothing but the clothes on my back and a small bottle of Jack Daniel’s in my back jeans pocket.
“If you’re not out, I’m calling the cops.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this. I’m your goddamn blood.”
Edrick didn’t have anything else to say.
The day that I left, Edrick was at work, working part time fixing cars at Carter’s Garage on South Adams Street.
It took me six years to get my shit together and when I finally did, it was too late to make amends to my baby brother. I found out from Yvonne that Edrick had died. Edrick, Danita, and my baby, Joelle, were gone. But instead of picking up the bottle this time, I vowed to spend the rest of my life making it up to Ed by being there for Liz and the boys.
Family over everything, baby brother.
9
DEANTHONY
Fuck this! I knew I shouldn’t have come back here. Ain’t nothin’ changed, all that favoritism shit just like when we were kids. Kashawn got the pat on the back for being Mr. Perfect, while I got scolded and beaten with a belt. Her prodigal son. Everything that has gone down tonight only reminded me why I got out of Dodge in the first place. I thought I was going to throw up the honey bun and beef jerky, watching Bree hang all over Kashawn’s nerdy-ass like a fake fur coat. Yeah, uh-huh, a real match made in heaven. I almost can’t believe how good she looks still. Big titties, firm ass you could sit a glass of wine on, with juicy, dick-sucking lips.
That was the first thing I noticed about Bree when Kashawn brought her to the dinner Ma had thrown for them. My mouth dropped to the living room floor when I laid eyes on her. Kashawn couldn’t stop talking about her, but I didn’t pay much attention, seeing as how his taste in honeys has always been for shit. The first thing I thought was, how in the hell did you snag a sweet potato like her? I knew she was way too much woman for Kashawn, considering his track record of fingering ugly, simple-looking librarian bitches. When he told me that she danced at Risqué, it made sense. Bree was out for a pay day. Dollar signs were all she knew.
I stared at her across the dinner table the whole night. Ma went all out too, making some of my and Kashawn’s favorites: baked chicken, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, and Dutch apple cheesecake for dessert. Bree’s titties were practically spilling out of the low-cut blouse she wore to dinner that night. I could look at Ma and tell that she disapproved, but baby girl had my dick on swole. I kept tugging at it under the table. I thought I had nutted in my pants until I went to the bathroom to rub out a quickie before Ma served the apple cheesecake. I thought about Bree with every stroke, wondering what she looked like naked. She’d have her knees in her ears, fucking with me.
Ma kept going on about how pretty Bree was, and Bree ate that shit up. Ma always could lay it on thick.
“Well, would you settle for a daughter-in-law?” Kashawn said. “I asked Bree to marry me.”
“And I said yes!” Bree modeled the blinged-out ring for everybody to see.
Ma was fawning all over her like she was the Queen of damn Sheba.
“Congratulations, bro,” I said, giving him a fake, half-assed hug.
Fuck ’em and leave ’em blowing up my cell for more is my motto. I grinned a little bit, thinking about the two of them having sex. Bree instructing him on the finer points of eating pussy. I wanted to fuck her silly that night, smear her apple bottom-ass across the dinner table of baked chicken and black-eyed peas, deep-dick her right there in front of Ma, Uncle Ray-Ray, and my lucky brother. I wanted to smother my mug between those cantaloupe titties, lick giblet gravy from her cooch until she sprung a leak like they all do once I’ve tamed that kitty cat. I was drooling at the dinner table like some horned-up mutt. That night I caught her in Kashawn’s old room, messing around with some of his old toys that he had long left behind.
“Daddy got him that train track for his sixth birthday.”
Bree jumped, startled by my presence.
“My bad, baby girl. I didn’t mean to scare you.” I finally got her cute ass alone.
“No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t be in here being nosey anyway.”
Her teeth were so pretty and white when she smiled. I doubted they were falsies. She was too young to have them. I didn’t notice any track marks on her arms, so she didn’t seem like she was on smack or nothing.
“Forget about it. I don’t think Ma cares anyway.”
“It’s nice that his mom’s reserved all of this stuff for y’all,” Bree said, admiring the collection of old toys Kashawn had accumulated.
“All the stuff I had I sold, lost or tore up.”
“Yeah, he’s never been about throwing anything away. I’m not surprised that he still has all this stuff.”
Bree smelled good as fuck. I wanted to lick her like a chocolate-dipped cone. “Were you all close growing up?” She looked at me cautiously, like a frightened rabbit that was waiting to hop off if I made any sudden moves.
“We were about as close as brothers could ever be,” I lied. The truth was that we were as different as night and day.
“What were you all like growing up?”
“Kashawn kept his face in a textbook while I ran the streets trying to make a dollar, if not prowling for pussy. Kashawn worked with Daddy at the office, but not me. That shit was for suckers.”
Bree looked at me, unimpressed by my frankness.
“We had a normal childhood, I guess you could say. We fought and argued, typical brotherly shit.”
“Your mom looked like she didn’t play.”
“Oh, she didn’t and she doesn’t. If we got out of line, she was quick to get the belt.”
Bree took my hand and sat it on my knee when I started to caress her hand with my index finger like I was some child who couldn’t keep his hands to himself. “So Kashawn tells me you’re a rapper.”
“A little. Acting is more my bag. I guess you could say I’m more of a Tray Pain than Case Briggs.”
“Ugh, don’t mention that brother’s name.”
“Who? Tray Pain?”
“No. Case Briggs. That shit he did to my girl was fucked.”
“Well, you know why she went back to him, don’t you?”
“No, why don’t you enlighten me,” Bree said, rolling her eyes, like she knew I was going to say something she wasn’t going to like.
“She couldn’t resist those long strokes she was getting from that dick.”
“Damn, is that all you brothr’s think about, fucking?”
“What else is there?”
“How about love?”
“Can’t have love without fucking,” I said. I started to run my hand up along her thigh. She pushed my hand away. Bree wasn’t fooling me with that hard-to-get shit. I knew she liked it. “So you still strip down at Risqué?”
“Kashawn told you?”
“He doesn’t keep nothing from his family, baby girl.”
“I quit the life when Kashawn proposed. He saved me, to be honest. You gotta watch your ass in that line of work. There’s always somebody out here trying to take advantage. They flatter you, talk all pretty, promising you the world when all they want to do is fuck.”
“So what makes you think my brother’s so different?”
“I wasn’t sure how Kashawn would take it once I told him I danced. I knew I would risk losing him, but knew if I wanted a future with him, I had to be straight with your brother from jump.”
I was already half past bored hearing her run her mouth when I could think of one or two things she could be doing with it instead.
“Kashawn treats me with respect, you feel me? He’s the first man that has ever done that. That’s shit I can’t even get from my damn no-account daddy.”
“It seems like you and I have more in common than you and my brother.”
“I doubt that,” she said as she leaned into me. “I’ve seen countless men like you roll in and out of Risqué. Y’all act all big baller with a wad of cash, but don’t amount to much.”
“So you’ve known me all of twenty minutes and you think you know what’s up? You think you the only bird who’s tried to get in Kashawn’s pockets? Get in line.”
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