Deceit and Devotion

by RM Johnson

  “Okay.”

  “He walked me out, kissed me, and made sure I got into my car.”

  “A gentleman. That’s nice.”

  “He gets in the car with me.”

  “Really?”

  “Next thing I know, his head is between my legs and he’s slurping like I got a Bomb Pop shoved up my coochie.”

  “Ooh,” Tabatha said, biting on a fingernail. “He wasn’t forcing himself on you, was he?”

  “No. I didn’t get that from him at all. But I was pathetic,” Monica said, wiping the last tear from her face. “I had been drinking, my head was everywhere.”

  “Please don’t tell me you got all emotional while this man was down on you.”

  “Yeah, girl. I started off into this nonsense about ‘tell me you love me.’”

  “Oh, say you didn’t,” Tabatha said, slapping a hand to her forehead.

  “‘Tell me you need me!’ It was a mess. Then I broke down weeping.”

  “And he looked at you like you were a basket case, and with juice still all over his face, he got the hell out of there, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  Tabatha stared at Monica, shaking her head. “You my girl, but your ass is crazy.”

  “Woke up this morning, after another nightmare.”

  The smile disappeared from Tabatha’s face.

  “Then I called Nate.”

  “No.”

  “He was like, ‘Hello. Hello!’ Then I hung up on his ass.”

  “Good for you. But why did you call?”

  “Because I’m angry as hell. Because everything he did to me, all the ways he mistreated me—I can’t get it out of my head. He’s over there chillin’, living the life, and I’m lost and lonely and suffering. I don’t think he should get away with that.”

  “Get that out of your head, Monica,” Tabatha said, rubbing her shoulder. “He’s over. That’s done with.”

  “I know, you’re right. I’ve put him out of my head, and I’ll never think about him again.”

  “Good. And to help you keep your mind off of Nate, I know a guy. A good one. I’ve already spoken to him about you, and I’m setting up a date.”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “Dammit, no, Tabatha!” Monica said, knocking Tabatha’s hand from her shoulder. After a moment, she apologized. “Yes, I’m lonely as hell, afraid of being by myself for the rest of my life, and I want to be loved. Who doesn’t? But I don’t need no fucking men in my life right now. I’m alone because of the men that were in my life. I fell in love with two children and had them taken away from me, because of the men in my life. I got shot in the head and almost died because of the goddamn men in my life!” She looked up at Tabatha and spoke softer. “I don’t want them no more. Any of them.”

  “I see. You don’t want another man in your life, but you want to be loved, and you don’t wanna be by yourself. How do you accomplish that?”

  Monica sat on the sofa and smiled sadly. “I don’t know. Just hug me for now, and I’ll think about that later.”

  11

  Daphanie stood before the reception desk in the offices of Kenny Corporation, the multimillion-dollar investment company that Nate Kenny started and owned. An attractive, smiling woman wearing glasses and a headset asked, “May I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Nate Kenny, please.”

  “Do you have an appointment today, ma’am?”

  “No,” Daphanie said, preparing herself for the actions she knew her answer would force her to take.

  Still smiling, the receptionist said, “I’m sorry, Miss …”

  “Coleman. My name is Daphanie Coleman.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Coleman, but without an appointment, I’m afraid you won’t be able to see him. I can schedule you,” the woman said, pecking the keys of the computer in front of her. “His next opening is two weeks from today. Shall I put you down then?”

  Daphanie laughed when she really wanted to cry. Her eyes cut across the football field–sized office space. She knew where Nate’s office was. She saw herself running through the maze of cubicles, tackled by a security guard who appeared from thin air just before she reached Nate’s office door. “Sure, put me down for that one,” Daphanie said, then she took off toward Nate’s office.

  “Ma’am! Miss Coleman, you can’t go back there!” Daphanie heard the receptionist call, as she dodged business-suited, paper-carrying employees. She turned a corner, saw the door with raised letters reading NATE KENNY on it. She glanced over her shoulder, saw no security guard in hot pursuit, but heard fast-paced footsteps and the receptionist calling again.

  Reaching the door, she grabbed the knob and threw it open, bursting in and almost stumbling to the floor. Nate sat behind his desk, a pencil in his hand. He calmly looked up as though he had been expecting Daphanie. A second later, the receptionist appeared at the door, panting.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Kenny. I tried to—”

  “It’s okay, Charlene,” Nate said, standing. “I’ll take care of this. Thank you.”

  Charlene gave Daphanie an evil look, then pulled the door closed.

  Nate stepped around his desk, looking fit, dapper in his tailored suit, and—most notably to Daphanie—carefree. “Have a seat, Daphanie. Can I offer you something to drink? Bottled water, juice, something a little stronger?” Nate said, moving toward a fully stocked bar, bottles of liquor in plain view.

  “I didn’t come here for a fucking drink.”

  “Fine.” Nate walked back to his desk, took his seat. “What can I do for you then?”

  “I want my son back.”

  “That I can’t do.”

  “You can’t, or you won’t?”

  “Daphanie, you act as though I have your boy.”

  “You took him.”

  “I couldn’t have taken him if you didn’t give him away.”

  Those words cut Daphanie, maybe because Nate had never spoken truer words to her in the time she’d known him.

  “Give him back to me.”

  “You should be speaking to Trevor about this. Go to him.”

  “I’ve done that,” Daphanie said, willing herself not to cry. “He won’t do it.”

  Nate exhaled loudly and, in an exaggerated motion, shrugged his shoulders. “Then you’re done. You’ve exhausted your avenues. All there is for you to do now is accept the fact that your child is gone.”

  “No,” Daphanie said, feeling those fucking tears crawling down her face again. “No. You have to help me.”

  Nate stood. “Help you. This is exactly what I wanted. To see you suffer. Now if you’d please, leave my office, before I have security drag you out.”

  12

  Caleb stood in the janitor’s closet, watching as scalding hot water rushed into his metal pail. He wore black work boots, Dickies work pants, and his gray shirt from this morning, the one with his name on the pocket. Under it, in smaller letters, president was stenciled.

  He had been proud of himself when he pulled that shirt out of the plastic and looked at it the first time, ten months ago. But now it was just a joke to him. President of a janitorial company with just one employee—himself.

  Caleb felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket and quickly dug for it, hoping it was his son calling him back.

  On the screen, he saw that it was his old friend Blue and thought about ignoring the call. Blue and Caleb went back almost twenty years. They had hung the streets together, drunk forty ounces of beer, talked about nothing, and ended up robbing a store, which got both of them sent to jail and their friend Ray Ray killed. But that was a long time ago.

  “Hello,” Caleb said, picking up.

  “What up, fool? Wanna get some brews tonight? Go to the strip club? I got a hookup. We can get in free.”

  “Naw, man. Got some stuff to take care of later. I’ll hit you tomorrow.”

  “You sure, man? Sounds like you need to free your mind a bit. I know a couple of hos there tha
t—”

  “Blue, for real, man. I gotta go. I’m at work.”

  “Oh, okay,” Blue said, sounding disappointed. “I’ll hit you later.”

  Caleb ended the call and shut off the water. He had called and left three messages for his son to ring him back. The boy was ignoring him as though Caleb weren’t his father but one of his little friends that he could choose not to talk to. Later tonight, Caleb would make sure the boy understood that decision was not his to make.

  After cleaning the four bathrooms in the Department of Children and Family Services building, dusting all the surfaces, emptying all the public trash receptacles and the baskets by the desks, Caleb swept all the floors and mopped.

  He got this account, nine months ago, after walking through the door and asking to speak to the manager of the building. He gave the same speech he gave when speaking to all the managers of the businesses he visited, trying to win new accounts. He told the manager that he ran his own janitorial company and that he would clean her building for half what the present company was doing it for.

  The woman behind the big desk hadn’t hesitated when she said, “Do it for a third and we’ll hire you.”

  Caleb accepted. He had only one account at the time, and that was cleaning his brother’s law offices every night.

  After finding out what he would be getting paid from the DCFS account, he realized he would only be breaking even but told himself he would take what he could get. He would make this business successful one day, even if it was one account at a time.

  Finishing for the evening, Caleb stacked all his supplies into the small closet and locked the door. He looked down at his watch. It was 7:30.

  He would stop, grab a burger, then make his way over to Austin’s offices. Caleb had given his son a job with him working there two nights a week, so his boy could earn a couple of dollars to put in his pocket and get his feet wet. Caleb hoped one day he would take over the company.

  Caleb stepped out the back door of the DCFS building and locked it behind him. He walked through the side alley to where he parked his old white Dodge cargo van. He was about to get in when he felt the tip of a gun pressed flush to the back of his head. Caleb froze, his heart accelerating in his chest.

  “ ’Sup, motherfucker?”

  Caleb’s pulse slowed some with the recognition of the voice.

  “Turn your ass around.”

  With his hands shoulder high, Caleb slowly did as he was told.

  He turned to see whom he had expected, a thin, extremely muscled man, wearing a T-shirt, the sleeves hacked off, tattoos all over his arms and shoulders. His name was Charles. Still holding the gun on Caleb, he bit down on the toothpick in the corner of his mouth, looking as though he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him. There was another man standing a few feet away, a heavier man with a head full of hair, one half sticking up in an afro, the other half tightly cornrowed. Caleb had never seen him before.

  “It ain’t time yet,” Caleb said.

  “We know,” Charles said, smiling. “This here just a friendly reminder.”

  “Then can you please put down the gun?”

  Charles smiled wider, looked over at the other man, then back at Caleb. He rolled the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other, then stuck the gun in the waist of his jeans. “You got the money yet?”

  “I’m waiting to hear back about some cleaning accounts I’m trying to get. If I get them, then—”

  “I don’t wanna hear all that nonsense, and you know Kwan ain’t gonna wanna hear it either.” Charles paced a short line in front of Caleb. “How many days you got till you settle up with us?”

  “Five.”

  “You can’t be late, you know that, right?” Charles said, still pacing.

  “I know that.”

  “Don’t know if you seen the news yesterday. Police found some dude in the Dan Ryan Woods with no hands and no head. I ain’t saying it was us, but that coulda been this dude who tried to skip on giving Kwan his money.” Charles stopped in front of Caleb. “You can’t skip on Kwan, and you can’t be late. Okay?”

  “Yeah,” Caleb said, not liking the crazed look in Charles’s eyes. “I won’t skip, and I won’t be late.”

  13

  Jahlil stood in the hallway after knocking on Shaun’s door. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, checked the screen to see that it was his father calling. He ignored the call.

  He heard a dog barking somewhere on the floor above him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. He turned his head to see a rat scurrying from one side of the hall to the other. It disappeared into a crack in the wall.

  The door opened. His girlfriend, Shaun, stood behind it. She was a cute girl with short, brown hair and dimples. She was seventeen years old but had been held back a year because of poor grades, so she and Jahlil were both juniors. She was normally very fit. She ran track for the school and was a cheerleader—but that was all before she had gotten pregnant.

  Her toned, teenaged, size four body was now stretched into something considerably larger. She was pretty big at eight months pregnant. She stood before Jahlil wearing an extra large T-shirt and slippers.

  “Your moms here?” Jahlil whispered.

  “No. Come in.”

  Jahlil stepped into a run-down, sparsely furnished two-bedroom apartment. He kissed Shaun, then smoothed both his hands around her round belly and kissed the top of it twice. “You feelin’ okay today?” Jahlil asked.

  “My mother trippin’ again, talking about me putting our baby up for adoption, or she gonna put me out.”

  “Don’t even worry about her. I’m gonna get you out of here. This ain’t no place for you to be raising our little girl anyway.”

  “You keep saying that, but are you gonna get the money to—”

  “Told you, don’t worry about that. We gonna be fine,” Jahlil said. “Now you got some food in there you can make me?”

  “Yeah, but I need some money first.”

  “Money for what? You on the medical card, and WIC take care of the rest, right?”

  “Medical card and WIC card don’t pay for bus fare to and from the hospital.”

  Jahlil frowned, dug into his pocket, and pulled out three crumpled twenty-dollar bills. He gave Shaun two of them.

  “Thanks. This money you made from selling today?”

  “Ain’t make no money. We lost sixty dollars, ’cause we was ran off the corner by some kids.”

  “Some kids. What kids? How you gonna let—”

  “They was representing G-Stone.”

  “Representing?” Shaun said. “Why didn’t you go back, sell some more?”

  “ ’Cause I said the kids was representing—”

  “But they were kids. Jahlil,” Shaun said, talking to him like she was his mother, “we eight months pregnant. I’m dropping this baby any week now, and you say you gonna get me out of here, but I’m still up in this nasty apartment. I’m scared Mama gonna put me out, and I’ll be on the street with our child, because you letting some little kids scare you away from making the money you need to take care of your family.”

  Jahlil clenched his jaws. He felt like a child. “They ain’t scare me off.”

  “You gonna make the money we need, or should I have gotten the abortion Mama was telling me to get?”

  Jahlil walked up on Shaun, his face just inches from hers. He looked her directly in the eyes and softly, angrily said, “Don’t do that to me, you hear me? Don’t try and make me feel like no punk. I want our baby, and I’m gonna take care of both of ya’ll, just like I promised, okay?”

  Shaun stared into Jahlil’s eyes. He said, “Then do it.”

  14

  Austin stared up at his ex-wife’s house, the house that used to be theirs when they were married.

  Four years ago, Trace married another man. His name was John. He was a decent-looking, hardworking guy who owned his own handyman business. Trace refinanced the house given to her in the divorce, with h
er new husband, and now the house belonged to the both of them.

  “You sure you can’t make it?” Austin asked. He was talking to Caleb on his cell phone. “The offices will keep till you get to them tomorrow evening. Trust me. We aren’t that dirty.”

  “Sorry, man. Tell my nephew I’ll treat him to some burgers, and we’ll watch the game on Sunday or something, but I really need to be at work tonight. Okay?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Austin said, disappointed. He wanted Caleb there so he wouldn’t feel like the only unaccompanied one. Marcus was inside with Reecie—Austin saw their Accord parked in the driveway. Trace would be there with John, and Austin was sure Trace would’ve invited at least one or two of the couples from the neighborhood over.

  Austin stepped up to the house and heard laughter through the screen door. From his suit jacket pocket he pulled the birthday card he had bought for his son and stepped inside.

  He walked through the hallway into the large living room where Trace and John, Marcus and Reecie, and another adult couple sat drinking wine and laughing.

  Troy, who had just turned sixteen, stood in the middle of the room. He was a very handsome boy who had his father’s firm jaw-line and chin and his mother’s kind eyes, and he was already just an inch shorter than Austin. He was trying on a joke gift—a pair of cheap, plastic shutter sunglasses he had just unwrapped.

  “You can wear those when you go out partying with your friends tonight,” Marcus said.

  “Yeah, just call me Kanye West.” Troy laughed.

  When the room caught sight of Austin, everyone went quiet.

  “Hey,” Austin said, trying to sound enthusiastic but failing. “How’s everyone?”

  “What’s up? Late as always,” Marcus said.

  John pulled himself from the sofa, walked over to Austin, and shook his hand. “How you been, Austin?”

  “Good, John. Thanks.”

  Troy ignored his father, grabbed another gift-wrapped box, and started to tear the paper.

  Trace noticed that and looked sadly at Austin. She stood, grabbing empty wineglasses. “I’ll get refills, and another soda for you, Troy.” She walked over to Austin. “Come help me with these.”