Alibi II

by Teri Woods

  Tired of being rejected in bars and clubs and wasting his hard-earned weekly money and getting nothing but blue balls, he retreated downtown to an XXX shop that sold videos and sexual devices and offered peep shows. It had become a weekly tradition of sorts. He’d leave the halfway house a little early before he had to go to work and hop the train to center city, making sure to be at ShopRite by eleven.

  Four months later the day was slowly approaching that he’d be able to leave the halfway house and move home to his mother’s. He couldn’t wait. No more bitch-ass Ms. Gotling and no more worrying about being sent back to prison. She was hell on earth, the gatekeeper for Satan himself. He saw exactly how viciously the game of freedom was being played. It was just three weeks before Quinny Day was supposed to be released from the halfway house when his mother collapsed, suffering a fatal heart attack. Quinny stayed by her side, rushing her to the emergency room with the EMT workers. With his mother barely alive, he left her side to return to the halfway house, unable to reach Ms. Gotling. Taking a hack instead of the train, he got jammed on the Roosevelt and was thirty-seven minutes late. Ms. Gotling was waiting and so were the sheriffs.

  “Yo, be easy, man, my mother had a heart attack and I been at the hospital with her. Look, I even got a note and a copy of her intake sheet for you. I even tried to call you, but you didn’t pick up,” said Quinny, shrugging his shoulders at her as if there was nothing he could do. Literally, what could he do—his mother had had a heart attack.

  “You know the rules,” she said sternly.

  “Oh, no, tell me you not, I got three weeks, three fucking weeks and I get to go home,” he said, his tone now changing.

  “Sheriffs!” she called out, and from out of the side room they immediately appeared, ready to whisk him away as if his life and his mother’s life meant nothing.

  “Yo, bitch, hold the fuck up, what the fuck is wrong with you, my moms had a heart attack, look at the paper, look at the paper. I been at the hospital.”

  She turned her head quickly and faced him, “I don’t care where you’ve been. You broke curfew, you know the rules.”

  For one split second Nard’s eyes met Quinny’s. The words broken, destroyed, and devastated would not adequately define or describe the look on that man’s face.

  Nard thought Quinny was going to pounce on Ms. Gotling like a cougar attacking his prey and rip her heart out, if she had one. Nard couldn’t believe it, and that wasn’t the only time. She sent a black man back to prison every other week for some bullshit. One guy got sent back to prison ’cause he couldn’t find a job.

  “Too bad, you know the deal. I told you to find a job,” she’d snap without blinking.

  It was sad, and the bad part was, Quinny was a good guy. He simply had one thing that hindered him. He stuttered. It wasn’t his fault, it just wasn’t working out for him on those job interviews, especially sounding out his words when he was nervous. Nard watched as Quinny started crying and pleading with the gatekeeper, Ms. Gotling. It was no use; she had the sheriffs there ready and waiting. Nard looked on as the sheriffs escorted Quinny away and back to jail, like it was nothing, all because his momma had a heart attack and he had taken her to the hospital.

  “Yo, homie, I got you. I’ll tell your sister what happened,” said Nard as the sheriffs grabbed Quinny’s arms and walked him down the hall. Nard already knew that it would be days before Quinny could get to a phone. His family would be sick with worry because, of course, among all the things that Ms. Gotling had to do to lock a nigga up for nothing, she didn’t have to notify next of kin, family, or friends. Poor Quinny, he’d do nine months before getting in front of the parole board to explain what happened to his momma and how she died five days later. Of course, they would decide that under the circumstances it would be appropriate to void the incident from his record and allow him to be released again. But because of the overcrowding caused by the number of inmates being released into halfway houses and the lack of facilities, there weren’t enough beds. Unfortunately, Quinny would sit in prison another six months waiting for a bed even though the parole board had found in his favor. Nard would never forget prison or the halfway house as long as he lived. He would never believe the operation they had set in place and how he had been used for free labor. He would never forget what happened to him. He had nightmares and dreams to remind him every night.

  Officially, he was still on parole, but he had made the six months work for him. And now that he was home all he had to do was report to his parole officer within ten days of leaving the halfway house. He had no more curfew, no more anything. All he had to do was stay clean and check in at his parole office on his assigned days.

  Beverly was happy to have her son back home with her. It was the middle of August and they decided to have a barbecue to celebrate in the backyard. Family and friends gathered, celebrating and toasting Nard’s homecoming.

  “You home now, son. Glad to have you back.” Uncle Ray Ray gave Nard a welcome-home hug, let him go, and patted him on the back. “To new beginnings,” he said as he held up a glass and toasted his nephew’s homecoming.

  Now free from the halfway house, and able to venture out without a curfew, Nard had a few places and a few people he needed to track down. The first on his list was Sticks. And even though he had been as good as dead for over twenty years now, Nard still needed to go back to where he had left off. He wanted to go to where his friend Sticks used to live. He remembered the block like the back of his hand. He had grown up there, playing basketball every day in the park around the corner, running to Sticks’s house for ice pops or needing fifty cents for the ice cream truck.

  “Who is it?” asked Kay Ross.

  “It’s me, Ms. Ross, Nard, Sticks’s old friend,” said Nard, wondering if the family even still lived there. A few seconds later, he heard the chain pop and the locks turn, and the door opened. A tiny, elderly, frail woman opened the door.

  “Nard, is that you? Boy, you done turned into an old man,” she said, smiling from ear to ear and letting him inside.

  “Yes, ma’am, I sure have,” he said, happy to see the closest thing to his best friend.

  “It’s been many, many years,” said Ms. Ross as she sat Nard down in a chair by the television. “You want some tea? Or some coffee?” she asked.

  “Um, no, ma’am, I’m okay. You know, I always think about Sticks. He was my best friend.”

  “Mine, too, not a day goes by I don’t think of him either.” She smiled.

  The two shared stories going back some thirty years, and for that short while, Nard forgot the hard knocks life had dealt him.

  “You know, son, I got boxes up here in the closet of Sticks’s clothes and what not. I never knew what to do with them. I’ve been holding some of this stuff for years. Why don’t you take the boxes? I’m sure if you go through them, you’ll find some things you can use. It’s all kinds of stuff in there. Go on, take it.”

  Unable to say no, Nard called a hack and took the six boxes home to his mother’s house.

  The next day, there was another person on his list that he wanted to reach out for, a place in time he needed to visit once again—his other childhood friend, Poncho. There wasn’t one night that he didn’t think of that fateful evening so long ago that changed his fate, forever.

  He could see the long arm stretched around Poncho’s head, securing him tightly in a headlock. He could hear Poncho’s voice pleading to Nard to take his captor out. The two men had snuck through an open bathroom window, grabbed his man, and were demanding money and cocaine in exchange for Poncho’s life.

  “Nard, take this nigga. Take him. I know you can, baby boy, take him,” Poncho yelled.

  “Let him go, let him go. Let him go and I’ll let you live,” said Nard, meaning every word he spoke, but trying to be calm as he tried to talk Jeremy into letting his man go.

  “Nigga, give me what the fuck I came for or both you motherfuckers is gonna die,” said Jeremy with lots of heart, pushing t
he gun harder into the side of Poncho’s head as the gun fired a single deadly shot. He looked down at the floor. Lance was dead. Oh, my God, he killed him, he killed Lance.

  “Motherfucker, I ain’t giving you shit. Let him go!” Nard yelled.

  “Take him Nard, what the fuck is you waiting fo—”

  Poncho’s blood and fragments of his head landed all over the wall and covered the entire side of the room. His blood even splattered on Nard, all this within a matter of seconds.

  Nard couldn’t sleep without waves of memories, silently haunting him every night of his life. He had to visit, if for no other reason than to pay his respects to his man’s family. To let them know that he was sorry for what happened to Poncho that night so long ago. And that he tried to do everything in his power to save his life.

  The next day off from stocking shelves at ShopRite, he made it a point to cross town and take the Septa bus up to Germantown Avenue where Poncho’s family last resided.

  Sure enough, he recognized his sister sitting on the porch stoop as he walked up the block.

  “Karla-Jae, is that you?”

  “Bernard Guess, you’re home. How have you been?” she said, hugging Nard as his penis got hard from her body press.

  “Yeah, I’m home, Karla-Jae,” he said. He had always had a yearning for his man’s sister, but never did get with her.

  Karla-Jae looked just like she did when they were young.

  “Damn, you ain’t changed one bit,” said Nard, smiling.

  “You neither. It’s so good to see you. Wait till I tell Liddles,” she said, looking up at her brother’s friend.

  “Damn, you know I must’ve had a crush on you all my life,” she said as she let him go, standing back to take a good look at him. “You look good, you been taking care of yourself,” she acknowledged.

  “Yeah, that time took a lot from me, though. Shit made my ass gray.” He smiled, showing her a few strands he had on the side of his face, next to his ears.

  “Awww, that ain’t nothing, my whole head is gray, child. I got to color it, every week, damn near,” she said, smiling, as she opened her cell phone and dialed her brother’s number.

  “Wait till he finds out you’re here, he’s gonna go crazy, watch,” she said. Nard couldn’t take his eyes off her. And the fact that she had had a crush on him half her life was the ego booster he had needed.

  He watched as she spoke into her receiver, smiling her pearly whites and blinking her mascara-brushed eyelashes.

  Liddles stopped what he was doing when he heard Nard was over at the house and came straight there. He had always looked up to Nard. He was Poncho’s best friend, his closest friend. The way Liddles saw it, Nard was a hero. He had gunned down and killed his brother’s assailants. He didn’t flinch or give up anything to those bastards. And Liddles knew that if not for Nard’s killing them, they would have gotten away and no one would have ever known who took his brother’s life.

  “Yo, look who it is. It’s good to see you, baby,” said Liddles, hugging his hero.

  “It’s good to see you, too,” said Nard, all smiles as he and Liddles shook hands, locked in their manly embrace, and stared at one another with their hearts in their eyes.

  “You looking real good, homie,” said Nard, as he noticed how fresh Liddles’s gear was. Liddles was wearing a Loro Piana button-down, a fresh new pair of true religions, and his brand-new air force ones, white on white, of course.

  “Yeah, man, you, too.”

  “Naw, you really looking good. What’s that?” asked Nard, looking at Liddles’s car.

  “That’s that Bentley coupe, nigga, sitting on twenty-twos, Ock. Nigga, you know how I do. I get it in, baby. I gets this shit in.”

  It was the most beautiful car Nard had ever seen. Nard knew then that Liddles was playing with some paper if he was rolling like that in a Bentley coupe, and not ShopRite money either. Shit, Nard could barely catch public transportation with his ShopRite money, so to see his man’s little brother ballin’ just took his breath away.

  Just then Liddles’s cell phone went off.

  “Hold up, Nard,” he said as he answered the phone, conducting his business as usual. He hung up the phone. “Yo, Nard, I got to make this run, and I’m going out of town making a run down to the Carolinas, but I need to hook up with you when I get back. I got something for you, baby boy. I been holding a little something for you, ya heard,” Liddles smiled, tapping Nard on the shoulder. “I got a little something for you to help them ends meet, baby,” said Liddles, talking his talk.

  “Damn, I sure could use it, I just got out the halfway house, and this ShopRite gig I got ain’t for shit,” said Nard, shaking his head, lost at the perception of how Liddles was moving and shaking.

  “ShopRite, fuck ShopRite, you want to work, I’ll give you a job. I got a crew. They working on guttin’ out this building for me now. You can do that and oversee these motherfuckers, make sure they all doing what they suppose to do, feel me?” asked Liddles in all seriousness.

  “Yeah, yeah, you know me, I’m down for whatever,” said Nard, figuring it best that he try to get in where he could fit in ’cause at the rate he was going stocking shelves, he’d be assed out if he didn’t make some kind of moves. His life had been taken from him, stripped, and he was determined to build it back up. He had dreams, big dreams, and he knew he could make it, despite all the shit he had been through in his life. He just needed a chance, or better yet the right connect, the right hookup, the right little brother of his best friend whose life had been lost along with his twenty years ago.

  “Okay, here, take my number and call me. You got a cell?” asked Liddles, writing down his number for Nard.

  “Naw, I ain’t get one yet, but I’m working on it,” said Nard.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of all that for you. What’s your shoe size and your dress size?” Liddles asked, playing his part.

  Nard gave him everything he asked him for and for the first time he was looking forward to something other than his usual weekly peep shows.

  “Don’t forget, when I get back, ya heard. I’ma change your whole fucking life,” said Liddles as he closed the Bentley’s door. He rolled down his window and hollered out to Nard, “Let me find out them white folks got you bagging groceries at fucking ShopRite. Don’t worry, I got you.” Liddles laughed before racing his engine and driving off down the street.

  FBI Building

  Fifth and Market Streets

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  Vivian Lang sat at a tiny coffee table in a small café on the first floor of the federal building where she worked. Time had aged her, but she still looked good. Her makeup wasn’t heavy, but you could tell she was wearing it, giving her a more youthful appearance. She looked up at the sight of her ex-husband, Tommy, off in the distance, his arms swinging as if he had not a care in the world.

  What in the hell did I ever see in him? And if it wasn’t for me, keeping my mouth shut, he never would have made lieutenant. Unfuckingbelievable!

  She looked at him as he walked down the hall. Tommy was getting older and more mature, but even after all these years and all the time that had passed, she still despised him. His childish demeanor and lack of responsibility resembled that of a tsetse fly. She remembered the day all hell broke loose, as if it were yesterday. Even though it was almost twenty years ago, the images in her memory still rang clear. Tommy was getting dressed, the baby was screaming, and the babysitter was doing all she could to quell the tiny tot. Vivian had just gotten a call in, another bank robbery, and this time, it was a hostage situation.

  “Tommy, I gotta go. Deputy Stevens is going to be looking for me. He said to hightail it and get my ass downtown to Constitution Bank pronto. You don’t need anything, do you?” she asked, before kissing him lightly on the cheek and busting out of their bedroom door and down the hall.

  “Why’s my boy crying?” she asked, picking up Tommy, Jr., as she walked through the house, giving the b
abysitter detailed instruction on what to do. She had only been with them for three months, but for Vivian the young, carrot-top teenager had turned out to be a lifesaver. “Don’t forget, you can still babysit for me Saturday night, right?”

  “Yeah, of course, I already told my mom and dad,” she said, smiling as if everything was under control.

  “Okay, great. The list is on the fridge, as usual. You got my cell phone number if you need me and my office, right?”

  “Yes, I have them,” Gabby replied as she pulled her sweater over her head and placed it on the dining room chair.

  “Thanks so much, you’re a lifesaver,” said Vivian as she patted Gabby on the back before rushing out the door and hopping into her car. Gabby waved as Vivian reversed out of the driveway. She closed the door behind her and watched Vivian’s lights fade away in the distance.

  Vivian put on her seatbelt halfway down the block. She tilted her rearview mirror, looked at herself, then tilted her mirror back in place. It was a habit she hadn’t broken over the years.