A Clean Up Man

by M. T. Pope

  Carlos and I both sat there in the truck, waiting for the cop to come back to us with whatever he was going to give us.

  Seconds later, he was back at the driver’s side window.

  “I’m giving you a ticket for reckless endangerment and excessive speed. Don’t let me catch you on my highway again or in any part of the city of Baltimore driving two miles per hour over the limit, because I won’t hesitate to take both your asses to jail for fucking around on my streets. You muthafuckas got away with whatever you got going on today, but next time you won’t be so lucky. You understand me?”

  “Yes.” Carlos and I spoke at the same time.

  I didn’t know about Carlos but this muthafucka looked like he was out for blood. He had no reason to, though, so I wasn’t worried in the least about him or his threats. I watched him as he walked back to his patrol truck and then he pulled off. The look on his face as he drove past us was one of arrogance and anger.

  “You okay, Carlos?” I looked at the ticket he had given us, which was for $150, and then handed it to Carlos because his name was on it since he was the one driving at the time.

  “Yeah, man. I just want to get my ass in the house and go the fuck to bed. I am so pissed. I don’t know what I am going to do about this ticket. I can’t get any more points on my license because I will lose my job.” He shook his head and put it in his hands for a moment.

  “This not the first time you got a speeding ticket?” I knew the answer to the question I just asked but I asked him anyway for clarification.

  “Nah, man. I got pulled over twice for speeding on the job. My boss said one more ticket and I am out of there. I need my job, man. I love my job. I just mess around with some of the ladies at the stops that I make and get behind on time.”

  “That’s not a good look, Carlos. You need to take a number and call them later,” I counseled him.

  “I know, man.” He shook his head from side to side. “I just need to slow my ass down.”

  I wasn’t the “I told you so” type so I just nodded my head in agreement.

  “I’ma go to court with you so we can fight this,” I said as I pulled off down the road.

  “How are you going to do that, Kraig? He a cop and the courts almost always believe the cop.”

  “Don’t worry about that part. Let me handle that,” I said smugly. I had no clue as to how I was going to pull this off but I was going to try my hardest to get it done.

  “Okay, man,” he said like he doubted me. “I hope you can, because my ass is up the creek without a paddle if I don’t get this ticket thrown out.”

  Ten minutes later, I was pulling up to his mom’s house. He looked at me with uncertainty and stress written all over his face. I couldn’t blame him, either. Carlos was still paying back student loans and he was supporting his momma, too.

  “Carlos, don’t worry, dude. I got you,” I reassured him as he walked up to his porch. His head was hung low. I knew I had to work my magic somehow.

  I pulled off down the street and looked in my rearview mirror. Carlos was still sitting on his porch.

  When I got home, I walked into my kitchen, pulled a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, and sat down at my kitchen table to think long and hard about what I had to do next. This wasn’t going to be easy. I knew that I had to bite the bullet and enlist the help of someone I hated to ask for anything: Angie.

  Chapter 10

  Out on a Limb

  As I drove down the tree-covered Fredrick Road into the historical part of Catonsville, my mind was focused on finding a way to get Carlos out of his dilemma, and getting some payback on this guy if he really was the Jarrod from college. I couldn’t sleep last night with all of this stuff circling and flipping through my head. I was tossing and turning all night. I got up several times and looked out of the window and watched cars drive up and down the streets in the middle of the night. More than once I wanted to call my mother and spill my thoughts on to her, but then she would have been all up in my business, like I wanted to be in hers. My father was my business, though, and she was going to have to cave in a little more today after I dropped this picture off and make my way over to her house.

  I had a job that I had to postpone just so I could get this done today. Yes, I needed that money, but I was more focused on this. I didn’t need to go to anyone’s house and fuck something up. I had a reputation to uphold.

  After fifteen minutes of driving, I pulled up to an empty parking spot right in front of Sunny’s Picture Restoration and Framing. It had representation of his work in the window. I was impressed with his work just from what I saw the few seconds I stood looking at the examples in the window. I smiled with jubilation creeping out of the sides of my mouth like a giddy schoolboy. I walked to the door and opened it. There was an old-fashioned bell that rang out over my head, signaling the shop attendant of my arrival.

  “Well, hello there, young man.” The obviously older man spoke to me as he came from behind a curtain that probably led to the back of his shop.

  “Hello, sir.” I was still smiling. I was hoping that he could help me.

  “How can I help you this fine day?” He was a humble man and he spoke with a smile that was filled with glee.

  I pulled out from my pocket the small manila envelope that I had put the picture in, and placed it on the counter. “I was wondering if you could make this picture look like it was new.”

  “Well, let me see here. I have to take a look at it before I can give you an answer.” He took the picture out. I watched as he took the glasses that he had on and pushed them to the bottom of his nose and look at the picture over them.

  “Um hmm . . . uhmmmm.” He twisted it around in his hand from corner to corner.

  “It’s my father . . . Well, I think it is.” I spoke out as he steadily investigated the damaged Polaroid.

  “Uhmmm . . . okay.” He looked at me and then at the picture. “Yes, I can see that this person has a mole or something on the face. Even with a lot of the face distorted, I can see that.”

  “Really?” My eyebrows shot up, my heart sped up a little, and I leaned forward a little to see if I could see what he saw. I didn’t see it. I guessed that it was his keen eye and expertise that was seeing what I hoped to be a picture of a part of me. I wondered, in those few seconds standing there, how was this really going to affect my life now? Was it going to change who I was? How I thought? Did I really want to know what was behind that picture? Behind my parents’ past? What was it that made him just disappear and not leave a trace of him behind, except for me? Was I not that important or did he die?

  “Give me two weeks and a hundred dollars up front. The rest I will settle up with you when I finish.” He broke me out of my daze.

  “Okay . . . Okay.” I pulled out my wallet as a tear slid out of my left eye. I quickly wiped it away in embarrassment.

  “Are you okay, son?” He looked at me curiously. A few seconds passed as I looked around the room at all of his work before I answered him.

  “Yes, sir. I will be very soon.” I nodded my head, assuring myself.

  “Good. Here’s my card with my number and your receipt.” I watched him scribble down on an old-fashioned receipt book and hand me a carbon copy.

  “Take care, Sunny,” I said as I turned and walked toward the front door.

  “My name is Joseph. Sunny was my father.”

  I turned slightly and waved. “Take care, Joseph.”

  I hopped in my truck and pulled off toward my mother’s house. I was out on a limb and I hoped that it didn’t break on me and leave me hanging.

  I had the picture and I was momentarily satisfied with that, but I didn’t know what I was going to do after the picture was fixed. I guessed I would have to wait to see what was going to happen.

  Chapter 11

  It’s T Time

  I pulled up to my mother’s house and placed my truck in park. I had what I wanted to say in my head, but I knew from my last visit that it was g
oing to be another uphill battle with my mother about this father business. I sat in my truck for another couple of minutes, looking around me and into the neighborhood that I once lived in full-time. There were children running up and down the streets and plenty of moms, aunties, and grandmothers sitting on the porches watching them play. I never noticed that most of the men were nowhere to be found. Was this the norm? A community without men? How long could this go on? I for one was going to get to the bottom of the absence of my father.

  I watched a little girl run and then trip and fall. I hopped out of my truck in a flash and helped her to feet.

  “Mmmmmmm,” she moaned in pain as she rubbed her bruised knee.

  “It’s okay. I have a bandage in the truck. Stay right here. I’ll go get it.” I walked the few steps to the truck and reached inside to get the small safety kit I had stashed inside. I turned to go and help the little girl who was still whimpering, when a lady came out of nowhere.

  “What are you doing to my daughter?” She quickly pulled the little girl into her arms as if I was going to hurt her.

  “I was just trying to help.” The mug on my face was one of fear.

  “Oh, really?” She looked me up and down like I was a pedophile.

  “Yes, really,” I countered. “She had fallen and I was going to patch up her knee. You know, like what a normal person would have done if they had watched her fall down and hurt herself.”

  “I’m sorry . . . I . . . I . . . I just went in the house for a second to check on dinner and I come out to find a strange man around my daughter. I just thought—”

  “You thought I was going to snatch up your child here in broad daylight and take her off somewhere and have my way with her?” I cut her off. I shook my head in shame. “Look, miss, I have lived around here all of my childhood and I have never once done any acts of violence against anyone. I came here to visit my mother and this is not what I expected to happen. You and I used to play together, if you don’t remember. Does Kraig Holmes ring a bell?”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even recognize you, Kraig. I remember you now. I just moved back around here with my mom, and I have been going through some things with my daughter’s father and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I understand all too well.” I smirked a little, trying to lighten up the situation.

  “Well, let me get this little girl in the house and cleaned up for dinner.” She picked up her daughter and secured her into her arms.

  “No problem.”

  “Tell Ms. Florence I said hi.” People in this neighborhood had respect for my mother. They loved them some Ms. Florence.

  “I sure will.” I watched as she walked up the street and into the front yard of a house about ten houses up.

  I made sure my truck door was locked and walked up to the porch of my mom’s house. I put my key in the lock and pushed it open. The scent of chamomile tea hit me in my face as soon as I took my first step inside of the living room. My mother was infamous for drinking tea and today was no different.

  “Hey, Ma!” I smiled because, again, my mother was everything to me. She was at the table, sitting in a terry cloth robe and curlers, an Essence magazine in her hand, and the nineteen-inch television was on with The Maury Povich Show playing. In front of her she had some type of sandwich, which had a bite or two missing.

  “Hey, Kraig, babe.” I kissed her on the cheek as she patted my face with her hand and kissed me back.

  “I’m not doing your hair,” was the first thing that came out of her mouth as I went to the refrigerator and grabbed me some Welch’s grape juice and sat down diagonally from her. I smiled and chuckled a little, because that was the last thing on my mind.

  I sat and watched the spectacle that was on the television in front of me. A girl and guy on stage battled over DNA and paternity of a lone baby. The two fools on stage had two different perceptions about DNA: she thought it was a lifetime of monetary support; his ass thought it meant “Do Not Answer” the phone after she called him the first time about being an expectant father. Now the two were on stage with a big picture of a baby who looked just like his silly behind magnified behind them on a big screen for all to see. The results were read and he was the daddy. The audience went wild and so did she; this was when I turned to my mother.

  “Mom, I’m here for the T.”

  “Sure, baby, it’s some on the stove. Help yourself.” She didn’t even look up from her magazine.

  “No, Mom, I’m not talking about that kind of tea. I mean I’m here for the truth.”

  “What truth, Kraig?” She sipped her tea and looked at me, holding on for what I was about to ask her.

  “I want to know more about my father. You’ve been avoiding this far too long.”

  “You want to know more about your father?” She answered my question with a question. That was something I hated with a passion, even from my mother.

  “Yes, Mother. I want to know about the man who you slept with and made me with. You know, my father.” I thought my lips smacked with attitude, or maybe I wanted to.

  “Kraig, I feel like I’ve been going round and round on a merry-go-round with you on this issue. Why must I keep repeating myself on this issue?” Her voice had risen a little bit and I could feel the tension in the room getting thicker by the minute.

  “We are on this merry-go-round together then, because I am beginning to get dizzy with confusion over that fact that you keep avoiding this topic of discussion. You act like it is going to kill you to let up on some more info about him.”

  She sat there looking dumbfounded for a few seconds. Her eyes watered with tears and then she started to sob. Everything in me melted as I watched my mom heave and heave with emotion.

  “Why is it so hard for you to talk about him? What did he do to you that would make you not want to tell your only son about him . . . his only son about him? Did he leave you for another woman? Did he leave you for a man? Is he dead? In Iraq? Canada? Brazil? Two blocks over? Where the fuck is he?” I banged on the table, startling her a little.

  She was still crying and crying.

  “Okay, you gave me a picture, Mom. I am happy about that, but why can’t you tell me anything about him? I don’t even know his name. Am I named after him?”

  She shook her head no. I felt like I was getting somewhere, so I pressed on.

  “Does it begin with an A? B? C?” I felt like doing Patti LaBelle’s version of the ABC song that she did on Sesame Street, if that was what it took to get her to give up some details. She continued to cry.

  “A,” she finally spoke. Her head still hung low. “His name begins with an A.”

  “Okay, that’s a start. Can I get a couple of syllables or something?” I laughed a little, because it felt like I was on Wheel of Fortune, but I was as serious as a heart attack.

  “Alistair was his name.” She finally looked up.

  “Alistair.” The name flowed out of my lips like butter across bread. “Alistair Holmes is my father.”

  “You satisfied?” She looked at me with red, swollen eyes.

  “Yes, I am. I don’t know why that was so hard for you to do. He must have put a whammy on you or something.” I smirked.

  She quietly got up from the table, cut the television off, put her leftovers in the refrigerator and her teacup in the sink, and walked toward the kitchen door.

  Before completely leaving she turned and said one last thing to me. “You don’t know the half of it.” And then she left.

  I sat at the table, dumbfounded. I opened my juice and began to sip it and ponder my next move.

  “Why do you have to come here and start some shit every time you come over?” Angie mugged me as she pulled up a chair and sat down. She was dressed in her police uniform, because she was heading out to work. She worked the night shift sometimes. I smiled because what I really wanted to say would burn the back of her throat if I said it to her. She had been living here ever since I could remember and th
is routine between us never got any better. I didn’t like her and she didn’t like me. My mom said that Angie had a tough love attitude toward me but sometimes I thought it was a competition between me and her for my mom’s attention or affection.

  “Well, good evening to you too.” I spoke sarcastically. I had to keep my attitude toward her under wraps to get the information I needed from her.

  “Kraig, every time you show up here there is always drama going on. Why do you keep on pressing your mother about your father? Can’t you see what it does to her? Some things just need to be left alone. I know you have heard of the saying, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.’”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of it, but this is not one of those cases and I think that you should mind yours, because you’re not family.” I had an even tone and I looked her right in the eye when I said it.

  “Okay, whatever.” She smiled a confident smile. I wasn’t against that civil union marriage for gays and lesbians, but I was not claiming her as my second mother. I was too old to be swallowing that “two mothers” crap. Save that shit for the first graders.

  “Okay, you’re right. You are family.” I smiled, not meaning a word of what I said. “Since you are family, could you help out a family member?”

  “It depends on what family has gotten themselves into.” She smirked at me.

  “Oh, it’s not me actually. A friend of mine was wondering how you find out the officer’s name on a ticket written out to him and how he can fight it.”

  “Well, all this friend would need is the ticket.” She held up two bunny ears and bent them when she said the word “friend,” as if I was lying about having a friend and I was really talking about me. She continued, “The officer who wrote the ticket has to submit all of the tickets for logging into the policing system. All the officer’s information and court time will be available within a couple of days of the traffic ticket being written.”

  “That’s it?” I looked at her and I smiled, happily. That was quite simple.

  “Yes, that’s it.” She cocked her head to the side in confidence.