Your Corner Dark

by Desmond Hall

  Forty-Three

  frankie’d gotten up early and gone right to work so no one would suspect he’d been out late. But really, he was killing time, waiting for Joe to come outside. It was time to talk.

  He heaved two crocus bags filled with yellow yams over his shoulders and brought them over to Joe’s girlfriend, who, with Big Pelton, was shelling gungo peas. The three-rock fire always seemed to be burning, and someone always cooking. Blow Up and two others had just left to make a delivery, the back of the white van stuffed with what looked like at least two hundred pounds of weed. Frankie still had more yams to dig up, but almost back to the field, he stopped in front of Joe’s house.

  He’d been up half the night, thinking, thinking, staring at Leah’s painting. What it meant. It was true what she had painted. But did it have to mean the future was dark, always? Did it?

  It was time to ask out of the posse.

  Ask Joe to help him get a passport and visa.

  Sure, Joe didn’t play favorites. But Frankie had to make him understand. They had to be able to make some kind of deal. He’d find a way to pay him back. And pay him back double, even if it took ten years, twenty. But he had to get out. Frankie was his only nephew. His uncle had to take that into consideration.

  To Frankie’s surprise, Joe was already in the backyard, with Jenny, Buck-Buck, and Ice Box. He was smoking from a clay pipe, a plume of ganja clouding them all. Whoa. That pipe was reserved for serious sessions: this must be about Taqwan. Frankie had thought about that last night as well. What role would he play in the attack? What would he be expected to do? He’d really missed Winston last night—if he’d been there, they could have talked about it. Winston would have said something weird but sort of true at the same time, something that would have eased the pressure, even if just a little bit.

  Frankie looked at that clay pipe. To hell with the clay pipe! There would never be a good time to ask Joe. He just had to do it. But Joe looked so intense, Frankie found himself backing away. That was when Buck-Buck and Ice Box roared with laughter and hopped up.

  Buck-Buck clapped Frankie on the shoulder as they walked by. “Frankie Green, killing machine!”

  Joe turned. He took a long pull from the pipe, studying him, then sent smoke twisting up to the sky. “Your brain heavy, nephew. You need a lift.” Joe offered up the chalice as if it was the host and Joe a priest. Frankie took a seat, wondered where this smoke might send him. Not anywhere he’d want to go.

  “No thanks, Uncle,” he said. He needed to stay focused. Plus, he’d never taken a hit from a chalice.

  “Me say, take it,” Joe said, his face grim, like he had been insulted.

  This was important and Frankie wanted to stay focused. But he was already ticking Joe off. He glanced at Aunt Jenny, but she, as usual, was typing on her phone. So he took the pipe.

  After the first pull, he felt lighter, his bones as hollow as a bird’s. Frankie tried to hand it back, but Joe held up his hand. “Take a next one.”

  “No, Uncle.”

  Joe stared Frankie down.

  Aunt Jenny looked up. “Leave the boy alone.”

  “Him have something serious fi say—this will help him.”

  Without answering, she went back to her phone.

  After the second hit, Frankie tried to get out of his head. That was some strong shit.

  Joe took the pipe back and offered it to Jenny. “Want a lift?”

  She shook her head, annoyed. “You know I don’t do that.” She turned to Frankie. “What you need, Franklyn?”

  He took his time, turned to Joe. “Uncle, I want you to help me get a visa. And a passport.” Frankie clung to his strategy despite the ganja cloud in his head. “I want to leave the posse. I can make a lot of money as an engineer in America. A lot! I can send back as much as you want. Whatever you want. Double. Triple. I just want to leave the posse.” It could have come out clearer if he hadn’t smoked, but at least he’d said it.

  Joe seemed surprisingly unsurprised, almost too calm. “So, you feel scared.”

  “I’m not scared,” Frankie said emphatically. “You’ve seen me on missions—I’m not scared. I just want to leave. I want to study engineering.”

  “In America?”

  “Yes. Daddy is gone. I’ll find my way to pay you back and then some, you know I will. So there’s no reason—”

  Joe’s calm flared to fire. “No reason? You took an oath. That is all the reason you need.”

  But Frankie couldn’t back down. “Uncle, this isn’t for me. I’ve studied so hard, my whole life—”

  “You’re chatting foolishness.” Joe brushed ash off his leg, then smiled a smile that held no warmth, only cunning. “Don’t let me hear you say this again. This is your final warning, Nephew.”

  The muscles in Aunt Jenny’s jaw, however, were flexing. “Joe,” she started, her voice silky, soothing. “It might be time for you to let go of him. He didn’t have to be in the posse.”

  Frankie’s breath caught. Maybe—

  But Joe flung the pipe to the ground and walked away.

  “Uncle!” Frankie scrambled up after him. “Uncle, I can’t do this anymore. This is your world. Not mine.” He knew he had said the wrong thing, but he couldn’t take the words back.

  Joe spun like a viper and struck Frankie on the chin. Frankie stumbled, lost his balance, and went down. Dazed, he looked up and he thought for a moment that it was his father, not Joe, standing there, lording over him. How could he ever have thought his uncle was so much cooler than his father? Take away the dreadlocks and the gun and what was there?

  Forty-Four

  he was so angry, so, so angry, that he hardly knew what to do. To keep himself from exploding, he started reconstructing his bike’s gears. His chin throbbed, and to add insult to injury, his foot of all things had fallen asleep. He made one last adjustment, then let the screwdriver drop next to the pliers. His bike, upside down, wheels in the air, was almost ready. He aimed the tip of an oil bottle at the chain and squeezed, coaxing out the last drop. He clicked the gears, moved them freely between first and tenth, then spun the back tire. Glints of light hit the spokes.

  He stood up to right the bike and nearly toppled over—his damn foot was still asleep. That had happened once before. He’d been working in the bush with Samson, digging up yellow yams. Skin seared from the sun, itching from mosquito bites, bone-tired, Frankie had fallen asleep at the dining table and woke later, foot fast asleep. His father had boiled a small cerasee plant and made him a cup of his bush tea.

  “My foot is okay now.” Frankie had waved him off.

  “Well, it’s good for your circulation.”

  “It’s good for circulation?”

  “Backache, toothache, bellyache, might even be good for heartache, but you don’t know ’bout that yet.” He remembered his father laughing.

  He remembered how the tea’s scent burned his nose, how it tasted even worse than it smelled.

  His father had laughed again. “Cerasee is good for you. You should never be afraid of bitter bush. The taste will pass. Just know that it will cure you.”

  Frankie pressed his hands against his eyes, swallowing the memory. Dad. He gave his foot a shake and accidentally kicked the bike frame, knocking it over. Then he kicked it again, and again. His foot wasn’t asleep now, and neither was he.

  He charged across the encampment, down toward the ganja field; he’d seen Joe tending to his crop earlier that morning. And there he was, under the baking sun, standing in a middle row of waist-high plants. Cricket and Blow Up were tilting buckets of water onto the shorter plants. Frankie pushed through the greenery. “Uncle.”

  “One minute, Frankie.”

  “No, Uncle. I have to talk to you now.” He was breathing hard. He would not look away.

  Blow Up and Cricket stared, agog.

  But Joe merely said, “Soon come” to them and stepped through the plants, not waiting for Frankie.

  Frankie followed him through the
rows of corn and yams that had been planted alongside the marijuana—they hid the drugs from any long-range surveillance.

  Joe suddenly squatted and, unexpectedly, jammed his fingers into the dirt, digging at a weed. “You don’t give up.”

  “Do what you have to, beat me, whatever, but I can’t stay.” Frankie’s stomach muscles instinctively tightened, preparing for a blow.

  Weed gone, Joe patted the dirt back into place but stayed in a squat. “Me never want to hit you. No mon, me didn’t want that.” He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a spliff, and lit it. His first pull was long. Like a dragon, two streams of smoke came from his nose. He offered the joint to Frankie.

  Frankie shook his head. “I’m good.”

  Joe took another short pull. “You have any thoughts about what the police sergeant said the other day?”

  “No.” It still didn’t make sense for him to even consider something so crazy.

  Joe stood and picked up a machete and a bucket filled with a load of ash. “We’re going to hit Taqwan’s stash house.” He handed the machete to Frankie. “Me need your help to identify which vehicle is the one that’s going to the stash house.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Frankie said, then paused. He knew his uncle well enough to know he was up to something.

  Joe grabbed a handful of ash, sprinkling the soil as he went. “Fertilizer,” he explained. “Here’s how it’s going to go: A shipment coming. You and one or two of the other new recruits going to check the airport parking lot to find which car Taqwan’s people use to transport di product. You less likely to be recognized, zeen?”

  Frankie shook his head. “No. I want out of the posse.”

  Joe knelt again, stuck one finger in the dirt. Checking the moisture level, Frankie guessed. “If we find out where the stash house is, we’re going to knock it off in the next couple of days. And we’re going to dead off Taqwan and as many of his men as we can.” He brushed the dirt off his finger. “After that, you can go.”

  Frankie blinked. Had he heard that correctly? “I can go?”

  Joe checked the next plant. “Me ask Buck-Buck to talk to some people about getting you a visa and passport—false ones, but they will get you out of the country. You use them once, then destroy them. Babylon always update them things. Me don’t have to tell you about technology.” Joe reached into his back pocket, took out an envelope, and extended it toward Frankie. Nothing felt real. It felt like one of those great dreams you had, that if you thought too much about it, it would disappear, forever.

  Frankie took the envelope gingerly. Joe had changed his mind, but why? No way was he going to ask.

  Joe pointed to the envelope. “That’s twenty-five hundred US. It’s an advance for everything you’re about to do. After, yes, you can leave the posse, with all my blessings.”

  Frankie’s eyes burned. His uncle actually did care, in some twisted way. He was so confused, but not too confused to forget to thank him.

  “Hear me now. Me going give to you the name of a man in Florida. Me know him long time.” Joe scratched through his locks. “Tell everybody in the posse that you’re delivering something to him for me. Don’t tell them what.” He moved to the next plant, sprinkled more ash. “Then you’re going to disappear. You will make no more contact with anybody in Jamaica. Don’t call, text, nothing. Not me. Not your aunt. No one. You understand?”

  Frankie opened his mouth, closed and opened it again. He had to turn his back on everything and everyone he knew? He had to leave Jamaica—forever? Forever? “But Uncle—”

  Joe pinched out another weed. “You either want to leave the posse or you don’t.”

  This was where he’d been born, what and who he knew.

  “Me can’t let my people think they can just walk away from the posse, not even my nephew. You know this, Franklyn.” Joe stabbed a finger into the air for emphasis. “A posse can’t work like that. This is the only way.”

  Frankie looked down at the envelope, sweat already staining the paper. The envelope contained freedom—but why did there always have to be an effing price? He watched his uncle smoothing an extra pinch of ash around a smaller plant. He was so comfortable with the plants, pulling the weeds, watering them, taking such good care of them. Did he ever rip out a plant and throw it away if it wasn’t growing right? Probably not. Plants weren’t like people—plants couldn’t talk back. He was never going to get a better offer from his uncle. “I understand, Uncle,” he said emphatically.

  Forty-Five

  after dinner, Frankie lay in his shack, trying to get his head around what Joe was giving him and what that took away. And what it all meant for him and Leah. The roof beams above him had been spaced unevenly, probably putting undue stress on all of them. By the slope of the ceiling, Frankie guessed that whoever had built it hadn’t used a level—and actually, you didn’t even need a level. All they had to do was put a marble on the crossbeam….

  His cell phone vibrated. Leah. Want to come over?

  He couldn’t get there fast enough.

  He reached her gate as the sun set, a sole cricket already chirping, warming up for the night’s performance. As he rode over, he’d considered telling her that Joe was letting him out of the posse, but he decided he wouldn’t until he had his passport and visa in hand: he didn’t want to jinx anything. Bouncing happily on his toes, he thought about Penelope. But no, Leah wouldn’t have invited him over if Penelope was home. He stuck his hand through the front door grilling and knocked. The door opened. But it wasn’t Leah inside, it was Bradford, in uniform, gun in his holster.

  Stunned, he couldn’t think to say hello.

  “Come in!” Bradford sounded way too pleased to see him. Every alarm bell in Frankie’s being went off. He should turn. He should run. He’d get a bullet in the back. No, he had to play it cool.

  Bradford was motioning him inside. There was nowhere else for Frankie to go. So he stepped past the man into the living room, searching for Leah. What the hell was going on? Bradford was locking the door. Okayyyyy. Frankie glanced around, cool, cool, but enough to ascertain that the windows were all grilled and the back door was most likely locked. There was no way out. The house was quiet except for a big wall clock clicking away. Where was Leah?

  Bradford sniffed like he had a cold or something. But he didn’t look sick. He sniffed again. White powder rimmed his nostrils. Whoa—Bradford might be high. “You strapping?”

  Frankie resisted reaching for his gun. “Why you asking?” He tried to modulate his breathing, keep calm. Keep calm.

  “Stand there,” Bradford ordered, and then patted him down—ribs, waist. He reached under Frankie’s shirt and took the gun. He sniffed again, evaluating Frankie’s weapon, and then beckoned Frankie to follow him to the living room, where he took a seat at one end of the table, motioned to Frankie to sit opposite. Wait… there hadn’t been chairs at both ends of the table last time.

  And Bradford had scoffed at him when he’d sat at the head of the table last time. Now the sergeant was inviting him to take the very same seat? Ah… it made sense now. Sitting opposite afforded Bradford a straight shot. All he had to do was aim and pull the trigger. Keeping his eyes on Bradford, Frankie sat slowly. Then he saw a cell phone on the table. It looked like Leah’s. It was Leah’s. “Leah around?” he asked, casual as could be.

  Bradford picked up the phone, looked at it contemplatively. “Leah went to the movies with her friends tonight. She probably thinks she lost her phone.” He grinned.

  Frankie shifted to the edge of the seat, far enough from the table’s edge to fall or run, whatever he could do. “You texted me….” He tried to think this through. Bradford had used Leah to get him here. For what?

  Bradford leaned forward and started tapping his hand on the table. “Scholarship Boy.”

  Frankie swallowed the saliva that was welling in his mouth. Bradford was nobody’s fool. He knew that… now. “So why am I here?”

  Bradford stopped ta
pping and put Frankie’s gun on the table, flung one arm over the back of the chair and stared.

  Then he exclaimed, “Let’s see what you have to say about this.” He reached into his shirt, then threw something halfway across the table.

  It looked like… a black mask…

  “Pick it up,” Bradford ordered.

  Frankie reached for it. It was a cloth mask, only a narrow slit for the eyes. Holy shit! Death squad police. He’d heard stories about them. They wore masks like these when they went on murder missions. Bumboclot! Word was that when the police couldn’t find a perpetrator, they’d put on those masks, round up four or five “ghetto” teenagers, and kill them all on the spot, figuring that one of them had to be guilty. And if not, oh well—these cops murdered without a warrant or trial, and apparently both political parties secretly approved it all. Skin crawling, Frankie dropped the mask. The mask was Bradford’s! And now Frankie knew exactly what the man was telling him.

  Bradford’s grin grew wider. “So, you know what that is. Good. I’m of the opinion that you feel protected because your uncle and me do business.”

  Frankie fought the fear sizzling through him. Bradford could off him right now, and no one would ever know. Thoughts ricocheted. If he had told Joe about dating Bradford’s daughter, would he have found himself sitting at this table right now, wondering whether Bradford was going to kill him or not?

  “My daughter suffers from depression.” Bradford, for the first time, looked away. “I know how she is. If I run you off, she’ll want to be with you all the more.”