Your Corner Dark

by Desmond Hall

  The boys scanned the lot. Cricket nodded first. Big Pelton was slow to spot anything. Finally he, too, grunted.

  “Okay, let’s do it. And remember, look like you’re having fun!” Frankie led the way—though Cricket was more senior in the posse, this was Frankie’s plan.

  They broke into an easy trot, passing the ball to each other. Cricket kicked it over to the empty Escalade, pretended to lose control, then banged his elbow against the rear window and again against a back panel. Both sounds were loud. He picked up the ball, then dribbled it over to the BMW and pretended to tie his shoelaces.

  An old couple dressed country-nice stopped and smiled. “Nice to see young men not on their phones,” the man said to his wife.

  Cricket kept his head down till they left. But now a tall woman was coming his way. He made as if he were losing his balance and slammed his hand into the fender, hard. The hit resounded. Springing up, he shook his head and passed the ball to Big Pelton.

  And Big Pelton—was awful! He could barely dribble the ball. He’d bragged about his soccer skills, but then, everyone did. Frankie should have known better. He thought wistfully of Winston—he looked like a yam, but jeezum, the guy had skills with the ball.

  Big Pelton lost control. The ball went rolling too far ahead, toward the Denali. Frankie hopped over a woman’s bag and sprinted toward the patch of coconut trees where the Denali was parked. But before either he or Big Pelton could get to the ball, a bulky man with ropy gold chains heaved himself out of the driver’s side. He grabbed the ball, volleyed it from foot to foot—total skills—and passed it back to Big Pelton.

  Frankie hissed, “Shoot it back.” Please, please don’t miss, he prayed.

  Big Pelton wound up and fired a blast toward the passenger-side door of the Denali. The big man extended his long arms and batted away the ball easily. Then he pointed a crooked finger at him. “Bwoy, I am not a goalie. Move away from here!”

  Frankie was sure he was going to have heart failure. He took a quick step forward. “What!? You say him can’t play! You can’t say that ’bout my friend!”

  “You crazy or something, bwoy?” the huge man said, clearly confused by Frankie’s outburst. He scooped up the ball.

  “I can play betta than you!” Frankie insisted, continuing forward. The driver seemed to get bigger as he got closer.

  The Denali’s passenger-side window slid down to reveal a light-skinned man smoking a cigarette. “What’s going on out there?”

  “Him say I can’t play!” Frankie fronted.

  The man blew out smoke and said to his driver, “Why are you troubling the bwoy? We have work to do.”

  “It wasn’t my fault!”

  “Get in and stop playing.” The tinted window went up.

  “Gimme my ball back!” Frankie dug deep for courage, ran up and wrenched the ball out of the man’s hands, pretended to fumble it, then threw it against the Denali. It bounced off the side. Nothing. Nothing? Not a sound! The man scooped the ball off the ground with one huge hand and, with a look that could kill, whipped out a knife with the other and rammed it through the ball—pffff—deflating it instantly.

  “You dead mi’ ball, mon!”

  “The man crazy to backside!” Cricket added.

  “Get the hell out of here, now,” the man warned, and all three took off. After circling the entire lot to be extra careful, they returned to the van from the opposite side and jumped in. Frankie scrambled up to his aunt. “It’s the Denali,” he gasped.

  “You sure?”

  “There wasn’t any sound.”

  She turned her gaze on Cricket.

  “BMW: boom. Escalade: boom. Denali: nada.”

  She pivoted, seemingly satisfied.

  “Me know it was the Denali.” Buck-Buck laughed. “Pay up.”

  “Stop it, you never know,” Ice Box scoffed.

  “Both of you shut up and watch the lot,” Aunt Jenny fumed.

  Frankie sat back, suddenly exhausted. The big guy in gold chains was indeed one of Taqwan’s men. The Denali was the car. He couldn’t help but feel, for a moment, pleased. It worked. His idea had worked. But he quickly reminded himself that they weren’t done. They’d actually barely gotten started. He rubbed the handle of his gun, trying to picture how things might go.

  Aunt Jenny leaned forward. “There—”

  They all looked.

  A bald, thick-necked white man in mirrored sunglasses, pulling a large rolling suitcase, was heading straight toward the Denali. Frankie took several deep breaths and tried, tried to calm down. Aunt Jenny had to make the call to Bradford now; his men were stationed in unmarked cars along the road, ready to follow the Denali to the stash house. Aunt Jenny would drive slow, trail far behind, and after getting the word, they would rendezvous with Bradford and his team to attack the stash house together. Frankie took his gun out. One more mission. But even though Bradford’s men were good, this wasn’t going to be easy. One more mission.

  The passenger-side door of the Denali opened and the light-skinned man got out, flicked away his cigarette, and greeted the man with the suitcase.

  “Must be him.”

  Aunt Jenny was tapping the window with the nail of her index finger.

  “Jenny?” Buck-Buck put his hand on the dash.

  Tap… tap… tap…

  Buck-Buck leaned closer to her. “Them leaving, you know.”

  She took out her phone, called, and waited. “We identified the vehicle. But we’re not coming in on the hit. You’re going to have to do it yourself.” She listened.

  This wasn’t the plan. Frankie felt as confused as everyone else was, by the looks on their faces. Except Aunt Jenny’s. She couldn’t look less confused.

  She cleared her throat. “If you don’t give us a split, I don’t tell you which car them in.” She pursed her lips. “Okay, we can work out the split after. It’s a black Denali. Okay.”

  “What di hell, Jenny?” Stunned, Buck-Buck stared at her.

  “We no ready for this.” She watched the Denali drive off. “The stash house is going to be rough. Too rough fi us. No… Bradford can handle this one.” She started the engine and pulled out.

  Frankie wondered what Joe would have done about the stash house. He had seen Ray-Ban Boy make the call but had still gone ahead with the attack on the church and almost got them all killed. Aunt Jenny had pulled the plug on the stash house mission. She saw the imminent danger that hitting the stash house presented. She made the unpopular, tough, but smart choice. They would live for another day. Frankie exhaled and put his gun away. Maybe this was his last mission. He prayed.

  Fifty-Three

  ten days after the Monday morning airport hit, Frankie woke up already feeling freakin’ exhausted. He’d been bagging yams and ganja, scraping clean knives and forks, and doing watch duty, day and night. While Aunt Jenny had been talking with everyone individually, even the Spanish Town, Kingston, and Stony Mountain crews, motivating them with talk of expansion—roles and payrolls—she had simply assigned Frankie the most boring work that posse life could offer. The days were crawling by so slowly he thought he’d implode. Only spreading ash in the ganja field was remotely interesting, and even that was only because it reminded him of Joe. And that usually led to thoughts of his father, which led to thoughts of Winston. And so the ash spreading felt almost like a way to mourn them all in his own time without other events interfering.

  As he came out from the shower, he saw Bradford heading into Aunt Jenny’s house. He seemed to be in even grimmer moods after the stash house hit. Maybe because he’d lost two of his men getting the last of Taqwan’s drugs? Maybe… that had bothered him? Losing his own men? Frankie took his time getting dressed, peeking out the window and listening out for the sound of Bradford’s jeep starting up. He deliberately avoided looking at the crab shell—as if somehow Bradford might even sense Frankie thinking about his daughter.

  The minute Bradford came out, heading for his jeep, Frankie went over to his au
nt’s house. As the jeep roared to life, someone clasped his arm. He jumped a mile. Buck-Buck. “Jenny wants to talk to you.” Frankie’s mind raced. “Yeah, I was on my way there.” What had Bradford said? He pushed that thought away. Telling his aunt would not be how Bradford would handle that.

  “Yes, come,” she called when he knocked.

  She sat at a small table, a bunch of papers fanned out. She looked like Frankie’s mother when she’d done the monthly bills. “How are things in the vineyard?”

  He smiled at Joe’s nickname for the ganja field. “Okay.”

  “Good.” She was looking through him. Oh no. Maybe Bradford had said something.

  He had to ask. “Everything okay with Bradford?”

  “Him? He’s a pain in my ass, but we working it out.” She looked back down at the papers, tapped her nail on the desk.

  Relieved, Frankie eyed the papers, ran his hand back over his hair. Had they made less of a cut because they didn’t hit the stash house with Bradford? “Aunt Jenny, at the airport… why didn’t you… why did you call off the mission, really?”

  “You with the questions!” She sat up and smiled. “A good one. So, I didn’t think it was worth it, didn’t from the get-go. The airport was one thing. They couldn’t expect a hit there. But they had to be guarding that stash house with everything they had left.” She rubbed a finger over a chipped fingernail, frowning. “In the end it came down to having the element of surprise. We had it at the airport. I doubt if we would have had it by the time we got to the stash house.”

  No moss grew on his aunt Jenny. Joe… Joe definitely would have gone through with the stash house hit, and grass would have grown over all their graves days ago.

  Jenny eyed him. “Another thing. Me had to show Bradford that me is no joke. Him probably never worked with a woman before, zeen?”

  “Ah so di t’ing set!”

  “Damn right, that’s the way it is, Franklyn.” She leaned back and gestured to her night table. “Get that packet for me, no?”

  “Open it,” she said when he brought it over.

  Frankie tore off the flap and reached inside, daring to wonder. His stupid hands were shaking. Get a grip! Then he felt the smooth texture of the small book and knew for sure. He had pictured it, hoped for it, and still the sight of his first passport made time stop.

  “The visa is inside. Buck-Buck’s contact will arrange for the plane ticket too.”

  He opened the passport, saw the paper, closed it shut again, as if it might evaporate just by looking at it. He stared at his aunt, not knowing what to say.

  “Lawd, take that look off your face.” She pointed a forefinger. “Now listen, I need you to stay on top of things with Denetria for the next few months. I have to focus on taking over Taqwan’s territory.”

  She went on talking, but Frankie was with his own thoughts, listening to the inner voice that was almost never wrong. It was the sound of his gut, the one that had warned him about joining the posse. The voice was telling him to leave Jamaica now. Plus, she had promised one last mission! Next few months? What if something went down while he was dealing with Denetria? A few months could bleed into a long time.

  “You listening?”

  “I’m listening. And no. I need to go.”

  She stared through him again. “It’s the girl, right?”

  Bradford?

  “Don’t worry, everything’s all right. Bradford didn’t say anything.”

  That was a relief, but still… “I can’t do it, Aunt Jenny.” The words sounded like they came out of someone else’s mouth, like another version of himself said them. She was family, the last of it, but he couldn’t, couldn’t stay in the posse any longer.

  She bit a nail like it was the shell of a nut she was cracking open. “When is she leaving?”

  “About a month.” He stood up straight. “I can handle the deliveries and things until then.”

  She picked up a piece of paper and put it back down. “It’s all right.”

  “No, I can do it.”

  “No, Franklyn, I just wanted to see something.”

  “What?”

  She gathered the papers and stacked them. “To see if you were afraid. If you’re going to be with that girl, you can’t be afraid of Bradford.” Dang! She knew everything! Frankie saw her glance at her Glock, then back at him again. “I’ll see what I can do about him in time, but for now we need him.”

  He was pretty sure he knew what she meant. His throat went dry. He felt weak, his reserve dwindling. “I can do it. The things with Denetria, until…”

  “No, Franklyn, you’re going to lie low around the camp and then you’re going to leave with your girl. Get that degree, Stingray Boy. That’s the way it’s going to go.”

  He wanted to tell her what this meant to him. But how?

  “You earned it, boy. Save the soft talk. We have time for that when you’re leaving for good.” She raised her chin and gestured at the door. “Get Buck-Buck and Ice Box.” She wagged her finger. “And don’t worry about me. You damn well better know I’m strong like Johnnie Walker.” And she smiled a smile that let him know she was happy for him.

  At the door, Frankie looked once more at the passport. When he’d gotten the scholarship letter, his father hadn’t celebrated it. But Aunt Jenny… she was cheering him on, even though she was losing a posse member. But she was not Samson, and Samson was not Aunt Jenny. The thought cascaded in his mind—water bounding down the falls, twisting, turning. Maybe it wasn’t so much that his father hadn’t understood him, but that he hadn’t truly understood his father. Samson might not have been the ideal father for Frankie, but had Frankie been the ideal son for Samson? He wasn’t sure he’d ever know. What he knew was that his father had loved him… in his own way.

  “So you just going fi stand there all day?”

  He grinned, shoved the envelope with the passport into his back pocket. Safer there. He looked back to see Aunt Jenny, a document in hand, reading. “I’ll miss you.”

  She looked up. “Yes, you will, Franklyn.” She worked her jaw side to side ever so slightly. “Now get Ice Box and Buck-Buck.”

  He walked through the encampment—the long wooden table, the curving row of houses. A home, one he’d miss but needed to leave, just like Jamaica itself. There were a lot of problems. Frankie’s mother used to say, The rain is falling but the dirt is tough.

  But still, he hoped he and Leah would come back one day, and help make a difference. Then the sweet mountain breeze caressed his face. He could smell the positivity. All Jamaicans breathed it. Out of many, one people.

  Acknowledgments

  My brilliant and beautiful wife, Maria, for always believing in my crazy dream where I could go from a Madison Avenue ad guy to Boston novelist, and for urging me to work more and more and more on Frankie’s character. My children, Oona and Babette: thanks for giving me time and the belief that I could do it—I love you both so much; you’re everything. My dad, for teaching me about systems. My amazing editor, Caitlyn Dlouhy—you are simply magical. To Faye Bender—I can’t imagine a better and more thoughtful literary agent. To Jenn De Leon: a great novelist, and teacher, who opened so many doors for me. To Victor Levin: a great writer, filmmaker, showrunner, and father, who took the time to open my eyes. To Eve Bridberg, for founding Grub Street, the best writing school anywhere. To Michelle Hoover: not just a great novelist, but also a teacher who enlightens, identifies problems, and offers brilliant suggestions. To Denis Ellis Bechard: a great novelist and teacher. To Shauna Hall, for the title of this book. To Julia Rold: a great writer, teacher, and excellent friend. To Andrea Meyer—thanks for all your notes over all the years. To my Novel Incubator class at Grub Street, and to my post-Incubator writing group: You all destroy the myth of the solitary writer through your amazing, collective insights that have helped my work become better over the last several years. To Dr. Jose Trevejo and Elmy, for believing and always inspiring; Dr. Richard Balaban, for offering your medical expertis
e and true belief; and Dr. Alok Kapoor and Dr. Elora Chowdhury, for all your support. To Oral Nurse and Damon Ross: true day-ones. To Lou Koskovolis: a man’s man. And Ted and Gina Parrack, my ever-inspiring second family. To Joe Petito and Rob Swadosh: legit big brothers. To Piper Hickman, Carl Desir, and Elodie: a beautiful family that inspires. Fabien and Christine Siegel: entrepreneurial rock stars. Spike Lee, thanks for giving me a shot. To Rossen Ventzislavov: a man of erudition. Linda Cutting—it was great writing with you. To Dr. Greg Snyder and Dr. Adam Keene: thanks for your support. And Sami and Christina, for all your fantastic support. Thanks to Jon and Lisa Gold. To Esther Oluffa Pedersen, for all your help and genius; Bozoma St. John: You are, indeed, badass. To Ole Lund Hansen, Hillary Spann, and Bob Scarpelli: a great teacher. To Michael Brincker, and Tilde Westmark—visionaries. And to Annie Brincker, your steadfast support is so appreciated.

  About the Author

  Author photo © Tom Kates

  DESMOND HALL was born in Jamaica, West Indies, and then moved to Jamaica, Queens. He’s worked as both a high school biology and English teacher, counseled at-risk teens, and served as Spike Lee’s creative director at Spike DDB. He’s also served on the board of the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and was a judge for the ADDYs and the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival. Named one of Variety magazine’s 50 Creatives to Watch, Desmond lives with his wife and daughters in Boston. Find out more at desmondhallswork.com and desmondhallauthor.com.

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  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

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