Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bro

by LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole

  It frustrated Cesar that the level of communication he had with Giselle did not seem possible with Coco or Roxanne. He confided his quandary to Giselle about whom to marry; she wouldn’t tell him—it was his life—but the conversations calmed him down. Giselle remained on good terms with her ex-husband. They shared the raising of their little boy. Some guys in prison read Cosmopolitan to help them understand females, but Cesar mined Giselle’s brain: he consulted her throughout the back-and-forth with Coco, the breakups and reunions and disappointments.

  Giselle’s looks reminded him of Jessica. She was short, dark-haired, and voluptuous. Her smile revealed the faintest trace of a scar from a childhood fight; her self-consciousness about the scar gave her the appealing impression of being shy. She took care of herself the way Cesar felt a real woman ought to: she had a standing Saturday appointment at the beauty parlor and kept her nails manicured.

  Giselle urged Cesar to be patient with Coco. Coco was raising three girls alone, and Giselle found it hard raising one with help from her ex and her mother. She pointed out to Cesar that it wasn’t easy to coordinate a prison visit with two small children and a baby. Still, Cesar privately wondered how Coco managed to write to Wishman if she was so pressed for time.

  In Wishman’s last letter to Coco, he’d reported that the federal charges against him had been dropped. Cesar figured Wishman was lining up Coco as one of his girls for his release. Wishman had requested photographs. Coco had sent them, although she didn’t tell Cesar. Cesar understood Coco well enough to remain suspicious. He sometimes felt less like a husband-to-be than like the father of a wayward child.

  Giselle gently reminded Cesar how fortunate Coco was to be able to stay home and raise his daughters. Giselle was so busy getting ahead that she rarely saw her son. Four nights a week, after full days of work, she attended classes at Bronx Community College, six until ten. Her son spent so much time with his grandmother that he called his grandmother Mommy and Giselle by name.

  Giselle’s quiet and unexpected perspective expanded Cesar’s own; her example offered him a different way of looking at familiar things. He looked forward to her letters. In a letter to Coco, perhaps drawing from Giselle’s optimism, he dared to end his year on a hopeful note: “Happy New Years ’94. 7 years and 10 months left, not 9 years no more.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was a record-breaking winter. Snowstorm after snowstorm hit the city. One sluggish January afternoon at Thorpe House, Coco received a phone call. “Whassup, bitch?” said the caller.

  “Who’s this?” Coco asked.

  “Who’s this?” Jessica joked.

  “Is this Jessica?” Coco squealed. The conversation had to be quick because Jessica’s counselor had allowed Jessica to place the call directly—a rare privilege officially reserved for emergencies. Coco hurriedly told Jessica that Tito wanted more pictures; that Cesar had been shipped to Southport, a special prison farther upstate; that she planned to get a tattoo with Cesar’s name. Coco also solicited Jessica’s advice about what to do about a dream Mercedes had just had. Mercedes had awakened demanding to know where Cesar was. She seemed unable to separate the dream from life.

  “Where’s my daddy?” Mercedes asked.

  “You be having a dream,” Coco said.

  “He be laying with me right here. Where he go?” Mercedes’s intentness spooked Coco.

  “You know where Daddy’s at,” Coco said sternly. Mercedes had started to cry.

  Jessica instructed Coco to fill a glass half full of water and place it under the bed, directly below Mercedes’s pillow. Jessica had learned the trick from Lourdes and swore it had once saved her life while she was living with George. She’d snuck out of the apartment without his knowledge, and during her absence, the apartment had been robbed. Jessica had paged George with the bad news and he’d calmly warned her that he was going to kill her when he returned home. Jessica had called Lourdes, panicked, and Lourdes instructed Jessica about the water glass. When George came back, he wasn’t even angry.

  Just the sound of Jessica’s voice helped Coco feel better: “She made my day. She’s the only one who could take me out of a bad mood.”

  When Coco got off the phone, Mercedes asked her mother to tell her again about the story of her dream about her father, a request she’d been repeating for weeks. Mercedes loved the idea of her daddy sleeping at her house. One of Mercedes’s favorite stories about her father’s short seven months of freedom was of those nights tucked snugly between her parents, at her grandmother’s Mount Hope apartment, in her daddy’s big bed.

  Coco arranged to get her first tattoo the following week. Like so many things in her life, the tattoo was less a sign of conviction than an attempt to redeem herself. Jessica had been urging Coco to fight for Cesar—“If Roxanne sends one million pictures, you send two million”—and Cesar had even instructed her to buy their wedding rings. But wedding rings cost money and he also wanted the children to visit—which cost money—and he continued needing money for his commissary. Cesar had even pressured her into smuggling weed while he was at Rikers, and she’d felt that by saying yes that one time she’d permanently forfeited her right to refuse. “I don’t want to end up like Jessica,” Coco said. “God forbid I get caught, what’s going to happen to my kids?” A tattoo was an easier way to prove her loyalty.

  Manuel made the appointment for Coco at their mother’s with a guy named Spider from whom he hoped to learn the craft. Manuel invited Coco to use his bedroom, which surprised Coco because Manuel didn’t ordinarily allow people around his things. Coco was closer in spirit to Hector, a softhearted boy even when he tried acting hard.

  Manuel’s room was hooked up; he kept his bedroom locked against the rest of the family. He stored his own groceries there and also kept his own TV and stereo. His windows had curtains. Moët, Manuel’s ferret, banged around her cage. Prayer cards from recent funerals of several of Manuel’s friends leaned on a bureau, between neat rows of name-brand deodorant and aftershave. The room was stuffy, though; Foxy’s apartment was either freezing or stifling; there was no middle ground.

  Coco sat on the bed and opened one of the tattoo books. Hector’s fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Iris, sat beside her. Coco’s family sometimes referred to the brown-eyed beauty as Hector’s Iris to distinguish her from Coco’s older sister. Hector’s Iris’s mother was in prison, and although Hector’s Iris technically lived with a sister, she spent most of her time at Foxy’s house. Coco and Hector’s Iris skimmed the tattoo sketchbooks like two girls flipping through fashion magazines. Iris was pregnant. Yasmin, Manuel’s girl, was finally pregnant, too. Above them, a photograph of Jessica was tucked into the frame of a print entitled HOT STUFF, which depicted a sexy firewoman barely covered by an enormous hose. Coco and Iris scanned page after page, binder after binder, of dragons and Jesuses and Garfields and Tweety birds and unicorns. They admired an elaborately scripted In Memory Of. Coco said when she had money, she’d get one in her father’s name.

  “How much for three babies with their name and they birthdays?” Coco asked Spider.

  “It depends,” said Spider, pulling out his homemade drill. As Manuel went off in search of paper towels, Spider picked at the guitar strings he’d fashioned into needles. He cleaned one with Ajax. He labored intently beneath a headband he’d rolled down to the word Marlboro, as though the name brand were a literal thought. Spider’s gray-hooded sweatshirt, which said nothing, was cut off at the waist. Metallica slashed across his hairy belly. Spider had learned his craft in prison. He’d first practiced on his forearm; his skills had improved significantly by the time he’d snaked his lessons around his neck. He snapped on latex gloves, over his skull-and-crossbones ring.

  Meanwhile, Coco scanned more images. Any remotely female picture had titanic breasts; backs were arched. The illustrated women all seemed to be either threatened—chased by, say, a gorilla—or threatening—snorting guns, swallowing snakes. Coco liked the one of a big-breasted girl with flow
ing mermaid hair who held a gun in each hand and stood over the top of the world defiantly.

  “That’s pretty. That looks like Jessica,” Coco said.

  “That’s cute, ‘Eat Me!’ ” Iris said, pointing to a strawberry.

  Coco spotted a reproduction of a photograph. “That woulda been nice, a picture of him,” she murmured.

  “I don’t like to do those,” Spider said.

  Coco selected a heart laced with a flying banner, on which she wanted written Coco Loves Cesar. “But I want two ribbons,” she added. Cesar wanted Coco’s new tattoo placed over her heart, but she had a small scar there, which embarrassed her, and she decided instead on the thickest part of her right thigh. She lay across Manuel’s bed on her stomach and shooed Mercedes and Nikki away. They backed up but hovered by the bedroom door.

  “The one ribbon will wrap around and look like two,” Spider promised.

  “I wanted one ever since Jessica,” Coco said. She gazed upward toward Jessica’s photograph. Spider rubbed Mennen deodorant on her thigh. He pressed the ditto paper facedown and rubbed until the image appeared. Coco wanted purple, her favorite color, but Spider decided on blue, green, yellow, and red.

  “My husband, Cesar, has a tattoo of his friend’s name, on the left side of his chest, that says ‘R.I.P.,’ it’s real nice,” Coco said self-consciously. The room was silent except for the sound of a movie on the VCR. “I feel like I’m laying on the bed for my husband Cesar to come to me.”

  “You bugged,” Iris said, and smiled. Spider measured the ink into a spoon. The needle drank it. He cut into Coco. She winced. She clasped a pillow to her chest. “I feel like I’m getting sliced. The way you peel an orange, that’s how I feel my skin’s coming out,” she said. She dove beneath the pillow and covered her head.

  “My mommy’s crying,” Mercedes said, alarmed. “My mommy’s crying!” No one paid her any mind. Next, she tried exclaiming, “A rat!” Still, no response. She turned her back to everyone and crossed her arms. Nikki stood next to her sister, wearing an oversize T-shirt, which swallowed her arms and legs. It was an old favorite of Coco’s that read 90% Bitch—10% Angel. Mercedes started bawling. Nikki tried a softer approach. “Mommy, why you getting a boo-boo?” she asked.

  Richie, Coco’s stepfather, peered in through the doorway. Richie was living at the Wards Island Men’s Shelter, waiting for an apartment, but he was visiting Foxy’s on a weekend pass. “Hey, gumba, whassup?” He looked down at Mercedes. “Why’s Mercedes crying?” No one answered.

  Foxy appeared behind him, wiping her hands on her apron. “I’d like a rose, I’ll take it here,” she said as she pounded hard above her breast. She dragged down the collar of her T-shirt and showed Spider a tattoo her brother had given her. It was supposed to be a rose, but the broad stem looked like a snap pea. “You want to continue that?” Foxy asked Spider sociably.

  “Don’t do anything, just let it heal. If you mess with it, it might get infected,” said Spider.

  “Coco, why the girls eating candy so close when I’m making dinner?” asked Foxy. Coco said nothing. She let the girls eat candy a lot of the time. Foxy and Richie went back into the kitchen. Mercedes’s sobs had become softer and more rhythmic. Coco peeked from the pillow and smiled at her daughters. Mercedes pouted, then smiled back, relieved. Coco said, “I think that’s what’ll make me stronger, looking at my girls.”

  “Some people find this pleasurable. They get hooked on this, like addicted,” Spider said. The temperature of the room rose. Sweat dripped from Spider’s forehead onto Coco’s leg. He sipped his Coke. The needle whined. He outlined the heart in blue. Coco limped down the hall and washed it with soap, the girls tagging close. Nikki babbled as she zigzagged down the hall, “Mommy, I lub you,” her T-shirt dragging on the floor behind her.

  Coco’s uncle Benny, who’d botched Foxy’s rose tattoo, cornered Coco near the bathroom. He practically lived at Foxy’s. Prison and heroin had gotten the better of him, although he still had a spark. Foxy fondly called him “the man of a million and one lies.” Benny still liked to hang out, but he’d calmed down some since discovering he’d tested positive for HIV. He warned Coco about unclean needles. “You don’t want to hear a lecture, I know,” he said, then delivered one, closing with “But you too old to hear a lecture.”

  Manuel admired the heart on Coco’s leg. “That shit came out phat,” he said, impressed.

  Back in Manuel’s bedroom, Nikki occupied herself on the floor with a coloring book. Spider still had a lot to fill in. Coco prepared for his next incision. She appealed to Jessica’s photograph. She raised up her eyes, as if in prayer, and whispered, “Go, girl, go,” bonding with Jessica through the suffering. “Thass one thing, Jessica know how to take pain,” Coco boasted. She described the tattoo Jessica had over her bottom, Property of George. For her next tattoo, Coco wanted one like it, Property of Cesar, but with an arrow pointing down.

  “Yo, what if you break up? What if you find another man?” Manuel asked sharply.

  “They gotta accept it. It’s who I am. It’s a part of who I be.”

  “I wouldn’t get no one’s name but my children,” Manuel said.

  “He showed me things I never knew. If Cesar was ever to say ‘I don’t love you,’ I’d of tored his face up.”

  “That’s why you have to think twice about putting a man’s name on your body. I’d only put my mother or my daughter,” Manuel said.

  Spider zigzagged the needle across the skin of Coco’s drawn heart. He colored in the bare flesh. Nikki compared his drawing to hers and hopped around. “My mommy finished boo-boo! Boo-boo, my mommy happy,” she said.

  In the living room, Richie, Foxy, Benny, and some of Hector’s friends played spades at the table, the music playing low. Mercedes clamored for Foxy’s Malta drink. Spider packed up his drill, which Benny called “the AIDS machine,” and headed out with Manuel and Yasmin, who were going to buy a Philly and weed for a blunt.

  Coco still lounged on Manuel’s bed, letting the wound dry. “I can’t wait till summer,” she said roguishly. She’d pass by Lourdes’s way and make it her business to get seen. She relished the thought of strutting by all the Mount Hope girls Cesar had slept with, the jealousy she would arouse when she flashed her tattoo. Tattoos were almost as good as gold nameplate necklaces. Coco’s daydream ended abruptly when a cockroach scurried across the bloody heart on her thigh.

  Soon after he was transferred to Southport, Cesar broke up with Coco again. “The part that hurts is how he said he don’t want to have no more kids with me. I want a boy. He knows that,” she said. She blamed the breakup on her spotty face. In one of her countless letters of apology, Coco added a postscript: “I’m sorry for not being the girl you want me to be. I wish Pa, just for you, that I could be that perfect girl. But Im not.” She still promised to send him money when she received her welfare check.

  The next day, Cesar’s homeboy Tito called in from Rikers to say hello. Tito called frequently because he manned one of the Rikers phone banks. For protection, he had joined the Latin Kings gang, and he extorted money for them from inmates who wanted to use the phone. “Your man broke up with me; it’s because I pick my face and he won’t let me have my baby boy,” Coco informed him.

  “Coco, leave your face alone and work shit out,” Tito said. He tried to break it down for her: Cesar had been shipped to Southport for punishment for the fight he’d had with the Muslim. Southport was the facility where prison inmates went if the isolation units of their own prisons weren’t punishment enough. Inmates at Southport endured twenty-four-hour lockdown in a single-man cell and severe restrictions on all outside contact and activity. Segregation made a guy go crazy, Tito explained. The box made a boy want to say “Fuck it” to everyone. Coco’s duty as a wife was to make his time easier. Coco tested out Tito’s theory on her sister, who was unconvinced. “Coco, it’s like you in a box, because all you think of Cesar, Cesar, Cesar,” Iris replied. Coco proffered her idea about her marked
skin. “Your face is just an excuse,” Iris said.

  If reason played a part, its role kept changing. Coco and Cesar did soon get back together, then broke up again and reunited, for reasons Coco eventually lost track of. Coco’s new GED tutor helped her with nouns, pronouns, adjectives. She showed him her tattoo. Coco was good at strong beginnings and lousy on follow-through. She missed several sessions. School-wise, she said, she started to “mess up.” She wrote to Wishman and then to Cesar, to confess that she’d written Wishman. It was only February, and the snow seemed as though it would never stop. On the envelope of Cesar’s last conciliatory letter was a reminder that suggested he knew, even if Coco didn’t, the direction she was headed in: “Use your mind to control all your body parts.” The next time her tutor came, they worked on social issues and verbs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  One night, Coco, Mercedes, and Nautica waited at Columbus Circle in Manhattan for the Prison Gap, a bus to Southport. Coco had left Nikki with Foxy; when things were rocky between him and Coco, Coco knew it was best to bring only his girls. A stable of old buses idled. Transportation companies like Operation Prison Gap, some managed by ex-convicts, hauled families and friends of prisoners upstate to visit loved ones. Without them, the visits would have been impossible; few people had cars. Prisons dotted the huge state, and inmates moved among them, seemingly arbitrarily. The bus riders were almost always women and children. Except for special charters on Mother’s Day or Family Day, the buses serviced primarily men’s facilities. Women inmates, like Jessica, had a much harder time seeing family. Passengers often recognized one another—from other routes, the long hours spent together waiting in processing, or the neighborhood; the majority of state prisoners came from the same parts of New York City. Some of the women became friends.