Rude Boy USA

by Victoria Bolton

  Ben went out for the day on the corner of East 172nd Street and Hoe Avenue. This location was the most lucrative for him. Others included sections in Mott Haven, Morris Heights, and Hunts Point, as one of the clerks in the corner grocery store brought customers in for Ben in return for a recruiting fee. Before he arrived, he needed a pick-me-up. In preparation for marathon drug pushes, Ben would sometimes smoke crack or get a shot of heroin in his left foot. His foot had so many needle pricks that he had to switch feet. He felt that the drugs gave him an advantage, the ability to leave his conscious at home. A bag would give him about four hours of obliviousness. Ben would stand there, make a sale, and hit on the women who passed him throughout the day.

  Jerome took the box of baby clothes and began to walk down the street so he could catch a cab home. While walking, he thought he saw Ben but did not know for sure if it was him. Ben’s looks had changed dramatically, and Jerome could not get over his shock. Ben’s once model looks had all but disappeared, and his disposition was shambolic. Ben had turned into one of the dealers on the street corner. Jerome walked over to get a closer look. Ben noticed Jerome immediately. He wanted to walk away but could not. On the one hand, he was embarrassed about his current state; on the contrary, he was relieved to see a familiar face.

  “Hey. I saw you coming,” Ben said as Jerome walked closer to him. Jerome used to shake Ben’s hand when they greeted, but some of Ben’s nails were so long and filthy that he did not want to touch them. He held onto the box instead.

  “What happened to you? Why do you look like that?” Jerome asked him.

  Ben took a hard sniffle. “I’m good. I live here now. This is my home. This is my job,” he answered.

  “What is that on your face? Is it dirt?” Jerome asked.

  “It’s a tattoo, something different,” Ben said. He looked down to see what Jerome had in the box. He noticed the wedding band. “I see your ring. Newlywed? Congratulations.” Ben pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and began smoking.

  “Thanks. I was just here picking up baby clothes from family,” Jerome told him.

  “So I’m going to be an uncle,” Ben said.

  Jerome winced. “The baby is already here…” he said and quickly changed the subject. “We were looking for you, like really looking for you. I just did not expect to see you like this.”

  “I think I look fine,” Ben answered.

  “Look, we are in trouble. All of us are in trouble,” Jerome said.

  “I know; I read. Shame what happened to her,” Ben answered.

  Jerome stared at Ben for a second. “Where’s Celia?” he asked sternly.

  Ben shrugged. “I don’t know where she is. Isn’t she laid up under John or something?”

  Jerome shook his head. “No, she isn’t. We can’t find her either. We were hoping that you knew.” Jerome paused.

  “Well, if she were smart, she would have gotten the fuck out of here by now,” Ben answered.

  Jerome began to pace a bit. “They trashed everything and burned us down. We’re still a team, though. I’ve heard some things about you, and we need to talk, now,” Jerome told him.

  “Yeah, we do,” Ben said. He had Jerome follow him to the basement apartment that he shared with his roommate, Jose.

  When Jerome arrived at Ben’s apartment, he saw a couch, a loveseat, two mattresses, and a table full of drug paraphernalia and cups. Jerome had not suspected such a scene, and nothing resembled the lifestyle that Ben once led. Trash and piles of clothes lay in the corners. There was a pair of women’s panties balled up between the sofa cushions. Large rocks from outside sat on top of newspapers and magazines. None of the articles of clothing strewn about resembled the style and polish that Ben once wore proudly. The apartment had a strong smell of marijuana. The couch was dirty, and Jerome chose to sit on the arm instead so as not to ruin his suit. He put his box to the side.

  “Brother, we can’t keep saving you. You got to keep it together,” Jerome told him sternly.

  “I don’t need fucking saving. I am just fine here. I’m not John. I am with people who get me, who appreciate my work. I’m a Ghetto Brother now,” Ben told him.

  Jerome laughed. “There’s nothing ghetto about you. You are a wannabe. You are one of us. Once a rude boy, always a rude boy.”

  “That’s over. I am getting a real chance now to show my skills, and if that stupid bitch didn’t fuck up, everyone could have seen what I was capable of doing,” Ben said.

  “Wait, wait. You knew what was going on? You were in on this, you and Edina?” Jerome asked him.

  “I knew she was selling. She told me she was selling the group to Ambrosino. Oh, well,” Ben said.

  “Shit, Ben! And you did nothing to stop her? Did you tell no one? None of us? You disappeared like you always do. You mean to tell me that something about that plan did not click on your head, that perhaps just maybe this wasn’t right? You owed us that!” Jerome yelled at Ben.

  “For your information, I did. Yep, I did. Then I got the fuck over it. It wasn’t Bernie’s company anymore. I had no power,” Ben said as he threw his hands up. “For all I know, she and John probably put this together. I never trusted him. It don’t matter anyway. Bernie gave it to John, his prodigal fucking son, his favorite, and I’m gonna tell you, I was not taking orders from him. John is not my boss. You, he, or she was not going to be my bosses. I owed you nothing. She cut you a nice check,” Ben told him.

  “Bernie gave you many chances. You kept fucking up! Don’t blame that on us. Bullshit, man! Fuck that!” Jerome said, and then he paused. “Did you take the money from Edina?” Jerome asked him.

  “I don’t have to answer that,” Ben responded.

  “Did you kill her?” Jerome asked.

  “No,” Ben answered, and he walked closer to Jerome. “I’m not the killer in this group. I served in a war where I had the opportunity to shoot children in the face, like the others, and I didn’t. Don’t ever accuse me of being a murderer.” Ben stared into Jerome’s eyes and pointed at him. “You of all people do not have any grounds to judge me,” he said.

  “I should never have let you within two feet of Celia,” Jerome said.

  “What’s the problem? Celia is a modern lady; she can make her own choices,” Ben said snidely.

  “She didn’t know about you,” Jerome snapped.

  “Oh, and what were you going to do about it, run and tell John? You were always John’s bitch! Yep, the John, and Jerome show. You two always conspired against me. You two made decisions with Bernie without including me! I put in just as much as anyone else there, more than you! You were never supposed to be that high! Ah, Celia, flower, I miss her. The inside of her felt so good,” Ben said.

  “You fucking druggie!” Jerome stood up and punched Ben. He let no one disrespect his family. Ben hit him back, and they began to wrestle on the floor, on the dirty carpet and trash. They continued to fight until Ben became enraged in a heroin-induced schizophrenic episode. A small amount of foam began to form in the corner of his mouth, and his neck started to bulge with purple veins. He started choking Jerome until Jerome managed to hit him in the face to get Ben off him. While Jerome sat up and attempted to catch his breath, Ben picked up one of the large rocks he had placed on top of the papers and hit Jerome in the head, cracking his skull. Jerome hit the floor backward as blood splattered on the carpet, couch, and walls. He did not move anymore.

  Ben stood above him in shock. He saw that Jerome was not moving. Ben knelt down and tried to shake him, getting blood on his hands and pants. The blood reminded Ben of the time he accidentally cut his face when he was young and of all the blood he saw in the war. The bleeding freaked him out. Maybe he is just unconscious, Ben thought. He continued to shake Jerome to wake him, but no success. Jerome was not breathing anymore, and Ben got scared. He backed all the way into one of the corners in the room. He slid down onto the pile of clothes and stared at Jerome, lying lifeless and bleeding on the carpet. Ben began to sweat and shake
back and forth while continuing to look at Jerome. The room started to spin. It all happened so fast, he thought. In Ben’s drug-induced state, he had a brief moment of clarity. “What the fuck just happened?” he kept repeating until he lay down in the pile of clothes in the fetal position. Ben blacked out.

  Hours later, Jose returned to the apartment to find Jerome stiff and lifeless in the middle of the floor, and Ben still crouched in the corner. Jose went to get a cup of water to throw on Ben to wake him up. When Jose poured it on him, Ben sat up.

  “Get up, fuckface!” Jose yelled at him. “Why is there a dead guy in the living room?” Ben looked over, saw Jerome, and instantly felt regret and sadness. He faintly remembered the occurrences of hours before, because he was so high. “Get him out of here before he starts to smell, and you clean that shit up,” Jose said, pointing to the blood splatter.

  “Help me,” Ben said to Jose.

  “Help you with what? Why is he in here? Why is he bleeding on the carpet?” Jose asked.

  “I didn’t mean it. I got upset. Just help me pick him up. I have to put him someplace,” Ben answered.

  “You know this guy, or is he a client?” Jose asked.

  “He’s a friend of ours.”

  Jose looked at him in repugnance and shook his head. “Ben, you need to straighten up your act. I will help you, but you can’t be involving me in this kind of a mess. We can’t have cops here. I don’t have a record; you do,” he said.

  Ben and Jose picked Jerome up and wrapped him in a bedsheet. Ben took the rock he had used to hit him out of the apartment with them. When the coast was clear, they moved Jerome’s body into Jose’s car. They drove to one of the many abandoned lots in the Bronx and placed him there. They put him in a spot where they knew he would be found quickly. Ben removed Jerome’s wallet, keys, chain, and gold wedding band so it would look like a robbery. They unwrapped him, leaving him exposed to the elements. Before they left, Ben looked at him and said, “I’m so sorry, brother.” When Ben and Jose left the lot, they drove the rock over to the Hudson River and tossed it. It sank to the bottom.

  When they went back to the apartment, Ben looked around. He grabbed the bleach and a washcloth and began cleaning the walls and carpet of Jerome’s blood. He looked over and saw the box that Jerome had brought in with him. He opened it and saw the baby clothes for a boy. He had a son, Ben thought. He closed it, pushed it to one of the other corners, and continued to clean up the scene. Each scrub brought more regret. He took all of his anger toward his life situation and jealousy of John out on Jerome. He broke his vow never to harm any of his brothers. There was no returning for him.

  As the afternoon went on, kids started getting out of school. The neighborhood did not offer many after school activities, so many of them would go to the abandoned lots and scavenge to keep busy until it was time to return home. Two kids, one nine and the other ten years old, went to a lot that they had not visited before. They stumbled onto the well-dressed body of a black man, missing his expensive shoes. They figured a homeless person had removed them. His other clothing would have been stripped off if it wasn’t already bloodstained. That man was Jerome. The two kids went to get other children to show them the dead body. Other kids went to get help for the bleeding man. Not too long after the discovery, ambulances and law enforcement arrived. They conducted an investigation, and when they were done, they removed Jerome’s body to the coroner for identification.

  Jerome had been missing for almost twenty-four hours when Mariana became worried. She was concerned that he had not called and checked in on her and the baby. This was unlike him. John sent out some of the Jet Mafia to trace Jerome’s tracks. He became angry when one of them informed him that they left him in the Bronx at his request. “You are never to do that. I pay you enough money. We are still targets,” John exclaimed.

  “Hey, he said he knew these people,” one of the guards told him. John and Mariana began calling people they knew. Mariana contacted her grandmother to see if he made it to her place. Her grandmother informed her that he came and left with the box, but she had not heard from him since. Mariana began calling hospitals, and John contacted his connections in the forty-second precinct. One of the officers there told John that they had found a male that fit Jerome’s description and that they were frantically trying to identify the remains because there was no wallet on him.

  John knew that crime was common in that area and that the body the officer was describing was probably not Jerome. For all he knew, it could have been a gang member or another homeless person. He told the police that he would be down there later on. John continued to call other people to locate him, including Jerome’s parents. After hours of unsuccessful looking, John went to the precinct, and from there they directed him to the coroner’s office, where he met with the chief medical examiner. They took John into the freezer where the bodies were held to see if he could identify the body. When the examiner opened the freezer drawer, John immediately noticed the bloodied suit jacket. Jerome’s head was swollen and unrecognizable, and he was pale. John felt light-headed and sick to his stomach, and he immediately vomited on the floor. He crouched down.

  “Are you OK?” the examiner asked him. John shook his head. “Is this Jerome Dexter?” John nodded.

  The coroner told John that they suspected robbery but required further investigation. It looked as though he had been killed and dumped there. John dreaded making the phone call to Jerome’s family and his wife. After sitting down for forty minutes preparing himself while dealing with his own grief, he picked up the phone to call Mariana first. When she answered, he told her with a shaky voice that the police had located Jerome, and he explained his friend’s fate. Mariana let out a bloodcurdling scream on the other end. She nearly dropped the baby, which made him cry and scream. Her mother ran into the room to see what the commotion was about. Mariana cried to her mother that someone had robbed Jerome and he was dead. Her mother attempted to comfort her but could not contain her own emotions. They both wailed in unison. John then called Jerome’s parents, and his mother did the same. The sounds made John break down in the office.

  Celia by this time had begun looking for housing in Kingston. She settled for a colorful little house for sale on Old Hope Road, the same street where Bob Marley and other musicians lived. Celia wanted to be a part of the musical community and knew this would be a great place to settle and find inspiration. She had just completed the closing process and was ready to move in. Celia was very proud when she held the keys for the first time. She did not have any furniture yet, but she was willing to sleep on a cot until she got everything settled. She had filed her paperwork to start a teaching program in the fall and had been brushing up on her piano skills. She had also decided to apply for a part-time job to keep her busy in the meantime. She was ready to get out of the hotel and on her own property. She had all of her affairs in order, and she had informed her mother that she would make Kingston her permanent home.

  Celia returned to the Playboy Hotel to gather her things and give them notice that she would finally vacate the room. The front-desk concierge handed her a note from her mother instructing her to call home immediately. Not thinking much about it, she went to her room to begin packing her things. She had enlisted Karlus to help her with the move by offering generous pay. She sat down on the bed and called back home to her mother.

  Her mother told her about what had happened to Jerome in the Bronx. Celia began crying hysterically and told her that she would be home shortly. While in tears, Celia continued packing and had all of her things moved to her home. She booked a flight to Miami and a connecting flight back to New York. Before she left, Karlus suggested that she stop by his church to say some prayers for Jerome’s soul. She took him up on his offer.

  Many people in the community attended Jerome’s viewing. John waited until most of the crowds had passed and the chapel was nearly empty. He spent most of the early day with Mariana and her family. He wanted to mourn alone. When t
he coast was clear, he walked up to the casket and knelt down. He apologized to Jerome for failing to protect him and for letting his family down. It had been John’s job. John wept as he had for the entire week since Jerome’s body was discovered.

  As he knelt in front of Jerome’s casket, John felt the lowest he ever had, even worse than when Bernie passed away. He saw no other way out. He had no one to turn to. John took the gun barrel and put it to his head. He wanted to pull the trigger. He felt he had no one left. Everyone close to him was gone.

  “Go ahead and pull it. Do us all a favor and off yourself,” a voice behind him said. Startled, John paused, put the gun down, and turned around. It was Ben. John had not seen Ben since the day he found out about Edina’s sale of the company. It took about ten seconds for John to recognize Ben since he looked dramatically different. Ben had on a skullcap and his Ghetto Brothers leather jacket. John looked at him in bewilderment. “Go ahead and do it. You like showing off. Just don’t get your blood all over me when you do it,” Ben added.