by Tiana Laveen
Bringing the shirt up to his face, he sniffed it, now feeling pissed that her natural scent had been washed away and replaced with the sweet fragrance of liquid fabric softener.
“Damn…” he muttered as he gripped the shirt a bit tighter, balling it up in his palm. He stifled a yawn. “How can I be so happy yet so unsettled at the same time?”
*
One thing was for goddamn sure—Hassani and Dakarai were bad as hell. Pam shot the little one with the shaved sides and flapping black ponytail a look…the kind that she as their grandmother knew instilled the fear of the Lord about to bring His wrath amongst them. Dakarai was a sneaky kind of breed; the little trickster had been at it again. The boy pitched her a devious smile, one that reminded her of his father…or maybe it was Xenia. Regardless, she loved them more than life itself, and as she sat cradled with Isis on her lap, she understood that she was witnessing some scheming and plotting, the kind little children planned to surely carry out. She observed the two boys sitting across from her talking, whispering to one another as if they were in a damn secret club, occasionally looking in her direction and treating her like some intruder they needed to keep at bay.
Ain’t this some bull… I’mma need to have a chit chat with my daughter…
Something was going on with the eldest one—her beating heart, her tortured soul, the eldest of the tiny clan, Prince Hassani. He was her first grandson; she recalled the beautiful day he was born, as if it were yesterday. She knew his personality in and out, but she’d seen things…outlandish things, as of late.
I ain’t drank no wine, beer, nothing. I ain’t smoked no weed in weeks. I saw what I saw!
Yet, she waivered back and forth, grappling with the concept, trying desperately to figure things out. For the past year or so, Hassani had had an odd way about him, and it seemed to be getting worse. Initially she thought it due to him growing older. After all, he was at an awkward time in his life. But then, she’d witnessed him in a fit of rage, one she’d never seen a boy his age administer. It seemed as if he were exploding from the inside out, as if the Incredible Hulk had crawled inside the eight year old to make him tear the world apart and do some serious damage to the closest person within reach, rendering them a victim before they even saw him coming. And then, she witnessed it. The boy’s dark brown eyes, beautiful and mysterious since the day he was born, had turned blood red, looking every inch like the Devil had bled right into the irises. It had happened so quickly, so fleetingly, that by the time she tried to stare at him a little more, got right in his face, the eyes had gone back to their original color.
She’d never forget how he looked up at her, as if he were confused, struggling. Then, he’d grabbed her tightly around her waist and buried his head in her gut, his dark, silky curls bunching against her pink and white-checkered shirt.
The boy was grappling with something, and she wanted to know what the hell it was. She’d pulled him aside and got down on his level, grunting all the way as she fell to her creaking knees. Placing her hands lovingly on his shoulders, she’d made him look at her right in the eye. Pushing her fears aside that she may see his cerise irises again, she was soothed to witness no such thing. However, his heart was beating so fast, she could almost hear it. Matter of fact…she did. What a strange wonder, a surreal and unnatural moment, but…he was her grandbaby. Hassani was sweet, intelligent and funny—and now, he was changing.
“Are you mad about moving?” she asked him. He shook his head, but she wasn’t buying it. Hassani never liked to express irritation or discomfort. He always acted like a little soldier, as if he were Saint’s predecessor in some way. The boy had a right to be livid, though. Hell, she was mad about it, too. Saint and Xenia were taking her life away from her, and she’d told them so after they made their little relocation announcement. By the same token, they had a right to live and set up shop wherever they deemed fit. Pam understood no man should live for others, but she did live for those grandbabies. She spent hours a week with them, sometimes entire days… The adjustment would prove almost unbearable.
Hence why she volunteered to have her daughter and son-in-law let the little ones stay there, just a bit longer. She needed them all to herself. She needed her grandbabies huddled around her, giving her the love only they could administer. And now, here she sat—Isis half asleep against her bosom, Dakarai’s shifty-eyed self glaring suspiciously around the place as they waited for their plane, and Hassani clutching one of those damn electronic games like the deeply desired distraction that it was. Porsche was getting them a bite to eat at one of the nearby overpriced chain airport eateries, so Pam simply sighed and waited impatiently. She crossed her swollen ankles, listened to the announcements and indulged in occasional people watching. But she had to turn back to Hassani, for the little boy, the one that was becoming a man a tiny bit at a time, was staring daggers at her now.
He look so much like his Daddy now, it ain’t even funny…
She flicked her finger at him, dying for a cigarette, but resisted.
“Boy, what is it?” she barked, causing Isis to stir against her.
Hassani slowly looked away, as if he thought better of it. Then, he placed his game aside and leaned forward to stare down at his blue Nikes. His skinny legs fell open as he wiggled his feet back and forth, suspended in his own contemplations.
“You miss your mama? We’ll see her in a minute,” she assured.
“I miss ’er, but that’s not what’s on my mind,” he said in a low, almost imperceptible, voice.
“Well? What is it?”
“Grandma, you ever feel like, you know, you ain’t got no proof or nothing, but you feel like you might get in trouble?”
“What do you mean? Have you done somethin’ you had no business doing, boy?” she snapped.
“No, at least, I don’t think so.” He looked up at her. “I feel like Daddy really had to move to New York, just like he told me.”
“Yes, he said he needed to do it for business, Hassani. He gotta grow the business. Your daddy works hard,” she explained, trying to give more comfort and be more understanding of the situation her damn self. Hassani nodded, though it didn’t seem genuine. She wasn’t convinced he understood what she was saying at all.
“I’m going to miss my friends, my house, ’specially you, Grandma… everything and everybody. I don’t want to move but…I’m not mad about it no more.” He shrugged. “I figure this will be my life one day too, like, one day, I’ll have to do the same stuff he doin’.”
Predecessor…I knew it.
“Nah, baby.” She patted her lips, pretending to have a cigarette to calm her nerves. “You will be your own man, Hassani. You don’t have to do what yo’ Daddy do. You need to set out your own path. You ain’t got to follow his. For instance, baby, I’m going to tell you something about your grandmamma Pam. If I followed my mama’s path, I’d have been in a world of trouble. I was already going down the wrong road for a mighty long time but when I was pregnant with your mama and aunt, I got off of there right quick and in a hurry.”
“Yeah…but…but what if, Grandma, I want to be like my Daddy?” His eyes looked sad and syrupy, as if he were fighting back tears. It broke her heart a little to see such a thing.
“Well.” She shrugged. “That still don’t mean you must do everything like him. If God wanted you to be a carbon copy of the man, he’d have just done that on his own…no need for Saint to have a son to be it. Everyone is their own person, even twins, like your mama and Aunt Porsche.”
She took notice that Dakarai was drinking in the conversation, his lips tight, as he possibly fought the urge to interrupt and say his own piece.
“But Grandma, I am a carbon copy of him. I can’t help how I was born.” He quickly wiped a tear away, then popped up from his seat and raced away.
Just then Porsche returned with little white bags of fries and foil-covered chicken sandwiches, while trying to balance several drinks on a brown cardboard tray.
“Talked to my baby girl. She likes spending time with her friend and—”
“Wait a minute, Porsche!” Pam called out as she saw her grandson darting farther and farther away. “Hey! Hassani, where you goin’, boy?!”
“To tha bathroom!” he yelled, not looking back.
Porsche set the items down, her movements slower, and confusion spread across her daughter’s face.
“He is really taking this move hard, Mama.”
“He not mad no more about moving to New York, Auntie.” Dakarai interjected as he picked up Hassani’s game and began to play with it. His golden eyes almost glowed as a smirk creased his handsome, little face. “’Sani don’t wanna be different, but he can’t help it.” It was the oddest thing. In that moment, Dakarai didn’t sound like a little boy anymore. He sounded like a wise old man, and his face reflected such a nuance. Dakarai was rather immature for his age, though his natural charm and cunningness made him extremely loveable and the people really took a liking to him, even at first glance. Right now, that ‘fun-time’ persona had been left by the wayside. The boy seemed to be stepping up to the plate, as if wanting to give his brother a shoulder to lean on, even though Hassani was long gone, no doubt pouring pain into tears he didn’t want anyone to observe.
“What do you mean he don’t wanna be different?” Porsche questioned as she plopped down in her seat. “And come get some food. You haven’t eaten in hours…you so skinny.” She grinned.
Dakarai grumbled, stood on his green and yellow gym shoes and made his way over, his ponytail continuously bouncing behind him with each step. He plucked a few fries from the white container, then took a wrapped sandwich into his other hand. Without saying anything, he returned to his seat and slumped in it, as if dying of boredom. The only sound to be heard was the paper wrapper unfolding between his busy hands. He took a huge bite of the thing, and with his jaws stuffed to capacity, he looked at them both square in the eye for quite some time, as if his silence should suffice.
“I can’t say nothin’,” he finally offered. “Daddy told us not to say nothin’, Grandma and Auntie.”
“You tell me right now, you hear me?!” Pam demanded, her chest heaving as she pointed at the little charlatan. Isis’ eyes fluttered open reminding Pam of rolling window blinds, and like the habitually hungry little girl that she was, she immediately zoomed in on the feast before her. The little girl looked darn right insulted that she hadn’t been promptly aroused before the spread had commenced.
“Fries! Fries!” she blurted eagerly as she lunged towards them with both hands wide open. Porsche removed the pint-sized girl from her mother’s grip and began to feed her. Instantly quieting the little one’s hunger pangs.
“I can’t, Grandma! I promised!” Dakarai yelled, his mouth full of food and his eyes brimming with tears born from fright. He chomped a bit then took a hearty swallow. The boy was practically pleading with her to just drop it; his knees had turned inward, as if he were going to piss himself right then and there and worst of all, she knew if she kept pushing, he’d shut down altogether or offer some elaborate lie that she wasn’t in the mood to entertain. In a nervous gesture, Dakarai ran his palm along his arm, picking at an old scab, then turned away when the quiet stretched between them. Porsche quickly rose and offered him a chilled juice. He gripped the thing with a shaky hand, downing half of it in record time.
Oh Lord Jesus…what have they been doing to these boys?! What the hell is going on with this family?!
Pam knew that as soon as she stepped foot in her daughter’s new front door, she was going to demand answers. No one, not even their parents, had the right to cause this sort of distress. She realized at that moment, Dakarai was right. It wasn’t about the relocation. Something else was going on, something much more severe, and she was going to get to the bottom of the shit, once and for all…
*
Chapter Eight
It was the kind of place that burrowed into the hollows of one’s subconscious and created wicked internal mélanges of repulsion. The once attractive couple had sold their looks to a lesser God. They slid against one another, their bones clinging to darkened, taut skin wrapped around a slither of life pumping from their over-worked, hardened hearts. Koki walked leisurely behind them, following them into their abandoned apartment building that smelled of rotten rat carcasses and piss. His presence was not even noticed. He sniffed the air; the scent of the death lurked so close, making him salivate, glad to be a part of it all. Koki flipped his white leather collar down and pushed his hands into his black pants pockets. The weather had turned wickedly cold; he much preferred the heat. Nevertheless, he had business to attend to.
The female of the duo tucked her thinning dark hair behind one pointed ear and struggled to find the right spot, a working vein that wasn’t tapped the fucked out. She bit into the thick, worn belt, her teeth gnashing as she bumped her head against the peeling wallpapered wall in frustration.
“Come on,” her husband groaned, his lifeless eyes roaming about in his awkwardly shaped head. He’d taken some hearty lumps and bruises, sold his ass for the little they had to share between the two of them. The man moved a bit closer to her and waited impatiently until he couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Get over here!” He did the shit himself, fixed her up, turned her on her damn side, and stabbed her roughly with the needle. She whimpered a bit, then her eyes turned to hazy discs wrapped in darkened memories. She made odd noises as she fell into some sort of heroine induced trance. Koki knew that reverie well. He’d witnessed the sight too many times to count for it boosted his quota, made his promotion all the more a sure thing. He did his work with dignity and grace; he made the ugly beautiful, and the beautiful grotesque. He reflected the true heartbeat of the city.
Koki reached into his pocket, pulled out the small bag of blood-covered dreams, and handed it to the man. Well, not exactly… The bag magically appeared beside the fellow, as if it had fallen from the damn sky. The addict grew startled, his muscles clenched as he reared back. The man had just then realized that someone was there in the room, that Koki was in their midst, and he probably wondered how long he’d been standing there.
“What you have won’t hold you long, and she’ll be right back up. Here is a bit more,” he offered softly with a friendly smile.
The man grabbed it greedily from the filthy ground, his dirt-caked nails moving with urgency as he turned the plastic bag in various directions, studying the contents. He opened his mouth, revealing an abyss of blackness due to missing and rotted out teeth. Koki matched the man’s expression, breaking out into a sly smile.
He took several steps backward until his spine was rigid against a nearby graffiti-covered wall, crossed his ankles and watched as the guy leaned over his incapacitated wife to shoot a bit more of the magic into her vein. Content with the way she lulled about, her eyes finally closing, he returned the favor to himself, using the remainder to send him on a one way trip to the place he was running to each and every time he twirled on Death’s razorblade-covered dance floor dreaming about his long lost, almost forgotten partners—longevity, love and life. It took longer than expected, but the reward finally arrived like a slightly delayed cash settlement in the mail. Jackpot.
Koki stooped over the man’s slumped body and gently shut his eyelids with the swift maneuver of a two-finger roll.
By the time the stench of the decomposing bodies of the 1980s sitcom celebrity couple hit the air, he’d have fifty more tempting temptations under his golden belt to deliver. Forty-nine of them went off without a hitch. He catered to weakness, and when he got in the ring with the shit, his work became as simple as plucking a daisy from a valley. Life was good; work was plentiful and fantastic. This week had ended in a Koki driven TKO…
*
Here he was again. This time, his eyes focused on the meandering clouds gravitating towards one another with a magnificent, magnetic pull. They appeared livid, invigorated with hatred and alive with remorse.
>
Clouds aren’t supposed to move that way…
Saint shoved his hand in his pocket and studied the damn things with parted lips and narrowed eyes. No way could he explain why he was out at four in the morning, walking around the hoary, tall brick building with five stone troll-like gargoyles, all wearing their respective sinister grins and sneers at the front entrance to a partially dilapidated hellhole in the Bronx. He’d been drawn to the thing as soon as he’d gotten back in town, and this was his fourth visit to it, as though it were some secret lover he couldn’t keep his hands off of.
The damn clouds hovered right above him now, clustered in the darkness, running all on top of one another, vying for top billing. He’d never seen such a thing. A sense of panic ran through him. Taking hold of his arms, he tried to muster a semblance of control. He moved slightly to the left…they followed. He moved marginally to the right, they traced his steps as if he were teaching a dance class. They appeared to be full of rain, the shapes swollen and disposed to give birth to a torrential storm right above his damn head. But…they didn’t dare.
“What the hell is going on?!” he screamed out, but no one answered. He felt like a fool yelling up at the sky like that, but he didn’t know what else to do. Only the occasional car passed on that early Wednesday morning in Hunts Point. The place still stunk of sweet seediness and the worn building, once a place to hang a hat or two in the 1950’s, barely stood straight, but it still stood tall, all the same. It had only been grazed by flames, kissed by the heat of the fires from yesteryear. The windows were still knocked out yet such a property would be worth millions of dollars if it were located in a better neighborhood…but here is stood, rotting down to its stinking, dry-walled gutted core due to vagrant neglect. Saint leaned against the wall covered in scrawls, the uneven, sharp bricks pressing into his back like acupuncture. As he pushed into it, he could feel the place’s damn soul. Yeah, it was alive, breathing, doing a praise dance in spite of itself. Two dozen parties could have been going on inside of the fucking place just then. Yet, he was certain he was the only one in the world that could feel the rhythm and hear the beat.