by Yamaya Cruz
“Man. Shut the fuck up.” Diablo spat, sending the boy a look of death.
“So you brought my sister out here,” Ali asked accusingly. “Man. She was outside, in the dark, looking for you,” Diablo said trying to defend himself.
“What happened to her face?” Ali said sending the boys a beguiling glare. No one answered.
Ali’s jaw tightened as we walked over to Diablo. “Did you put your hands on my sister?” Ali said.
“No. I ain’t messing with her, this is the first time I’ve seen her in years,” Diablo said.
There was a long silence as the two boys just stared at each other like cowboys before a deadly dual. We all watched in anticipation to see who was going to draw first.
“I can go back home,” I said timidly, wanting to keep the peace.
“Naw. I’ll take you. It’s too late for you to be out by yourself,” Ali said with his eyes fixed on Diablo. I swallowed hard. I supposed that I should have been rejoicing. I was going to get some real time alone with Ali, but I was afraid of him. He was a monster, a murderer. He pulled away, marched over and grabbed my arm. We walked off, and I could hear the boys snickering.
“Yeah, that’s it brother, handle your business. Make sure that little bitch never comes out here again, cause we got some candy for her to suck on,” Diablo said grabbing his crotch area. They all roared from laughter.
“What the fuck were you thinking coming out here by yourself?” Ali hissed.
“I came looking for you,” I said, running to try and keep up with his accelerated pace.
“Nelly, why can’t you just leave shit alone?” he said. “Because I know what you did to momma,” I spat. Ali stopped, let go of my arm and faced me.
“What did you hear?” He asked bitingly.
“What do you mean what did I hear? The same thing the whole fucking town heard, that you’re wanted for takin’ out your own mother,” I screamed. Ali just shook his head and looked away.
“What?” I asked.
He didn’t say anything.
“What?” I screamed.
“I didn’t do that shit,” he mumbled, shaking his head.
“We came back that night and found mommy dead; you were gone,” I said.
“I know, Nico came and got me,” he said. “What!”
“Nico came and got me and told me that he was my real daddy, and that—”
“And that, what?”
He was silent.
“Come the fuck on, Ali.”
“That I needed to come and work for him,” he finally said.
“Who killed her?” I asked.
“I don’t know, one of Nico’s boys,” Ali said looking away. He couldn’t look me in the eyes.
“Nico told me that it was brujeria. I needed to make people think that it was me because then no motherfucker would ever cross anyone who killed his own momma,” he said looking down at his feet. He looked around paranoid like someone was listening in on our conversation. His eyes widened in fear as a car with it high beams rolled by.
“Come on,” he said tugging on my arm.
“Ali, come home with us. You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded. “No, I do have to do this because it’s all about blood and family.
And Nico is the only family I have,” he said.
“Ali. I’m your family,” I said resting a hand on his shoulder. Ali pulled away. He looked at me and asked.
“What happened to your face?”
I pressed down on my jaw before I replied. “Maria—”
“Oh shit, is she beating on you?” he asked. I paused for a second, before I replied.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
I shifted my eyes to the left, trying desperately to search my internal database for lies. I needed something good, something believable. I needed to tell him something that would force him to come back home. Yes, that’s it. If he felt that Maria was abusive, then he would come back because he would want to protect me. I squinted really hard. Lucky for me, it was really dark and my brother couldn’t see my facial expressions.
“She beats on me all the time,” I said lowering my head and voice.
“Shit,” Ali said shaking his head.
“Ali, you have to come back home. I just don’t feel safe there without you.” I pleaded.
He stood silently with his arms crossed over his chest. He was just looking at me, and I would have paid a million dollars to know what he was thinking.
“Come on, I want to show you something,” he said.
We walked up to a place that I thought that I recognized. It was a twenty-four hour diner that seemed to have survived the riots and crack wars. The ceiling was bare, except for a few naked lightbulbs. Waitresses with horse weave ponytails, served single mothers and small families of four. I tore my eyes away. For some reason, I was always uncomfortable seeing loving families. It was a cruel reminder of what I didn’t have. Ali and I walked in and slipped into a booth.
“Ali, I feel like we’ve been here before,” I said looking around the restaurant with the menu in my hand.
“Because we have, look behind you,” he said pointing his head to the restroom area. There was a yellow sign that had a picture of a black stick figure falling on its behind. The sign simply read, “Caution Slippery When Wet.” However, it was not the sign that caught my attention. It was the man who was cleaning up the mess.
I squinted and focused. I realized that the man with the mop was my father, our father. He looked so thin. He had sunken cheeks, complimented with a nappy beard. He was wearing a ripped pair of blue jeans, a wife beater shirt, and a butcher’s stained apron. My heart began to pound. He must have felt my eyes on him because he looked over and stared right at me. I spun around in my chair and faced Ali.
“Oh my goodness, it’s daddy,” I said.
Ali just looked at me and shook his head. No. This couldn’t be happening. I felt like there was a hammer in my chest pounding away at my heart. I clasped it with my hand, like an old man before a heart attack, hoping that it wouldn’t give out on me. Thoughts were rushing through my head. He was the man who we believed was our father. He was the one who had rejected us, abandoned us, and left us with nothing. He was the papa bear who had decided that his life was more important than his family’s. I turned around slowly and saw that he was walking over to our table.
“Shit! Ali. He’s coming over,” I said. He just stared and then smiled coldly. “Mija.” The voice said.
I turned around and stared at the man I thought was my father. He had his hat in his hands and was looking down like a vagrant begging for scraps of food. Confused, I turned around and looked at Ali.
“He wants money,” Ali said casually.
“What?” I couldn’t believe it.
The waitress came over and placed scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast in front of Ali. He picked up his fork and began to shovel the food into his mouth.
“Mija, please, help your old man. I’m sick,” he said.
Ali reached over the table and picked up the salt. He sprinkled some on his eggs, closed the lid of his sandwich and took a huge bite.
“I ain’t proud of myself, I ain’t proud of how my life turned out. But you two look good though.” He went on like a vagabond who had lost every morsel of his self-respect.
Ali stared off into the distance, chewing his food like a castrated cow.
“I am sorry that I wasn’t around. As you can see, I am toxic. And your momma did a good job without me,” he said.
Ali swallowed his glass of orange juice in one gulp, slammed it down and looked at him.
Get the fuck away from our table,” Ali said. “Son, don’t be like that.”
“I ain’t your fucking son.” Ali spat, sending him a baleful glare. “She looks good? Look at her fucking face! Thanks to you she’s getting her head beat in everyday,” Ali said standing in his seat. I looked around the restaurant. There was a couple sitting next to us who tore their eyes away wh
en I found that they were listening. People in front and behind us were rubbernecking around tall booths to stare at us.
“Ali stop, you’re making a scene,” I whispered.
Our father just stopped and stared at me. He blinked a couple of times and our eyes met. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. They were my eyes. We both had his eyes.
“And in case you ain’t heard, our fucking momma is dead,” Ali said throwing the empty glass at him. Our father shifted sharply to the right, holding his hand up to block his face. The glass hit the ground, shattering into a dozen pieces.
“Ali!” I screamed.
A man dressed in a shirt and tie walked over to our table. “Okay young man, I am going to have to ask you to leave.”
Ali slid out of the booth.
“Come on, Nelly, I can’t stand to look at this motherfucka anymore,” he said.
Our father lifted his head. “The shadows killed her and they’re killing you too.”
“Fuck You!” Ali charged him. The man with the shirt and tie caught him and placed him in a bear hug. He couldn’t hold him. Ali twisted out of his embrace and began to plunge forward like a quarterback heading for the field goal. Several men raced out of the kitchen and tackled him down.
“Get him out of here!” someone yelled.
Like an angry mob, they strung him up and forced him out the door.
I looked at my father. He stood motionless, staring after us. I ran out to the sidewalk. Ali chest was heaving and his hands were balled up into fist.
“You see that shit. You see that shit,” Ali yelled pacing up and down the sidewalk.
“That motherfucker wouldn’t even look at me. You know how many times I’ve been to this piece of shit diner?” Ali ranted.
“And the first fucking thing he asks for is money. From my seventeen year old sister.” Ali yelled this swinging his fist. His temper was piping hot and I didn’t know what to do to try and control him.
“Ali, calm down,” I said.
“That motherfucker deserves to die,” he said snarling like a dog.
“But first, we’re going to take care of Maria’s fat ass.”
“What?”
“We’re going to go and show Nico your face,” Ali said. “No. Ali. I don’t want to see Nico,” I said, protesting.
How did this happen? I only told one lie and it seemed to be spiraling out of control. I didn’t want to go and see Nico; I just wanted Ali to come home. I shook my head, debating if I should just come clean and tell him the truth, but Ali was furious. And I was afraid that he wouldn’t listen to reason. I just wanted to go back home, with Ali and forget about ever seeing my deadbeat dad. I needed to think fast.
“Ali, we don’t have to do that. I got eight thousand dollars and a gold ring that I stole from Maria. I got a year left of school and you can get a job to help ends meet,” I said.
“Nelly, get your head out of the fucking clouds. I can’t get a job. I’m wanted for murder,” he said.
I stood and just blinked back my tears. Suddenly, I realized that my brother’s life was ruined. He was right, if the police ever caught hold of him he would go to jail for a murder that he didn’t even commit.
“Eight thousand dollars. That ain’t no money. You can’t do shit with eight thousand dollars,” he said.
I put my head down and looked at my feet. I wanted to say that I had eight thousand dollars and a gold ring. However, I knew that he was right. There was just no way for us to survive without Ali being able to secure some type of employment, and I would have to drop out of school and work two jobs to support us both. I looked over at Ali, his head was lowered and he looked dejected. I placed my hand on his arm.
“Ali, don’t worry about daddy, like you said. He’s not our real father and we’ve been getting along just fine without him,” I said tenderly.
“No, we haven’t. Nelly, I’m nineteen years old, and I’m a convict, already. If he was around for us, I never would have gotten pulled into Nico’s shit, and you wouldn’t be living with Maria.”
“And momma wouldn’t be dead,” I said with my voice cracking.
I knew that we both had to mourn the loss of our mother, but it seemed that we were just focused on trying to get to the next day that we couldn’t bury the dead. I walked over and wrapped my arms around my brother. His body was as hard and cold as stone. I felt that his heart had hardened and he was now incapable of showing any kind of emotion.
“And he is our real father. Did you see him?” Ali said.
I shook my head. There was a time when I had wanted his love more than anything. Now that I knew the truth, it just wasn’t important anymore. He was a stranger to me, a bum who spent his days cleaning bathrooms and begging for change.
“We can go to the police and you can confess,” I said in a desperate attempt to try and ease my brother’s pain.
“It ain’t the police I’m worried about. Shit. I’ll do the time. I just can’t live with the hell that Nico would put me through.”
“We can leave, we can go down South. Florida, where it’s always warm, nobody will be able to find us there,” I said.
“Nico’s got boys down there too,” he said. “What do we do, Ali?” I said.
“I don’t know, just give me a few minutes to think,” he said. I smiled despite my desire to be sad because for a brief second, I remembered the old Ali. The Ali that was protective and optimistic. The Ali that always had solutions. The Ali that was willing to do anything to make me feel safe.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he said.
“I know you won’t.”
Ali’s cell phone was ringing off the hook. He kept checking the number and grimacing. “Who is it?” I asked.
“Who do you think it is?” He replied.
“What does he want?” I said.
“Diablo’s ass probably went to him whining like a little bitch cause I got in his face.”
“So.”
“So? He probably told Nico about you,” Ali said.
I looked at him in the darkness. I didn’t want to tell Ali all the awful things he made me do. All the nights that he slipped into my room so we could travel together. What was that all about anyway? I didn’t know much, but whatever Nico was doing it wasn’t good. I certainly hoped that Nico wasn’t doing the same thing to my brother. Nobody deserves to go through that. Ali was a nervous wreck, like he would rather fry in an electric chair than face Nico.
“Fuck it. Let’s go,” he said.
“Go where?”
“To see what this man wants, he ain’t going to leave me alone until he talks to me.”
“Ali, I don’t want to go anywhere near Nico,” I said.
He paused for a minute and looked at me.
“Okay, I’m going to take you to my boy’s apartment to chill for a little bit,” he said.
“Ali, what if you don’t come back?” I asked.
“I’m going to come back. Nico’s crazy, but he loves my ass. He seriously thinks that I’m his son,” he said with a sideways smile. I placed my hands on my hips and looked at him skeptically. I didn’t trust Nico, and now that I had found Ali, I was terrified of losing him again.
“Listen, I am going to work for Nico for two more months. This way I can save money for us to get hell out of this shithole city,” he said.
I smiled and flung my arms around his shoulders. He chuckled lightly and embraced me firmly. He was warming up, I was starting to melt the glacier that had frozen over his heart.
“What are you going to tell him?” I said.
“That I saw you, I went and worked things out with Maria and everything is all good,” he said.
“Do you really think that he’s going to believe that?” I said.
“It don’t really matter. As long as I can keep you hidden from him, he’ll never know the truth,” he said.
We walked into the building and there was a two-foot gap in the elevator shaft. I hesitated; I didn�
�t want to use it. Ali stepped in and beckoned for me to follow. The elevator sounded like an old man’s bones, cracking, and straining as it struggled to carry us up the shaft. It opened, and we walked into a hallway with green and gold carpeting. Ali banged on the door.
“It’s about time you got here. I was starting to think that I was going to have to handle this shit by myself,” said a slovenly sloppy boy with big blubber lips, round cheeks, and a double chin.
“I had some business to take care of,” Ali said. “I see,” the boy said eyeing me seductively.
“Man. Don’t even try it, this is my sister,” Ali said.
“It looks like somebody did a number on her,” he said.
“Damn. Man. What are you carrying, a Nine?” Ali said eyeing the pistol that was stuffed in his pant pocket. He was trying to change the subject.
The boy pulled it out and kissed it gently before he replied. “Yeah. I never leave home without it.”
They both laughed.
“Hey brother, can my sister chill here for a little while?” Ali asked. “Why, somebody looking for her?” he asked.
“Naw, some shit went down back at the house, and I need to go over there and take care of a few things,” Ali said.
“Oh. I see, you need to crack some skulls. You want some help brother?”
“No man, I’m flying solo on this one,” Ali said.
“Alright but you make sure you get your ass back here in a hour. We got work to do, brother,” the boy said.
“Alright man. And don’t try anything with my sister, she might be skinny, but she can throw blows faster than a featherweight,” Ali said with a wink.
“Yeah, she look like she could get me with a few combination pieces,” he said throwing a couple of air punches.
“Yeah, she can take some blows too,” Ali said looking at me with a mixture of pride and regret. I could only guess what he was thinking. He was proud that I was strong enough to withstand abuse, and he felt guilty that he wasn’t around to protect me. There was a long moment of silence before the boy replied.
“Don’t worry man. Handle your business, she’ll be here when you get back,” he said slapping Ali’s hand and reaching over to hug him with no arms. Ali took a couple of steps back, looked at me and turned around to leave. The boy stuffed his cigar back into his mouth and motioned for me to come in. I hugged my bookbag to my chest and walked into the room slowly. I felt awkward, like a hick from Alabama who tried to be hip, but had a Southern accent that always gave them away.