The Apostles

by Y. Blak Moore

  “Them some big-ass salads, A,” Murderman commented.

  “These boys be right too,” Solemn Shawn assured him. “Nessa be fucking with the garden salad joint, but I get down with the country fried chicken joint with blue cheese dressing, A.”

  “A fried chicken salad? I bet a sister thought of that. It sounds like it's good though.”

  “It is, A. You should try one.”

  “That's all right, yo. If they make an Italian beef salad or a gyro salad then I'll get down, A. Are you in for the night?”

  Solemn Shawn looked up at the building. “Yeah, I'm about to chill, A. I'm going to eat this salad and watch the NBA on TNT. Play-off time. What you about to get yourself into, A?”

  “Me and Yo-Yo got a little business to take care of. We found out that bitch Vee and his ho-ass Governors are behind Ghost getting offed. We gone send that bitch a little message, you know what I mean?”

  “Be careful,” was all Solemn Shawn said as he opened the car door and climbed out.

  Murderman waited for the Head Apostle to get safely inside the building's lobby before he zoomed off into the night to handle his business.

  In the lobby of the condo building, Solemn Shawn ignored the probing eyes of an elderly white couple as they waited for the elevator. He was used to the cold silences and even colder stares of the building's mostly well-to-do tenants. On the elevator the smell of the fried chicken in the salad wafted from the Bennigan's bag. Solemn Shawn could have sworn he heard the older man's stomach growl. That brought a smile to his lips as he listened to the soft jazz leaking from the elevator's speakers. At the sixteenth floor he left the elevator and walked to his apartment door. He unlocked the door and went inside.

  In the foyer, Solemn Shawn kicked his off his shoes and padded into the darkened living room. He set the salads down on the table behind the modern deco sofa and flicked on a lamp. To his surprise, Vanessa was sitting on the couch. Her legs were folded under her and she was hugging a large throw pillow. On her feet were a pair of pink Footees, and she was wearing a pair of loose-fitting pajama bottoms and a pink baby T-shirt. Her multicolored silk scarf was in place over her braids.

  “Hey, baby. What you doing sitting here in the dark?”

  Vanessa didn't answer.

  Solemn Shawn raised his eyebrows as he headed for the kitchen. He pulled two iced teas from the fridge and returned to the living room. He set the drinks on the coffee table and announced, “I stopped at Bennigan's and got you one of the garden salads like you like.” He lifted her tray out of the bag and walked around the couch to hand her the garden salad, but Vanessa wouldn't accept it. Unsure what to do, Solemn Shawn stood there for a moment holding the salad. Finally he shrugged his shoulders and set the salad on the coffee table beside her beverage.

  “Woman, what's wrong with you?” he asked as he walked back around the couch to get his salad.

  Vanessa still didn't answer him.

  Quickly Shawn scanned his memory for something he could have done or not done to piss her off. He couldn't think of anything, so he picked up his salad and took a seat on the other end of the sofa from her. He reached for the remote of the forty-two-inch plasma television and powered the set on. Vanessa was still silent, so he started eating his salad and watching a play-off basketball game. Even though it was only the first quarter it was already a heated battle of buckets. It took only a few moments and he was engrossed in the game.

  He knew that he wasn't wrong for ignoring Vanessa's funky mood. If he knew her, and it was hard not to know someone you'd been with for eight years, he knew she would let him know what was wrong with her. Through the second quarter and halftime she was silent. At the beginning tip-off of the third quarter, however, she got up off the couch and walked over and switched the television off. She retook her seat.

  Shawn looked at her like she had lost her damn mind.

  She looked up from her pillow and asked, “How long we gone do this?”

  Slightly pissed off, he asked, “Do what, woman?”

  “How long we gone act like we live this normal life. Like you work an honest job.”

  Shawn rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “What brought this on, Nessa?”

  Her voice rose a few octaves. “The fact that I felt like cleaning the apartment like a good little woman and I found not one, not two, but three guns. Three pistols. And why you sitting there looking like I'm the one that's crazy; I bet you got a gun on you now.”

  Bashfully, Shawn grinned. He had forgotten about the mini Intratec 9mm in the back pocket of his jeans. “Would you rather I get caught out there without heat? In case you've forgotten, sometimes I'm around not-so-nice people. I don't even know why you acting like that. The first time you met me I had a pistol on me. That's the kind of life I live, Nessa.”

  “That's what I'm talking about,” she said as a tear ran down her pretty face. “What kind of life is that to live? My grandmother told me anywhere you got to take a gun to go, you don't need to be there. We can't even go out with my friends from work and just have some fun, a few drinks and dancing. You might bump into one of your enemies or someone might step on your shoes or something and your security might have to kill them.”

  Shawn waved her off. “C'mon, now, Nessa. That is totally absurd. Where is this stuff coming from? I've never heard you talk like this before.”

  “I'll tell you where it's coming from,” Vanessa sobbed. “It's coming from the woman that agreed to marry you and wants to have your children someday.”

  “Vanessa, what are you talking about—you can't even have kids.”

  “I can,” she muttered, burying her face in the pillow. “I've always been able to.”

  “What did you say?” Shawn asked.

  “I've always been able to have children,” Vanessa confessed. “I just told you that so you wouldn't ask. In the beginning I was taking the pill. For the last few years it's been the three-month shot.”

  Shawn was stunned. Over the years he had relegated himself to being childless as long as he was with Vanessa. He felt a slight feeling of betrayal wash over him. All he could bring himself to say was, “Why?”

  His woman was silent.

  “Why, Nessa?” Shawn repeated bluntly. “Why would you have me think for all these years that you couldn't have children?”

  “I'll tell you why,” she said softly. “I watched my friends, cousins, hell, even one of my sisters fall for guys that live like you. Gangsters, thugs, live niggas, whatever you want to call them. I watched these women fall in love with these bad boys. They had babies by these men and planned lives with these men. Everything was gravy as y'all say—for a while anyway. Then they started getting killed and locked up. They started getting high on the shit they was selling and dragging these women into their bullshit. I watched my sister go to the penitentiary because she loved a nigga so much she took a case for him.

  “While she was in prison this same man kept hustling and ended up getting killed. I used to drive my mother and my nephew to the joint so this little boy could see the only parent he had left living like a caged animal. I vowed to myself then that I would never have a baby by a man like you. I'm sorry, but I couldn't put a child of mine through that uncertainty. Can you understand that, Shawn?”

  Shawn said, “I can overstand that. I can't even be mad at you. It's true, Nessa. A lot of cats don't make it out the game. You know that and I know that. You've always dealt with that fact though. That's what made me sure that I want to make you my wife. Your decision shows that you have convictions, morals, and beliefs that you hold strongly to, but my question has to be, Why is this surfacing now?”

  “Because I want my husband to be with me now and forever. I don't want to talk to you through some thick-ass glass. I don't want to be one of those wives who has to visit her husband in the graveyard. I don't want you paralyzed, or in prison for life. I don't want to have to worry about unseen enemies. Or if one night someone will break in here and kill all three of us in ou
r beds.”

  Shawn allowed her words to marinate in his head. “Well, since I know you never open your mouth about a problem unless you've thought it through, I suggest that you tell me your plan instead of sitting there pouting.”

  After a pause Vanessa said, “You really think you know me, don't you. First rule of management: Instead of bitching about a problem find a solution, then bitch. You know my cousin and her husband moved to Tacoma, Washington. Renee, the one I went to visit last year. I've been talking to her a lot lately and I have to admit that the place is ripe for investing.”

  Solemn Shawn interrupted, “What kind of investments?”

  “Don't laugh, you promise you won't laugh.”

  “Woman, tell me.”

  “Krispy Kreme doughnuts.”

  He wanted to laugh, but he knew Vanessa was serious. Still he asked, “You want to sell doughnuts? I mean, they are some pretty good doughnuts, but you expect to get rich selling them?”

  “You ain't got to say it like that,” she sneered. “Yeah, doughnuts. When I was out there I noticed a million Starbucks, but no Krispy Kreme. All I kept thinking was that that good-ass coffee needed a good-ass doughnut to go with it. So I did my homework on purchasing a franchise and starting it up out there. Krispy Kreme is like a new age franchise. If you got the cash they'll send you everything you need and send you to school, plus invest money with your franchise so you can expand. I made a few calls and everything is favorable. With my projections we can be building our second store within a year of opening the doors of our first one. In five years' time we'll be worth millions off of selling doughnuts.”

  “It's that simple?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it's that simple,” Vanessa replied sarcastically.

  “Let me get this right. You're saying that all we have to do is pick up and move to Tacoma to get rich. So where do you propose we get the seed money?”

  Vanessa spread her arms wide. “Look around. This condo is worth two hundred thousand easily. I got about sixty thousand in savings, and no telling what you've got. I'm telling you, Shawn, I didn't work my ass off to get a master's degree in business to be stuck in somebody's bank as a glorified teller. I know the ins and outs of running a business.”

  Shawn rubbed his clean-shaven jaw. “Sounds good, Nessa.”

  “What do you mean, ‘sounds good’?” she challenged, ready to assail him with more facts and figures.

  “I mean I like the way it sounds. Let's do it.”

  “For real, Shawn?” Vanessa gushed.

  “I said yes, woman. I just need a little time to get clear of a few commitments, then we can fold our tents here.”

  “Thank you, baby,” Vanessa said as she reached out to hug her man, but he grabbed both of her wrists, stopping her embrace. “What's wrong, Shawn?”

  He looked her in the eyes. “Now I might not have college degrees like you, but I think you know that I'm not slow. I might not know trigonometry or nothing but I think I got the simple math thing down pat. I'm only counting two of us here. A while ago you said ‘the three of us.’ “

  “H-H-Huh?” she stammered.

  “Don't start stuttering and muttering now, woman. What exactly did you mean by the three of us?”

  Vanessa's head dropped as she breathed, “Me, you, and the baby.”

  Shawn's heart skipped a beat. “The baby? What? I thought that you just told me that you had been getting the shot?”

  With her voice barely above a whisper, Vanessa said, “I was supposed to get my shot again a few days after you proposed. I even went so far as to drive to my doctor's office, but I didn't go in. I just couldn't. I missed my period last month and I just thought my cycle was thrown off because I didn't get my shot, but when I missed my period again this month, I decided to take an EPT. Plus if you got up in the morning you would have noticed that for the last week I've been throwing my guts up every morning before I go to work. I bought the pregnancy test about four days ago on my lunch break, but I didn't take it until today. Right before you came in I peed on the little stick and there were two lines. That means I'm pregnant.”

  He used her wrists to pull her gently onto his lap. “So that's where all this stuff came from. I was wondering what brought this on.”

  “Are you mad at me?” Vanessa asked in an almost childlike voice.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her forehead. “Why would I be? This is a blessing.”

  “So you're not mad?” she asked again.

  “I said I wasn't, woman.”

  A sly smile crept onto her lips. “Okay, well then, move so I can get my salad. I'm starving.”

  Playfully Shawn slapped her on her behind as she got up to get her salad.

  Solemn Shawn stopped outside the doors to the chapel. He was no longer a young boy, but an astute observer could tell that he was new to his adolescence. His former scrawniness had been replaced by moderate muscularity, and several inches had been added to his height during his state vacation. Long nights of reading in half-light had ruined his once perfect vision, but he felt the wealth of knowledge lodged in his cranium was well worth it. He squinted up at the caged clock on the wall outside of the chapel, but he couldn't read it from where he was standing. He pulled his state-issued eyeglasses from the shirt pocket of his DOC shirt and put them on his face.

  Glasses in place, Solemn Shawn looked back at the two boys who formed his security detail. One was a shrimpy but feisty boy named Low Down, the other was Vee, who had proven himself to be ambitious and cruel. His security detail couldn't tell but there were butterflies in Solemn Shawn's stomach. He knew that behind these chapel doors lay his destiny. In two days he would at last be eighteen years old and finally he would be released from the juvenile joint after almost four years of incarceration.

  Four long years for avenging the death of his only real friend. Fate worked in strange ways though. It was in here that he made some friends who he felt would be with him for life. In here he learned how to work the system and survive. In here he learned in the words of his mentor and friend Big Ant, to “play the cards you been dealt.” Big Ant, the first friend he'd made in here, was waiting out there in the world for him with a place to stay and a chance to get money. Solemn Shawn had meticulously planned for every scenario so that his transition back to society would be easy and profitable.

  Too bad he couldn't go home to his family. Family. That word brought mixed emotions to his heart and mind. It had been four long years since he'd seen his twin sisters, Samantha and Tabitha. Sam and Tabby, jumping rope, smelling like chewing gum, and trying to follow behind him everywhere. He knew that his little sisters still loved him. His mother though was another matter. She had really disowned him. In four calendars she had visited him only once. That visit was just to let him know that when and if he got out it wouldn't be wise for him to darken her doorstep. In a surprise show of matronly love she had actually managed to let a tear eke from her eye as she told him good-bye that last time.

  Crestfallen, Solemn Shawn had slunk back to his cell and wept. Big Ant had been there for him then, and now the older man would be there for him again when he got out. With no one else to turn to, Solemn Shawn had asked his friend to give him a place to stay. The big homie readily agreed to let him stay at his girlfriend's house with him and his son. As soon as he was home he would reunite with his best friend and fellow Apostle Dante. Tay had been home for seven months now and under Big Ant's wing he had begun to establish the Apostles on the outside. In his last kite Tay wrote that members were joining left and right. Murderman would be joining them in about eighteen months.

  Vee broke Solemn Shawn's daze. “What's up, A? Why we still standing here? You act like you ain't ready to go in there.”

  Solemn Shawn looked at Vee harshly at first, but he softened up his glare. Impatience was one of the things that would get Vee in trouble one day, he thought. He couldn't deny it though—Vee was right. Here he was acting like a sappy teenager when there was business
at hand. No time for apprehension, this was the day he had been waiting and planning for. The fact that it was finally here made his knees want to buckle from nervousness. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he grabbed the chapel door handles and swung the doors open.

  With a hint of a smile on his face, Solemn Shawn proudly strode down the aisle. Every pew of the chapel was packed with boys—no, young Apostles. As their leader walked down the aisle, the Apostles rose silently pew by pew. By the time he reached the pulpit every one of them was standing. Solemn Shawn climbed behind the pulpit and his security detail stood on either side of him.

  Chaplain Brown was nowhere to be seen. The old priest was in his room. He would usually take an afternoon nip from his flask that ended in a long nap, making it easy for one of the Apostles to swipe the chapel keys.

  At the pulpit, Solemn Shawn fingered the huge Bible there as he looked out at roughly 150 Apostles. The butterflies were replaced by the pride of being the head of a young, strong gang full of hardheads and badasses who would go to their deaths for him. “Take your seats,” he commanded.

  Silently his gang took their seats. The absence of noise was unreal. Whenever this many boys were assembled in one place, especially juvenile convicts, there was usually abundant noise, but not here. Every teenage boy in the room waited for his leader to speak.

  Solemn Shawn cleared his throat. “I'm going to the crib,” he stated.

  There was a tremendous roar of applause as the boys jumped to their feet. For several moments the boys clapped heartily, then Solemn Shawn silenced them with a wave of his hand. They retook their seats.

  He continued, “Even though I'm leaving, the Apostles ain't going nowhere. They can't kill all of us and we ain't going nowhere. We are our brothers' keepers. We will feed our brothers, protect our brothers, give our brothers shelter, and give our brothers knowledge. If we live like we have been destined to live as brothers, not strangers but brothers, even places like this will be like home for a weary Apostle. Our enemies shall fall before us because we fear nothing but God and the loss of his tender mercy. Apostles, now is not the time for any disloyalty. We are …”