Black Sheep

by Na'ima B. Robert

  “Do you know why I sound like your mum, Misha?” asked Leona, her hand on her hip, her head to one side. “Because I care about you, just like she does. We may not see eye to eye on a lot of things but where you’re concerned, we are totally on the same page.”

  “So you think he’s just some useless gangbanger too, do you?” I sniffed.

  “No, Misha, that is not what I am saying, not at all. Dwayne sounds like a lovely boy, someone I would like to meet and get to know better. But what I don’t like is you selling yourself short.”

  “Selling myself short ... why, because he’s not rich, or posh?”

  “Misha, please!” Leona laughed. “Which side of this Rasta woman looks posh to you? No, love, I’m as down-to-earth as they come so I’m going to give you down-to-earth advice. Let me ask you something.”

  “Yes?”

  “Does Dwayne know that your mum doesn’t like him?”

  “It was kind of obvious, to be honest...”

  “OK, does he know that she told you that you couldn’t see him any more?”

  “Yeah, he does...”

  “And so he knows that when you are going out with him, you are going behind your mum’s back?”

  “Yeah, I guess so – but there wasn’t any other way...”

  “See, this is where my problem begins. The fact is, Misha, that you’ve given this boy everything without him having to fight for it!”

  “And how did I do that then?”

  “By lying, Misha! By sneaking around! By letting him off the hook with those who matter to you. Treating yourself, your family, your values, as something cheap, something you’re willing to trade at the drop of a hat! When things didn’t go well with your mum and her family, why didn’t you come to us? We’re your family too!” She took hold of my hand and looked into my eyes. “Misha, let me tell you something: your heart, your body is your sacred space. No one, and I mean no one, should be able to enter that space without showing you the respect that you deserve.”

  Had Dwayne disrespected me? Not by his standards, not at all. But what about by mine? My mind whirled with questions. Had I been too easy on him? Too hard on Mum? Too quick to agree to his way of seeing things, of dealing with things?

  Leona continued. “What you did was wrong, Misha. You shouldn’t have lied to your mum; she loves you and, after everything she’s done for you, she deserves more than that. By deceiving her, by deceiving us all, you’ve shattered the trust we had in you – and that is a terrible thing. But what is worse is that you allowed this boy, Dwayne, to think that it’s OK; that, in your book, it’s all right to lie in order to get what you want, or avoid facing tough choices or difficult situations. That is the lesson you have been teaching him all this time.”

  Tears pricked at my eyelids and I blinked and turned away. Leona had touched a raw nerve: had I sold myself short? How many times had I felt disappointed in Dwayne – how he’d responded to my mum and everyone, what he’d done to that teacher’s car, how he’d switched on me when I tried to bring these issues up. And not once had he acknowledged my feelings or accepted that my point of view was valid. He hadn’t even stopped using the ‘n’ word, for Goodness’ sake!

  What was stopping me from making him take me seriously – was I afraid that he would walk away and never come back? Did I need him that badly? Badly enough to settle? The questions ripped at my heart because I knew that I didn’t have the answers, not yet. Crying was the easy option.

  Leona put her arms around me, smelling of patchouli and peppermint. “There, there,” she soothed. “Don’t cry, love. Don’t cry. All is not lost. We can fix this. We can.”

  “How?” I sniffed, my face buried in my hands. “How can we sort this mess out?”

  Leona knelt down next to me. “Tell Dwayne to come and meet your father.”

  I let out a ragged breath. “Meet Dad?”

  Leona nodded emphatically. “Yes, Misha, tell him to come and meet your dad. It’s the only way. You can’t keep covering for him. He’s going to have to man up and face what he’s dealing with here. We’re a package deal, Misha, he can’t have all of the smooth and none of the rough.” Then she looked searchingly into my eyes. “If he’s everything you believe he is, he’ll be fine. But you’ve got to let go and let him sink or swim. For his sake and for yours.”

  She held me close for a long moment then turned and got up heavily. “Come on now, Josh must be bored silly. Let’s bake some bread. Joshie!”

  I sat at the table for a little while longer. Dwayne? Meet Dad? But I knew that it made complete sense. Dad was more perceptive than Mum, less prejudiced. And he could smell bull a mile away. If Dad liked him, we had a chance. If he failed to impress, there was little hope for us.

  Oh, Dwayne, you’ve got to come through for me this time. You’ve just got to.

  Commitment

  DWAYNE

  Mum wouldn’t even let me come by the next morning to accompany Jay to the station. She said she didn’t want me anywhere near him. But I had to see him.

  I went down to Brixton High Road and waited inside the Favourite Fried Chicken. I sipped at my Coke nice and slow until the owner said, “You gonna order anything to eat, mate? This place not a park, y’know.”

  I scowled and kissed my teeth at him – but I ordered a box of chicken and chips anyway. But as soon as I had told him what I wanted – two legs, not a thigh – I hurried back to the window, just in time to see Mum and Jay coming out of the station. I pulled my hood up and ducked out of the door.

  “Hey, where you goin’? You haven’t paid, you bastard!”

  I kept a safe distance away from them. I didn’t need Mum seeing me and making a scene in front of Jay. He looked all right, a bit pale and lost, but all right. He kept looking behind him, as if he was looking for someone, someone who should have been there with him. Someone who should have been there for him.

  His wort’less older brother.

  That was when I fell back and let them walk on towards Coldharbour Lane without me. Maybe Mum was right. Maybe Jay was better off without me around.

  ‘What you sayin’, blud?’

  ‘Maybe Mum’s got a point, innit? If it weren’t for me and the whole RDS ting, Jay wouldn’t be robbing no old ladies.’

  ‘Jay is reading the lines he sees in front of him, y’get me. Look at Spaz, his best mate. Look at all the bredders he looks up to: you, Jukkie, Trigger, Spoonz. Jay ain’t no different to how you were at that age, when you first started shotting with Jukkie. He sees the lifestyle, he wants a piece. Ain’t no one showed him any different.’

  ‘I wanted to show him different.’

  ‘It ain’t too late, Dee. But you have to man up and be strong. Fight the temptations of the road, y’get me, concentrate on school, clean yourself inside and out. Then maybe Mum might give you a second chance. You best stick with Tony, blud. He’s always been solid – and that Islam stuff he’s chattin’ sounds solid too...’

  ‘Ya dun know!’

  I’d only been cotching with Tony for a day but I could already see the effect Islam was having on him. I heard him wake up proper early the next morning, while it was still dark, to go to the bathroom, wash and pray. I saw him whisper ‘Bismillah – in the name of God’ before he ate. He’d started eating with his right hand too, even though he was left-handed.

  “In Islam, the left hand is considered unclean,” he explained. “We use our right hand to eat and drink and ting.”

  I just nodded. It was a lot to take in, the Islamic lifestyle, the changes in Tony. The dress, the way of speaking, not to mention the wife and college courses. But I noticed other changes too, ones I could appreciate, especially with everything else that was going on. He was more chilled than before, thinking about things more deeply. He talked about doing the right thing, sticking to the straight path, even when everyone is against you. He talked about our duty to God.

  “’Nuff man living like they’ll never have to answer for what they do. It makes them rec
kless, y’get me. Robbin’, sellin’ drugs, stabbin’ up man, ready to shoot man over foolishness. You know how we stay, innit, you don’t expect to live long so you might as well raise hell while you’re here, get high, sleep with ‘nuff girls, make money any way you can – because you don’t care. Get rich or die tryin’, innit?”

  We laughed. What he had described was exactly the way I had come to think: the hustler’s creed. Tony had been on that too. So had ‘nuff of the brothers at the mosque.

  “But as Muslims we know that we’ll have to answer to Allah on Judgement Day. And that day’s gonna be a terrible day, blud, if you’ve lived your life on badness.”

  Now these former pimps, hustlers and gangbangers were on Islam, trying to live righteous lives, trying to get straight. I thought of Malcolm X and thought, ‘I could do that.’

  Tony gave me some books to read. He played CDs of the Qur’an being recited in Arabic. It was proper nice, soothing. I didn’t understand a single word but there was just something about it that touched me somewhere deep.

  But I kept quiet. I didn’t want Tony to know I was that interested because, true say, I really didn’t think I was ready to commit to such a huge change, to make such an important decision.

  So I played it cool, real cool.

  All that day, I thought about Jay. It was like an ocean between us. I had tried to sneak up to see him but Mum had had the locks changed. I rang for him but Mum picked up the phone.

  “Who is it?”

  I hung up, of course.

  I thought about Misha too. I hadn’t been able to reach her on her phone and, by evening, I was starting to get worried. We usually spoke to each other at least twice a day, standard. At about eight o’clock, my phone finally rang. It was a landline, looked like a Tottenham number.

  I picked up.

  “Dwayne! Where’ve you been?”

  Misha’s voice sounded so far away that I felt a physical ache. I wanted to be near her, to hold her, to... “I was worried about you, girl! Where have you been? Why is your phone off?”

  “Oh, that. Long story.”

  “I’ve got time...”

  “Mum found out about us.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, we had a big fight about it and I’m at my dad’s, but he’s got my phone.”

  “Raah, that must have been bait, babe. So you’re at your dad’s now?”

  “Yeah, for the time being...”

  “Safe...” I lost my train of thought. I was thinking about Jay and how much I would have loved to tell Misha what had happened with him, and between me and my mum. I knew that she would understand how I felt, that she would be able to comfort me.

  But it was too close to home. Telling Misha that Jay had been arrested would basically blow the door to my life in the hood right open – and I didn’t want her knowing anything about that. Nothing at all. And I didn’t want her judging Jay – just like I didn’t want her judging me.

  But, man, I needed her right then. Just to hold her, to feel her beside me.

  “Misha, I need you here with me. I’m falling apart here, man. So much stuff has happened... I just need to hold you, y’get me. I need you, Misha. Can’t you come over, just for a little bit?”

  I heard her take in a sharp breath. I knew how that kind of talk made her melt inside. I could feel myself grow warm, thinking of how much it meant to me for her to be there with me.

  But she surprised me.

  “No, Dwayne, I can’t. I can’t. I’m at my dad’s and he’s upset with me over everything...” Her voice shook a little. “I need you to do something for me, Dwayne.”

  “What is it, babe?” I couldn’t help feeling a bit irritated, still. Why was she asking me to do something for her now? I needed her, didn’t she get it?

  “Come and meet my dad.”

  “What?” Something inside me snapped. What was she on about?

  “Come and meet my dad, Dee.” She was talking really fast, like she was nervous or something. “ That way we can keep seeing each other and it will be legit. This is the address...”

  I hardly heard the house number and road name. “No way!” I didn’t mean to shout but I did – and I heard her gasp.

  “What?”

  “I said allow dat, man! No way man is putting himself through that again, no way!”

  She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I guess she was trying to process what I had just said. “A-are you serious? Dee?”

  “I am, Misha! Sorry, I ain’t going through that again, not for you, your dad or anyone! No way, blud, no way...”

  “What the...?” That was the first time I had ever heard Misha swear. The word sounded like a shotgun and I reeled from the impact. “You’ve got a nerve, Dwayne Kingston, a bloody nerve! How can you talk about what you will and won’t go through? I put everything on the line for us, everything! I’ve fallen behind at school, I’ve had a fight with my mum, left home, my dad’s vex’ with me, my mum’s vex’ with me, all because I’m standing up for your lame arse!”

  Man, she was really tripping. I tried to get her to calm down. “Yo, Misha, easy, man, easy...”

  But she wasn’t having it. “So, it’s OK for me to go through crap for you, is it? Huh? Doesn’t matter what I want, what my family think of me, of us, as long as you’re still a badman, is that it?”

  “Yo, baby...”

  She kissed her teeth. “Don’t ‘Yo baby’ me! I’ve had it with you, Dwayne, you hear me? I’ve had it up to here with your selfishness and your stupid pride! You don’t want to come and meet my dad and be a man, fine! But don’t expect ever to see me again.”

  “Misha, wait, don’t be like that... it ain’t like that, it’s just that...”

  “What have I asked you for, Dwayne? Huh?”

  The pain in her voice came across loud and clear – and it cut me deep.

  “Nothing! All I’ve done in this relationship is give, give, give – and now, when I ask you to give, when I ask you to step out of your comfort zone, you refuse point blank! Well, I don’t know what they call that where you come from, but where I’m from there’s a word for that – and it isn’t ‘love’!”

  “Misha, OK, I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry...”

  “You know what? You are sorry – a sorry punk-ass waste of space! I never want to see you again, ever!”

  The phone went dead. I realised that I was shaking. I was fuming, man. I threw the phone against the wall but it didn’t smash into a million pieces like I wanted it to.

  What had gotten into Misha? Just when I needed her most – what was she playing at?

  ‘She’s just woken up, that’s all. It was bound to happen sooner or later, you knew that. Now it’s time for you to make a choice, blud.’

  ‘Free dat! I can think of nuff gyal that can come keep a man company, y’get me.’

  I picked up my phone and began scrolling through the names: Lachelle, Shannon, Mariah, Chantelle, Rachel ... Then I flung the phone against the wall again and threw myself onto the bed. I was proper vex’. I didn’t want any of those girls. I wanted Misha.

  ‘Time to make a choice, blud. Ya dun know!’

  It was Tony who finally talked some sense into me. He had heard me shouting down the phone so he asked me, straight out, what the problem was.

  I told him all about Misha. About her mum, her lifestyle, how she made me feel. And this fight we had just had about coming to meet her dad.

  He laughed. “Looks like you’re just gonna have to man up, innit. What are you worried about? Just be yourself and let them see that you’re not a wasteman, that you’ve got plans, and that you want to treat their daughter well. They can’t ask for more than that.”

  “True dat.”

  “Remember the verse from the Qur’an? Allah doesn’t change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. If you want good to come to you, you have to do good. And pray, man, pray for whatever you want.”

  I nodded. It made sense. So much of
it made sense.

  Then Tony laughed again. “You never know, the two of you could both become Muslim – then you could just marry her and make the whole ting halal, innit?”

  I smiled but I was kinda shocked by the idea of marriage, still. But then I thought about having Misha with me all the time, not having to sneak around: waking up next to her, seeing her face first thing in the morning and last thing at night, telling her everything, letting my guard down... It was like a fantasy, a dream.

  Of course, I didn’t think about school or money or where we would live or even whether Misha wanted to become a Muslim. Hell, I wasn’t even a Muslim yet! But I was just feeling the idea of the two of us on a path together, something to unite us, to keep us strong. Why not Islam?

  Man, I was starting to lose my mind for sure.

  The Prodigal Boyfriend

  MISHA

  Mum wasn’t happy about me staying at Dad’s in Tottenham. She wanted me to come home.

  “Misha, darling, this is just silly,” she said on the phone. “You’re making life difficult for your dad and his family. It really is too far to travel on your own – and what are the chances of you getting to school on time? And you’ve got your exams to think about, love. Please, be sensible. Just come home.”

  I pressed my lips together and tried not to scream. Mum refused point-blank to talk about what had happened the day I left home. And now, here she was, trying to convince me to come back so I could get to school on time!

  “Mum,” I said, trying to control my voice, “I love you and I miss you. But I’ll come home when we have had a chance to talk things through. I’m not coming back until you agree to start listening to me. Until you can respect that I have a mind of my own, that I have my own views...”

  “Oh, darling, if this is about that boy...”

  “No, Mum, it’s got nothing to do with Dwayne; this is about you and me. This is about me growing up... I’ll be at Dad’s until you’re ready to talk, all right? I’ve got to go now.”

  “Misha!”

  “Bye, Mum. I love you.”