The family set up home hospice care. Big Momma didn't say anything as they entered the house, politely not commenting on the odor of mothballs, old people funk, and medicine. The day nurse – a squat, buxom woman with the face of a teamster – wasn't dressed in all-whites like Big Momma assumed she would be. The nurse escorted Earl Parker Wilcox from the bathroom to the couch. She untangled the array of tubes from his medicinal pump and oxygen canister, then excused herself to see about lunch. Prez and Big Momma waited until the door closed behind her and Earl to settle into the couch before they exhaled their pleasantries.
"Dad? It's me and Big Momma."
"Boy, you know I'm a grown-ass man. A dying grown-ass man, but still a grown-ass man. And I'm too grown to be calling a grown-ass woman 'Big Momma.' How you doing, miss lady?"
"Just fine, baby. You lookin' good."
"Shit. 'Preciate the lie though. You all clear a space and sit down. All that standing around on occasion is making me nervous."
Prez had forgotten how much he missed the raspy baritone of his father's voice. A filigree of wrinkles radiated from his mouth. His face was much thinner than he remembered, but he was still his father. Prez never understood all the angst most folks had about their fathers. He decided early on that his father was not someone he wanted to pattern his life after. They could be… he didn't know the best word to describe the kind of (adult) relationship he wanted to have with his father. "Friendly". Something that took the onus of responsibility off his father having to try to be a father. And Prez having to live up (or down) to it. Maybe that's why he took off. To be his own man; find his own way. And he fucked it up. Charting his own course ended him where he began: fragile and tired and no better than his old man.
"Another player done got caught up," Prez said, hoping his father had grown some. "All that 'he said/she said' stuff."
"The DA dropped the charges. Bet he won't see the inside of another court room for a while," Earl said.
"She'll probably see some cash though. Nuisance change to make that civil suit go away." Prez baited him. "That's all she was ever after."
"The cost of doing business. They all the same, only the rates ever change."
"They all alike, huh?" Prez's face grew hot, but he didn't know why. Maybe King's judgmental tone haunted him. Something close to rage mixed with resentment threatened to bubble up. Big Momma put her hand on his knee.
"Most of them." Earl turned to him as if annoyed by the interruption.
"Even Mom?"
"I said 'most'."
"I need a glass of water." Big Momma stood up as if hearing her mother call her from the kitchen. "Either of you need anything?"
"Help yourself. I'm good," Earl said. "You look like you got something on your mind."
"It's just that… you don't have that much time left."
"Uh huh."
"And I feel… I don't know… damn it, Dad, it's like you're a stranger to me."
"I'm your father, boy."
"I don't know what that means."
"It means watch your tone."
Prez knew that his father never respected him, or, at best, considered him as a soft punk. The only time that his father seemed to like him, to really talk to him, was when Prez was keeping one of his secrets. Prez studied the man. This old man. He'd never seen his father look weak… so old. The epiphany struck him: he was a boy. Not a boy in a man's body, a boy masquerading as a man. They both were. Boys who had gotten older, only the toys changed. The thought of playing at the role of being a father never sat well with him.
Prez never knew his father. Because he was little more than a man who left sperm in his mother. Prez knew the man who offered to smoke pot with him on occasion in lieu of actually bonding with or parenting him. But he didn't know anything about him. His childhood, how he was raised, events that shaped him, how he saw the world.
Sperm donor. Bill payer. Big brother. Protector.
My daddy's dying.
"I am who I am. Who do you want me to be?" Earl asked.
Real. "I don't know."
Fathers and sons. Everything kept coming back to that. He knew, whether being taught directly or simply absorbing it from the culture around him, that he was supposed to complete the work his father began. Follow in his father's footsteps, even if it wasn't a path he'd have chosen for himself. He was a son wanting to please his parent, to hear his father say that he was proud of him. Some part of him, some tiny voice, wanted his father's approval. Just like part of him wanted to prove his own worth, if only in his mind, by doing a superior job of being a parent. A husband. A man. It occurred to him that in order to grow, a son had to reject his father sooner or later. What he feared was, if faced with the possibility of rejection or disappointment in his offspring, his father would reject him first.
Shit. This was like breaking up with a woman. It didn't matter if both knew the relationship wasn't going to work, what mattered was who did the actual breaking-up.
Fathers and sons. That was some shit.
Garlan's mother was a nurse. That woman knew how to work a system. An opportunity which presented itself, she played it for maximum advantage. The way she put together her work schedule, she could hit overtime by a Wednesday, which meant by Saturday, working doubles, she was deep into the man's pocket. She wasn't married to the dude they lived with, so with everything in his nonworking-ass's name, they qualified for welfare and other benefits. The name of the game was getting over. His whole life was training for a doctorate in the art of getting over.
"Who's that young nigga that likes to run with you?" Dred asked. Everything was a system, from school to a job, or the street. Teachers, bosses, ballers, cops. His job was to run game on them. That was the life.
"Who? The Boars?" Garlan asked, knowing who Dred meant.
"Yeah, that's him. He got promise?"
"Yeah, he tight. Got some game to him." Keep your eyes open. Don't trust anyone. Keep the count straight. Make sure folks respect your name. The Boars had the makings for a good soldier. He internalized that shit. Garlan had his eye on him for a minute.
"Whatever, man. Put him on."
"What's with the change-up?"
"I gotta explain myself to you now?"
"Nah, man." Garlan took his cue to be quiet. He loathed meetings with Dred. It was worse than being called down to the principal's office. He'd call for a meet someplace random, like today they were just two niggas kicking it at Mr Dan's burger joint. But Dred had a way about him. The way he looked at you, through you most of the time, like you weren't there. Garlan tugged at his ring. It was, who was that crazy white dude always up in Batman's grill? The Joker? Yeah, how if you were part of the Joker's crew, you never knew when he'd turn on you and cap your ass.
"Naptown Red stepped to me wanting points on a package."
"That nigga is scandalous. Would run a game on his momma to turn a few ends."
"That's why I decided against it. But keep your eye on him. Too much side action will bring FiveO down on us. Keep him close."
"What about Mulysa?"
"What about him?"
"You always quick to bring up his name. You kin or something?"
"Naw, man, it ain't like that. Just making sure the crew's taken care of."
"I got him out. But he's too hot right now. He needs to cool out for a minute."
"So he on his own."
"He a survivor. He be all right."
Naptown Red considered himself a ghetto griot: soothsayer, truth-teller, keeper of the neighborhood history. He grew up hearing tales of the great shot-callers. Green. Speedbump. Bird. Bama. Luther. Night. Dred. Dred had consolidated various crews under him. Bardigora Street. Estonce Posse. A hundred Knights. And that was how he imagined himself. As a player, a man with secret agendas, moving people about like pieces. A man of style and influence. Today, he held court.
Having assumed that he had some Indian in his blood, his straight hair had been pulled back, which accentuated the blotchiness
of his skin. It pissed him off that no one saw him as a threat, that no one took him seriously. In his capacity as evolving historian, he knew about most of the various tendrils of the crew: extortion, fencing, prostitution, drug-dealing. His father carried a bullet in his back, which kept him from doing most kinds of physical labor. As a result, he rarely kept a job. Red asked him whether he'd received the wound in a war like Vietnam. Close, he said, a street war. Vice lords. Gangster Disciples. Whatever. All Red knew was that he was meant to follow in his footsteps: drinking, smoking weed, breaking into houses. Even absent parents taught and passed along lessons. From early on, Red's folks would go into one of the back bedrooms with their friends, drinking, and carrying on. He could smell the pot from the other end of their house.
"You gotta girl?" Naptown Red asked, trying to school some of these young brothers coming up.
"Rhianna," Fathead said.
"How y'all doing?"
"We a'ight."
"A'ight? What's 'a'ight'?"
"We cool. She be sweating me for money. Wants some new gear."
"Her babies need stuff, too."
"Let her go to they babies' daddies then. Shit. I'll pay for my own, but I for damn sure ain't paying for anyone else's. This whole relationship bullshit's more trouble than it's worth. I'm a hitit-and-quit-it sort of man."
A more introspective turn might have seen this as a case of the sins of the father and all that bullshit passed on to his son. And his son's son. From firing up some herb for social occasions, Red's folks graduated to the sometime line of coke, by which point they'd moved into an apartment. They owed everyone in the neighborhood. Shit, they owed everyone in the family. Some months they sold off their food stamps in order to make ends meet, as they smoked up the rent money again. He wasn't mad at being poor, but things didn't have to be as bad as they were. His clothes never fit. The house was never cleaned. There was never anyone doing any cooking. One day, he found a broken piece of antenna behind the curtain on the window sill of the Section 8 half of a duplex. Its intentional placement had the air of importance, laying on the altar of the sill. It took him a while to divine its use as a crack pipe.
The education system also taught him and passed on lessons. Early in his elementary school years, Naptown Red had been labeled learning disabled (LD). The educators shuffled him off to be in separate classes. When that freckle-faced Andy Baumer spread lies about his mother, Red bit the shit out of him and was labeled emotionally disabled (ED). His mother jumped all over that once she figured out she could get more welfare benefits. When the boys in his neighborhood began affecting the same look, he wore his hat to the right and was labeled a Gangsta Disciples (GD). Little more than a weekend gangsta, he ran with them for a hot second, flew his black and blue colors, broke into cars, boosted stuff from stores, smoked a little weed.
Then he decided to dream bigger.
"What's this business you trying to speak on?" Naptown Red asked.
"I heard you were the man to get with." This here fool Fathead done brought around Prez. He never knew who he wanted to run with. Every time Red turned around, this boy was with someone else. He'd give this much to Prez: he was reserved, didn't raise his voice. A little soft for the streets, he still had a nice way about him, though it looked like the dragon had chewed him up and walked him around the block a few times. Still, he didn't act superior, but kept things low-key and played it smart. He knew who was taking over.
"I run this over here," Naptown Red said.
"I'm looking to do some work," Prez said.
"You think you can handle this here-ron." Naptown Red exaggerated the pronounciation of heroin for old school effect. These youngbloods didn't know.
"I ain't tripping." He could tell the way he spoke to Red irritated him.
"You vouch for him?"
"Yeah, he cool," Fathead said. "Not like his strung-out ass was Five-O or nothing."
Fear made men bluster. Naptown Red trusted him because Fathead needed him to make things happen, just as Naptown Red needed someone with good street eyes. Information was gold. The man with the keys to the dope line was gold. Theirs was a relationship of mutual mining. Red studied his body language. When he was asked a sticky question, Fathead folded like yesterday's newspaper. He was all about protecting himself.
"All right, come on. I got a party to go to. You roll with me and I'll show you how it's done."
Mulysa had to die. For Tristan the hunt was long overdue. The portrait Iz sketched of her, especially the smile on her face, mocked her. The front part of her hair was tucked down while the rear half flared into an Afro. Her features generous and sculpted. Gold eyes, dark skin, smile lines around her mouth. Iz always believed she was terrible at drawing hands. Yet there they were, strong but delicate. And powerless to stop the men in her life from hurting her or her own.
The thing Tristan resented most about her relationship with her father was how grateful she was to him. And for all that he'd done, she still wanted to turn to him. Thirteen years old, scared, alone…
it had been a terrible Thanksgiving. It was just her and her father. She'd spent the day cooking while he laid back on the couch, slowly draining the bottle of Crown Royal, absently watching football. The game didn't matter. Nor did he stir for commercials. His was a slow-cooking stew of loneliness and self-loathing.
"Daddy, I have something to tell you." Tristan unfolded a TV table and placed it in front of her father. With meticulous care, she arranged a plate and napkin. Fork, knife, then spoon. She slipped a coaster under the nearly empty glass. One by one, she brought out saucepans of food, as if for his inspection. Macaroni and cheese. Mashed potatoes. Fried okra. Greens. Turkey. Fried corn. Ham. Cranberry sauce. Each entrée greeted with a barely perceptible nod or flicker of the eyes. Grief had swallowed him whole since her mother died. It took him in little bits, slowly robbing him of the will to work, go through the motions of life, or move. He neither made nor took calls. His friends, what few he had, rarely stopped by anymore. And he looked at her, with his bloodshot, rheumy eyes which looked too large for his face. The stink of alcohol on his breath. He slipped into her room at night and held her. She laid awake in panic not knowing whether to move or remain frozen, and the paralysis of indecision left her in his embrace. Each night, the entanglement became more familiar. More intimate. His hands resting on her waist. He breathed her in, or the memory of her mother. And she feared what new intimacy each night might bring.
"Daddy, I… I'm not like other girls," she blurted out. Her heart slammed into her chest with a machine gunning thud. She could barely catch her breath. Her hands trembled with the weight of anticipation, so she gripped each pot handle firmer. She hadn't rehearsed what she was going to say. She wanted it to seem natural. Now she cursed herself for not better thinking it through.
"It's not a phase or nothing. I been this way as long as I can remember. I just… don't like boys."
There, she had said it. The words hung in the air and it was too late to take them back. Nothing could be unsaid. Or unremembered. His slightly yellow eyes turned toward her, barely noting the food placed before him like a placating sacrifice before a bloodthirsty god. The eyes studied her with a gleam of unfamiliarity, clouded by a slight lascivious glint.
The plate of food slapped Tristan in the face. The gravy from the mashed potatoes scalded her eyes. She ripped the plate from her face, food dripping from her cheek in time to make out the blur approaching her. The fresh sting of her father's palm against her jaw sent her tumbling to the floor.
Tristan knelt there, kernels of corn falling from her hair and cranberry sauce trailing down her cheek like streaking blush. Her face warmed from where her father struck her. As if he could slap the gay out of her, her father – a tall man, looming like a wild grizzly above her – prepared to pounce on her. He never said a word. The Detroit Lions rumbling backward on the television screen was the only sound besides her father's labored breathing. She didn't know where the attack, the anger, came
from. His daughter had declared herself a dyke. Her tacit admission that she was no longer his. His own grief finally devoured him. His self-loathing from not working, not being where he wanted to be in life, missing his wife, and being lost, all of it bubbling up and lashing out in a feral outburst. He would control one thing in his life and house.
Tristan.
He lumbered toward her.
Tristan had had enough. She was done with this world of pain and abuse at the hands of someone who was supposed to protect her. Her fingers balled into a fist. Her hair, slick with gravy, fell to one side of her face. Tristan's body heaved as if wracked with sobs. He pressed his attack, leaning low to scoop her up, to lay his hands on her, to act as if he owned her or her body.
She punched him in his throat.
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