“Malibu, can you give Daddy Chill a sloppy joe, too?”
She nodded, looking too ancient for her years. I hated when people dumped so much on the oldest girl in a family. It didn’t matter how large the family was either. It reminded me of my first nine years with Venita. When she gave birth to Diggity, it was as if I had given birth to a baby. She handed him over to me, and I had to get up with him at night, although I was only eight. I carried that boy on my hip so much, it still jutted out on one side to this day.
Unfortunately, everyone was falling apart at the same time. Quiet as it was kept, I was just holding on by a gossamer thread myself, but I wanted to try to do something to help out.
“G-Ma hasn’t been eating,” Malibu said, face scrunched up like she was the mother of five, instead of a carefree twelve-year-old girl.
I didn’t say anything as I opened a can of chicken soup, heated it and put it on a tray. I turned to Malibu. “Don’t worry. I’ll feed Shirley. Feed the kids and Daddy Chill.”
I climbed the stairs and timidly knocked on Shirley’s bedroom door. “Moochie, can I talk to you?”
When no one answered, I pushed the door open. The room was so dark, I stumbled over her house shoe laying strewn in the walkway.
Shirley was lying on her bed, on top of her brocade spread, which she raised us saying was a ‘no-no’. The shutters were closed, the drapes pulled. Her Afro twists, which were peppered with gray, hadn’t been tied up and they looked as tangled as a grapevine. Her gown was hanging off her once size-twelve frame. She looked like she’d lost about fifteen or twenty pounds.
It was a good thing she took an early retirement from the school board when Chica dropped the last baby, or she would be fired from her job.
As I stepped inside her room, I shuttered my eyes with both hands to adjust to the darkness, then I peered around. Everything looked dim. Her generally green plants that she kept in her bedroom were dying. I turned on the Tiffany lamp light in the corner.
“Cut it off,” Shirley snapped. With a flick of my wrist, I turned the lights back out.
“Well, excuse me,” I apologized.
I was grieving too, but I knew one thing that had become my mantra. I cannot take a drink, I cannot take a drink, I cannot take a drink.
The truth was, I was feeling more pain than when Okamoto died. I stayed so wasted for about the first nine months, I was numb to my pain. Whenever I thought about Okamoto I’d get drunk. This time, when death came a knocking through young Trayvon, I was blown completely out the water. Here I was, working on my recovery, and then this. I knew that recovery was supposed to be a good thing, but, coupled with this pervading feeling of doom brought on by our grief, I felt a knife twisting in my gut at all times.
How could life be so cruel, so unjust? I knew Shirley always taught us life wasn’t fair, but this was a dirty blow to all of us who knew Trayvon. Why him and not us? What kind of God would allow this type of thing to happen? I had to fight hard not just to slip into this darkness which was like a big maul as wide and gaping as the grave they buried Trayvon’s youthful body in.
I put the tray on Shirley’s nightstand, then flung open the drapes and the windows to let in some air and sunlight. “Moochie,” I called her in a soft voice. “Are you awake?”
Shirley had her lower arm thrown over her eyes to keep the sun from blinding her. She was quiet for the longest time. Just when I was about to give up and call her name again, I heard Shirley’s voice. It sounded gravelly, as if she were lying in a grave. For the first time, I was afraid I was going to lose her too. I had to do something. What would all of us do without Shirley?
“I can’t believe my grandson is gone. He had so much to live for.”
I tried to say words of comfort, but I knew they were useless as I spoke them. “Com’on now. Trayvon wouldn’t want you to give up. You’ve got the other kids looking at you.”
“I keep seeing him saying good-bye to us. It’s as if he knew something—the way he looked back at us.”
A chill rippled through me. I shivered. Goose bumps rose on my arms. I nodded, and didn’t say anything. I’d thought about his last look often too, but I didn’t want to get Shirley any more worked up than she was. I didn’t know which was worse. Maybe Shirley would have been better off to cry every day since she only cried that one time at the hospital. The way things looked, it was just like she’d shut down. I was afraid we’d lose her if she didn’t snap out of it.
“I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I’m like that spider plant just hanging from the ceiling. I’m just here, but I wish I were dead. I’ve never hurt this badly.”
“Moochie, you’ve got to eat,” I urged.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Remember when Chica and I both had the chicken pox and you had to make us eat? Come on now.”
I tried to spoon feed Shirley some of the soup, and she only sipped a tad bit down. She shook her head and pushed the bowl away from her. I decided to take control of the situation. “Shirley, get up.”
“I can’t get up.” Her voice sounded weak, hopeless, not like the Shirley I’d always known. This was not the woman who picked me up out the dumps after my father’s death and my mother’s imprisonment. Not the woman, who sat through my detox until I got my head on straight.
Now the roles had reversed. “Look, Moochie, pull yourself together.”
Shirley just stared ahead at the ceiling. “You can’t tell me how to feel.”
“Well, you’re acting worse than Chica.”
“Look, just because I didn’t birth Trayvon, I’m the one who sat up all night when he came home from the hospital at four and a half pounds, all cracked out from his mama. I’m the one who taught him to read at three, when they said he would be damaged because of the crack. Trayvon is—was my son. Just because you birth a child doesn’t make you the mother.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Suddenly Chill interrupted us, breaking into the room, and brought the old-fashioned house phone to me. “This is for Shirley.”
“Go way.” Shirley waved her hand lethargically.
I took the phone and heard a frantic voice spilling out. “Shirley, it’s an emergency. It’s Haviland.”
“Oh, hi. This is Z.”
“What are you doing there?”
“Long story.”
“Were you kin to Trayvon?” Haviland asked.
“Yes. I was his auntie.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear about him.”
“Thank you.”
“I know it’s late, but I need a place to stay. Long story, too, but can I rent a room there for about a month?”
I turned to Shirley. She took the phone out my hand. “I don’t want no monkey business now, Haviland. You can move here until you get on your feet.” I was surprised Shirley agreed.
As she clicked the phone shut, I said, “I never told Haviland that I lived here. Since we got out the program I always met her out at places.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t trust her.”
“Well, we have to give people a chance, Z.” She looked at me pointedly, as if to remind me how she gave me a second chance.
“All right. You’re right.” I changed the subject to something I’d been meaning to ask Shirley. “I know you said you knew her mother, but how did you get to know Haviland?”
“Her mother used to volunteer at McLaren Hall, when I would volunteer. Sometimes she brought Haviland with her.” Shirley sat up erectly, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
She continued. “Her mother told me what a problem Haviland had been since she was a teen. On drugs. In and out of rehab for the past ten years. It’s a shame—with all that education.” Shirley shook her head.
I knew what a headache Haviland could be, and I really felt Shirley was too weak to take her on. So it was decided. “As much as I hate to do it, Haviland can stay with me. I’ll let her sleep on the cot.”
Shirley
threw her hands in the air. “I didn’t sign up for this. When did my house become a boarding house?” Even so, I could hear some of the old fight coming back in her voice.
“When you opened your doors.”
Shirley finally stood up, took a long stretch, and let out a deep “whew.” She pulled her shoulders back and stretched, feline-like.
“I’m going to take a shower. Whew! I smell.”
I don’t know where it came from, but I spoke out and said something I hadn’t planned to say. “Moochie, I’m going to find out who killed Trayvon, if it’s the last thing I do.”
Shirley turned to me and nodded. Her head was held high, like a new resolve had come over her. I watched her transform before my eyes as she marched into her private bathroom off her bedroom.
I hoped I could deliver on my promise. And then it hit me. I hoped it was not the last thing I lived to do.
15
I planned to go to the high school as soon as possible after the funeral and do some investigating, but everything seemed frozen into a mold of grief. I couldn’t seem to move forward and I couldn’t seem to move backwards. After making the promise to Shirley, I forced myself to drive to Dorsey High School to poke around and see what I could find, but changed my mind after I arrived. I wound up sitting in my car and never getting out. I was just too raw inside to ask any questions yet.
I’d done homicide investigations before, but the decedents were strangers. This was different. Trayvon was family.
Instead, I drove to a nearby bar and sat outside. I wanted a drink so badly, my mouth sluiced a stream of saliva. I could already feel the first cool guzzle of a beer going down my throat. I knew this was crazy, but this taking life straight with no chaser was more than I could stand.
I felt like I had an alter-ego sitting on my shoulder, egging me on. “You deserve a drink. You’ve been through hell. You’ve dried out and your system could probably handle one or two drinks. Yeah. Just get a couple of beers to knock the chill off. You won’t get drunk this time.”
This was really what I wanted to hear.
But then there was my better self whispering in my other ear. “Z, you know you can never drink again. You will die if you drink. Period. Dot. Dash. Go sit your ass down somewhere.”
I didn’t know what to do. I was torn between wanting to take a drink and wanting to stay sober. I never was a religious person, even when Shirley took us to church nearly every Sunday, but this was one time, I found myself praying.
“Higher Power, God, Jehovah, Allah, please help me not go in there and take a drink. If I do, it will destroy everything I’ve accomplished in the past few months in one day. Amen.”
I didn’t know what happened, but lo and behold, a police car pulled up behind to give me a parking ticket. “Miss, don’t you see the ‘No Parking’ sign? Today is street cleaning day.”
I let out a sigh of relief. I had never been happier in my life to get a parking ticket. When I was a cop, I’d flash my badge and get out of the ticket. But this time, I took the ticket gratefully because, as quickly as the urge had come on, the urge for a drink had passed.
“Thank you, Lord,” I said, looking up. Is this what the twelve-step program meant by surrendering? I surely couldn’t handle this desire to drink on my own. I guess it would take a higher power. I guess the Lord intervened in my behalf. This let me know that I couldn’t get too confident. I was not running this sobriety show on my own power.
I drove off instead of going into the bar.
I pulled over when I turned the corner, and called F-Loc on my cell phone, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t have a voice mail set up, and I can imagine why. All the dealers knew that cell phones could be used as evidence against you. They’d even learned how to scramble-up codes on beepers now to fool the police.
A few days later, I decided to go to the barber shop, Scissors and Shaves, to get the low-down. I’m telling you, the black barber shop kept an ear to the streets better than any confidential informant could. If anything was happening, the men sitting around would know.
Mac, my barber, who kept my short crop in a style similar to Halle Berry’s hair cut she wore when she won the Academy Award, had me wait about a half hour before he slid me into the chair.
I was glad, because I was looking for information. I sat and soaked in the conversation like a sponge. This was the nice thing about them never knowing that I was a police officer even when I was on the force. I never wore my uniform home, and I didn’t even let my neighbors know.
I waited for the signifying and the loud talk to begin. When a game came on the little seventeen-inch TV, it was on and popping then.
“Yeah, Kobe is the reason the Lakers is gon’ go to the championship this year.” A regular named T-Bone threw out his opinion as fact when the first quarter almost ended.
“Aw, you ain’t no psychic,” a younger man named Butch countered. “You don’t know shit from shinola.”
I tuned them out as they argued the merits of the Lakers and the Clippers, until I zeroed in on what I wanted to hear.
“Did y’all hear about the shooting last weekend? Some Crips blasted some Mexicans.”
“Where, man?”
“Down in the jungle.” Baldwin Village, better known as the Jungle, was known for its crime activity. The area was made famous in the movie Training Day—the apartments where Denzel went to see his “lovely dime”—his outside “affair” girlfriend and baby mama.
“What were they doing in the jungle?”
“You know how they killed that fourteen-year-old girl in Harbor City back in January?”
“And remember that boy whose mama had to be flown in from Iraq to bury her own son?”
“That was Jamiel Shaw. Wasn’t he that football star at Crenshaw High? Ain’t nobody talking about it, but there’s been a lot of brown on black killings and vice-versa.”
“And it’s all over those drugs. Word is that the Mexican cartels runs more shit from the prison than on the streets. Ain’t that a motha? They can reach out and touch your ass from the pen.”
Everyone fell silent, as if they knew they were talking too much.
“Quiet as it’s kept, there’s been a whole lot of murders every weekend here lately.” Lo-Jack, another regular who was about in his forties, said in a hushed tone.
I just sat and listened, filing away the information. Were these random killings? Or had there been a rise in retaliation murders since Trayvon’s death? Were they all related? What was going on?
After I left the barber shop, I shot over to Dorsey High School, from where I graduated in ’92. This time, in spite of my grief-stricken haze, I forced myself to go inside.
Everything seemed smaller since I attended here. The corridors seemed narrower, the stairwell seemed shorter, the smells seemed less chalky than my memory. The school now had computer labs. However, the girls were larger. Most of them appeared to be over a size sixteen, and had huge pendulous breasts and butts like grown women. Dang, what’s in the water? This processed food was leading to a generation of Amazons.
Anyhow, I strolled to the principal’s office, and show him my private investigator’s license and my driver’s license. He remembered me from the funeral.
“Did Trayvon have any gang affiliations?” I asked. I had to take everything into consideration. You never knew what kids did when they weren’t in your face.
“No. No gang affiliations. No tattoos. No juvy record. An eyewitness says there were two Latino males who came up and shot him in the chest, execution style.” Mr. Jackson shook his head, ruefully, lacing and unlacing his fingers “How’s the family holding up?” he asked.
“We’re holding on.” I eyed him in a way to let him know that I was family.
“Tell them they are in my prayers. We all miss Trayvon. He had so much potential.” He heaved a deep sigh of remorse. “I just don’t know what this world’s coming to.”
He gave me permission to interview some of Trayvon’s friends. As I
trudged down the hall, I thought of how death made us all uncomfortable—particularly an untimely death through murder of a young person. I finally located Delonte, Trayvon’s friend, hanging around his locker, obviously skipping class.
“I thought you were supposed to be in Chemistry, Delonte?”
Delonte looked kind of sheepish. “I know. I’m going, Miss Z.”
“Yeah, it takes a minute to get used to what is, but you’ve got to keep going. Okay?”
Delonte’s lips were trembling, as he nodded in agreement. “I’ve got a question for you. What happened that night?”
“We had a scrimmage game that night. Anyhow, my mother’s car broke down so we caught the Crenshaw bus home. I saw Tray get off at MLK and as soon as he got off the bus, two Mexicans just came up outta nowhere and shot him.” He teared up, just thinking of it.
“What did you do?” A chill coursed through me. What if they’d shot Delonte too? The boy didn’t realize how lucky he’d been.
“I pounded on the window and made the bus driver let me off. He pulled over too and a lot of people got off to try to help Trayvon. I used my cell phone to call the police.” Delonte tried to cover his tears by putting his elbow up to his eyes.
“That was brave of you. They could have gone after you.”
“No, they jumped in a dark car and pulled off.”
“Do you remember what kind of car it was?”
“No, just that it was dark.”
I patted Delonte on the shoulder, trying to soothe him. “You did all you could do.”
After a while, I ask, “Is that all you remember? Did Trayvon have a girlfriend?”
“Yeah. They’ve been liking each other since junior high.”
“What is her name?”
“Tai.”
“Do you know what class she’d be in?”
Delonte shrugged. “She’s a cheerleader, so she might be at practice.”
“Go back to class, Delonte. Trayvon wouldn’t want you to give up. Stay in school.”
L.A. Blues Page 11