by Jen Lowry
“Daddy, he’s not here.” I couldn’t believe I was saying this.
He said, “Go to sleep, Sweet Potato.”
Bean was knocked out next to him in a fort he had made from blankets. Bell was asleep in the next room over. Why was I the only one caring about this?
“Daddy!” I pulled the covers off him. “It’s two thirty.”
“Okay,” Daddy said as he wiped his face. “And?”
“He’s not home, and it’s after two o’clock in the morning,” I whispered urgently in his ear.
“He’s gone.” Daddy shot up. Fumbling in the unfamiliar surroundings. Too much furniture meant new leg bruises. “I can’t believe that fool done run away. Now that we ’bout to settle this.”
“Don’t say that, Daddy.” Even though I knew it was true.
He had never pulled a stunt like this, and right now my brain felt like it was the ringmaster trying to control a panicking crowd when the lions broke out of the cages.
“What else could it be?”
“It could be he got in trouble, or he got lost. You know he doesn’t know this address. Do you know this address? I don’t even know this fool address. If the cops had to try to take him somewhere, he couldn’t say Pastor’s house, and they’d know the deal. Maize probably doesn’t even know Preacher Anderson’s name. You know his mind hasn’t been on spiritual things for a long time.”
“I know where he could tell them, though. He could say Soul Food.”
I wiped a tear from my cheek, imagining him riding in a cop car, scared out of his mind. He would have a panic attack without me around to talk him down, without Bell to sing. Oh, Lordy! Bell would lose it if he wasn’t here when she got up.
“I gotta go, Daddy.” We were already all dressed, like always. “I have to look there.”
But I knew he wasn’t there. That was too easy a fix, and nothing about loving this family was easy.
“No, I’m going.” He pointed to Bean. “You got to stay here with the kids. Don’t wake them up. They don’t need to know about this. It’ll be solved by first light.”
But I knew he couldn’t guarantee it. Runaways were smart if they were street, and Maize was street personified. Maize would camouflage into the darkest shadows like a super ninja. He might even have trucked it back down to North Carolina, by now. No, he’d never go back there. Too much pain in that lucky bird state.
My mind went to all kinds of places as I waited for news from Daddy. In the space of ten minutes, I felt myself losing all sense of reason.
Ray answered on the first ring. “Are you okay? I’m coming.”
“Is he there?” My voice was broken. He knew I was not okay.
“No. I’m coming to you. Stay there.”
Like I could move and leave my children. What was wrong with Maize? After what happened to me at The Home, he’d seemed so livid with Daddy. He was seething mad and withdrawn, even from me. All the encouraging words I threw his way seemed to bounce right off him, but he hadn’t had any attacks for two weeks, either, so I’d thought maybe he was growing stronger emotionally. I didn’t know what to make of all of this.
Daddy should have talked with him, but Daddy had been so distant, too. I knew he was hiding something, and I didn’t like it one bit. We’d never been a secretive lot. Secrets led to mistrust and judgments. Secrets led to three o’clock panic attacks. Everything had been fitting together, moving right along. Now it was all falling apart again.
The knock on the door ’bout scared me out of my skin. It was Ray. I buried my face in his chest as he held me against the doorframe.
“Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.”
“Wait? Is he dead? Oh, God. He’s dead?” I sobbed, becoming fainter by the second.
“We haven’t seen him, Sweet Potato. We don’t know where he is.”
That meant he was gone from us for good, evaporated into thin air. Ray’s protective arm was warm around me, yet I was chilled to the bone.
“I’ve got to get him back. This is my fault.” I pulled my knees up against my chest and hid my head in shame.
“What happened?” he whispered in my ear. “Tell me what happened.”
“It’s my fault because I don’t know what happened. I’m supposed to know everything. When he stopped telling me, that’s when it became my fault.”
I was now choking on guilt for not having seen what he was up to. He would’ve left a sign—something. I jumped from the couch and went to the room he shared with Daddy. His bag was there, placed neatly beside the other two matching, drawstring, canvas bags.
I snatched his bag up quietly and tiptoed out of the room, so afraid that Bean would wake on up and find his brother gone. When I got back to the living room, Ray was on his phone, and his face was grim.
“Momma said Mr. Eli and Daddy left for the police station.”
“Did they get a call?”
My hand came to my throat. I could’ve strangled myself for allowing all this mess to happen. I should’ve somehow stopped it.
“Momma’s called all the places she knows. The hospitals, the principal, the church people are out everywhere, combing the streets in teams.”
Ray quit talking. He startled me when he suddenly yelled, “Where did he get that?”
I was rummaging through Maize’s bag, looking for any clues. Maybe a phone number of that girl. She might have known where he was. She might be the friend. Oh, Lordy! Ray grabbed the wadded clothes and held up a shirt.
“Sweet Potato, where did he get this?” He balled it up in his fist and threw it against the wall.
“Why did you do that?” I grabbed the shirt and stuffed it back in the bag.
He pulled it right back out. “Do you see this? This isn’t a regular, black shirt.”
He pointed to the right sleeve, to a tiny, silver scythe patch that I wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t drawn my attention to it.
“Mrs. Sunshine didn’t get this one for Maize when we went shopping. I ain’t never seen it. Why are you so mad? Ray, I’ve never seen you this upset before.”
His eyes weren’t laced with fear, but with disgust. He took the shirt in his hands and ripped it straight down the middle, as if it was made of nothing but notebook paper.
“It’s the East Coast Grims, Sweet Potato. It’s a Reaper shirt,” he spit out, his eyes dark and menacing.
I put my hand on his arm and shook him. “What are you saying?”
“Don’t you know what I’m saying? Listen to me.”
My heart stopped in my chest. I hadn’t heard of no Reapers. But I’d heard of The Tanks and City Dimes and Forks back in North Carolina, and from the way Ray snarled East Coast Grims, I knew right away it was a gang. My head fell back against the pillow, and I turned my head as the tears fell silently. I didn’t lose my baby to a gang. I didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t. Oh, God. I couldn’t help but rock this pain. It wouldn’t go away.
I must have spoken His name aloud, because Ray replied, “You are right. God is the only one who can save him now. They have a special set of rules for a specialized crew—methodical, deadly. Once you are in, the rest of your life must disappear. They make you cut off your whole family, connections. Clipped. Oh, Sweet Potato, I’m so sorry.”
He fell on his knees, right on that fancy rug, and prayed to the Lord until the sweat was pouring off his face. All I could see was Maize with his little group of friends from The Dream that he walked with every day. The ones he told me he ate with at lunch. The ones who had his back and already felt like brothers to him. I thought they were a blessing. They ended up being a curse.
“Why didn’t I see it?” I cried. “He’s my boy. He’s done this. You’re right. I know he’s done this.”
“He wouldn’t have this unless he’s done something. They just don’t give out their colors to the choir boys.”
He went through the swinging door with force that might have knocked it off its hinges, and I heard him stuffing t
he shirt in the trashcan.
I can’t handle this, Lord. You always told me you wouldn’t give me nothing I couldn’t handle. I can’t handle this gang, God. You got to take my baby out of this mob. He can’t cut us off like a light switch. We’ve always been so tangled up, me and him. He was my live wire, my light, my source of power. But I knew what Ray said was true. Maize had done this because he wanted to get away from all of us. Even me.
“Maybe he’s not in it yet. Maybe he spilled something on his clothes, and he had to borrow a shirt.” I was trying to rationalize this craziness, even though I knew I was lying to myself. “Maybe it ain’t too late. Maybe he’ll come to his senses and remember all I taught him. What we stand for.”
Ray put his arms around me. “Baby, I know this world. The Grims don’t let you walk away when you up and please, and if Maize chose them, he’s disowned you. Do you understand what I am saying to you? The East Coast Grims aren’t some little, lollipop gang. They take you in and mold you into sellers and hustlers and bangers against their enemies—and they have a slew of enemies. They are notorious killers, death-row types. They protect those streets with their lives. Momma is going to lose it when she finds out about this.”
“You know gang life? You?”
I couldn’t imagine it. He seemed the most sheltered soul in America, with a smile on his face and a word of the Lord on his lips.
His face fell, tears forming in his eyes like he was reliving a sudden memory that he’d tried desperately to repress.
“Denise has a brother.”
That was all he said, but it was enough. He started dialing but was respectful enough to take the call outside. I knew the reason. He didn’t want me to have to hear him tell his momma. His words keep coursing through my veins as his muffled voice carried through the open window.
Maize, come back to me. Find a way, whatever it takes. Find your way back home.
Daddy was talking to Pastor Anderson in the church study while Bell, me, and Bean were waiting for him on the front pew. Bean had been crying, even though he would never admit it to anybody. Bell was flipping through the hymn book, and I knew she was trying to busy her mind. I sat pulling a string on the knee of my jeans.
“He’s coming back. Right, Sweet Potato?” Bean whispered against my arm.
“I don’t think so, baby.” I leaned my head against his and pulled him in closer to me.
“Don’t say that,” Bell said, breaking the eerie silence around us. “He’ll be back. We gonna pray him back. He’s coming back, like Jesus’s second coming. It’s a guarantee.”
I said, “There’s one thing I know about this life. Another day ain’t promised. We have no assurances about this world. Haven’t you learned that in our walk?”
I wanted to hurt Daddy for telling Bell our walking was the Lord’s doing. For him putting Maize in a gang way. What was he doing back there with that preacher for so long? Oh, let me guess—asking for forgiveness? Finding his calling?
Ray never talked about Denise’s brother, and I couldn’t ask. I didn’t really want to know. Tell me lies. Tell me he went off on a fisher boat in Maine to catch them crabs. Tell me he hitchhiked across the States to California to see the sunrise on another ocean. Don’t tell me he joined a gang, robbed, killed, in any order. And I thought Denise was an only child. Oh, right. I guess she was.
But Maize was my best friend, my true, and these last three days of my life, since he’d vanished, had been the hardest I’d ever had to face. Picking out Momma’s casket wasn’t anything compared to this. I’d expected her to OD anytime. I didn’t see this one coming—but that might be the biggest lie I’d told myself yet. We were ’bout on our way, doggone it. Daddy had to keep moving, even though I’d stopped.
Our free ride at the preacher’s house had come to an end. Him and his pretty wife with her nice suit and matching bags had come back. We left. Daddy had us at the motel at the end of West Fifth until …
Bell took timid steps up to the pulpit. Step one, her voice got confidence. Step two, she started to fly. Step three, her voice was on angel wings. She was singing from the hymn book, and I hadn’t heard it before. She probably didn’t know the right way it was supposed to go, but she made those lyrics her own. A call-out for Maize.
When she finished, she collapsed on her knees, her little head falling into her hands like an old woman praying for a miracle. Oh, Lordy! My heart couldn’t take much more of this. The preacher and Daddy were out now, standing down at the door frame, watching Bell. The preacher was more grief-stricken than Daddy, who seemed cool during this chaos. It made me seethe with resentment.
I went to Bell, picked her up, and held her in my arms. Bean came and curled up like a baby by my feet. They knew Maize was gone, but we hadn’t the heart to tell them he’d chosen the gang life. Daddy stood in the doorway with some papers in his hand. What had he done? He’d signed us away. That’s what he’d done. He signed us away and had already made peace with it. That was why he seemed so blank-faced in our time of turmoil. He had failed, cut his losses, and was moving on … without us.
“Sweet Potato, why don’t you take the kids out the back to Patty? She’s got lunch ready for all the volunteers, and maybe the little ones will want something to eat.”
Why was it that any time there was some kind of death or disaster, the only thing anybody could blessed think about was filling their stomachs? I needed somebody to fill my soul, and He’d turned his back on me.
Ray came in with a stack of flyers he’d been copying from the church computer. It had a picture of Maize and contact information for the church. What person out there on the street would contact the church? But for some reason they didn’t want the Soul Food name on it. We couldn’t put the motel phone number down, because that was another stupid temporal. What messes did we tend to make with our lives?
Daddy stepped forward. “I’ll take them back. Maybe you could sit here with Sweet Potato a minute until I get back.”
Oh, the old stalling technique. He was going to tell me he was shipping Bell and Bean off to Mr. and Mrs. Foster. Well, we’d have to see about that. I couldn’t even look at him as he pulled Bell and Bean away from me, shushing them as he took them on out the back door to the parsonage.
“I’m almost eighteen,” I said softly to the preacher.
Never had a birthday meant so much to me in my life. I was dreading it before, but now I was counting down the days.
“Don’t run, too, Sweet Potato.” The preacher patted my hand.
“I’m not talking about running, sir. I’m talking about claiming.” I pointed to the door. “I’m taking them from him.”
“You can’t do that.” He bowed his head. “He gave them to Patricia and me.”
“What?” I shrieked.
I flew from the pew and headed out the door. Daddy was coming in, and I collided against his six-foot-three frame.
“How dare you? How dare you do this to me?”
“I freed you. You’re free.” Daddy took me by my arms and sat me back down beside the preacher.
“Free!” I cried. “I ain’t never been free, and I won’t be. I am chained to them. My life is connected to them. My very being is in them. You can’t go giving something away that never belonged to you in the first place. They have always been mine.”
“I am their father. I gave over my rights to Preacher and First Lady, because I have to go to the street. And where I’m going, they can’t follow, and for what I’ve been told I might not even make it back myself. I had to think this through the right way, and for the first time in my life I think I did it.”
“We have been to the street. We are the street.” I beat against his chest, and he let me.
“I’m going to find Maize. If I have to go to the depths of hell and pull him out burning, I will do it.” Daddy wiped his brow, already sweating at the thought of it.
“Well, then, you are giving the kids to me,” I told him.
> “No. You’re not their mother. You’re their sister.” He leaned in close. “God is leading me to give them to the Andersons. They have a place for them, a home. They have a love for them. God has directed my heart to give them a true home with curtains and rugs, and that’s what I’m doing. It’s for the best, and I know it to be true. Where I’m going, I might not make it back, so I gotta know I finally did something right and gave them a proper place.”
“I am their home. I’m what Bell knows. Bean will go backward, Daddy. We can’t have him losing the ground he’s found here. His feet will give way, like Maize’s did.”
Pastor Anderson spoke softly. “Patricia and I never had children, Sweet Potato. We tried for many years, but the Lord held out on us. Maybe it was for this time, this place, so that we could be here for your family who are in need. We will provide a Christian home for Bean and Bell. We’ll care for them like they were our own—you included.”
The preacher talked the talk. I knew they were good people, or Mrs. Sunshine wouldn’t have stuck around there. But they weren’t my people.
Ray was stepping in again, and I cried out. I ran to him and put my arms around his waist, not caring where we were. I needed him. “Daddy gave them to the preacher. He gave them away like an old pair of shoes. He’s buried me. Maize killed me, and now I’m buried.”
Ray looked over my head. “Is this true?”
Daddy’s voice was heavy. “Yes, Ray. It’s true. It’s legalized and all set up.”
He had to know he’d done wrong. Whatever his intention, he was still giving them away.
Pastor Anderson spoke up. “He’s going to be leaving now to go find Maize. He knows what he’s walking into.”
“Sweet Potato, I might not make it back. I might not walk out of this one. Do you understand what I am saying? The Grims have a reputation, even though I’ve been told they are a small, localized group not affiliated with some of the bigger gangs. They have a unit here. It’s smaller, so I may have that opening of a chance to snatch him back.” Daddy cleared his throat. “But I know once you swear your allegiance, it’s to the death. They can kill me for Maize’s life, for all I care. They can take a substitute.”