I said, “I’ll look for Margaux tomorrow. I’ll stalk her Facebook, see where she checks in, then get in my car and surprise her. Same for the boy in the red car.”
“I can go with you. Or we can split the tasks. You go after one. I go after the other.”
“I’ll do it on my own. Let me try and find my daughter before it goes off the rails.”
“You don’t have a choice. You go see your daughter. I go visit the boy in the car.”
“We still have plastic and a shovel in the trunk of your car.”
“I stay ready. Put a man in a four-foot-deep hole, and soon as the cold dirt hits his face, he starts to talk. And if he doesn’t talk, then I keep tossing dirt until I fill up the hole.”
It was easier talking about slavery, the three-fifths compromise, the Confederacy, the Klan, Black Codes, Jim Crow, eugenics, lynching, the war on drugs, and mass incarceration than this.
I said, “With all you said, this history lesson, I should have been madder at Garrett.”
“Bruv, nah. I should’ve been unaffected like you.”
“The way my life is, sometimes I wonder if I’m living in a comedy or a drama.”
“Ain’t no laugh track. This shit is real. I have a bullet wound to remind me.”
“Just because we don’t hear laughter, don’t mean nobody’s laughing.”
“Nothing funny about catching lead. Not a damn thing.”
With every political conversation, we not only pointed the finger at the rest of the world but we also pointed our fingers at ourselves. We debated or agreed on right and wrong, real and perceived, as an exercise more or less, and sometimes, like now, when we were at a swank spot, I liked to think we were Du Bois and Baldwin at a café on the Champs-Élysées, Josephine Baker and Nina Simone at our sides, talking about the struggle while we were being intellectual and prophetic. Then I felt the weight of an imaginary .38 in my pocket.
I knew who I was. I had been trying to not be this man since I was eighteen.
One job for San Bernardino had led to another and then another.
This had become my prison.
We got up to leave and I glanced at a twenty-something who had been checking out Jake Ellis. East Indian. Mane long and wavy. I’d seen her spying this way, biting her bottom lip, twirling her hair. She had watched Jake Ellis lick his ice cream cone, had eyed him while he pontificated. Jake was the Beyoncé of African men. The cute millennial was with her oblivious husband and precocious child. Jake Ellis winked. She smiled, bounced her foot faster, and again bit the corner of her lip, touched her tresses. I’d never met a married person who didn’t regret matrimony, at least for a moment. She had love; it was next to her. Sometimes a baby made love-crazy, fuck-happy couples pull apart. Babies changed the topography of marriage. Marriage became a business; it was no longer fun. Girls wanted to have fun. Most girls. The woman I married had had much fun. Men like Jake Ellis had winked at her, and she had taken them to her bosom.
I said, “Don’t look back at that man’s wife.”
“She’s looking at me.”
“Let this one turn to stone.”
“I think her husband just caught her.”
“You make white men want to act out on rage like Michael Douglas in Falling Down.”
“I wish a motherfucker would.”
I shifted, uneasy. “One more thing.”
“What, bruv?”
“When you were upstairs getting your tour, Garrett tried to bribe me.”
“How much?”
“One hundred and fifty grand. Said he’d pay me in cash.”
“That’s about . . . six hundred sixty thousand in Ghanaian cedi. Over fifty-three million Nigerian naira.”
“He’s not the first one with deep pockets to try and bribe one of us.”
“Make sure you tell San Bernardino.”
“Tomorrow. Again, let Garrett pay up first. Don’t want any more complications.”
Jake Ellis turned. “Let me go over there and get me a kiss from that sexy MILF.”
I grabbed his arm, and we both laughed as we left the white man’s overpriced bubble.
Jake Ellis said, “I have to get you home.”
“For what?”
“You left your phone home. In case Esmerelda rings and has that info.”
“I still can’t remember what else I had to do today. But right now, it doesn’t matter.”
CHAPTER 13
A MIDDLE-AGED CHRISTIAN brother dressed in black jeans, gray T, and an LA baseball cap was in the heat, on the corner of Vernon and Crenshaw, holding a large white sign that read JESUS SAVES GANGSTERS TOO! The top half of the word Jesus was colored red, the bottom blue. The reverse for the word gangsters. People who passed thought it was red, white, and blue, but it was only red and blue. Blue signified the Crips. Red stood for Bloods. On the opposite corner was a Muslim sister selling copies of Turning the Tide, the newspaper for the New Black Panther Party. This wasn’t Culver City. We waved at the brother and sister like they were family, then cruised back into the heart of Leimert Park, where black scholars preached that African Americans and descendants of black or Negro slaves in other countries were the true descendants of the ancient Hebrew Israelites. We cut through the business district, passed by theaters, hair salons, coffee shops, Eso Won bookstore, bicycle repair shops, and Jamaican restaurants. The area had been designed to be self-contained. Anything anyone needed was no more than ten minutes away. That was the new selling point. Jake Ellis did an easy drive down Degnan, another well-kept street lined with palm and evergreen trees. Air warm, minds troubled, we found our way past dozens of two-story apartment buildings and turned east on Stocker.
We were back off the Crenshaw strip, where too many used the sidewalks as garbage cans. My daddy told me that the way the streets in a neighborhood looked was the way people saw themselves. We were back a few blocks from where people were always popping off and the music was always loud. Our section was pretty quiet, four blocks or so from the main drag, a lot cleaner than the Shaw. The only noise came when the middle school let out. They were the ones who littered. Our box of pride was bounded by Exposition Boulevard on the north, West Vernon on the south, Crenshaw on the west, and South Van Ness and Arlington Avenue on the east. There were maybe thirteen thousand people living in this small box. Most were black, had been a black neighborhood since white flight, but now the demographics were changing. Posters reading RESIST GENTRIFICATION or WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED, WE WILL IMPROVE were in almost every yard and on every light pole.
A war was going on. Between blacks and America, it was a never-ending war.
It had been a long day. I didn’t need another fight. But one was coming.
An Asian man in a van was parked, hustling T-shirts with Afrocentric sayings. HARRIET TUBMAN MOURNS FOR FREDDIE GRAY. MY PRESIDENT WAS BLACK. I CAN’T BREATHE. Sisters were yelling at him for having the nerve to co-opt black culture and black pain to make a dime on black blood.
On this side of town, people rocked Obama T-shirts. Hardly a USA flag, but there were plenty of flags from the islands and Africa. The American flags most owned were folded, in drawers, given to families after a relative was killed serving a country that never served them in return.
Someone was pulling out of a parking spot and Jake Ellis waited, music down low; then he parallel parked in front of his classic edifice. His one-bedroom spot was east of Degnan, a block from Audubon Middle School. Leimert Park was a pre–World War II neighborhood made of modest Spanish-style homes, charming bungalows. Compared to Culver City and Pasadena, everything looked dull, worn. But it was our zip code. A group of white teens wearing black slacks, white shirts, and black ties passed. There were ten of them. Young Mormons. They were probably going up into the hills to go door-to-door in Baldwin Hills, tasked with selling their faith, one that didn’t include black people until
not that long ago. If ten blacks tried to walk through those boys’ neighborhood selling blackness, they’d all be on a curb, handcuffed while cops made up charges.
While we sat there another group of sisters sporting dreadlocks, braids, perms, and Afros came down the street, passing out flyers, talking to the community. An orchestra of soul sisters, mothers of the earth. I always kept eye contact, let the breasts live in the periphery, had learned to notice and not ogle. The sisters made their way to us, came to the window to hand us flyers.
Afro said, “Investors from overseas want to buy buildings and turn them into Airbnbs.”
“Serious?”
“It’s getting out of hand. Come to the meeting.”
“Will do.”
Jake Ellis said, “I heard they want to make our apartments expensive condos.”
She said, “That’s one way to legally force the people to move, no matter how long you’ve been living there. They’d have to pay us about ten grand each to relocate. Which is nothing.”
I said, “That would be the ultimate gentrification.”
She said, “Would push most of the people living here out. Older folks have been here renting thirty and forty years. People on fixed incomes, where will they go? No one will be able to buy where we live now. People worked too hard to get out of the projects to have to go back.”
I nodded. “The train line has accelerated a change.”
She huffed. “I call that train what it really is.”
“Which is?”
“An overground railroad for them to come and Columbus new places.”
“People on Crenshaw wanted that train too. We’re landlocked and need that train. We need to be able to get to the beaches and put our toes in the dirty sand and cold ocean too.”
She rolled her eyes, wasn’t about to hear anything I was saying. “They’ve changed the name of the area from South Central to South LA. Now we’re like SoHo and NoHo. We went to bed in South Central and woke up in SOLA. First they claim it; then they rename it.”
I said, “I’ll be at the meeting.”
“Black lives matter.”
“Black lives matter.”
We agreed on that; then they moved on. I read the flyer. Local activists and national leaders were fighting gentrification and promoting wealth building, demanding development without displacement. I wondered how many wars a black man had to fight in his lifetime.
I wondered if I had gone to Africa ten years ago whether I would care about any of this bullshit.
But everywhere a black man went, there were more problems.
Jake Ellis said, “Wonder why they never use the word gentrification in any brochures.”
“Who?”
“Wypipo. They never use that word in their brochures.”
“What word do they use to make it sound nonpolitical and palatable to the naïve?”
“Revitalized. Sounds like those vagina-rejuvenation ads.”
“Overground railroad.”
“Hidden in plain sight.”
Our world was restless. Since that first boat trip, it had always been restless.
Jake Ellis’s phone rang. He frowned at the number. Didn’t answer. Phone rang again.
He answered, “Hey, sweetheart. Not tonight. Can meet you tomorrow. After I hit the boxing gym. Santa Monica. I will meet you. Call the W Hollywood. Get a suite. By lunchtime.”
His car was on and his phone connected to the Mustang’s speakers via Bluetooth. Without asking, the system put the call on speaker. He did a finger snap that echoed like a curse.
Mrs. Garrett said, “I’ve had enough of this life. Money laundering. Drug dealing. God knows what else. He has taken control over my life. Since we’ve been married he’s told me where I can go, where I can’t go, has restricted my movements. I’m supposed to be a feminist.”
“For some, marriage is ownership. It just depends on who owns who.”
“He says he does it to protect me.”
“A dog on a long chain is still a chained dog.”
“I’m going to call Gloria Allred. She doesn’t play. She’s a real feminist. I can win this.”
“Elaine, I’m driving right now. And I’m still on the clock for my employer.”
“Didn’t mean to babble.”
“You’re safe?”
“I’m in my closet. I locked the door, put my red-bottom shoes on, eased into something a little more comfortable and a lot sexy so I could sip wine and eat the last piece of your magically moist salmon in peace. I can tell you went to culinary school. This food is truly an aphrodisiac.”
“Your husband?”
“He’s gone, I think. Not sure. House is huge. Can’t hear him screaming right now.”
“Tell me everything tomorrow. We can order a big lunch and mimosas and chat.”
“You stood up to my husband. I’ve never seen anyone stand up to him.”
“Had to show him who was the real man.”
“That scared me and felt good at the same time.”
“I could tell.”
“He doesn’t love me like Kunta Kinte loved Belle.”
“It shows. Your bruises told me a lot.”
“I don’t want to talk about those. I don’t want to feel like a fool and cry again.”
“Okay.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Tell me.”
“I want to be with you.”
“Do you?”
“I should have left with you.”
“You know you couldn’t do that.”
“I’m so wet right now I could drown.”
“Tomorrow.”
“A generous lover with substantial offerings that won’t die in the furrow.”
“I will massage your wounds and then take you to Africa.”
“Substantial offering. I’ve never had that before. Those words are stuck in my mind.”
“Good-bye for now.”
As she eased her phone down, she said, “Alexa, play my love songs.”
Massaging the bridge of my nose, biting my tongue, and shaking my head for that entire exchange, I shifted where I sat, knew I had heard more than Jake Ellis wanted me to hear.
I said, “Be careful.”
“Bruv, when she undressed, she had bruises. Her clothes had covered them. New and old bruises. She is a woman living in a cage like an animal at the zoo. I told her that.”
“Let her get her revenge somewhere else.”
“Can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube once it’s been squirted out.”
“If she wants to be a remora feeding off a great white shark, not your business.”
“I know. But the things I do are to get at Garrett.”
“You pimp-slap a man with his own salmon, eat his gelato, then make plans to screw his wife. You’re a bad motherfucker. Can’t say I like it, but I admire a man who can pull that shit off.”
“Ken Swift, you’re the bad motherfucker. I’m the baddest of the bad motherfuckers.”
We eased out of his Mustang as four Asian women jogged by. They all waved.
Jake Ellis asked, “Ever remember what else you had to do?”
I shook my head. “I’ll check my phone when I get home.”
“Let me know the moment you hear from Esmerelda. Or Margaux.”
“Will do.”
A horn blew, a soft, friendly beep. Creeping underneath imported palm and evergreen trees, it was a black Tesla Model S. That car snuck up on us. Made both of us jump. A breeze made more noise than that electric car. The driver parked and came our way, hips moving sweetly.
Jake Ellis looked at the time on his phone. “Guess she finished teaching early tonight.”
“Business classes at USC, right?”
“Engineering.
Civil. We’re going to watch a movie called Charlie Steel.”
“Charlie Steel. Never heard of that one. It any good?”
“It was banned in South Africa during apartheid. I’ll put it and a few more movies in Dropbox and send you a link; then you can download them whenever you feel like it.”
Cars slowed as the MILF strolled. That rich West Indian woman was as beautiful as Miss Haiti, Cassandra Chéry, only she was more mature and still had a natural, smoldering, confident, sexy walk. The world rarely showed the beauty of Haiti. Jake Ellis smiled at her and she smiled at him. Her hair was in a curly, kinky Afro, about twenty inches of powerful ethnic pride. Silver earrings matched her mane. Her full lips were a shade of deep violet. She was a powerful woman of Haitian descent. Daughter of a politician and a professor, former member of the Black Panther Party, astute businesswoman, gym rat, and novelist. If not for the silver hair, in those skinny jeans, with her traffic-stopping shape, I would have thought she was a collegiate woman. Her perfume was soft and sweet, dabbed on just for Jake Ellis to make her sweat it away during an act of congress. And congress was but a moment away from being in session.
Without pretense Jake Ellis said, “Catch you later, Ken Swift.”
“She’s married. Be careful. Don’t need a Haitian-Ghanaian war in Leimert Park.”
“If her husband knows where she is, then he knows not to come to my door. He can give her that fistful of tears when she gets back home. He knows that when she’s with me, she’s mine.”
“I’ll find Margaux.”
“Since you put her info in my phone, I will monitor her Facebook too. Will see where she checks in. I will see if she and Jimi Lee are in this thing together. I will help you fix this.”
I regretted I had used his phone. But that toothpaste couldn’t be put back in the tube.
The lovely Haitian paused five steps away. She grinned. I nodded at her, then walked away from Jake Ellis and Dr. Maeva Fouche, let Jake Ellis reach for her hand, kiss her on the lips twice, then escort the sensual property owner up to his rent-free one-bedroom palace.
Bad Men and Wicked Women Page 13