by Oasis
“Your Honor.” GP shot to his feet.
“It’s final.”
Kitchie’s eyes began to leak.
“Dammit! You can’t leave my kids in that home.” GP snatched his shirt off. “You see this? This happened to me there.” He turned his back to Nancy and Judge Brooks.
Nancy gasped and threw a shaky hand over her mouth. His back was reminiscent of a picture she had seen of a slave who had been repeatedly lashed with a whip. “My God, that’s terrible.”
Judge Brooks thought he had seen it all. He avoided the sight of GP’s keloid-riddled back. “Put your shirt on, son. If that happened to you while you were in custody of the state, it should’ve been addressed then. I assure you, that type of abuse isn’t happening today. If you want your children out of the Eastside Group Home, I’d suggest you provide them with a decent home to come home to.”
Jewels’s apartment was sweltering from summer’s oppressive heat. There was less than an hour of daylight left, and for some reason, it seemed that as night approached it became even hotter.
“Don’t touch me.” Kitchie moved to the opposite end of the couch. “You never listen; not one fucking time.”
“Kitchie—”
“Kitchie my ass.” She scorched GP with a penetrating look. “If you would’ve taken us into consideration, the kids would be here with us now.”
“Uh-uh, if you wasn’t so hotheaded and knew how to keep your hands to yourself, the kids would be here.”
Kitchie buried her head in her hands and cried. “I’m sick and tired of crying for you…because of you, GP. I’m just about cried out.”
“Mami Chula, I apologize. We’re not going to get anywhere blaming each other.” He scooted next to her. “We need to—”
“I meant what I said; don’t touch me.” Anger seeped from her presence as a profound silence fell on the room. She turned to GP. “So now what, Mr. Street Prophet? What brilliant, get-by tactic do you have to get us through this shit?”
More silence.
“Just like I thought.” She took a container of pepper spray from her purse and started for the door. “You don’t have a clue.” She paused at the door. “You know what your main problem is? You need to stop trying to get by and figure out a reliable way for us to make it.”
GP watched the heavy door close behind Kitchie. He went and knocked on his friend’s bedroom door. “Jewels, let’s talk.”
“Come in.” She lay across a set of satin sheets with the phone up to her ear. “What’s up?”
“Hang up and put something on.”
“Punk, don’t come in here running off a list of orders. This is how I relax—in my drawers. It’s hot as fuck. If you don’t like it, close my door in your face, and take your stressed-out ass back in the living room.”
“I’m dead-ass, Jewels.”
She spoke into the phone. “Ndia, baby, hold that thought…and that position. I’ll call you back in a minute.” She returned the phone to its cradle, then slipped a pair of boxers over her men’s briefs.
GP flopped down beside her. “Promise me won’t nobody get hurt.”
“Motherfuckers get hurt every day, and I ain’t a stranger to hurting a motherfucker. Now that we have that clear, what are you talking about?”
“I want to get my kids back immediately. I…I just don’t want nobody to get hurt in the process.”
“Psst. Fool, you taking a beating. Fucking with you, I’m taking one, too. It cost me fifteen grand to bond y’all out. I flushed four ounces of coke and a pound of herb. Half the shit we knocked off in N.Y. was given to y’all to put some clothes on your back. Your hard times have rubbed off. I’m fucked up. I don’t have the money to get you an apartment; not now anyway.”
“I’m talking about that hundred-thousand-dollar move you was telling me about last week.”
“What, you got selective hearing or something?” She feigned a display of sign language. “I said, I’m fucked up right now. That move is supposed to go down tomorrow night. I’m lucky if I have five hundred dollars to my name.”
“Put me in the know. Tell me what the deal is. I wanna know what’s up with it.”
She fell back on a large pillow. “I can’t believe you jacked off a phone-sex session for this. What’s the point? It’s only gonna piss me off thinking about all the money I coulda had.”
“Get pissed off, then.”
“You about to get on my fucking nerves.” She laced her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling. “It’s a credit card scam. A hundred grand will get me a package deal.”
“A deal on what?”
“Ten major corporate account numbers with a history of a spending habit from anywhere, say, between two hundred-fifty grand and a million.”
GP lowered his brow as he thought. “What good is having the corporate numbers? You can’t access their accounts.”
“You can with a credit card. Platinum cards, homeboy. All the equipment to make the cards comes with the package. All I would have to do is let my girls work with the cards.”
“How much would you make?” GP scratched his head. “You know, if you had the money to buy the package.”
“Well…like I said, each card will be worth at least a quarter of a million, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get that much.”
“Why?”
“’Cause the company can red flag the account at any time. Then, it’s dead. Two-fifty times ten is two-and-a-half million. Out of that, I would see about one-point-two million in merchandise. Then, when my girls and I hustle it in these streets, I’ll take home six hundred grand—easy.”
“One more question.”
“You working my nerves, but spit it out so I can get back with Ndia.”
“If you had the front money, how long would it take to make it back?”
“Sheeit, I got at least a hundred-fifty grand worth of orders now. All I need to do is come up with the merchandise. I could have the front money back in three weeks tops. Why you interested in all this?”
GP flashed a business card. “We split the profit down the middle, and I’ll get you the money.”
“Get out my room.”
“Fifty-fifty.”
For the first time in their eight-year history, Jewels saw desperation in her friend’s eyes. “Get it and that’s a bet.”
GP and Jewels touched fists.
CHAPTER 11
Squeeze watched the clock as it changed from 8:36 to 8:37 a.m. “I have a deep respect for a man who rises with the sun to take care of his business. It’s a display of…character.” He stood at a wet bar, adjacent a floor-to-ceiling wall window that overlooked the lake. He fixed himself a stiff drink, then offered GP one.
“No thanks.”
“A hundred stacks is a lot of cash to borrow on an artist’s salary.” Squeeze threw back the alcohol as if it were a glass of water. “What’s your gamble: cocaine, hoes, guns, heroin, blackjack?”
GP was watching the big Spanish guy shifting his weight from one foot to the other, smacking on chewing gum. “Your concerns are out of order. What I do with the money ain’t your business. I thought, in your line of work, pay day was your only concern.”
Squeeze laughed as he stared through the window, one hundred stories down. “Three weeks. Thirty-five percent interest. Five thousand-dollars-a-day late fee. My suggestion to you, old friend, is to be as punctual in paying me as you were in picking the cash up. You’d hate it if we fell out.” He nodded at Hector.
Hector left the room and returned in less than a minute with ten crisp stacks of money.
GP shoveled the money into a drawstring nylon bag. “Thanks, man. I really appreciate this.”
“I hope so.” He turned away from his endless view to watch GP being ushered out the door. He poured himself another drink.
Hector closed the door behind GP, then looked back at Squeeze.
“Follow him. Find out what he’s into and who he’s doing it with. Find out where he and that pretty woman
of his rest their heads at.”
Hector grunted and headed out the door.
Kitchie rested her hands on her curvy hips. “What are you two up to?”
GP and Jewels turned to face her.
GP averted his eyes to the kitchen clock. 3:17 p.m.
Jewels had no shame. She matched Kitchie’s questioning gaze. “Girl, we ain’t fucking. I plead the fifth.” She had the nylon bag cuffed behind her back.
“GP.” Kitchie put her face up to his, forcing him to look at her.
“It’s nothing, Mami.”
“GP!”
“If you don’t want me to lie, then don’t ask me again. It’s nothing; trust me.”
“Uhm-hm, I suppose there’s nothing in the bag either.”
“Chill, Kitchie.” He stroked the side of her face. “Let’s go; visiting hour is about to start.” He paused. “And when we get there, keep your cool. Please don’t forget for one minute that we have to leave Junior and Secret there. Don’t start no shit.”
“I’ll bite my tongue for now. But I swear to God, GP, the day we bring my babies home, I’m going to dig deep and hawk spit in his face.”
Jewels took a set of keys from the top of the refrigerator. “I’m gonna drop y’all off and go cop me a new cell phone. I like that new BlackBerry phone; it does everything but talk for you.”
“I meant to ask you,” GP said. “Who was that answering your phone last week?”
“I don’t know. I lost it somewhere.”
“Nah, this dude said you left the phone with him while you were gone. I left a message for you with him.”
Jewels pulled the key out of the door. She stood still, thinking. “They said that I gave them my phone?”
“Yeah. Said that y’all was handling some business together. I thought that’s how you knew we were in jail.”
“That’s strange.” Jewels walked out of the building into the sunlight. “I wish I would find the motherfucker who was finger-fucking my phone bill. I’d break my big toe knuckle deep in his ass.”
Kitchie climbed into the front seat of the Escalade. “How’d you know we were locked up, then?”
“I didn’t until I found Secret and Junior sleeping in front of my door. Not to mention a hundred crying-ass messages from your husband. Come get me, I can’t take it in here. They’re so much bigger than me.” Jewels laughed.
“Stop clowning.” GP joined in her humor.
“I don’t know what y’all are laughing at. That shit is not funny whatsoever.” Kitchie watched the scenery from her window.
The hatred shared between their silent exchange caused Kitchie’s skin to crawl. Their silence seemed to communicate more than words possibly could. For Mr. Reynolds, the loathing had begun when GP was only nine years old. He’d discovered that GP had stolen a family heirloom of coins to buy a damn Van Gogh drawing pad and a set of thirty-six prisma-color oil pencils. The handful of coins turned out to be worth over a million dollars. For GP, the loathing began when the beatings and various forms of mental torture wouldn’t stop. The way Mr. Reynolds felt about the whole situation was that GP had stolen his express pass to the good life.
“What the hell do you want?” Mr. Reynolds shattered the profound quiet, stepped out onto the platform porch, and pulled the door closed behind him.
Kitchie stuck her hand out. “I’m Kitchie Patterson and this is my husband. We’re here to visit our kids, Secret and Greg Jr.” She withdrew her hand; it was obvious that Mr. Reynolds wasn’t interested in being cordial.
“The Patterson children are yours?” A wicked smile stretched across his chubby face. “I should’ve known that misfortune would strike me twice in the same place. Come in.”
GP began to feel as though he had made the wrong decision in going there. He should’ve never revealed that Junior and Secret were connected to him. The sound of Mr. Reynolds’s hard bottoms clicking in front of him brought back memories that he and the walls had often tried to forget.
“Is that for the children?” Mr. Reynolds pointed at the bag in Kitchie’s hand.
“Yes. It’s a few more outfits and a math book for Secret.”
“I’ll take it.” Mr. Reynolds pushed the door open to a living room that had been converted to a visiting room.
“I wanted to—”
“Either I take the package for inspection or you can leave it at the desk and pick it up when you leave.”
Fat Bitch! “No problem.” Kitchie gave him the bag. “GP, forgive me.” She looked at Mr. Reynolds. “If your fat ass ever puts your dick-beaters on either one of my kids again, I will blow your fucking head off.”
Mr. Reynolds laughed. “Your foul mouth is not appropriate. I’ve never touched your children. I don’t have the slightest idea of what you’re speaking about, Mrs. Patterson.”
“Play dumb if you want. I’ll repent for my sin later.”
“That’s enough, Kitchie.” GP shook his head. Will you ever keep your mouth closed?
“You have thirty minutes to visit. Have a seat.” He looked at GP. “Secret and Junior, Greg Jr., will be down shortly.”
If looks were fatal, GP would’ve been brutally murdered.
“Sticky, what’s up?” Jewels walked out of a mom-and-pop store talking on her new BlackBerry.
“I’m just shooting my regular. Everything is everything and I’m with anything lucrative.”
“I take it it’s still on for tonight.”
“If your purse is right.”
“When have you known me not to come correct?” She leaned against the Escalade and watched a chocolate girl’s fat ass in a pair of Apple Bottoms jeans. Jewels tried to picture the jeans hitting her bedroom floor.
“After tonight, you’re no longer a petty hustler.”
“Take my new number and get at me if something changes before my graduation.”
“Daddy!” Secret ran at top speed and jumped into GP’s arms. She leaned over and kissed Kitchie’s cheek. “You and Mommy came to take us home.”
GP looked at the room’s entrance. “Where’s your brother?”
“He’s coming. So we’re going home with you and Mommy, right, Daddy?”
“Look at your hair.” Kitchie pried Secret from GP’s arms. “Come over here and sit down. Let me do something with this mess. Your father bought you a math book.”
“We’re not leaving, are we?” Secret’s hopes started to fizzle.
Kitchie took out a comb, brush, some barrettes, and hair grease from her purse. “Not today but soon.”
“Yeah, baby. Daddy promises to get y’all out of this place. I promise to—”
“Get me a bike, Secret a puppy…and new clothes.” Junior eased into a chair, six seats away, with his arms folded. “Mommy’s gonna get a big house. You always promise us stuff we never get. Secret, stop asking. We ain’t getting nothing and we ain’t going nowhere, just like everybody else here.” He stared at the wall to his left, avoiding looking in the direction of his family.
Kitchie turned her wounded eyes on GP, then began to get up.
He stopped her. “No, I need to. This is about me.” GP took in a deep breath, then sat beside Junior. “You have every reason to be upset with me. I’ve let you down.” He shifted his gaze between the three of them. “I’ve failed all of y’all several times, and I’m not proud of it. Junior, when I promise you something, I have every intention of making it happen. I try to make y’all as many promises as I can, so I work real hard to get it.”
“But we never get anything except the promise.” Junior swung his feet back and forth.
GP noticed Mr. Reynolds standing at the entrance. He could hear the voice shouting in his head. You’re just another black whore baby who’ll never amount to nothing. He clamped his eyelids, forcing Mr. Reynolds out. When he opened them again, Mr. Reynolds was doing a penguin walk down the narrow hall. “Listen to me, Junior. I won’t make any more promises to any of y’all that I’m not prepared to deliver.”
Junior looked a
t GP for the first time. “Should I play pretend? You even break your own promises. You said that you’ll always protect us.”
“I will. You can count on that.”
“How can you protect us from Mr. Reynolds, and the rest of these mean people, if you’re at home and we’re here? Mommy, I wanna go back to my room.”
Night had come quicker than usual, at least that’s how Jewels felt about it as she eased the Escalade into the congested lot of the Improv Comedy Club. She spoke to her reflection in the rearview mirror. “Let’s get paid, girl.” She blew herself a kiss, then climbed from behind the steering wheel.
The door to the club opened and laughter poured out.
Jewels looked into the sky at the endless scatter of stars, and that’s when she was forced to see a few stars of her own.
“You don’t know? What the hell you mean, you don’t know what you’re gonna do?” Kitchie punched GP in the chest, then climbed through the window and sat on the fire escape.
He kneeled by the window. “Kitchie—”
“Kitchie my goddamn ass.” She rattled off a few more cruddy sentences in Spanish. “Our children have been taken from us. They don’t want to be there, and I sure as hell don’t want them in that place. And all the fuck you can come up with is you don’t know.”
“Take that shit back in the house! You blowing the spot up with your loud-ass mouth!” a hustler yelled from the parking lot below.
“Kiss my ass, panocha!” Kitchie held up a middle finger.
“Come inside,” GP said.
“I don’t feel like being bothered with nothing or nobody but this breeze.”
“I said, get your ass in here.”
“When I—”
“Now, dammit! I’m tired of your bullshit!”
Kitchie understood that he meant business.
He stepped aside and helped her through the window.
“You’re worried about me cussing out some punk. Your concern should be focused on the anger your son has built up toward you. He doesn’t even respect you anymore. The sad part is I don’t blame him.”