by Oasis
One week later, Jewels looked at the information written on the paper, then looked up at the obese man. “I must have the wrong address. Please forgive me.”
Mr. Reynolds opened the door wider. “What is it that you’re looking for?”
“I was told that there was a coffin and headstone supplier in this area.” She switched a large purse from one shoulder to the other.
“This is the place. Well, actually, my store is next door. Come in.” He stepped aside to let Jewels pass. “I don’t have any coffins in stock at the moment, but you can take a look at my catalog.” He locked the door of the defunct group home. “If you see something you like, I can have it delivered to any funeral home in the city within forty-eight hours.”
“That may just work out.” She followed him into the visiting room while putting on a pair of tight leather gloves. “This is a beautiful place, and it’s quiet.” She studied the hand-carved wood trimmings that outlined the room.
“Trust me, it wasn’t always like this.” He picked up a three-ring binder. “It’s been a long time, but I enjoy being here by myself. Today is the first time I’ve had this place to myself in over twenty years.”
“What a shame.”
“No, really. I don’t want a houseful of people…especially kids.”
“I meant it’s a shame you let me catch you slipping. I’ve been wanting to fuck you up so bad, I was having nightmares about it.” Jewels rushed toward him.
“Do I have to?”
“Secret, it’s either study or go to summer school. It’s not too late to sign you up.” GP removed a new set of dishes from a box and began to arrange them in a cabinet above the sink.
She sighed and plopped down in her seat.
“Don’t look at me; you heard your father.” Kitchie removed the dishes that GP had placed on the shelves.
“What are you doing, woman?”
“Just because they’re new doesn’t mean they don’t need to be washed first.”
GP stared at Junior, who was in the next room watching The Parkers. “I’m worried about him.”
“He’ll come around.” Kitchie touched GP’s hand. “Just do what the doctor advised.”
“How can I? Keep it real. How am I supposed to pretend that everything is normal when it’s not?”
Kitchie cast her brown eyes on Secret. “Get your nose out of grown folk’s business and put it in that math book.”
Secret looked at the equation. They act like my ears don’t work.
“Papi, he’ll talk when he’s ready. He’s been through a lot.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Me too, Daddy. I miss him getting smart with me.”
“What counts right now,” Kitchie said, “is that we’re all together.”
For now, GP thought. “I hope Vivian can postpone our next court date for a few more weeks. I’m trying to stretch this out for as long as possible.”
Kitchie put a Wendy’s cap on GP’s head, then rose up on her toes to kiss him on the mouth. “I’ll take care of the dishes. You better go before you’re late for work.”
GP kissed Secret’s forehead and pointed at the second problem. “That’s the wrong answer. Slow down and take your time. I’ll check it tonight and go over it with you tomorrow.”
“Daddy, when we get the apartment together, can Nise and Samone come spend the night? I miss them.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“That will be nice.” Kitchie pushed a box that was marked Pictures into the corner.
GP went into the living room. “Junior, I’ll see you later.” He held out a solid fist. “Hit that rock.”
Junior banged his fist against GP’s, then turned back to the sitcom.
GP held Kitchie’s hand and led her into the hall outside of their apartment. “I get off at midnight.”
“When you get in, just tap me. I’ll roll over. I don’t know if I’m ready for sex again, though.”
“Marques Houston’s ‘Naked’ might help you to come around.” He smiled. “If it doesn’t, I’m willing to wait as long as it takes.”
“Thank you for being so understanding, Papi.”
“You know, I always figured that the Street Prophet would grow into something bigger than the boundaries of the booth, but closing it down completely didn’t have a scene in my dreams.” He looked down at the Wendy’s uniform. Mr. Reynolds invaded his thoughts. You’re worthless. Your mother doesn’t even want you. You will never amount to anything.
“Papi, everything doesn’t always work out as planned. I fuss at you, but I commend you for having a dream and striving for it in a respectable way. It takes a man to endure what you have in the name of honesty. The average brother would’ve turned to the streets a long time ago. You stuck it out; whether it worked out or not.” She was quiet for a moment. “I wish it had worked out, the whole notoriety and wealth you want for our family, but I’m happy with what we have. It’s not much, but it’s ours and we’re together.”
GP leaned against the wall. “Dan hired me full-time.”
She frowned. “How are you gonna pull that off? I have—”
“That’s why I’m closing the booth down sooner than I had planned. This is the last week. I’ll draw at home in my spare time.”
“But…I never wanted you to quit doing what you love.”
“It makes more sense. I have to start thinking responsibly. I’ll make more steady money working at Wendy’s full-time than I can make on average working the booth in the day and flipping Double Classics at night. We’re not going to lose anything again.”
While in the attic of the group home, Jewels pulled a chain that she’d thrown over an overhead beam.
Now she was lifting Mr. Reynolds. She hooked the chain to a stationary two-by-four post in the attic.
Blood dripped from Mr. Reynolds’s nose. His left eye was swollen shut. “No more, please.”
“Never thought you’d be a product of your own torture, did you? You got off stringing up defenseless kids to this ceiling. I’m about to get off, too. Let you get a taste of your own medicine and then some.” She took all the items from her leather bag, all except one—the main one. She set upright three mayonnaise jars filled with gasoline, then peeled away the thin plastic film on a box of double-edged razors. She tore off a piece of gray tape.
She stood up and slammed a gloved fist into his naked body. “Now you know how this shit feels.” She delivered a kidney blow that caused urine to leak down his legs.
He could no longer voice the extent of his discomfort. All he could do was grunt, “Please.”
“What?” She positioned her ear near Mr. Reynolds’s mouth. “Pussy, speak up. I can’t hear you beg.”
“P—please. I quit.”
She clenched a fist of his hair, then shoved six double-edged razors into his mouth and taped it closed. She punched the center of his face until she felt his nose bone crunch under her punch.
“You want to quit now.” She circled him.
“Did…” Punch. “You…” Jumping knee thrust to the ribs.
Mr. Reynolds bit down on a razor.
“…Stop…” Elbow to the groin.
He let out a painful grunt.
“…When…” Front snap-kick to the lower abdomen. “Them…” Spinning back fist to the cheek.
Blood filled his mouth.
“…Kids…” Palm-heel strike to his solar plexus.
His blubber shook.
“…Asked…” Knife-hand strike to the throat.
He struggled to catch a breath.
“…You…” A thumb gouge to the eye. “To…” A reverse punch to the mouth.
A razor sliced his tongue.
“…Stop?”
The blood backed up in his mouth and found an escape route through his nose.
Jewels lifted his wrinkled eyelid with a thumb. “I ain’t done yet. I’m gonna show you how it feels to be taken advantage of, to be fucked around.”
He wa
s still swallowing blood.
Jewels stripped until she was nude—with the exception of her boots and leather gloves. She went to her bag and took her special treat out—a steel strap-on. She slapped Mr. Reynolds in the face with all thirteen inches of it. “Open your eyes, bitch. I said, I ain’t done yet.”
He found his last-resort strength and tugged at the chain suspending him from the ceiling.
“You must have never seen one this big. Wait until you feel it.” She circled his body and stopped behind him. “When I’m done, you’re gonna know what it feels like to be really abused; what it feels like to have an asshole with stretch marks.” She rubbed the cold steel head along his crack.
He clenched his cheeks—tight.
She hit him with a combination of punches that started on the left side of his fat body and ended on the right. Then, she began the stretching process, wearing out his sphincter.
His face contorted and his eyes bulged with each violent thrust. He prayed to die. She pulled his head back so hard that he was forced to swallow a razor, which sliced his windpipe. The suffocation began.
“If you had never put your hands on my loved ones, I’d never have been thinking of ways to torture you.” She detached herself from the strap-on, leaving it wedged inside of him. “That looks painful.”
Blood started to fill his lungs. His face was discolored, livid. Veins protruded around his strained eyes and temples. Jewels answered his prayer. He was dying, but in the worst way.
She stood inches away, looking into his eyes as life escaped him. “Die.”
The strap-on fell to the floor just when death consumed him. Jewels dressed herself, then began to soak the attic with two of the three mayonnaise jars of gasoline. She poured the last jar over his head.
Jewels jumped from the loading dock and eased into the shadows of the night as the hellish inferno consumed the group home.
“I don’t feel sorry for him at all. I might change my opinion in some other life, but right now, that’s what he gets.” Kitchie stuffed a stack of Street Prophet jeans into a duffle bag. “I’m glad there were no children in there.”
“God don’t like ugly.” GP packed the last of their merchandise into the back of Jewels’s Escalade.
“God has to like ugly; He made it. The Big Guy and I would’ve had serious issues if He’d waited until Judgment Day to let old man Reynolds feel the fire.” Jewels stroked the top of Junior’s head and helped him into the car.
Secret climbed from the backseat and pointed to a crowd of suits and ties on the other side of Euclid Avenue.
“Girl, get your butt back in the car so we can leave.” Kitchie cocked a hip, resting a hand on it.
“That’s him,” Secret said, still pointing a finger.
“That’s who?” GP gazed in the direction her finger was aimed.
“That’s Brandon, Daddy.”
Everybody looked.
“Get in the car, Secret,” Kitchie said. “We know who the mayor is.”
“No, that’s Brandon. The man who found Junior and me in his car. The one who…you know.”
“Are you sure?” GP closed the Escalade’s hatch while watching Mayor Brandon Chambers and his colleagues. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
Kitchie witnessed the way Junior’s eyes lit up as he saw the mayor.
“Fool, don’t act like you can’t hear.” Jewels went to the driver’s door. “She said that our mayor is a crackhead who has extramarital affairs with crack hoes. The boss of our city is a motherfucking addict. They need to let me boss this shit.”
Jewels and GP sat on her bumper, in front of his building, passing a joint back and forth.
She pushed the thick marijuana smoke through her nose. “Sticky Fingers fell off the face of the earth. Heard he crossed some official headhunters on the rob tip, too. I swear, when I find him, I’m gonna do some Chinese torture shit to him for hours before I split his watermelon.”
“Let it go. He’ll get what he has coming. Everybody does sooner or later.” He plucked the marijuana roach.
“Punk, I could’ve hit that again.”
“What you could’ve done was blistered your lips.” Five seconds passed. “Hold Kitchie and the kids down for me. I go to court next week. Vivian worked out a sweet plea bargain. I’m gonna take it.”
“I can’t take a plea. They gotta spend their money fucking with me. I’m picking twelve of my peers every time. You see what they did to Manny Cool and Limbo. I understand you gotta do what’s best for you, though.”
“When I come home, I’m gonna break down and buy you that diamond ring.”
Jewels looked at her finger. “Punk, stop faking. You’ve been selling me that dream for years. How much time are they talking?”
“Eighteen months. It’s official; tomorrow is my last day at the booth.”
“It’s fucked up. The mayor is an undercover crackhead. He be making decisions for the city with a glass dick in his mouth.”
GP sighed. “I’m not surprised by nothing anymore. You had something to do with Mr. Reynolds’s death, didn’t you?”
Her brows furrowed. The marijuana made her feel good. “What makes you say that?”
“You saying that you didn’t?”
Silence.
“I knew it.” He looked at the light shining from his apartment.
“Somebody had to get it. I couldn’t find Sticky Fingers while I was in the mood.”
“Thank you.” He closed his eyes. “I rehearsed it in my head a million times. I just couldn’t bring myself to act it out. I ain’t got that type of heart.”
“I can’t tell; you tried to let Desmond have it.”
“It’s a difference when you do something in the heat of the moment instead of doing it in chill mode.”
Our mayor is a crackhead. Jewels stood up. “I got a plan.”
“I got the munchies. A plan for what?” He wondered what Kitchie was fixing for dinner.
“To keep your punk ass out of the pen.”
“Nah, I’m good. All your plans include dead people.” She climbed behind the steering wheel. “Get off the front of my car before you become Cadillac’s new hood ornament.” She turned the key and the engine began to purr. “When I drop y’all off in the morning, I’m taking Secret and Junior with me.”
“What are you up to?”
“You need to be getting yourself together so you can go flip burgers. I’m gonna need to get that diamond out of you.” She stepped on the gas and sped away.
CHAPTER 19
Morning had arrived much too soon for GP. Between working the booth during the day and his Wendy’s gig at night, he was exhausted. The fact that Jewels was leaning on the horn seemed to fatigue him more.
When Kitchie opened the car door, Peabo Bryson’s “I’m So Into You” poured into the quiet street.
“It’s too early for your bullshit, Jewels.” GP slid in next to Secret and Junior, then slammed the door. “Turn it down; everybody don’t want to hear that.”
“Fuck you! You know how I get down. If you don’t like it, beat feet; get on the motherfucking bus. I ain’t begging you to roll with me.” She pulled the gear shift into Drive. “Excuse him, y’all. Good morning.”
“Hey,” Kitchie said as she settled against the headrest.
“What’s up, Aunty,” Secret said. “Daddy said we get to hang out with you today.”
“Would you have it any other way?” Jewels looked back at Junior and winked.
He pulled his leg back inside the Honda when a family of four came out of a building and piled inside of Jewels’s Escalade. “Son of a bitch!” His patience was wearing thin, waiting for the right moment to exact his punishment. He sat a silenced .9mm on the seat beside him, gripped the steering wheel, and continued to follow Jewels.
Jewels pulled next to the booth’s curb and switched the hazard lights on.
GP put a duffle bag on the sidewalk, then leaned inside the car and kissed his children’s foreheads. “Dr
ive her crazy. You have my permission.”
Jewels peered at him through the rearview. “Nobody can outdo you.”
“Be good.” Kitchie waved at Jewels and the children.
Jewels hit the horn two quick times as she pulled into downtown’s growing traffic.
GP began to unpack. “This is it, Mami Chula. When we walk away today, the fat lady will be singing.”
“Papi, there’s still time to reconsider this. You don’t have to do this. As long as you’re working and using this as a secondary income, we’ll be fine. Ms. Pittman said that if I pass the test next week, I’ll get the opening with Social Services. Volunteering worked in my favor. I’ll ace the test, so we’ll have even more income. Baby, we’ll be straight.” She laid T-shirts on the table. “You can still do this, and I’ll still help.”
“Good morning, GP, Kitchie,” the book vendor said and set a box of doughnuts on their table. “I brought you guys a little something-something for your bellies.” He rubbed his gut in a circular motion.
“Thanks, Smitty. What you know good?” GP said.
“Not a damn thing.”
“You’re a sweetheart, Smitty.” Kitchie plucked a glazed doughnut from the box. “How’s business?”
“For the first time in a long time, I must admit that it’s good. I have this book, The Key To Life; I can’t keep enough of them. They want it like it’s crack. I have a line of books from 4Shadow Publishing that are flying off the shelves, too. Come by and get you a copy. See you guys later.”
Kitchie leaned against the table. “GP, I want to ask you something.”
“What’s wrong with your asker?” He lined the booth with comic books.
“You don’t really trust me, do you? You say you do, but on the inside, you don’t.”
He stopped what he was doing. “Where’d that come from?”
“You. You had the audacity to think that I was in another man’s bed. You disrespected me, and for you to even have a stupid thought like that is not to trust me.”