by Anna J.
“So, you’re from Brownsville?” Junior asked, cutting the air of silence in the car.
Mecca looked directly into his gray eyes. What is it with these eyes? she wondered. “Yes, I am.”
Junior smiled and shook his head. “When I lived in Flatbush, I remember people were very skeptical about going into Brownsville. It was a dangerous place in the late seventies, early eighties. I never had a problem there. I was always welcomed.”
Mecca nodded her head while looking out the window as they passed a shantytown where small children played around shacks and adults stood in groups, staring at the Phantom. Realizing they were in the slums, she finally understood what poverty really was.
Eventually, the graveled road turned into well-paved streets, and the slum faded away, replaced by a South Beach replica. The Phantom came to a stop in front of a luxury hotel, where a uniformed valet approached. The driver of the Phantom waived him off as he got out, opening the rear doors for his passengers.
“Greetings, Mr. McLeod,” the doorman said warmly.
Junior simply nodded and smiled as he led Daphne and Mecca into the hotel’s foyer. It was easy to tell that it was a five-star establishment simply by looking at it. The foyer itself reminded Mecca of the Waldorf Astoria or Le Parker Meridien in New York, and there were a lot of American and European tourists present.
While Daphne and Junior went up to the luxury suite to have a meeting, Mecca was treated to a full day of pampering in the hotel’s spa. She enjoyed a full-body massage by a handsome masseur, a facial that made her skin look expensive, and both a pedicure and manicure, courtesy of Junior. Afterward, she felt totally relaxed. The tension built up in her from her dream about Dawn being her sister, Miguel, and from all that had transpired in the past few months, since coming out of the coma, lifted off of her, making her feel rejuvenated and refueled.
She felt bad about how she treated Miguel, though. Since the Dawn dream, she’d been avoiding him. She told herself that she needed the space from everything, and when Daphne asked her to accompany her to Jamaica, she quickly accepted. Now she wished Miguel was with her, enjoying the island.
As bad as she didn’t want to fall in love with him, she found herself falling hard. She didn’t want to repeat what she found out about Shamel, so while she soaked her feet, she made a long-distance call to him.
The phone rang a couple of times; then Miguel’s warm voice answered, which made her smile. Yes, she realized, she was in love. Again.
While Mecca and Daphne soaked up the sun in Jamaica, Ruby was roughing out a cold New York winter, hanging out in clubs and bars and collecting money from the grocery store Karmen ran and from Breeze, who was now pushing weed in his Sutter Gardens neighborhood.
Even though Ruby was still trying to find out who was responsible for the robberies of her spots and Daphne’s restaurant, there hadn’t been any other robberies committed, and there was still no word about them on the streets. Ruby found that strange and suspicious.
Did those involved hear that both Ruby and Daphne were on the hunt and wanted them dead? Maybe that scared them off. Or were they waiting for another opportunity to strike? It stressed her out trying to figure out their angle.
Things were flowing smoothly, except for Karmen’s attitude. Ruby figured she was suffering from a broken heart, because she didn’t see Miguel around anymore, but Karmen was letting her emotions get in the way of making money. She opened the store late a lot, and she let the product run out before calling for more, resulting in lost sales when customers wouldn’t wait around for the next supply of weed. When Ruby spoke to her about it, she would apologize and say it wouldn’t happen again, but it did. When Ruby asked one of Karmen’s sisters what Karmen’s problem was, she told her that Miguel had broken up with her. He’d caught her in the club with another guy.
Neither Karmen nor her sisters dared to tell Ruby that they suspected Mecca of stealing Miguel. They knew how she felt about her niece, and if Ruby thought that Karmen had ill feelings toward Mecca, that could spell trouble for Karmen. So Karmen did the “scorned woman” thing and slashed Miguel’s tires and left notes on his door.
When Miguel walked in the store, angered by the tire slashing and notes, Karmen was glad she had got his attention. Her plan was to confront him, then apologize, hoping he would take her back. Her plan backfired.
“If I had known you were this immature, I would have introduced you to one of my little cousins. They’re some horny twelve-year-olds.” Miguel threw the notes on the floor and stormed out of the store.
Karmen stood there, embarrassed and humiliated. It was then that Karmen started thinking of ways to pay Mecca back for taking her man. She had already realized that it could only have been Mecca who called him to the club, and she remembered how Mecca would stare at him. For a moment, she’d been blind to the facts, but no longer. They both would pay.
However, Karmen underestimated Ruby’s ties to the streets. So when she hollered at a guy she knew from Bed-Stuy, where the store was located, about robbing it, word quickly got back to Ruby.
“Do the job,” Ruby told the guy that Karmen was conspiring with. “That will be part of the pay for getting rid of her. Wait till after Christmas, though.”
“Why after Christmas?” he asked.
“I like her sisters. I don’t want to spoil their holiday.”
They both burst out laughing.
“Nah, seriously. Wait.”
Back in Jamaica, Junior brought Daphne and Mecca to the shantytown they had passed on their way to the hotel. The area was dark and loud, with reggae music blasting from some of the shacks. The pungent odor of dead animals filled the air. Mecca followed them inside a small shack where a skinny old man sat at a wooden table, wearing African garb, including a beaded necklace made of wood, with what looked like the teeth of some animal connected to each bead.
The small house was decorated with wooden African sculptures, various potted plants, and a small bookshelf, which held books on healing, African black magic, and medicines. In the middle of the house, in a makeshift living room, sat a table covered with what looked like lamb’s wool. Surrounding that were candles on shaded lamps that made shadows dance across the cement walls.
“Ladies, I’d like you to meet Doc Benjamin,” Junior said as the old man stood up and bowed slightly.
Doc Benjamin smiled, showing his missing teeth and soon to be missing ones. He twisted his gray chin hairs, which grew from his lined, dull black skin. Mecca had noticed that the majority of the people she met in Jamaica had bloodshot eyes. Doc Benjamin was no exception.
“I am honored,” Doc Benjamin responded in an accent that wasn’t broken like that of the native Jamaicans. He spoke clear English. His words were pronounced as if he were an English professor at a prestigious college.
When Doc offered his company tea, Mecca knew it was customary to accept the offer. When you were a guest in someone’s home, turning down the offer was a sign of disrespect, so she reluctantly accepted.
They sat at the table while Doc poured tea into small glass cups out of an old teakettle. He gazed into Mecca’s eyes as he poured her tea, and unlike the gaze she had received from Junior, Doc’s gaze made her nervous.
“What are your names?” he asked.
They told him their names, and Mecca noticed that Doc kept looking at her strangely. Sometimes it appeared as though he was looking around her head, as if something was on it or floating over it. Nervously, she found herself looking up and around. Doc gave her the creeps.
Turning to look to see if Daphne felt the same way, she was puzzled that she did not seem to be affected by the strange old man. Junior talked to Doc about what he’d been up to living up on the mountains and about mutual friends that they had not seen in a while. Doc then turned and studied Mecca again.
“Don’t hold on to the grudge. They will have their day.”
Mecca looked behind her, then at everyone in the room, only to find they were all looking at h
er as if she was onstage, ready to perform.
“What ... what do you mean?” she asked nervously. How was he able to read her thoughts? How did he know the words Lou told her in her dreams?
“I mean, you are angry at people who can’t cause you any more harm than they’re doing to themselves,” Doc said.
As he spoke, Mecca became dizzy. Her head felt hot, and the room seemed like it began to spin. All she heard was Doc’s voice as she felt her body being lifted, and she was floating in the air until her body touched something soft and flat. Her vision blurred, and she felt as if she were sinking into the soft surface she was lying on.
“Let it go. You don’t need him no more,” Doc’s voice echoed as her blurred vision went dark. “You are stronger than it.”
Then Mecca saw him. He was drowning in a vast ocean, while she stood on the deck of a yacht. He held out his hand from the strong black current.
“Mecca! Help me! Don’t listen to him!”
Mecca cried as she looked for a life jacket. She found one and threw it to him. “Lou, grab the jacket,” she yelled.
“You can make your own decision, Mecca. God has given you a choice,” Doc’s voice echoed somewhere in her mind.
“Mecca, please don’t leave me. I love you. All I want is what’s best for you!”
Mecca held out her hand to grab Lou’s. “Hold my hand!”
Lou grabbed on, but the current was strong. He struggled to pull himself up on the deck, but Mecca was losing her grip.
“Lou! Hold on!”
“Don’t drink any more tea!” Lou yelled.
“What?”
Lou increased his grip on Mecca’s arm and pulled himself up on the deck. Mecca immediately hugged him.
“Lou, go hide in the boat. People are trying to get rid of you. Go!” Mecca ordered.
Lou did what he was told.
“He is gone. I don’t need him anymore!” She yelled into the darkness.
Her vision went black; then it blurred, and she was able to see the shapes of people. When it cleared, she looked up into the smiling faces of Doc Benjamin and Junior. Junior held out his hand to lift her off of the table.
“What happened?” she asked, confused. She could not remember how she ended up lying on the table. She felt light-headed. She sat up and saw Daphne walking toward her.
“You fainted, Mecca. Doc said it’s probably the humidity in the air. Plus, you’re not used to that kind of tea. It’s marijuana tea mixed with spices,” Daphne said, pulling Mecca off the table.
“We’re ready to leave now,” Junior said, shaking Doc Benjamin’s hand.
Doc then shook Daphne’s and Mecca’s hand. He looked into Mecca’s eyes and in a soft voice said, “No one can show you what you don’t want to see.”
Inside Junior’s Phantom it was silent as they rode back to his home. Mecca stared out the window as the slum villages turned into postcard countryside. She still couldn’t believe she’d fainted. She felt so embarrassed, despite Daphne telling her that it had happened to her also on her first trip to the island.
“I passed out longer than you did. I had a big cup of the same tea,” Daphne had told her while walking out of Doc’s home to the car.
Mecca remembered feeling hot from drinking the tea, but not to the point where she felt a fainting spell coming on. It had happened so quickly, though, and that Doc guy was a strange man. She didn’t even get that creepy feeling from Lou that she got from Doc Benjamin. One thing for sure, she thought, she never wanted to see the likes of him again.
Her thoughts switched to Miguel, and she smiled thinking about their talk on the phone. She was glad that he wasn’t offended to the point where he didn’t want to see her again.
“I understand if you don’t wanna be involved with me. I just want you to know that I’m sorry for the way I acted,” Mecca had told him.
“Mecca, I want to be involved in every aspect of your life. Talk to me. That’s what I’m here for. You can tell me anything. I won’t judge you or look at you differently. I promise.”
Miguel knew how to make someone feel at ease. His voice was soothing, and to Mecca it was an aphrodisiac. His voice made her wet and horny. She wanted to pull his lips through the phone just to taste them.
“There is so much to talk about Miguel. It’s hard to explain.”
Mecca knew that she would have to share personal things with Miguel, but what she would tell him was something she found hard to figure out. She couldn’t tell anyone about Lou. No one would understand. Telling him about Ruby and Karmen wouldn’t change anything. The hurt from Ruby’s betrayal would still be there, and as far as Karmen was concerned, she couldn’t tell him that she was with him initially as a get back for her having an affair with Shamel. She would have to figure it out someway, somehow. Then she wondered if Lou might have the answer. She couldn’t wait to go to sleep that night.
Flashback, 1976
“Look at you. You’re a big girl now, huh?” Big Mecca announced while standing at the open bathroom door, smiling at her daughter on the white potty. Little Mecca simply looked up at her mother and smiled.
“Bobby, come look at your daughter. She’s using the potty!”
Bobby Blast appeared at the door, also smiling. “That’s Daddy’s girl. She can do things on her own. She’s just like her daddy!”
Mecca’s dream fast-forwarded to six years later, with her coming out from under the bed after witnessing her parents’ murders. She ran to the telephone and dialed her aunt’s house. A half hour later police arrived at the apartment. Mecca was left with her aunt’s friend down the hall.
“What’s her name?” the female detective asked Ruby’s friend as she bent down to her.
“She can speak,” the neighbor answered. Tears ran down her face.
“Mecca.”
“Can you tell me what happened here?” the detective asked.
“My mommy and daddy are dead. I won’t seem them again until I’m dead,” Mecca responded.
When the detective tried to elicit more information, Mecca fell silent. She began to look around for the man with the neat Afro. She did not see him and was confused. Then Ruby walked in.
The vision disappeared, and Mecca found herself sitting in Lou’s office. He faced away from her in his large swivel chair, and though she could not see him, she heard his voice.
“You didn’t need help making those decisions, Mecca. You used the potty all by yourself. You knew without anyone telling you that you wouldn’t see your parents again. You can and will decide your own destiny. Making mistakes is all part of being human. You’re not perfect, and no one should expect you to be perfect.”
Though the voice sounded like Lou’s, Mecca wasn’t sure. What he was saying was something Mecca knew Lou would not say. It was like Lou expected her to walk a straight line, or he would be angry. This voice she was now hearing was a voice of reason, pleading with her almost. Then the chair turned, and Mecca’s eyes widened at the sight of Doc Benjamin.
Mecca awoke out of her sleep in the guest room inside Junior’s home. The room was dark, and you could hear the sound of crickets and other night creatures talking to one another. The canopy bed she lay on had a netted covering to keep out mosquitoes or any other creeping night creatures. As she struggled to control her labored breathing and bring it back to normal, she mumbled to herself.
“I’ve had enough of Jamaica.” With or without Daphne, she would be on the next flight back to New York, as far away from Doc Benjamin as possible.
Chapter Nine
Do not trust in a friend; do not put your confidence in a companion.
—Micah 7:5
Daphne’s and Mecca’s flight arrived at Newark International Airport. Once there the women separated. Mecca was picked up by Miguel, and Daphne’s BMW was in long-term parking. Daphne drove out to an eatery on Long Island called Jillian’s to meet Ruby. During that drive, Junior’s take on Mecca kept repeating in her mind.
“She has been
betrayed, and it was a betrayal that left a deep wound. She is loyal. That’s why she clings to you. But whatever pains this woman, it’s a pain that’s been there for a long time.”
Daphne needed to know what it was, and if she couldn’t get it from Mecca, she had no choice but to confront Ruby. When she’d called her after landing, Ruby had quickly warned Daphne to call her from a public phone and gave her the number to one on Long Island. When she finally called her from a phone, Ruby sounded excited.
“Daphne, where’s my niece?”
“She’s at a duty-free shop. Why? What’s up?”
“Tell her Tah Gunz and his homie are washed up,” Ruby answered, as if she was telling Daphne she had just won a lottery jackpot.
“I’ll tell her,” Daphne said. “But I need to see you now. We have to talk.”
“What’s up, Daphne? Something happen?” Ruby asked, not liking the tone of Daphne’s voice.
“No. I just have to discuss some business with you. We haven’t talked in a while,” she lied. She did not want to put Ruby on the defensive. She wanted to catch Ruby unaware so that she would not make up answers about Mecca’s situation. That way, she would be able to detect the lie.
Without question, she knew that when it came to Ruby, she would have to use all of her cunning to illicit the answer from her. Ruby was no one’s fool, and she knew her well enough to know you couldn’t game her. Being friends with her in prison had allowed Daphne to see how easily Ruby could talk another inmate into believing that they were the best of friends or lovers, only to have Ruby con her out of money and drugs.
“Meet me at Jillian’s,” Ruby told Daphne.
Jillian’s had been a favorite of Ruby’s since she’d been home. They served traditional American cuisine, and you could also enjoy bowling and shoot pool. Ruby loved to eat and then bet on a game of pool.