by Landis Lain
“Hey, man,” Ephraim had said. “I met my father.”
“Yeah?” said Damon, arousing himself from his stupor.
“And he said that he didn’t know she, my mom, wanted anything to do with him,” said Ephraim. “She told him she was pregnant, but she was all upset and scared and wouldn’t talk to him because he asked her if she was sure it was his baby. She stormed out and wouldn’t answer his phone calls. Then he left school because his brother died suddenly, in a car accident. He said his mom was all devastated about his brother, so he stayed home for two years. He came back here to look for mom but nobody knew where she was. She moved away to stay with an aunt for a couple of years before she got a job and came back here. My moms never called him, so he didn’t know he had a son until she got in touch with him recently.”
“That’s deep,” said Damon, interested now despite his depression.
“Yeah,” said Ephraim, nodding his head happily. “He said he went back home and finished school there. He was married but it didn’t work out. He came up here and took mom and me out to dinner last week. He said I can come and hang out with him for the summer so we can get to know each other. Mom said it was cool.”
“That’s cool, man,” said Damon, smiling at the peace in his friends eyes.
“I got to meet my grandmother,” said Ephraim. “And she cried and hugged me and told me I look just like my uncle that died. She said it was like she had him back in me. I got a grandmother, man. And a grandfather, that I look like. They said they’re gonna help out with college so I can go to a good school.”
“How does your mom feel about it?” asked Damon.
“She’s kind of sad that she didn’t try to find him before this,” said Ephraim. “Dad said he was sorry, too, but we could work things out. We’re all supposed to go to counseling so they can forgive each other and we can get along. I got a dad, man and he was glad to meet me.”
Ephraim’s revelation made Damon happy for his friend but he felt like he was being stabbed in the chest. One day, Ricky, his Ricky, was going to try to meet his father, if Sasha decided to tell the truth. How would that work out? Would his real father be as happy to learn that he had a son?
Jada came to his room shortly after Ephraim left. Damon was sitting at the desk, holding the paternity rejection letter from the court, still crushed by the contents. Ricky had never been his and nothing Damon did would change that fact.
“I’m sorry,” said Jada.
Jada sat on the bed. Damon looked at Jada. She had tears in her eyes.
“I was just starting to get attached to the little rat,” she said, voice wobbling.
“I know,” Damon said. They stared at each other in silence. Damon moved to the bed, sat down and put his arm around her shoulder. They sobbed out their grief together.
Once they had both quieted down, Jada wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“I’m sorry I was so mean to you,” she said. Her eyes were swollen to slits.
“Forget it,” said Damon, his vision blurry from tears. “You were right. I was acting like a punk.”
“Yeah, you were,” she said. She punched him lightly on the bicep. “But now I feel rotten that I said anything.” They sat in silence for a long time. Her shared grief comforted him.
***********
A few days later Jada stopped by his room again. It was evening and their parents were out shopping.
“How ya doing?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. He’d lost weight, but his appetite was coming back slowly and he was at least sleeping at night again. He wasn’t doing anything else. “I’m just still, I don’t know.”
“Depressed about Ricky?”
“Yeah,” said Damon. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
Did you call Brielle and tell her what happened?” asked Jada.
“No,” said Damon. “She hates me and she doesn’t need me dumping all of my problems on her.”
“So noble,” said Jada, sarcastically.
“You got something to say to me?”
“I think you’re just scared she’s going to shut you down,” said Jada.
“I’m not afraid,” said Damon.
“Yes, you are,” said Jada. “Now, you know how it feels. How it feels to get used and dumped and there is nothing you can do to change it. Now you know how Brielle felt and how Sasha felt and anybody else you’ve ever blown off.”
“If you’re trying to cheer me up, you’ve failed,” said Damon, cracking open the book he had in front of him on the desk. At least with books he knew what he was getting. He could open and close them when he wanted to and not have to worry about how the book was going to react.
“People aren’t books,” said Jada, as though reading his mind. You can’t open and close them whenever you feel like it. People have feelings. You’d better learn that before you tackle your next girlfriend and mess her life up, too.”
Damon
“Get out of the house, boy.”
His mother smacked him on the leg with her hand. Damon groaned.
“I don’t feel like going anywhere,” said Damon. He was lying on his bed, brooding, like he had been doing for the last two weeks. He wasn’t even reading. One by one his brothers came over and made him lift weights for hours on end or goaded him into a basketball game, but those were the only things that they could get him to do. Exhaustion was good. It kept his thoughts and grief at bay. His mother and sister had been tiptoeing around him and letting him have time to grieve the loss of Ricky but his mother was about at the end of her patience with his lack of appetite and apathetic behavior.
“Boy,” said his mother. “Get up now. Go someplace. I’m not asking. I’m telling.”
“There is no place that I want to go, mama,” said Damon, sitting up reluctantly.
“I do not care where you go,” said his mother, hands on her hips. “You can take yourself to the movies or go walk around the mall. Return Stump or Ephraim’s phone calls. Go play some basketball. Go to work. Or, here is a thought, call Brielle and ask her out.”
“I can’t ask Brielle out,” he said. “She probably hates me.”
“That’s enough of this whining, boy,” she said.
“Mama, please,” he said. “I just want to be by myself.”
“Boy, you listen and you listen well,” she said, eyes narrow and teeth clenched. She poked him in the chest with her index finger. “I don’t care where you go or what you do, but you’re not going to lie around my house and mope for the rest of your life. The pity party is over.”
And that is how Damon ended up driving around aimlessly, through the streets of Lansing. He drove around for a while, noting and dismissing the signs of spring. He finally ended up at the mall, a place that he never went willingly. Hopefully he could just wander around for an hour or two and then go back home. Nobody he knew would expect him to be there. He could blend into the scenery. He browsed the book store for a while, but nothing piqued his interest. He bought a book anyway. Maybe that would satisfy his mother. He wandered aimlessly.
Damon was just beginning his second trek around the mall when he realized that he was being followed. He turned his head to the side and saw two Death Lords, wearing purple and black. For the first time in weeks, he felt some emotion besides despair. A frisson of fear raced along his spine. He was just about to duck into J C Penney’s when D. Dog stepped out from behind a rack of clothing. Damon backed up into the mall.
“Was’ sup?” D. Dog asked.
Damon lifted his chin and said nothing.
“Was’ sup, punk?” D. Dog crowded close to him. Damon looked down at his shoes and sighed.
‘I’m not in the mood for this mess.’
Out of his peripheral vision, Damon could see mall shoppers either scurrying to get out of the way or crowding in closer, trying to get a better look at the potential rumble action. He could feel pent up rage that he’d hadn’t realized that he’d been hoard
ing for the past few weeks pick up in intensity.
“Man,” said Damon, picking up his head. He sidestepped. “I got no beef with you.”
“But see, cuz,” said D. Dog, sidestepping directly in front of Damon. “I got a beef with you. I heard you dropped a dime on me last spring. Almost got me sent up.”
Damon looked around and saw D. Dog’s boys closing in. D. Dog made a gesture with his hand and they fell back slightly.
“I’m not,” said Damon though clenched teeth, suddenly mad as fire, “your cousin. I didn’t drop a dime on you. Just leave me alone.” He took his hands out of his pockets and dropped the bag containing the book on the floor. He’d filled out in the last six months because his brothers had had him lifting weights with brutal intensity to force him out of his stupor.
“So, my boys are lying if they tell me you dropped the dime?” asked D. Dog, piggy eyes narrowing.
“Ask your boys, Dog,” said Damon. “I can’t speak for them.” Craig reared back in surprise at Damon’s flippant tone.
Damon side stepped again. Craig stepped with him. Damon’s head was buzzing with pent up rage. He glanced around and saw the people gathering and it made him feel trapped. He could feel his chest tighten.
‘Where is a freaking rent-a-mall-cop when you need one? Why can’t people just leave me alone?’
“I don’t want trouble,” he said.
“But you got me to deal with,” said Craig. “See, this mall is my turf. Way I see it, you on my turf without permission, you got trouble. Me.” He pointed one thick thumb at himself.
He pushed Damon.
“Look,” said Damon, staggering back slightly and throwing up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You win. You rule this. I’m out.”
“Punk,” said D. Dog.
“Yep,” said Damon. “Peace.”
‘Just walk away.’
The rage and fear that he could feel building was so tangible he could taste metal in his mouth. D. Dog pushed him again, so hard that Damon stumbled.
“Heard you got punked out by my old rag doll,” taunted Dragon Dog.” “Told you about them sloppy seconds.”
Damon righted himself and looked around wildly at the crowd. Everyone seemed to be holding their collective breaths.
“Daddy’s baby!” taunted D. Dog. “Now you see him, now you don’t.”
Damon turned and started blindly walking away. All he wanted to do was escape. His stomach was cramping and his breath was coming in short sharp bursts. Damon’s vision blurred. He took a few steps, barely hearing the crowd murmuring before D. Dog spun him around by the shoulder, butterfly knife glinting in his other hand.
“Don’t you turn your back on me, punk,” D. Dog said, grabbing a hand full of Damon’s sweat shirt. He hauled Damon around by the right shoulder. Suppressed rage exploded through Damon’s body and he let momentum carry him around. Damon’s left fist connected with D. Dog’s jaw with a stunning blow that jarred his whole body. He heard the knife clatter to the floor. He caught D. Dog solidly under the right eye with the second punch and broke his nose. He could hear the cartilage crush under his fist and feel the blood start to gush as his knuckle split and D. Dog dropped to the floor like a stone.
“Don’t ever touch me again, Craig,” Damon said. Damon whirled around to see one of the Death Lords reach into his shirt.
“He’s got a gun!” someone screamed and the crowd scattered in panic.
“FREEZE! POLICE!”
Damon stood there expecting to die, unsure of why he didn’t feel sorrier about that.
Damon
“Damon?”
When Damon came back to himself, he was sitting in the back of a police squad car staring at the cage in front of him. He heard someone call his name but he couldn’t figure out where he was or what was going on.
“Damon!” This time the voice was peremptory and angry. He struggled to climb out of the stupor and focused on his mother’s voice.
“Yes, mama?” he asked.
“Are you all right?” She grabbed his elbow and pulled. He got out of the car.
He didn’t answer. He did not understand the question.
“Damon!”
He turned his head and saw her standing there with a police officer.
“Are you okay?” she asked, gently, tears in her eyes.
He nodded slowly, not certain why she was asking him that question. Now that he’d emerged from his stupor he noticed a beehive of activity. He was surprised to see that he was alive and standing next to the police car and that the police car was at the mall. There were two ambulances parked askew in front of the police car and Craig was being loaded into one of them. He couldn’t see who was on the other stretcher but the paramedics were moving quickly and efficiently. They loaded the stretcher into the second ambulance and took off, sirens blaring.
“What happened?” he asked his mother. His whole body felt tired and heavy.
She shook her head.
“Can he go, officer?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” said the officer to Mrs. Harris. “We just needed a parent to release him to since he is a minor. He’s been very cooperative. He’s answered all of our questions. He needs to come down to the station to make a statement, later.”
Damon looked around some more and was surprised to see his father talking to another police officer in front of the mall.
“What’s dad doing here?”
No one answered.
He turned back to the officer standing next to the police car.
“Am I under arrest?” he asked.
“No,” said the officer. “All of the witnesses, including mall security, already stated that you were the victim and that you tried to walk away from the scene several times. Pretty clear cut case of self-defense. We’ll need you to come down to the station to make a statement later, but for now, you’re free to go home with your parents. You probably want to stop by the hospital and get your hands looked at, though.”
Damon had subtly become aware of a dull ache in his hands. He looked down and saw that his right hand was bandaged and his left was splinted and bandaged.
“What happened?” he asked.
His father walked up to him.
“Was’ sup, Mike Tyson?” he asked.
“What happened?”
“As far as we can tell, one of the Death Lords got stabbed,” said his mother.
“By who?” asked Damon.
“They are trying to figure it out.”
“I didn’t do it?”
“Did you have a knife?”
“No.”
“Hard to stab somebody with no knife.”
“Oh, true.”
His mother led him to the car and opened the door for him. He got into the back seat and laid his head back, eyes closed. His eyes popped open as a thought occurred to him.
“Is Craig Frazier getting arrested?”
“After they take him to the hospital,” said his mother. “Something about possession of a firearm.”
“You fought somebody with a gun?” said his father. He shook his head.
Damon shrugged.
“He told me he was Ricky’s father,” said Damon.
His mother snorted. “Hope to God that’s not true. I wouldn’t wish that fool on anybody.”
“But what if he is?”
“It is what it is, “said his father. “You sure you all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
May
Sasha and Damon
“Why are you here Damon?”
The doorbell rang and Sasha went to answer it. She had just put Ricky down for his one hour catnap and was wiping the baby vomit off of the front of her favorite yellow top so she wasn’t really paying attention when she yanked open the door. If she had known he was going to be standing on the outside she would never have opened it. They both stood there, stupefied, staring at each other through the screen door.
Of course. Here he is looking finer than he has a ri
ght to and I’m standing here holding a dirty rag with baby throw up on me and my hair looking like who did it for what done it.
She asked the question before she realized that her mouth was open. He shifted from one hip to the other, looking like he wanted to be anyplace but on her mother’s front porch.
“Hi,” he said.
‘Hi? Whatever.’
“How are you?” he asked.
Maybe he didn’t hear me the first time.
“What do you want Damon?”
He hesitated and then bit his lip. He took a deep breath, took his glasses off, wiped the lenses off with the corner of his polo shirt and put them back on.
“I wanted to see Ricky,” he said. “If – um – if it’s okay with you.”
He started out strong but petered off until she had to strain to hear what he had to say.
“Why?” Sasha asked. She jammed her fists on her hips. He bit his lip again and shuffled his big feet.
He has the nerve to look hurt.
“Ricky is my baby. He’s not yours,” she said, heating up. “The blood tests proved that he’s not yours.”
“I know, but-,” he stopped and looked confused.
If I had a gun, I would shoot him for that doofus look. I hate him with my whole body and soul.
“I thought you said to leave you alone,” Sasha yelled. “Isn’t that what you told me last year? Leave me alone, beat it. Isn’t that what you said?”
He took a step back like he was surprised that she was hostile and enraged. Sasha had never yelled at Damon before, not even when he kicked her to the curb in front of the whole school.
“Yeah but-,”
She could feel the rage bubbling in her blood and oozing out of her pores. She didn’t have a gun so she slammed open the screen door and crashed into him with her fists. She tried to punch him and kill him. Damon caught and held her forearms to keep her away from him, but the cast on his left wrist made him clumsy. He was so strong, that Sasha got even angrier. She lashed out with her bare foot. He blocked the blow with his leg and pinned her to the side of the porch pillar.