You would’ve thought I’d learned my lesson by now but I hadn’t. I sat by the window going through the mortgage information on the salon. I had ten days to pay the balance in full or they’d be closing Ché Mystic for good. Fuck it, maybe I should go be a stylist in a hair salon, I thought. At least I wouldn’t have to put up with the bullshit of paying a fuckin’ mortgage. I sat and thought of all the shit I’d been through in the past few months. I got up and walked into the kitchen to get a candle from the drawer.
I lit the candle and sat it in the middle of the coffee table. I bowed my head to say a prayer. I was always taught that if you keep God first, then everything else would work out. And maybe that was my problem all along. I was not keeping God first. I would put God, everybody, and everything above Him. While Darnell lay asleep in his grave I had gone buck wild.
“Buck wild” is a term that I never used when discussing myself. I was always the one to have my shit together. I know that Father Tyrell was looking down on me right then shaking his head asking, what the hell is he doing?
I lit another candle—not for the death of Darnell but for the life of him. I had waited for him to live his life through me. A man who loved me for who I was and not for what I had or what I was worth. A man who would never put his hands on me or tell me to take drugs. Yes, he may have sparked up a blunt or two but my lips never touched one.
I felt tears starting to rise from my tear ducts but I refused to cry another tear. I was gonna hold my head high and live my life like it was meant to be. I lit another candle for my mother and father. There was a time when they were the most important people in my life but now they would be known to me as associates. Associates that I would call my mother and father because they were no longer “Mommy” and “Daddy.”
My last and final candle was lit for the life of my baby Anthony. The one person who gave a damn about my well-being. A person whom I could trust hands down. There was no question or doubt in my mind that he wasn’t my brother. May God bless him and give him the gift of life just like He gave me. It was my time to shine.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, Juan. This is gonna be a tough case,” said my attorney Robert Datner as he leaned back in his chair and cupped the back of his head with his hands. I had been working with Mr. Datner for some years now. I had hired him when Ieshia and I had gotten into trouble a few years back when we were cashing fraudulent checks. Before Darnell came along, that was how I really had made my money. The term in this gay lifestyle for that type of work was called “crafting.”
Now believe it or not crafting was really what it was—crafting. You really needed to learn a skill to portray that type of lifestyle. And if you were a fierce crafter then there wasn’t a doubt that you lived FAB. I started off living fab when I earned my first hundred thousand by going to different banks around Philly cashing fraudulent checks. Ieshia and I would cash checks from Philly to Maryland to Richmond. We were unstoppable when it came to the check-writing game.
See, most faggots craft to buy fancy clothes and cell phones and shit. Ieshia and I crafted for money. The real money. Money that was used to buy us fancy cars like Beemers and Mercedes-Benzes and shit. But as they say; easy come easy go. We went through that money so quick by buying clothes, jewelry, and cars. And until this day the only thing I had to show for it was my apartment and my car. Now ask me what Ieshia had to show for it—shit.
“I figured that it would be a tough case.” I sighed as I looked around his office taking in the scene of pictures of his wife and kids. Robert Datner was one of the best Jewish lawyers that money could buy. He had gotten me and Ieshia off that check-writing shit plus he had gotten my cousin off a murder charge when he used to roll with the JBM (Junior Black Mafia) back in the day.
“Yeah it is. Especially for number one, they found drugs in your apartment and number two, there is a key witness that sent them there,” he said now looking through his mess of papers on his wooden desk. “Melissa Childs, that’s her name,” he said as he held the report in his hands.
“So what do I do now?” I asked, trying not to worry about the tremendous jail time I would be facing in the future.
“Well, do you know this girl?”
“Well, I don’t know her per se, but I do know things about her.”
“Well, for this to be so early in the case, I suggest you go to her and talk this out with her so she can’t testify at your trial.” I was stumped for a minute to think about what he had said. Me and Melissa talk? No, no, I thought. I am gonna kick her ass for spraying mace in my face and stampeding into my shop. He looked right into my eyes and saw that his suggestion wouldn’t work.
“So you’re saying that you can’t talk to her?”
“I don’t think so,” I responded, slumping down in the chair.
“Well, like I said, this is still early in the case and the trial will not begin for a few months. We have numerous options to explore. Such as what gave the police probable cause to come search your apartment? Just because they got a tip from some ghetto chick, that’s not enough for a warrant from where I stand.”
See, that’s what I liked about Mr. Datner; he always knew what to do and that is why I wouldn’t mind paying top dollar for his services. I stood up from my seat as my cell phone rang. I looked at the number, recognizing that it was my mother and rejected the call.
“Well, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule and seeing me. And I would also like to thank you for getting my ass out of jail so soon.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” he said, flagging his hand away. I will help you in any way that I can.” He extended his arm for a handshake.
“I will call you when I get some new news about your case. But for now lay low for a while and try not to get into any trouble,” he said to me before I walked out of the door.
While walking to my car I heard my cell ring again and it was my mother calling for a second time. What the hell is she calling me for? I thought as I opened the phone and closed it. I didn’t have anything to say to her after the way she had treated me the other day. I stopped at the pretzel stand a few steps away from Mr. Datner’s office and brought me a pretzel with light salt smothered in mustard and a large cherry ice—my all-time childhood favorite.
I took one bite of the pretzel as I started to get a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. I began to have flashbacks of Darnell lying there in my arms with blood leaking from his nose. I carried the water ice in one hand, my pretzel in the other and it felt like I was holding Darnell in both of my arms. My cell phone rang for a third time but by me carrying these two items to my car, I couldn’t reach for it to see who it was.
By the time I got to my car my cell phone had stopped ringing. I jumped in the driver’s seat when a voice entered into my head. It was my voice saying good-bye. It was my voice in the same exact tone that I’d used to tell my parents good-bye the other day when I walked out of their house. I licked the top of my water as the voice still flowed through my head and into my ears. Good-bye…good-bye…good-bye was all I heard and then a vision of my father appeared in the passenger seat. In an instant, he went away when my cell phone rang a fourth time. This time I looked down at the phone and it seemed like I heard my mother’s voice in my head screaming, Juan, you better answer this damn phone. I flicked open the phone and held it to my ear for a second before saying hello.
“Mom,” I answered.
“Juan, you were the first person I wanted to call. Your father passed away about ten minutes ago,” she informed me as she wept. I sat in the driver’s seat in silence, letting the water ice drip down onto my hands. My eyes swelled up with tears.
“Mommy?” I cried.
“Yes, Juan.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Okay,” she responded before I closed my phone.
More and more tears started to fall as I got closer to West Philadelphia and the Arch Homes. I glanced in the rearview mirror thinking of an explanation to tell my mother about how my
face had gotten like this. The closer I drove to the streets of my childhood the memories started flooding.
There was the time when my father had taught me how to ride a bike along with the time when he first took the training wheels off. I rode past Fifty-fifth Street where we used to light firecrackers on the Fourth of July. Apple Tree Street, hmmm; that’s the block where my father came and got me out of a house party that took place at two in the morning.
The field across the street, which was now turned into a nursing home, was where I’d first played the game “Catch a Girl, Freak a Girl.”
The Salvation Army; now that was my spot back in the day. I would go there every day for the after-school programs. Then by the time I was old enough, I would go to the gym and sit in the bleachers and watch the boys play basketball. I always had my eyes on this one particular boy named Terrance. He was a lot older than me but he was fine as hell. I loved the way he’d run up and down the court grabbing the ball and shooting it into the net. He moved away when I was sixteen and I hadn’t seen him since.
By the time I got to the projects, the ambulance was taking my father away. I pulled up in the driveway and got out, passing by the onlookers who were trying to find out what they could see.
“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” said a skinny, dark-skinned lady who used to babysit me when I was younger. She was now known as a babysitter-turned-crackhead. What am I saying? Like I got room to talk.
My mother stood in the doorway as the ambulance rode slowly down Vodgers Street.
“Mommy,” I cried, running into her arms as she welcomed me. I squeezed her flesh as tight as I could, trying not to let her go as she did the same. We both held each other and cried. I cried for good reasons and bad.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, holding me tighter as tears fell from her eyes.
“Mom, no! It’s not your fault.” Only if my mother knew all the hurt and pain that I felt on the inside. I missed my family so much that I couldn’t breathe. She pulled away from me with red eyes.
“Your father loved you. He always loved you,” she said, wiping my tears away with her thumbs. I grabbed her again as we held each other tight and let the nature of a death in our family take its course.
“Thanks for everything,” said a female client as she paid me for her do as well as gave me a ten-dollar tip.
“You’re welcome. I’ll see you in two weeks?” I asked, knowing that her curls would fall in one.
“Yup,” she responded walking out the door. Rob was finishing up one client’s hair when he walked over to me.
“Are you okay, girl?” he asked, still holding a styling comb in his hand.
“Yeah, I’m fine. How about you?”
“I’m doing well. Your face is healing well. How’s your mother doing? Are y’all done making the funeral arrangements?”
“No, we still have a little more prepping to do. Everything will be done by Wednesday,” I said, walking back into my office.
“Oh, okay, so that’s when the funeral is, huh? Where is it gonna be?”
“It’s gonna be at my grandmother’s church; Liberty Baptist on Fifty-seventh and Larchwood.” I went into my office, sat behind my desk and started up my computer. I hadn’t checked my email in quite some time. I signed on to AOL and I had over a hundred emails. Most of them were junk emails but two were from Bryant.
My first instinct was to delete the email but then I decided to read it only to hear what he had to say. I opened it to see that it was a poem written yesterday.
Listen to my words as I say that everything’s gonna be OK
Sometimes you might have a bad day but know,
everything’s gonna be OK
Your day might not be going too good and you wish
you were home, around the hood
Laughing and joking with your love thinking everything
was all good
To make the time go by, do what you gotta do
Cuz, boy, you know ya man is here, sitting here waiting on you
To hold, to love, to pamper, cuz I know the loss of
your father can be a damper
Know that ya man loves you in the worst way and when you say
I can come home, I’ll make you forget about your bad day
So finish up at work and forget about your bad day
Listen when ya man says everything’s gonna be OK
I deleted the email and then deleted the poem. But the other email, I read carefully as his thoughts and emotions filled the entire room.
Dear Juan, my one and only J.J.,
How could I sit here and write this letter to you knowing all the bad things I’ve done to you. My soul is burning not having you around. At this point in my life I realized that I need you so much. I know that you might not read this letter because of the way I played you but, Baby, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I promise that I will make it up to you. Right now, I’m not thinking of anyone else but you. Baby, I need you in my life. Fuck dem other hoes out there. This is one man that only wants to be with you.
Listen, I know I was on some psycho shit the other day when I hurt you but you must know that I swear to Allah that I didn’t mean that. If you forgive me then it’s all about me and you. Mariah miscarried my seed so there’s no reason for me to keep her around. I will come out of the closet for you. Baby, please give me another chance. If you love me the way you say that you do, then you will meet me tonight at Zanzibar Blue at 7:00 p.m. sharp. I love you, boo.
Love Always,
Bryant
I lowered my head with my eyes piercing the floor. This letter was unexpected and I vowed to myself to get rid of Bryant and all his dumb shit for good. Why would he do this? If he says he loves me as much as he says, then he should allow me to go my way, I thought. A knock came upon the door as I quickly fixed my face to communicate with whomever it was.
“Who is it?” I said, fixing up the papers on my desk to look as if I were very busy.
“Juan, it’s me Keisha and my sister Kya. Can we speak with you for a moment?” I pushed all the papers into a pile and stuffed them in my desk drawer.
“Sure, come in,” I responded, now pulling my hair back into a rubber band not caring how badly bruised they thought my face. They both walked into my office, one behind another, wearing matching flaring skirts and sandals from Express. They sat down in the chairs on the opposite side on my desk.
“What’s up?” I asked, putting my elbows on the desk and holding my head down with folded hands. They both looked at each other with Kya sporting a burgundy wrap and Keisha sporting a wet and wavy.
“You wanna go first or should I go first?” asked Keisha, moving her index finger between the two.
“You go first,” said Kya. Keisha looked at me and took a deep breath.
“Okay, Juan, I’m gonna tell it to you like this. We’re not happy here and we’re taking the job next door at Chez Sonia’s.” She watched my every move to see my reaction.
“Okay, why aren’t you happy?” I asked, giving them my undivided attention.
“Well, first of all, when we started everything was okay. Now, I don’t mean to be in ya business or anything but now it seems like this shop is going under. We’re not making any money due to poor clientele. The police are always busting up in here for something and that’s another thing. We don’t feel safe,” she said, shaking her head from side to side. I continued to sit while Kya decided to speak.
“Yes, Juan, we don’t want you to feel like we’re betraying you or anything but we have rent to pay and since you went up on the rent here, we’re not making enough.” I shifted my eyes between the both of them as they took turns speaking.
“I mean, there’s no toilet paper in the bathrooms anymore. There are no supplies to work with. As employees of this salon we feel that you owe it to us to let us know what’s going on,” Keisha added. I moved forward in my seat to begin to address their concerns.
“Well, Keisha, I w
ished you would have come to me first before taking a job next door. And it’s not my fault if my employees want to fight each other.”
“What do you mean it’s not your fault? It is your fault to have girls running up in here fighting us over some nigga,” Keisha said, getting hyped.
“Keisha, I’ma need to you to calm your voice in my salon.” I stated firmly.
“Calm my voice, pussy, I’m mad as shit ’cause I’m still working here without gettin’ paid and my jaw still hasn’t been the same since that girl that your boyfriend is fucking punched me for no reason. I didn’t have anything to do with that shit,” she continued in a loud tone.
“Look, y’all, did ya’ll come in here to argue with me or talk to me?”
“We came in here to talk and now we’re talkin’ so what are you gonna do to change things?” Keisha said abruptly. I took another deep breath because honestly, I didn’t know how to handle this. I stood up from my seat.
“Rob, could you come in here for a second?” I yelled. Keisha turned around toward Kya and then back to me.
“And what the fuck is he supposed to do?”
“He is the manager of this salon and I feel it’s only right that he listen to your concerns.” Rob came into the office.
“Yes,” he said, still holding onto the doorknob.
“Rob, our stylists say that they’re not happy here due to the lack of funds around here lately. Keshia says she doesn’t feel safe. I don’t know what to do,” I said, plopping back down into my chair.
“Well, the only thing that I can say is that right now Ché Mystic is having a little financial trouble and if y’all are willing to stay and hold on until things get better, then you’re more than welcome to stay. If not, I’m sorry.” Rob covered it all in a nutshell.
Keisha stood from her seat and slammed her hand down on my desk. Well…
The front door of the salon swung open so hard it hit the wall and the glass broke. My heart fell, ruining the lining of my stomach.
“Rob, where the fuck are you?” Jeff yelled as he entered the shop with four boys following behind him. Keshia jumped back toward the wall as Rob tried to run behind my desk.
In Love with a Thug Page 16