Gumbo

by Tiana Laveen

  Dante chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve had some run ins, too. Anyway, getting a job is a good idea. If I had that kinda cash I’d give it to you in a heartbeat.”

  Tony lowered his head. “I know you would.”

  “Maybe we can put our money together so that as soon as you graduate, you can move back to Jersey with me.”

  Tony slumped in his chair and stared at his feet. That dreaded feeling of loss overcame him. Everyone he loved left. First, it was his friend, Bryan… got hit by a car and died when they were just six years old. Then, it was his favorite teacher, Mrs. Anne Davis—she got married and moved away. Then, Dad died… now Dante had his sights set on greener pastures. His brother would be next on the chopping block. He didn’t blame him; at least, that’s what he tried to tell himself.

  So, Dante was still moving forward with his plans of departure. As soon as he graduated, like the day after the whole cap and gown bullshit, he planned to purchase a plane ticket, move back home, and pay a deposit and first month’s rent on an apartment there. He’d already saved up some money, but most of it went back to Mom for groceries and necessities. “I see how ya lookin’ Tony… I won’t be gone for long. I promise. I’m not just doin’ this for me, but for all of us. I’m gonna get Ma back home too, okay?”

  Tony nodded, but he wasn’t completely convinced. His brother sounded more and more like Mom. There was always a plan, but that plan never really made complete sense to Tony.

  “I don’t want ya to go… I don’t wanna hold you back, either.” He shrugged.

  “I know ya don’t. Hey, isn’t your girlfriend’s birthday next week? Maybe I can help ya get ’er somethin’ real nice.” Tony mustered a smile.

  “Yeah… it’s next week. I was gonna ask Ma to make ’er a cake and get ’er some flowers and a card.”

  “Nah! Gotta do better than that, man. We’ll get ’er some earrings, a necklace, somethin’ like that, all right?”

  “Yeah.” Tony grinned from ear to ear. “That would be good. She likes jewelry.”

  “Let me tell ya somethin’ about girls, little bro. There’s three types.” Dante put up three fingers. “The forever kind, the kind you fuck, and the kind you forget. The forever girls are those that are good to their damn bones. They have your back, they’re faithful, and they love you for you. They’re pretty, they’re fuckin’ smart, and they’re not out here fuckin’ every Tom, Dick, and Harry. They only fuck you. The kind you fuck are nice lookin’, nice arm candy anyway… ya go out to eat with ’em, share a few laughs, but it’s mainly about the sex and just some good times here and there. Ya don’t love her, ya don’t hate her. It’s just an arrangement of sorts.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ve had that kind.” He glanced in the direction of the counter and noticed there was hardly any peanut butter left.

  Figures.

  “Right? We all have. Lastly, there’s the kind you forget. They can look like anything, cute to a fuckin’ monster in the face. Doesn’t matter. You might not even know their name, ya know? As long as they’ve got a pussy and the shit doesn’t smell like the damn Hudson River, you go right ahead and fuck that pussy and forget ’em, simple as that. Cassidy? She seems like the forever type, and that’s a real gem from around here.” Dante laughed dismally. “I’ve seen only a handful of chicks that have made me do a double take so far.”

  “She’s definitely a forever type. She’s the girl of my dreams.” Tony smiled proudly.

  “And that’s my whole point, man. So since she’s in that category, you gotta pull out all the stops because there’s always gonna be another bastard tryna steal ’er from ya. Our radar lets us know when someone is worth riskin’ shit over or not. Most of these broads are a dime a dozen. The Forevers? Man, you gotta show ’em you’re the best, grab and keep them because they’re rare. She already chose ya; her grandmother likes ya. You said you haven’t fucked her yet and that’s fine, but you gotta put your stamp on her, make ’er not wanna go anywhere else, okay?”

  Tony nodded in agreement. These were straight up facts. He hated it… Grown ass men and little boys alike were always hitting on Cassidy, many times right in front of his face. She was gorgeous… there was no denying it. Not only was she beautiful, she was nice and fucking smart. Losing her would be almost worse than losing Dad. Of that, he was certain.

  “So.” His brother grabbed the cereal and poured it into the big white bowl. “You gotta treat ’er good, and protect ’er too, man. It’s rough here, ya know?”

  “Sometimes I wake up and think it’s all a bad dream… but then I look out the window and see we’re still livin’ here. I thought about running away when we first got here. I was gonna steal money out of Mom’s purse, put it with the little bit I had and catch a Greyhound back to Jersey. Then I was gonna beg a friend to let me move in until the end of high school. It sounds stupid now, but back then, it was a real consideration.”

  “Yeah. I’m not surprised. It sucks. I know why they call it Hell Glade now. Anyway, you’re young, Tony. You and Cassidy might last forever, you may not.” He shrugged. “The world is different from when Ma and Dad were first together. Things are more complicated now. Anyway, just try to make the best of it.” Dante took a sip of his coffee and placed it back down. He had a big shit eating grin on his face. “I see she makes ya happy. I’m glad you’re smiling again, Tony.”

  “She does make me happy.” He smiled back. “Don’t tell anybody, but I uh… I think I love her.”

  Dante shoved a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “I know ya do. You’ve had plenty of girls before, but this is what they call a first love. Treat it well. You only get one in a lifetime…”

  “’Cause it ain’t fresh. This shirt is though; we should get these instead,” E.T. chimed as he sat on Maize’s bed in his small apartment. The guy was dressed in a silky navy blue Adidas shirt and matching shorts, a thick gold chain around his neck, and a fake diamond ring on his baby finger. The man placed a wad of one dollar bills in Maize’s hand. Couldn’t have been more than thirty bucks, but it looked impressive the way the shit was packaged nevertheless. E.T.’s eyes were now a watery watermelon red and had narrowed into swamp green, hazy slits. The place smelled of lemongrass incense and strong weed. Five of them sat piled onto the bed, talking shit. Maize rolled another joint then nudged Tony’s shoulder. The boy’s mother was on the living room couch half asleep with the television on.

  “You wanna hit dis, Montana?”

  “Nah, no thanks.”

  Maize grabbed a lighter and lit it. Montana was apparently Tony’s new nickname… based off of Tony Montana from the movie ‘Scarface.’ A brand-new round of misty smoke soon filled the room as ‘Public Enemy No. 1’ by Public Enemy played in high volume through the speakers of a large black boombox. The cassette went around and around, hypnotizing him as he moved his head to the beat.

  “So.” Maize leaned back against his headboard, one leg hanging off the bed. “Back to what we was sayin’. You sayin’ you need some money, right?” He arched a brow in emphasis.

  “Yeah, you told me that you had an opportunity or something, but you’d let me know after you trusted me. Don’t know if you trust me or not, but if that opportunity has anything to do with money, I want to hear about it.”

  Maize looked him up and down for a spell, drew on his joint and clicked his tongue lazily against his inner jaw. “It does. What is it you need?”

  “Well, see, I want to buy a car. I just got my driver’s license.”

  Maize nodded. “All right, all right… you wanna grow up, get outta the kid zone. That would be good for all of us actually.” E.T. perked up, as if now interested in the conversation too. “I ain’t got a license. You got a license, E.T.?”

  “Naw.” E.T. chuckled. “I didn’t take Driver’s Ed, none of that shit. All I got is a birth certificate and a social security number. I don’t care ’bout no damn license.” He shrugged.

  “You should. You ain’t thinkin’ out the box, E.T.,” Maize chastised b
efore placing his joint in a rumpled foil ashtray.

  “What’s the point of that? T.J. gotta license but he always gettin’ pulled over by the cops. Now his shit is suspended.” T.J., who looked half asleep, nodded in agreement. “We wouldn’t be no damn different. I’ll get a car one day. Right now that ain’t at the top of my priorities.” He reached out and scratched his ankle.

  “Tony, check it out. There’s this old guy, Fred.” Maize pointed towards his tiny bedroom window where a red scarf served as a curtain. “He lives a few blocks away. We deliver stuff for him… not drugs, nothin’ like that, but sometimes we’ll run numbers or drop off cigarettes, liquor, taped movies, shit like that for him.”

  Tony nodded and crossed his arms, then changed his mind. He took the joint from Maize’s ashtray and inhaled. It had been a long time since he’d smoked a joint. It wasn’t really his thing; he could count on one hand how many times he’d indulged back in Jersey, but for some reason, he was itching for it then. What a great moment with them all sitting there, relaxing, talking, vibing.

  “So, you bein’ White, I’m sure he’d wanna put you on.”

  “What’s me bein’ White got to do with it?” Tony handed the joint to Maize and looked towards the closed bedroom door when he believed he heard an odd sound, like someone jumping about.

  “You can go in areas we can’t.”

  Tony met eyes with Maize, uncertain what to say. He didn’t want to say something foolish, like ‘Segregation is over. Martin Luther King Jr. prevailed.’ Some idiotic shit like that… but he had questions.

  “What areas?”

  “Century Village, Royal Palm, places like that. All these mothafuckas want a discount, you know?” Maize shrugged. “You could haul a bunch of shit and hand deliver it. They tip, too. They want our shit, man… The seasonin’ we use for our food, our one-of-a-kind drinks we make in our kitchens, the music on a cassette, fish dinners and BBQ. They want the cheap liquor so they can pour it into expensive bottles. It’s cheap out here in the hood, but they don’t wanna come out this way. They scared. They want the hand-made clothes to tell folks the shit came from Africa, shit like that.

  “We like some oddity to them, a fuckin’ freak show, but they know good shit when they see it. Them White people are resourceful. We taught them how to get over on us and now they got the blueprint. We can’t seem to read the shit, yet we’re the authors! Ain’t that some shit? We’re unorganized like a mothafucka and we don’t stick together.”

  “Tell it, man!” T.J. hollered.

  “So it’s easy pickins, Montana. I ain’t talking about you specifically; you’re different. But this White man’s world is a trip. They take advantage of our genius, exploit it, reap the benefits while we stay in one spot still makin’ sandwiches for ten cents a-piece. They turn around and mass produce the shit with cheaper ingredients in their own stores, sell it for a dollah each. This is the business world. This is how it works. My old man taught me this shit a long time ago.”

  “Really? I’d like to meet him.” Tony had only seen Maize’s mother. Perhaps his father was at work.

  “He dead now. Got shot. He was from Detroit.” We have more in common than I even thought… “He was a Black Panther. You gotta have a mind for business ’cause it applies to everything in life.” Maize tapped his temple with his fingertip. “White people don’t give uh fuck about the hood. If it wasn’t for my father, I’d probably be out here sellin’ dope like everybody else. This shit ain’t for the faint of heart. We’re the forgotten tribe. We’re all we got.”

  The conversation had turned from laid back and interesting, to uncomfortable and intriguing. Like Cass, Maize seemed older than his years. Though Tony couldn’t say he agreed with everything he spouted, some of what Maize said made sense. Why were the Blacks here so disenfranchised? Why didn’t they demand better living standards? Why did it seem that affluent people, regardless of race, had a knack for making their wealth off some poor son of a bitch’s ideas, and no one called them on this shit? The answer was simple. They couldn’t afford to fight for their rights. Justice was only for those that were paid in full. Facts were facts. Tony was into facts. Facts made the damn world go round but unsubstantiated rumors made it spin faster.

  “I get what you’re saying, but I want to know what that has to do with this opportunity because honestly, the history behind it doesn’t mean shit to me right now. I need to get this money, Maize. Not gonna get into all the reasons why, but I need to get it right now.”

  “See, you’re missin’ the point, Montana. The history is always important. You’re not thinkin’ like your ancestors right now, and that is why I trust you. But your ancestors would know, man, why the history of everything is important. That’s how you exploit mothafuckas; you gotta know their history. If you can control their history, maybe even rewrite it to your liking, that’s even better. Like a pimp wit’ a skeezer… He gotta know what had happened to her as a kid to get ’er to sell her pussy and keep giving him all of her money in return, and still think that joker love ’er. That’s mind control.

  “The government uses drugs, lack of education, no jobs and crooked preachers to keep the Black people under control. Then after a while, they don’t even have to try anymore. We took the reins and do it to our fuckin’ selves. Keep a slave under yo’ foot, you only have control until you let up off they neck. Train a mothafucka how to enslave himself, he’ll still be a slave long after you’re gone… There’s a lot of shit you don’t know about, Tony. Like I said, the beauty of this opportunity is it ain’t illegal. You won’t get rich, but you’ll always have a little pocket change.”

  “It ain’t necessarily all the way straight either,” E.T. chimed in. Maize chuckled, showing his snow-white teeth. “Yeah, but that’s not the usual shit. The point is, this ain’t some shit to get you caught up, put in the slammer. I ain’t tryna risk it. I got too much to lose, like maybe a scholarship to college, but this is the way I get money and help my mama pay the bills.”

  “So, all I have to do is pick up and drop off clothes and BBQ?”

  Maize nodded.

  “Yup, shit like that. Now, if you haulin’ cigarettes or liquor, make sure you don’t speed or nothin’ like that once you get your car. Fred can get you a car real quick once he know he got a White boy on his team. Since I put you on, just gimme like twenty percent of what you make. You think that’s fair? I don’t want you comin’ into this thinkin’ it ain’t fair, ’cause I consider you a friend now, and I don’t fuck over my homeboys.”

  “How about ten? I’ll be the one risking it hauling alcohol because I’m underage. Even if I’m not drinking it, you know that’s against the law.”

  “As long as the shit ain’t open they’ll give you a slap on the wrist. If they pull my Black ass over, I’m goin’ straight to jail. Real talk.”

  “But it’s not you, it’s me. I have shit to lose, too. You think I want to go to jail? You’re not a psychic. I don’t see any fuckin’ crystal ball in here.” E.T. and T.J. chuckled. “You have no idea what might happen to me. You can guess, but no one really knows for sure. I’m a White guy, true, but I live here. That makes a difference when I’m drivin’ around in fancy parts of town.”

  “All right. I feel what you’re sayin’. Fifteen percent?”

  “Twelve percent, and let’s shake on it.”

  “I don’t like numbers like that.” Maize grinned as he sat up and turned the music down a notch. “It’s unlucky. I like my shit by fives so—”

  “Well, then make it ten like I said and I will do some artwork for you when you want it.”

  Maize’s eyes narrowed on him.

  “You know what? You got a businessman’s mind after all; that’s a good ass idea. I need some jackets and shirts designed, shit like that. E.T., have you seen Montana’s art, man?” E.T. shook his head. “Maaaan! We was in Mr. Beasley’s class and he drew a fuckin’ motorcycle in like thirty minutes. That shit looked like you could take it off the paper and start
that mothafucka right up, ride right down the street. Draw yo’self a car, mothafucka. Then you won’t have to worry ’bout none of this!”

  They all laughed at Maize’s words.

  “I wish!” Tony chuckled.

  “He be jammin’ wit’ the pencil and paper, y’all. Tony ain’t no joke. He ain’t no wannabe; dis tha real McCoy. I was straight up charged when I saw dat shit ’cause I’m like, this guy got some serious talent. Okay, new deal proposal…” He took another draw from his joint. “I can tell you what I want and you can draw it, can’t you?”

  “Of course. I can draw just about anything.”

  “All right, bet. Ten percent and commissioned art work for the next six months.” They grabbed each other’s hands and shook on it as M.C. Shan rapped, ‘Kill That Noise’…

  CHAPTER NINE

  Come Down to the Line…

  …One month later

  “I’m going to ask you one more time. Where did you get this car, Antonio?”

  Cassidy watched the exchange between Tony and his mom, nervously chewing on her nail. They stood on the small pebble-stoned driveway of Tony’s house, waiting to go to school. Her heart thumped in her chest with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. When she walked over to his house and spotted the black Honda Accord with the temporary license plate tag, she was stunned. The shiny, spotless vehicle looked like it had been driven fresh off the lot. It couldn’t have been more than a couple years old.

  “I earned it. Legally.” He spat in the grass before sliding his dark brown jacket on and shoving a New York Yankees baseball cap on his head and tugging on it, ensuring it fit snug and secure. “Baby, get in the car.” He went around the vehicle and opened her door like a true gentleman.

  Cassidy’s legs couldn’t move fast enough. She hopped inside the passenger’s seat and checked out the interior. It smelled like new leather. She reached up and toyed with a green tree air freshener.