Gumbo

by Tiana Laveen

  “Now see, that’s where you’re wrong. I’m not who you thought I was. There were some things that Sly didn’t know about me because I hadn’t become that man yet. But things are different now.” Tony got to his feet. “Heeeeere’s Johnny!” He chortled. “What Sly did know is that I’m no one’s pussy. He knew that I listened well and heard what people didn’t say, as much as what they did. All of that is very important. What he didn’t know though, Boss, was that prison changed me. Forever.”

  The man blinked several times, while groaning and panting.

  “There is some shit that went down that I will take to, well, my grave.” He looked around and grinned. “Prison hardens a man, Boss… it’s unnatural. Humans aren’t supposed to be in cages. At least, I wasn’t supposed to be. I wasn’t a killer. I was a kid who’d messed up. A young guy like me in there wasn’t easy. I was fighting for my life some days. Now, don’t you worry. I actually blame myself for this predicament that you’re in.”

  “I got guys comin’ to get me, man! They’re on their way!”

  Tony ignored the fucker’s lies and kept on talking.

  “Had I listened to Maize and Cass, I would have never dealt with Sly in the first place and then, you wouldn’t have ever come into the picture. But I did get involved with Sly and I can’t turn back the hands of time. Initially, I did it to save my brother, and then, to get the shit I needed to ensure that my woman could have what she needed to start a new life in California, get my mom and brother back to Jersey, have enough money so we’d never have to come back here. I did that… and had it not been for all of the attorney fees, things like that, I would have had a nice nest egg and everything would’ve gone as planned… but you know how that is, right? When plans go awry, things fall apart. It hurts… kinda like this!”

  Tony lifted his booted foot and stomped the shit out of the man’s chest. The guy wheezed and rolled over, blood gushing from his leg and mouth.

  “Man! Call an ambulance! Shit!” Boss screamed through gritted teeth, coughing up more blood.

  “Nobody is calling anyone for help, Boss. Oh, by the way, I never asked my woman for the money. I don’t ask women to bail me out. That’s a pussy move. Nope. This is between me and you.” He grabbed the suitcase and dumped it out. Money-sized pieces of newspaper fell out onto the ground. “Only the first two layers were actual cash. This could’ve gone so many different ways, most of those outcomes not in my favor, but I always have a plan, and a plan after that. If for some reason I didn’t make it, ya know, you killed me, I had a letter written for my woman explaining everything, and what she needed to do… her next moves.

  “Nobody knows I’m here and anyone you told—and we know that number is small because you wanted to keep collecting the bulk of the money for yourself—it’s my word against theirs. See…” Tony grinned. “Why would anyone believe that I, the nice ex-boyfriend who came to pay his respects to Grandmama and worked tirelessly to get her house ready for sale, would go and do such a thing? I’ve kept my nose clean, ya see? You, on the other hand, have a record a mile long and a lotta enemies. I’ve taken care of the details, even the tiny ones that trip people up.

  “In fact, the phone I have right now is a burner and my own cellphone is at my hotel room and so is my rental car. Just in case things go awry and I need an alibi. I left the hotel covered up from head to toe, barely my eyes showing. No one would know on any video footage that I left my room at all because it’s on the first floor and I climbed out the window. I even ordered room service on the way over here and asked them to leave it outside of my door, said I was going to sleep because I wasn’t feeling well but would get it soon. My lady, the one you threatened to kill—her best friend is with her right this second, and she has her around a lot of people, a buuuunch of witnesses in case you had any additional fucked up ideas. And that best friend has a gun right now, too. Anything that anyone questions regarding this, I will have an answer for that, Boss… a good answer. At the end of the day, it all has to make sense.”

  “This is unnecessary! I ain’t gonna say nothin’, man! You ain’t got to do this! This is crazy!”

  “No, this has to go as scheduled, Boss. Surely a man such as yourself can understand the importance of timelines and plans. See, I’ve thought this out, Brian. When you’re in the pen, you have nothing but time on your hands and you are able to concoct all sorts of scenarios and just really strange, crazy shit!” He stooped low again and waved his gun in the man’s face. “You get real creative and your imagination runs wild! You go crazy… loco!” Tony chuckled. “I know you’ve had some time in jail, Boss, but you never saw the shit I did. Prison didn’t make me want to not kill again. It made me want to kill better. I had Ten. Fucking. Years…

  To plot.

  To dream.

  To scheme.

  To love.

  To hate.

  “3,650 days… 87,600 hours! That was my fuckin’ life! In a stinkin’ ass cell, next to men who had no soul, no heart, killed just to kill! Guys who raped babies and women! They would beat each other to a pulp for a bag of stale chips! All that time in there, I didn’t waste it… No… I planned.” He tapped the side of his head with the gun. “I thought, and thought, and thought… how would I handle this, the second time around. And now, here we are!” Tony sneered and clicked his gun.

  “COME ON, MAN! You ain’t got to shoot me, man! I get it, it’s over! It’s over, Montana! You won’t hear shit from me! Sly wasn’t lyin’, you tha goat! I get it!”

  “Sly should’ve never fucking trusted you… I know what you did,” he said through gritted teeth. They glared at one another, their eyes locked. “You’re a Judas. This is for him, this is for me, this is for Cassidy and everyone else you took out in cold blood. The truth is my best friend. No one can keep us apart. My mother tried to keep the truth from me and my brother; she tried to ignore the reality… run from it. But you can’t run from the truth, Boss. It’s there in the morning when you wake up, it sneaks into your dreams at night… The truth always demands to be told… Like who you are innately, and who I am, too… My father was a killer under the guise of a businessman. I don’t know how many he took out, but he did so because he was hired to do so. It was nothing personal. It was strictly business.”

  “He crazy, he crazy, he crazy! HEEEEELP!” Boss screamed.

  “No one can hear you, Boss… No one is comin’ to this graveyard to save you, now don’t interrupt me again. As far as my father, I would never prescribe to his philosophies and honestly, I find them reprehensible.” Tony shrugged. “But he was good at what he did. Still, as with so many things like this, someone got angry. Someone saw what he’d been up to and wanted to get even. He’d let too many people get close to him, people he trusted… just like Sly. Check this out. On my father’s death certificate, it says he had a heart attack… but someone made him have a heart attack, Boss. They slipped a little gift in his drink. My mother used to tell me I was just like my dad… and now I know why.”

  He placed the gun to Boss’ head.

  “Please… please… please, maaaan!”

  “My father taught me a lot of things. One time, he said, ‘Son, one of the most valuable lessons you can learn in this dog-eat-dog world is, if you do some dirt, bury your bones… and for God’s sake, Tony, never leave any witnesses to dig them up…”

  Bam!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Battle Cry

  “He usually stay over here in the afternoons now accordin’ to my cousin.” Danica pointed at a series of dull gray apartment buildings as they drove past, slow as could be. “He work the corner, beggin’ for change.” Her thick gold bangle bracelets clanked together and her sweet perfume filled the vehicle. She pulled down the mirror on the passenger’s side of his rental car and applied another layer of bright pink lipstick. “You can’t keep up wit’ no crackhead ’round here though, Tony. He be half outta his mind.” She slid the makeup back in her purse and sat back. “He probably won’t even k
now who you are.” She adjusted herself in the seat, a balled up tissue now in her hand.

  “I hope he shows up, Danica. I just need… shit, I don’t know what I need. I have to try and see if I can find him though.”

  Tony parked over to the side of the street, cut the engine off, and leaned back in the driver’s seat, staring at the traffic going past, watching people move up and down the sidewalks like zombies with no place to go.

  “Tony, I got somethin’ to say.”

  “I’m sure you do. What is it?”

  “I’mma say it, and you bet not interrupt me ’til I’m finished. I told you that in my lifetime, I had to shoot my gun twice. One time to get my friend’s boyfriend offa her from beatin’ ’er to death when he thought she was cheatin’, and another time to stop some crackhead from breakin’ into my apartment when I lived here. You called me when I got in town and said, ‘I need you to be a sista more than ever to Cass.’ Ain’t that what you said?” He stared at her. “Answer me!”

  “You told me not to interrupt. I can’t be quiet and talk at the same time. Pick a struggle.”

  “Mothafucka, don’t be sittin’ over there gettin’ smart! You know what the fuck I am sayin’, tryna be funny!”

  Tony laughed as Danica went off. He nodded and turned to gaze out the window.

  “Yeah, I remember saying that.”

  “You got me alone, put a gun in my hand, promised me it ain’t have no body count on it, and said to use it if anybody I ain’t know approach us at the party I threw for Cassidy over my aunt’s house. You ain’t filled in no blanks, you ain’t said nothin’. Had me scared outta my mind. You came back ’round to my aunt’s house late last night, lookin’ good, smellin’ good, wit’ flowers. I was relieved! You walked in the door and said, ‘Gotta give people their flowers while they’re livin’.’ And then you handed me and Cassidy some flowers and kissed us both on the cheek.

  “And then, we partied wit’ you all night long… That was a room full of people, the folks we went to school wit’, sayin’ goodbye to both of y’all ’cause now, wasn’t no reason for Cassidy to come back anymore. Grandmama dead.”

  “It was nice seeing some of our old classmates. I had a good time last night, Danica. Thank you for doing that for Cassidy. She really needed it.”

  “It wasn’t just for Cassidy; it was for you, too. When you told me to watch her like a hawk, you was one way. When you came on back to the party, you was another… I knew you was different. You were smiling, you looked great, but something didn’t sit right with me. Your face let me know you lost a piece of your soul last night, Tony.”

  He took a deep breath as the woman spoke to him and kept staring across the street… waiting… “Your eyes were just as bright, but there was somethin’ missing, a little less than what they had before,” she continued. “I don’t know what you did last night. I ain’t see nothin’, I ain’t hear nothin’, and I’mma swear by that ’til the day I die. I know you won’t risk it by tellin’ me a damn thang anyway, but you better be sure that nothin’ you done got Cassidy involved in something or cause her harm, son of uh bitch. ’Cause I don’t play that shit!”

  When he threw her a glance, she sat back a bit, like she’d seen a ghost.

  “You scare me sometimes, Tony…” She swallowed.

  “I’d never hurt you or Cassidy, under any circumstances. You know that.”

  “I know… but that coldness that comes over you when you holdin’ somethin’ in, the way some men do, who die with big secrets… it makes me feel some kinda way.”

  He gave her a faint smile and averted his gaze again.

  “Tony, I looked at the local news this morning and there was a bunch of murders. I don’t know if yo’ name is on any of ’em, but that breadcrumb trail bet not lead back to her is all I’m sayin’ and you betta not have done nothin’ to mess up y’all happy home. You two need each other. She couldn’t take it! Ya hear me?!”

  Tony kept his eyes on the street.

  “I didn’t do anything to hurt my baby, Danica. And yes, I hear you,” he stated softly.

  “I know sometimes a man gotta do what a man gotta do. I ain’t your judge, and I know you are just about as good as they come, but you watch her heart, protect it. I been the one, this entire time, encouraging her to trust her heart and stop tryna dissect soul connections. I’m a nurse. I’ve seen plenty of bodies die before my very eyes, but you can almost feel that soul takin’ flight once that final heartbeat happens. That soul is off to its next adventure. We ain’t nothin’ but energy. We jump into our mothers in that first trimester, that spirit is stronger than this flesh. This is just a vehicle to get around, to have a human experience. Cassidy don’t believe none of this, but I got a feeling that you do. Our brains can’t handle that. Our brains belong to our bodies, but our heart and soul belong to God.”

  “I agree with you… that’s all I have to say about that.”

  The silence stretched between them then while he drifted away into his daydreams. Danica began to play on her phone, and Master P’s ‘Break ’Em Off Somethin’ ft. UGK played on the car stereo. After a few minutes, he saw a man that he thought might be T.J.

  “Yo, Danica, is that him?”

  She leaned over to his side of the car, her eyes narrowed.

  “Mmm hmm, that’s his ass right there. You’ve got a damn good eye to even be able to tell that’s the same guy we went to school with.”

  He left the music on and stepped out of the car, closing the door behind him. Adjusting his jacket, he watched traffic and raced across the street, then slowed when he saw T.J. slightly hunched over, his frail body waving as if he were a flag in the breeze, his sunken eyes half-closed…

  Heroin… He’s in a heroin induced state right now…

  Tony had seen it far too many times to count over the years, even in prison, where drugs were aplenty. T.J.’s filthy clothing was too big for him, hanging off his bony frame. Tony stood about two feet away from him, but could smell the distinct body odor of underarms, reminiscent of rotten sautéed onions, wafting in his direction. T.J.’s once full head of hair grew in sparse patches. His hair used to be his pride and joy. He’d boast about his natural 360 waves that all the girls loved. And they did. A good looking kid, his skin had been rich, chocolate brown, he’d had a dazzling smile back in the day, and he also could sing. But now, he looked like he was thirty years older than he actually was, like death warmed over, a skeletal hand knocking softly on Heaven’s door.

  “T.J… Travis…” The man held onto a telephone pole next to a stapled flyer, his eyes heavily hooded. “T.J.! Yo! Travis, man! Wake up!” Tony yelled.

  The man’s eyes opened a fraction to stare at Tony for a long while. Then, his cracked, thin lips split in a broad smile.

  “Oh my… Lawd… I must be… seein’ thangs… Montana? Is that… you?”

  Tony grinned at him and rested his hand on his shoulder.

  “Yeah, it’s me, man. You’re not seeing anything. It’s really me.”

  “Shiiiiiid!” The man stumbled back. “You outta prison? For real?”

  “Yeah, I got out a while ago.” Tony blinked back tears. T.J. had no teeth; his mouth was just a black abyss. His face was sunken in, the cheekbones and jawline about to burst through the flesh, a ghost of his former self.

  “You… you look good, man. Me? I… I’m a mess…” T.J. chuckled as his eyes glossed over, still holding steady to that telephone pole. “I get high, my nigga… that’s all I do. I need it. I ain’t… gonna even try… to lie to you…” His eyes fluttered.

  “You’re on that shit, I know. Where have you been staying?”

  “Here, there, the street… wherever I can go.” He shrugged. “You know what, man? I had… a wife.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah, she was fine, too. Cynthia… She gone. I had, uh, got me a job at the meat shop …soon after you went in… I lost that job, man.” The guy began to make strange, jerky motions. He dug a finger in his ea
r then became completely motionless. “HEY MAN! ’member when Maize, me, you, and E.T. was tha shit?!” he hollered, laughing and swaying. “Member when all the bitches wanted us, man?!”

  “Yeah, I remember, T.J…”

  “You… you had that car, man, wit’ that boomin’ system and we’d be in that thang and all tha girls turned our way! We had… we had the freshest clothes, man! We ain’t have much money, but we’d put our shit together… sometimes and go buy some fresh shit, or steal it!” They both laughed. “There yo’ tall White ass was wit’ us! You looked like an albino string bean!” He busted out in raucous laughter. Tony smiled sadly and nodded. “Skinny dude, wit’ heart though! And we ain’t care, you was our boy… right here in tha fuckin’ projects, the hood. You was a real one, mothafucka… I wasn’t nevah the same after Street killed Maize…” T.J.’s voice slowly faded.

  “I know… none of us were, T.J.”

  “Then you was gone, and E.T., too. E.T. got out… I think… yeah, he did… but then went right back tha fuck in again. It was over. In just one night… everybody was gone… We was disbanded… Our crew… was ruined.” T.J.s head lulled, and he looked so miserable.

  Tears streamed down Tony’s face and he struggled with his emotions, fisting and unfisting his hands. His chest cramped with agony, his heart on fire. Flashes of Dante when he was in the midst of his addiction rushed into his mind.

  “My wife’s name was Cynthia. She was… pretty, man. Nice girl… ’riginally from Georgia. You had a nice, pretty girl, too… Cassidy Macklin. I… I remember pretty Cassidy…” T.J. smiled. “I remember Cassidy… she had dem pretty ass light eyes, and that pretty brown skin that looked almost red in the sun… She wasn’t light skin, wasn’t dark skin, right in the middle, like a candy bar… long hair, and it was hers too…” He made a sound that might have been a snicker. “You remember… remember Cassidy, man?”

  “Yeah. I remember Cassidy, T.J.”

  “Everybody wanted Cassidy, man… She was a good… a good girl. Smart. We all thought her ’nd Maize was gonna get together, but we was wrong… She liked you…” T.J. raised his bony finger and pointed at him. “Cassidy moved away, Tony… She got tha fuck outta here… She in California, in school…yeah… she in college.”