At the Crossroads

by Travis Hunter

  Franky still had Tyron’s head in his hands. His anger had a stranglehold on him as he lifted the boy’s head high, growled, and with all of his force slammed Tyrone’s head down. But the head wouldn’t hit the floor. It landed softly on the glowing shoes his father was wearing.

  Franky looked up into the eyes of his father. Franky Sr. looked at his son, shook his head in disappointment, and vanished.

  24

  Franky sat alone in his room. He had his back against the wall with his arms hugging his knees. He couldn’t shake seeing the look of disappointment on his dad’s face. Now he was really feeling bad and couldn’t believe how foolish he was for allowing his anger to consume him like that. But was that really his dad or had he been hallucinating? He seemed so real, but why now? After all of these years, why was he showing up now? These questions racked his brain as his door to his room swung open.

  “Good Lord, cuz,” Dee said. “You’re an animal. That boy had to be shipped out to the emergency room. Serves the loudmouth right, though.”

  Franky exhaled and looked straight ahead.

  “But get this,” Dee said. “The only thing they’re gonna do to you is send you to cool down because everybody saw him attack you. It’s self-defense, cuz. And old big Scales didn’t like him either—you see him taking his time coming over there to pull you off of him?”

  Franky didn’t respond. His mind was still on his dad.

  “I still need to get my honey bun because I threw in an extra lie and said he came at you with a pencil,” Dee said. “That made it sound a little better. Plus, it added to his charge and made it aggravated.”

  Franky finally looked up at his roommate, then around the room and took a deep breath. He stood up and started pacing back and forth without saying anything.

  Dee stepped back and stared at Franky like something was wrong with him.

  “I need to get out of here,” Franky said now that he had taken care of what he had come here to do.

  Dee relaxed and propped his leg up on the stainless-steel toilet seat. He had seen this many times before in his numerous stays in juvie hall. Some folks could go days before they realized that they were trapped and then snap, then there were some who crack right away. But everybody snapped at some point.

  A guard appeared at the door and gave Franky a menacing look. “Bourgeois?” he asked, looking at a clipboard.

  “Yes,” Franky said.

  “Look here,” the guard said. “We have you down here as not having made your phone call. What’s your problem? Do you have anybody you can call? Because they can come and sign you out. If you don’t, we’re calling DFCS.”

  That was all he had to say. He didn’t want any part of the Division of Family and Children Services.

  “I can call my family,” Franky said.

  “Good,” the guard said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you young boys. If I was locked up, I would be running to a phone so somebody could comeand get me. Not y’all. Y’all think this is Six Flags or something.”

  Franky listened without responding. He couldn’t care less about too much of anything right now.

  “You need to make a phone call before six o’clock this evening, or I’m putting you down as a runaway and calling DFCS. Anybody around here will let you use the phone, and make sure they document it,” the guard said, walking off.

  “Who can I ask to make a phone call?” Franky asked Jay.

  “Well, normally all you had to do was ask to use the phone, but since you’re in what they call ‘cool down,’ you can’t leave the room until tomorrow. Twenty-four hours, bro. And that’s from the time you get busted, but since he just came up here trippin', I guess you can catch one of the guards around here.”

  “I gotta stay in this room for twenty-four hours?”

  “Yep,” Dee said. “Unless your people come and get you. Then you can go home. We need to exchange numbers, man. You good peoples.”

  “Yeah, we can do that.”

  “Cool. You don’t seem like a street dude, but you fight like one,” Dee said, then pulled up his sleeve, displaying an arm full of tattoos.

  “I’m not a street dude, and I don’t like fighting, but I had to get him. He crossed the line,” Franky said.

  “Well, you got him.”

  “How many tattoos do you have, whoadie?”

  “I don’t know. I lost count a long time ago. I got my first one when I was twelve. I started doing them myself at thirteen. You want one? I’m the best in the business, bro. And I will let you pay me later.”

  “Nah,” Franky said. “I don’t do tattoos.”

  “Why not? Take a look at my work,” Dee said, walking over to a stack of books and tablets that were piled on the steel desk. He handed a tablet to Franky. “I can draw anything, but those are some originals I came up with. When I get some money, I’ma start me my own tat shop and call it Dee-toos.”

  “How do you do tattoos in here?”

  “Where there is a will there is a way, brother man. I got all the needles you need to get the job done. They’re not electric like the ones I’ma have when I open up Dee-toos, but they’re clean and sanitary.” Dee opened a little case that was about the size of a pencil box.

  “How did you get all that stuff?”

  “Man,” Dee said with a smile, “I’ve been coming in here since I was eleven years old. The guards are like my big brothers, so they hook me up. Plus, I give them a cut of the money I make, so they bring me what I need.”

  Franky flipped through the pages and had to admit, Dee had some major skills. He could draw a picture of a person that looked just like a Kodak shot. The more he flipped through the pages, the more he started to change his mind. Ten minutes later, he had changed his mind and was sitting on the edge of his bed while Dee used his arm as a canvas. Forty-five minutes later, Franky had a tattoo that covered most of his skinny arm.

  “This is nice,” Franky said once Dee had finished. He looked at his arm in the mirror, which was really a steel slab hanging over the toilet and sink combo, and couldn’t help but smile.

  “You need to use the phone, bro. Old boy wasn’t playing; these folks will have you sitting in a group home before you know it,” Dee said as he put away his supplies.

  “Yeah,” Franky said, still admiring the fantastic-looking crossbones and New Orleans Saints emblem.

  “There’s Mr. Banks. He’ll let you use his cell. Mr. Banks,” he called out.

  “What’s up?” Mr. Banks said, walking over to their room. “What can I do you gentleman out of?”

  “My man here needs to use your phone,” Dee said, nodding at Franky. “Officer Hammond said they’re about to call DFCS on him. Ain’t tryna see the homie up in some group home.”

  “Does your homie have a name?”

  “His name is Franky,” Dee said with a wide smile.

  “Well, what did I tell you about introducing people like that?” Mr. Banks asked.

  “Franky, this is Mr. Banks. Mr. Banks, this is Franky,” Dee said.

  “Very proper, DeMarco,” Mr. Banks said, nodding. “You’ve come a long way from ‘dis my potna nem,’ and ‘ya know wha I’m saying shorty, doe.’ ”

  “Aww, man,” Dee said, showing a room-brightening smile. “You know you understood everything I said. You know you’re hood, too.”

  “Correction, my tattoo-faced friend. I’m from the hood, but make no mistake about it—there is nothing hood about me,” Mr. Banks said. “Is this the young man who was fighting?”

  “Yep,” Dee said, shadow boxing. “He’s a beast. You know I don’t roll with no lames. Gotta be able to get down with the get-down if you gonna be on my team, homie.”

  “Bye, DeMarco,” Mr. Banks said as he walked into the room. “Go hang out in the dayroom for a minute.”

  “No problem,” Dee said. “You homie, he’s cool. You can keep it real with him.”

  Mr. Banks handed Franky his cell phone.

  “Thanks,” Franky sai
d.

  “I’ll be right outside the door. Parents or legal guardians only. No girlfriends or homies. Ya dig?”

  “Yes, sir,” Franky said as he dialed his home number.

  “Hello?” Nigel said.

  “Hey, Nigel,” Franky said.

  “Boy,” Nigel snapped, “you know I’m gonna choke you, don’t you? What’s wrong with you? Why are you stealing and pouring soda pops on police officers? Are you crazy? Were you trying to go to jail? Huh?”

  “Nigel,” Franky said. “Will you calm down?”

  “No. I’m not calming down,” Nigel said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at a place called Metro. I had to call you or they were going to call DFCS.”

  “What do you mean, you had to call me? Why didn’t you want to call me?”

  “I don’t know,” Franky said.

  “You don’t know? Franky, have you lost yo mind?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Franky could hear his cousin sigh in frustration.

  “Well, now that I know where you at, I can speed up the process, ya hear,” Nigel said. “Did you tell them folks at the county jail that your name was John Doe?”

  “I didn’t tell them nothing,” Franky said.

  “I swear to you I’m gonna put my hands on you, whoadie.”

  “A’ight,” Franky said. “I’m using the counselor’s phone, so I gotta go.”

  “Hey, yo, Franky,” Nigel said quickly before Franky hung up. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “I love ya, whoadie. I don’t know where I went wrong or what I did, but I tried to do right by you, ya heard.”

  “I know. Nothing is your fault. You’re good.”

  “Okay,” Nigel said. “I’ma try to get you up outta there today.”

  “Thanks, Nigel,” Franky said.

  “I love ya, whoadie.”

  “Yeah. Same here.”

  “Hang in there, whoadie,” Nigel said.

  Franky hung up the phone and handed it back to Mr. Banks.

  “What was the fight about?”

  “He just came at me. I don’t know why. I was defending myself,” Franky said.

  “So I heard,” Mr. Banks said. “Do you have someone coming to pick you up?”

  “I think so.”

  “That’s good,” Mr. Banks said, reaching in his pocket and coming out with a business card. “Here ya go. You seem to be an okay guy. Call me once you get out of here and we can talk. Maybe I can help you, or maybe you can help me. I run a nonprofit organization, and I might be able to do some things for ya.”

  “Thanks,” Franky said, taking the card.

  “Okay,” Mr. Banks said, walking over to a stack of books on the floor in the corner. He leaned down and pickedthem up. “How can anybody else read if this clown has all the books in his room?”

  “I guess he likes to read,” Franky said.

  “Yeah, when he’s locked up but when he’s home, you can’t get him to read a stop sign,” Mr. Banks said, walking over to the door with about ten hardcover novels in his arms. “Nice talking with you, Franky. I hope this place will not become a second home for you.”

  Franky watched the man leave. He stood up and walked over to the door and looked through the glass at all of the kids milling around the dayroom. He slid his hands in his pockets and tried to figure out what he was going to do with his life. He missed Khadija, and he missed his parents, but he couldn’t do anything about that. Loving people was a hurtful thing because somehow they always left him. His mind drifted back to the look of disappointment he saw on his dad’s face, and he wondered if he would ever see him again.

  25

  Kelli Bourgeois was a no-nonsense type of girl. She had grown up in the gritty Magnolia Projects, home to rap artist and entrepreneur Master P. Her father had a few kids sprinkled throughout the various wards of New Orleans, but he always took time for her. He would even take around his wife and other kids. She was so much younger than all of her siblings that most people thought she was their child instead of their little sister.

  Franky’s dad always made time to go and visit her even when the two wards were fighting some kind of senseless war. Franky Sr. always treated Kelli well, and once he got married and started doing well for himself, he made sure she had the best of everything, even going so far as paying for her to study abroad her senior year of high school. That trip to South Africa broadened her horizons and made her realize that as bad as life was in the Magnolia, they lived like kings and queens compared to some of thepeople living in huts in parts of South Africa. Once she returned to U.S. soil, she had little patience for slackers.

  Kelli was five feet two inches tall and had hazel eyes and skin the color of honey. She had an easy smile and was always pleasant but professional. Men never approached her because they said she always looked so mean. She preferred focused. A year before Hurricane Katrina devastated the region, she had been a student at Xavier University, but after the storms, she decided to move to Atlanta and attend Georgia State University.

  “Look at you,” she said with a wide smile as Franky walked out into the waiting room of the Metro Juvenile Housing Facility.

  “Hi, Aunt Kelli,” Franky said, surprised to see the woman who looked like a female version of his father.

  “How are you doing, boy?” she said, reaching up and giving her nephew a long hug. “I missed you.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Well, smile, then. Jesus Christ, you look like some kind of hardened criminal. I haven’t seen you in years, and all I get is a mean ol’ face. You’ve gotten so tall. Oh my goodness,” Kelli rattled off.

  Franky gave a halfhearted smile.

  “Okay,” Kelli said, turning around and walking toward the door. “I know you’re ready to get out of here, so let’s go. I’ve signed all of the paperwork, but you have to come back to court in about six weeks—that is if I can’t get an attorney and speed things up. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Franky nodded. He was really hoping to see Nigel or even Rico. Even though he hadn’t seen his aunt in almost four years, he always thought of her as being very no-nonsense and a bit standoffish.

  “Where’s Nigel?” he asked.

  “He’s at home. He asked me to come get you,” Kelli said, reading his disappointment. “Why the long face?”

  Franky shrugged.

  “I can ask them to keep you in here for a little while longer if you don’t want to come with me,” she said with a smile.

  “No thank you,” Franky said, finally smiling.

  “That’s what I thought. Are you hungry?”

  “Yes,” Franky said. “They feed you slop in here that I wouldn’t give to a pig.”

  “Well, it is jail. I don’t think those places are supposed to be all that comfortable. What is that on your arm?”

  “It’s a tattoo,” Franky said, displaying Dee’s handiwork. “My roommate did it.”

  “Boy,” Kelli said. “You haven’t been in that place for a full day and you already have a prison tattoo?”

  “It’s not prison,” Franky said. “It’s a youth facility, and they don’t have cells, they have rooms.”

  “I see bars, I see razor-wire fences, and I see guns and men who are ready to use them. Looks like a prison to me,” Kelli said, handing Franky a brown paper bag containing all of his belongings.

  “I guess you’re right,” Franky said as he tore open the bag looking for Khadija’s phone. Once he saw it, he snatched it out and turned it on.

  They made it to Kelli’s car, and Franky got in the passenger seat.

  “There is a restaurant over by my house called Pappadeaux. Wanna go? They have some really good food.”

  “Okay,” Franky said, fiddling around with Khadija’s phone, but the service was turned off. He was hoping that she would get a message to him somehow.

  The drive to Pappadeaux took about thirty minutes, and Kelli explained to him how she had been searching high and low
for him since the storms. She explained how his father saved her life by swimming through the deep waters to get her and carrying her on his back to safety. She told him that his father’s last words to her were to take care of his son.

  “Every single day for three years I called every school, hospital, and jail looking for you. Folks back home told me y’all were here, but I didn’t know where. I couldn’t find you guys,” Kelli said on the verge of tears.

  “It’s okay, Aunt Kelli,” Franky said.

  “I don’t know why those boys didn’t make you go to school,” she said, shaking her head. “Nigel is just as sweet as can be, but school has never been a priority to him, so I guess he just let you do whatever. But we’ll move forward.”

  Franky knew what that meant. It meant his days with Nigel and Rico just ended.

  “So I guess I’ll be staying with you now,” Franky said, just to confirm his thoughts.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, nodding. “Definitely! We have to get you back on track. This jail stuff and not going to school isn’t going to work.”

  “I go to school.”

  “That’s not what Rico told me.”

  “I just started a few weeks ago.”

  “I see,” she said. “Well, we’ll figure everything out.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “In Tucker,” she said. “Do you know anything about the area?”

  “Not really. I heard about a teen club out there.”

  “Yeah. I think teen clubs are a bad idea. The kids are too undisciplined. They have more shootings at them than the adult ones. So needless to say, you won’t be frequenting any of those establishments.”

  Franky nodded. He was already experiencing another culture shock. Living with his parents, then living with Nigel and Rico, being incarcerated, and now moving in with Kelli. He had a feeling that living with Kelli would be the worst of them all.

  “This place is pretty good,” she said, turning into the parking lot. “It’s not authentic Cajun, but it’s a pretty good substitute.”