by Love Belvin
Her eyes turn dark, possessed-like. “You damn right I don’t wanna shake it. Never will.” Her voice is deeper, nothing like anything I’ve heard before. “I didn’t when Mommy tried to pray it out. Didn’t when your stuck up ass mother tried to beg it out. If Mommy really wanted me better, she woulda loved me as much as she love church—‘cause that ain’t about God. Her devotion always been to other people to help distract her misery. You know that’s why my daddy left her. Right? Even my crazy ass know God comes first, but your marriage and spouse come before ministry.” She laughs again. “I hope you know to do better, Mr. Big Star.” She waggles her specked tongue.
“You won’t ever find out. You sick as hell, B.”
I feel sick…
“You liked it.” She scoffs. “I remember it, Gee-Gee. And you ain’t the only one. Young boys like me. I done had plenty before you and after you. The one I got now can’t get enough of this pussy.”
Something inside of me goes numb. It’s like… I’m not really here anymore. It’s like the first few times she messed with me: my body was with her, but my mind was in the distance. Even when I move, I don’t feel it, but know it’s happening. I can see I’m heading to the door, but don’t feel it. But I gotta go. If I don’t, I’ll either hurt my aunt or crumble like a pussy in front of her.
No fucking way. I’m out.
“You come around here again and it’ll be ya last fuckin’ day on earth. I swear to God, Patty!”
As I approach the door, it pushes open. Danny G is there, holding some kid by the collar. Fear is sketched into his face as his wild eyes bounce between me and G. He looks to be no more than sixteen-seventeen years old.
“He saying he looking for her.” Danny G does a reverse nod, referring to Patty.
I turn back toward her, over my shoulder.
“Get ya hands the fuck off him!” she yells. “I’m coming, boo. Just waiting on my shit. I’ll be right there.”
My head swings back toward the door. The kid is shaking as it closes.
“Give me some bread, Gee-Gee!”
Slowly, my hand reaches into my back pocket. My wallet appears in my eyesight. I don’t peel off bills. I give her the full stack of what’s there. After tossing it to her, I make my way to the door.
Behind me I can hear her voice strain. “Got me down here, picking up money like I’m a damn bum. Fuck you, Gee-Gee! Next time, don’t wait so long to come see me when I ask for—matter fact, what’s ya number? I’ll call you to come to me, bish—”
The door slams close, and I don’t hear shit. I see Danny securing the outside door with the young boy not too far away, but I head straight up the steps for the club. Within seconds, he’s on my trail. I make it back into the club, give some excuse for having to leave and convince Myisha to stay. I don’t tell her how sick I feel. She mentions something I barely follow about talking to the Vanda kid before I step off. After, I get a few things from the back office. Mike somehow follows me around. For some reason, the vitality of the club has suddenly disappeared. I need to leave. Go the hell home and shower this scene off me.
Mike jumping in the back of the truck with me didn’t register right away. I sit and rest my head back. When we pull out of the parking lot and hit the light at the corner, I see a familiar leg dance. I’d seen my aunt do the dope hop enough to recognize it was her. She’s with the kid Danny G scared the hell out of. And… Poppy. His fake ass dashiki, motorcycle shades at night, and thick seventies afro give him away. He’s handing her something and yapping away.
Poppy…
My eyes shoot over to the perp next to me. I forgot to text Mike and tell him to dead it!
Right now, my brain doesn’t connect with my body fast enough to think of what to do. Poppy’s handing Patty her last hit. It’s one of the few reasons you called him. She don’t even know who she’s copping from right now. That’s how far gone Patty is.
“You good, god?” Mike asks, his voice unusually sensitive. Kind.
I swallow hard, eyes blink slowly as I watch her offer Poppy money and he sticks his palm out to push the cash away. Her death will be hers for free.
The truck pulls off and I try twisting in my seat to see her again. All I catch is her trekking away with excited speed. The pace of my heart soars and the roof of my mouth goes sour and slimy. Out of nowhere, I’m sweating all over. My eyes close again.
“You good, homie?” Mike asks, even louder.
I nod my head to give him what he needs so he’ll shut the hell up.
~1~
Zeb, next to me, sat up in his seat at the end of the conference room table and glanced around. When his eyes landed on me, the last of the circle, the V between them deepened.
“I’m sorry,” he spoke hesitantly. “I—I thought this was clear in your original correspondence.”
Julie, a state representative from some department that flew over my head during the introductions, tried to speak up. “I understand that, Mr. Baker. We”—her eyes swept around her to her colleagues—“thought a face to face may deepen your understanding of the request.”
Zeb, my business partner in real estate and construction, sat back and tucked his fist under his chin. “You wanna know what I believe, Julie? It is my certainty that you and your team are here to show aggression on the request.”
Bob, someone we knew from the Division of Codes and Standards, interjected, “We drove up from Trenton, Zeb.” His desperate eyes flashed to me for assistance.
“Yeah,” Zeb, short for Zebedee, scoffed. “Because you know our asses wouldn’t be coming all the way down to Trenton just to tell you the same damn thing we said in writing: We will not sell you property valued at twenty-four million for just eight.”
“We’re the state, a public sector. Not a private enterprise with endless resources,” Julie tried arguing.
I could feel her eyes on me, too, but I was too preoccupied with the “gray sloppy sized suit,” someone from the state, who’d been just as quiet in the past seven or so minutes of this meeting as I’d been. Underneath his gape was a scowl; I could feel it. A man in my line of work in entertainment could identify several types of stares. There was something behind his probing gaze. He broke his gape, sweeping it back to the commentators of the table.
“You’re a seeking customer just as anyone else requesting to purchase land owned by this company.” Zeb’s fingers erected in the air. “At the very least, you can show professional courtesy and be honest. We are busy people over here.”
We damn sure were. Last night, while in the studio, I got a call from Zebedee about the state of New Jersey requesting a meeting with us today. He asked for my availability. I had meetings of my own. Some of which, I was able to arrange to have here at our business office in Edison. It was mostly Zeb’s for functionality, though. I conducted most of my business from my home offices. Unlike Zeb, my lifestyle wasn’t such that I could commute from home to here to get business done. So, this office building was basically his playground. I didn’t even have a desk, much less an office here.
“As I’m sure you’re both aware, the former governor of New Jersey took on an aggressive campaign against opioid addiction—leading the nation’s efforts,” Julie began their pitch again. “One of the objectives to the taskforce’s goal is to provide quality treatment of addiction. There is funding available to build a state of the art treatment facility here in the state. The idea is to make it large enough to service more patients than any of the current programs have the capacity to do.”
“After extensive research,” Bob opened a portfolio, and pulled out a document, “we learned about your land in Siloam. That’s Monmouth County. It’s almost split in the middle of the state and—”
“In the middle of nowhere,” Zeb cut in, his big eyes on me.
I winked at him. We bought twenty acres of barren land from an old dirt farmer, who literally died two days after selling it to us for less than three hundred thousand. Zeb was so mad at my push to cop a forest in the
middle of nowhere for weeks, that he only contributed seventy-five thousand dollars. He didn’t even want our real estate company to buy it. Thought it was a waste of time. But I told him we had to—at least on paper. He agreed with more hesitance than I’d ever seen of him. I honestly didn’t know why the property appealed to me either. But my gut told me to cop it. And we did.
“Well…” Bob glanced around the table. “it’s actually in an ideal location for a state facility.”
“And per our written response, we’d be more than happy to sell it to you.” Zeb stretched his forehead, applying a knowing smirk. “For twenty-four million.”
“We cannot meet that offer,” Bob had a bit of finality in his tone.
“Then it would be we, who cannot meet your request.” Zeb stood. “If that will be all, I have a conference call beginning in two minutes, and my partner here is holding up his next meeting in the conference room next door.” He started from the table.
“There are other ways of underwriting our acquirement.” Julie’s chin was in the air, tiny lips pursed.
Zeb’s face opened in shocked humor and he laughed. “Eminent domain?”
I chuckled at that threat, too.
No fucking way…
Zeb returned to the table, placing his palms on it as he leaned over. “We’re not the broke, helpless layman that shit works with. We’ll have your asses tied up in litigation for so long, every child of the politicians this facility is hoping to serve will be dead of overdoses by the time a ruling is made. You’d regret approaching us with such an insulting offer in the first place. I’d sue the fucking viola sororia and roses out of the goddamn Garden State.”
“Hey!” Bob spoke up, standing. “We didn’t come here for hostility.”
“Then you should’ve informed your colleague here, Bob.” Zeb turned to leave again.
I stood to go myself, having more important things to move on to this morning.
“Raj,” I heard called from behind me. I turned and saw the only black person from the state in the party of six. The “gray sloppy sized suit.” He sported a smirk on half his face. I acknowledged him, tossing my chin his way. “You don’t speak at your own business meetings?” Someone from their team gasped. “I didn’t know you were a partner just in name—or money.”
I turned fully to face the table. Quietly chuckling, I scratched the skin beneath my mustache with my thumb nail. The room went unmoving.
“Nah…” I hesitated. “I didn’t catch your name among the big titles thrown earlier…”
He dipped his chin, now unable to give me eye contact.
Oh, so now we’re star-struck?
“Trevor. Trevor Washington.”
I nodded. “Nah, Trevor. I’m no silent partner. It’s just in our practice we play good cop and bad cop for deals like this.” I tossed my head behind me. “Zeb here pulled the good cop straw.”
“Really?” Trevor’s voice hitched. “Because with all the recognition and awards the state has given you, I’d think the least you could do is show a little charitable spirit here.”
My head shook slowly as I observed him. “No charitable spirit here. This is business. If you know of all the accolades the state has given me, you know why. And to correct you, the state ain’t never give me shit. My hometown has. That invitation to research why is still open. And even then, you wouldn’t find the extent of what I do charitably.”
“That’s enough, Washington,” Bob tried under his breath, closing his portfolio.
“No. All I’m saying is I follow Ragee. I’m a huge fan of his work, so is my wife. I find it hard to believe this is a different individual from the one singing his heart out all over the world and in one of the largest religious facilities in the northeast.” He skipped a breath. “One of my nephews plays ball with your little cousin in Middlesex Regional. My nephew says no one believed him at first because the kid’s last name is Michaels and not McKinnon. I figured maybe changing your last name was another way of ensuring your privacy.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re so closed off. All I’m saying is I expected to at least see you in action on the business side. Especially for such a great cause as this. Did you know, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, over thirty-three thousand Americans died from an opioid painkiller overdose in 2015? That’s more than any other single year! And you want to make this about money? About a profit? It should be more personal to a man from humble New Brunswick.”
My head popped back mockingly. I immediately knew where this was going and stepped toward the table.
“Trevor, I’m not sure who you take me for, but I don’t owe you or anyone else shit.” I dropped my head to the side. “If you want explicitly, the reason I have no desire to cut a deal with the state of New Jersey is because they’re decades too late on an epidemic that ravished my community. Where was the state or the federal government when I was five, six—fourteen years old—watching my grandmother take in addict after addict and their children? Where were they when she gave eulogies for funerals families couldn’t even afford for their relative taken out by their addictions? Why back then, when they were locking black and brown people up for addiction instead of recognizing it as an epidemic for the urban community, did New Jersey not go and ask white wealthy businessmen, far better off than my partner and me to have a charitable heart?”
I leaned over the table this time. My eyes rolling over everyone seated. “It’s because we were not the cause: We were a problem. I’ve lived with addicts. Was affected, first-hand, by their demons. I know how serious the problem is. And you know what?” I turned to Zeb, standing at the door with his hands at his waist. “Let’s be charitable, Baker.” My regard shot back to the state of New Jersey, sitting at my conference table. “How about we hand it over to you for fourteen million and you give us the construction on it.”
“Pardon me?” Julie asked with a hanging mouth.
“McKinnon & Baker has a construction component to our business, too. Or hasn’t your research yielded that?” Zeb posed. “Yeah.” He stepped closer to me, facing our guests. “We can lower the price for that amendment to your proposal.”
“But wait! That contract for the construct alone could cost upward of fifteen million!” Bob did the math. “That’s absurd!”
“I think so, too,” I agreed. “I think this whole concept of propriety from the state is absurd.” I stood upright, ready to move on to more important matters.
“I actually think it’s mutually beneficial. I’d be willing to offer you a fair price for our service,” Zeb mumbled comically.
“This isn’t over. We’ll regroup and meet again,” Julie informed just before I stepped out of the conference room.
Zeb’s secretary, Marshall, was right behind me snickering mutedly. That’s when I noticed Lil Bruh, my security, standing near a chair.
I caught Zeb announce, “Unless you’re willing to meet our number, email is just fine, Julie.”
Zeb closed the door and the three of us caught eyes. A joint snicker broke in the open space of the hall. Zeb and Marshall cracked the hell up, but I snorted my annoyance of the attempt at power play in there. They kept it quiet, acknowledging each other.
I tossed my chin to Lil Bruh, who nodded in return then gestured to one of the closed doors, which was a smaller conference room.
“I gotta go. I’ll hit you later, man,” I offered to Zeb as Marshall walked off to her office.
“You’re out right now?”
“After this meeting. I gotta be in the City. Tour will be resuming soon.”
“Ahhhh…” Zeb’s glistening head went back with realization. “I forgot about that. Vacation’s over, brother.” I nodded. He smoothed over his baldie as he turned and took off to his office.
I strode over to the other conference room and slipped inside just as the State of New Jersey filed out of the larger one. Closing the door behind me, I spotted him at the other end of the small table, hands stretched out over it, tapping
nervously.
“Whaddup?”
“Hey, Raj, man.” Jashon sat up. “What’s good?”
“Your job, to keep it trill.”
That seemed to amp up his anxiety. His mouth moved before anything spilled from it. His eyes raced in circles as he tried to get the two to work in tandem.
“You heard?” he croaked, swallowing right after.
“Yeah.” I sat down in a chair across from him at casual speed, shrugging with my mouth. “Earl brought it to my attention, piecing together female chatter he’s heard in the house. You wanna fill in the facts?”
He took a deep breath, eyes bouncing across the table. “I don’t get involved with female shit. I swear, but Myisha started making shit personal. She kept threatening people for stupid reasons.”
“Such as?”
“Tina had hair oil she brought back from her trip to Ghana.” He tossed his chin. “I guess she told Wynter about it because she thought it would be good for her. Offered to get it for her. Tina did, and all she did was ask Myisha where could she find Wynter, and Myisha comes back with, ‘I tell you what: if I have to tell you, you can go there with her and kiss your career goodbye.’ What type of response was that?”
It sounded similar to what Earl had told me.
“I didn’t trip on that. Thought it was shady but left it there. Then we took a meeting with Denise and Marybeth, your PR people. Marybeth mentioned a small company inquiring about Wynter endorsing their athletic line. Myisha shut that down and was so damn rude about it. After the meeting, I quietly asked at the elevator if that was appropriate—shouldn’t she have brought the information back to you and Wynter for you two to decide. Then she went bat shit crazy in their hallway about me not telling her how to do her job. When she said the intern could do what I do, I was offended. I was the one responsible for everything while she was out of the country earlier this year. I busted my ass, even cleaned and organized data for her. I didn’t deserve that. You know I stepped up, Raj!” he demanded I acknowledge.