After the Fire: The ‘Shorts’

by Forrester, Nia

  Now, his brothers had homes and families of their own in Queens and on Long Island, and Gideon and I were the only ones staying with his parents in their home for Thanksgiving. Everyone else was expected early the next day with wives and kids in tow. Apart from his parents’ bedroom and this one, there was one other that his mother had made up as a guest room for me. Shortly after she mentioned it to us, Gideon had laughed, waving off the offer.

  “No, mamá,” he said. “Thank you. But we won’t need that. Kendra’s staying in my room with me.”

  And his mother, a sweet, warm, smiling woman had shrugged after just the tiniest hesitation and said, “suit yourselves.”

  I had been okay with it in the moment, but after dinner, and a couple hours watching Law & Order: Criminal Intent with his parents, it felt awkward to leave the living room with Gideon and head for the room where they would probably imagine us fornicating in the bed where their son spent his teenage years.

  “Tell me again about your brothers,” I said. “Are they like, cop cops, or …?”

  Gideon laughed against the back of my neck, tickling me a little. “What does that mean?”

  “You know what I mean. Are they like, I don’t know, Eamon? Like you look at them and you can tell right away?”

  “Let’s put it this way; neither of them could be mistaken for anything else.”

  “Ugh,” I said, feigning disgust.

  “And they’re the handsome ones. So you might be tempted to stare.”

  I turned in his arms, so we were pressed front-to-front, my nose almost touching his.

  “I think you’re pretty handsome,” I said.

  “Do you?” he said, brushing his lips lightly against mine.

  “I do,” I said, pressing in closer.

  We kissed deeper then, exchanging breath, our tongues sweeping across each other, our noses nudging.

  “I love you so much,” Gideon said. “Y’know that?”

  I smiled. He had never said it before. Until that moment I didn’t know I was waiting for it.

  “I love you too,” I said, my voice just barely above a whisper.

  “My brother, Gabriel? The one who’s in SWAT?” he said, picking up where he left off before the ‘I love you’s’ without missing a beat, “he’s a complete asshole. You’re really gonna hate him.”

  I laughed, grateful that he knew me well enough not to dwell on the mushy stuff, because it would only embarrass me.

  “Duly noted,” I said. “I’ll get ready for Gabriel.”

  I took his hands in mine, both of them a little chilly, and slid them under my tank top, placing one on each globe of my breasts. I left them there, feeling Gideon smile against my lips, and reached down to shimmy out of my underwear, and pull him through the little opening in the front of his.

  He groaned softly against my lips and I kissed him, careful to remain quiet, and maneuvering awkwardly since we were both on our sides. With one draped over his, I scooted closer and managed to get him partway inside me.

  Using the leg draped over him as a lever, I pulled myself backward and forward, feeling the slow, blissful slide of him entering and leaving me.

  I gripped his arm to give me more purchase and so I could move faster. When he moaned I told him to be quiet in case his parents heard us.

  “I know,” he breathed against my lips, “but damn, baby …”

  * * *

  As much of Thanksgiving Day was spent cooking with Gideon’s mother and sisters-in-law as was spent eating what we cooked. The house was noisy and crowded and messy, and smelled incredible. Just when I thought I had eaten enough there was something else to tempt me. Not just the traditional American favorites, but West Indian food as well—peppered shrimp, fried whole snapper, rice and beans, bacalaítos.

  And everywhere I went, I ran the risk of tripping over a kid. There were nine of them, ranging from eighteen-months- to ten-years-old. Six boys and three girls. At one point I hid in the bathroom to get a little quiet, because it was so overwhelming. But I didn’t feel like a guest because I was imposed upon equally, to hold babies, turn off the flame under the rice, and bring out countless bottles of beer and glasses of rum to the men while they hollered and cheered at the football game.

  And Gideon was right. I disliked his brother Gabriel. He was as different from Gideon as fire is from ice; and when he heard where I worked, tried to goad me into bickering with him practically every time we exchanged a few words. He assumed because I worked with so-called “at-risk youth” that he knew everything there was to know about me—my politics, my view of the world and even whether or not I liked the NFL. He irritated me enough that even though everyone else was perfectly nice, Gabriel was all I could talk about on the drive back to Philly the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

  “It’s like … because of what I do for a living he thinks he knows me?” I complained. “Like he hadn’t just barely met me?”

  I caught sight of Gideon’s smug expression and rolled my eyes.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “And this is nothing like that.”

  “Nothing like what?” he asked feigning ignorance.

  “See, there’s like … a typology of cops. And your brother …”

  “A typology,” Gideon repeated, sounding even more amused. “Meaning … different types. Like, they’re not all the same is what you’re saying.”

  I looked at him, caught.

  “So, let me get this straight. What you’re saying,” he continued, “is that generalizations, like the kind that would put say, me, in the same category as Gabriel would be incorrect.”

  I still couldn’t think of a clever retort. I turned away and stared straight ahead, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him grin even wider.

  Chapter Seven

  “So, we’re just going to let them walk out of here?”

  Viv rested a calming hand on my shoulder as we watched Demetrius and the others clean up the pizza boxes and napkins, gather the plastic cups and half-empty two-liter bottles.

  “Yes,” she said. “If that’s their choice, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

  “But what if …”

  Viv’s hand squeezed my shoulder.

  “Okay, but …”

  “Their choice, Kendra,” she reminded me.

  “After you went all the way down there, drove into the …”

  “Their choice,” Viv said again.

  I took a long, deep breath.

  Demetrius turned and looked in my and Viv’s direction. He chewed the corner of his lower lip and I saw his shoulders rise and fall before he came toward us.

  “Miss Kendra,” he began, his tone already apologetic.

  “I’m glad you guys stopped in.” I stepped away from Viv’s hand which was starting to feel like a restraint. “And I want you to know …” I swallowed, “that I’m proud of what you’re trying to accomplish, even if I don’t always agr…”

  Viv cleared her throat.

  “I’m proud of you,” I said. “For being out there and standing up for what you believe.”

  Demetrius looked surprised and his surprise shamed me. By no means did I consider myself ‘Miss Respectability Politics.’ I would have said, if anyone asked, that I was very much the opposite. But clearly, my self-image was not consistent with Demetrius’ perception. I wondered when it had happened, when I changed from being one of the young rabblerousers to one of the people who tried to hold them back.

  “Just so you know,” he said. “We didn’t go out there to cause no damage to property. But we also not gon’ let conversations about a few burned buildings distract us from the real conversation that folks need to be havin’.”

  I squelched the impulse to ask him whether he thought there was any productive conversation to be had when two cops had been shot. Whether that hadn’t shut down all likelihood of conversation. But those were complicated questions, and Demetrius and I were not going to answer them tonight. And once again, I realized how
much had changed about me that those were the questions I even thought to ask, and not for instance what powerful social and other forces had led some people to see law enforcement as antagonists in the first place.

  But ultimately, another lecture was not going to cause Demetrius or the others to waver in their resolve to get back out on the streets and rejoin the protestors.

  And I still needed to find Gideon.

  “I appreciate you worryin’ about me,” Demetrius said. “About all of us. But we good. You just gotta trust that we got this.”

  I nodded, though still not sure I did trust that.

  “We do, Demetrius.” Viv spoke for us both. “And if you have to go, just do us a favor and be careful?”

  Demetrius bestowed one of his blindingly beautiful smiles.

  “No question,” he said. “Always.”

  Sitting on the sectional with Malik next to him looking like he might finally be getting tired, Ray kept one eye on the action on tv and the other on me and Viv talking to Demetrius. His shoulders were rigid, and I knew that whatever happened, he was not leaving the Center without Viv, or at a minimum an assurance that she would be right behind him and heading straight home. He had always acted like her husband. There was no good reason he shouldn’t be. It was ridiculous the things people allowed to keep them apart.

  * * *

  “What’s his name?” Gideon’s tone on the other end of the line was terse.

  “Jerome Hubbard,” I said.

  “Date of birth?”

  I looked down at the form on my desk and recited the date.

  I heard the clicking of a keyboard, silence and then more clicking.

  “He’s at the youth study center,” Gideon finally said. “Traffic stop, but had an old warrant for an FTA so they took him in.”

  “They took him in for an old failure to appear?” I asked, incredulous. “Like they aren’t already running out of room up there? And now he might lose his job for not showing up this morning. For some stupid …”

  “Yeah, well I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to make sure he doesn’t have to suffer the consequences of his own bad judgment.”

  “Gideon,” I said. “Don’t be an ass.”

  “Me? I’m the ass?” His voice lowered to an angry whisper. “I’m the ass, Kendra? I don’t know, when I get a summons, I make it a point to appear in court, so ...”

  “Right. Because it’s totally the same thing. For a scared kid, going to court is exactly the same as when a decorated detective who’s on a first name basis with the judge and court personnel goes. Totally the same.”

  “Scared kid, my ass. He had two agg assaults and one of them is on his own mother.”

  “Who, your little computer file probably fails to mention, was high as a kite at the time of the alleged assault and tried to get Jerome’s seventeen-year-old sister to sell her body for drugs.”

  “Whatever, Kendra. It’s always something. Look. You’re at work, I’m at work. And I have to go. I don’t have all day to be doing favors for my … I gotta go.”

  He hung up and I looked at the phone in shock. He was really angry.

  That probably made calling him back and asking about the timing of Jerome’s hearing unwise. And since he was being held for a failure to appear in court, chances were Jerome wasn’t going home anyway; but at least I knew where he was and could call his job to intercede on his behalf.

  Before I did that though, I had to regain my composure. I didn’t like arguing with Gideon. He was Mr. Equanimity most of the time. Even if I was in a bad mood and tried to goad him into something, he effortlessly batted those attempts aside and instead had me laughing, or sometimes moaning, within minutes.

  Sighing, I leaned back in my seat and replayed the scene from the evening before—Gideon coming out of my bedroom, holding the offending item and demanding an explanation, me telling him I was sure it spoke for itself; and then him asking why he hadn’t immediately been notified.

  I think that was what sent me over the edge. He used those words: ‘immediately been notified’. Like I was reporting to a probation officer or something.

  It was true, he sometimes slipped into that way of speaking by accident, especially when he was agitated or taken off guard, but I was already kind of jumpy and not in the mood to be spoken to like a suspect of a crime. So, after that, we were slinging accusations back and forth until he slammed his way out of my house and screeched away from the curb so fast, I heard the sound of his tires from inside.

  It was very tricky after a fight like that to have to call him the very next day and ask for help locating a client who I suspected had been arrested. And sure enough, Jerome was in custody.

  Having a cop as a boyfriend was convenient. Except for when it wasn’t.

  * * *

  “It’s not Gideon.”

  I sank into the nearest chair when Eamon spoke those words, the muscles in my legs softening beneath me, suddenly incapable of holding my weight.

  Viv and Ray were staring at me, mouths partly open, waiting to have me tell them what had been said.

  Of all people, Eamon had been first to return my call.

  My phone chimed not twenty minutes after we had just sent Demetrius and company back out into the night. I was just about to ask Viv for the hundredth time whether she was sure we were doing the right thing by letting them go when it rang, and I snatched it up.

  Eamon didn’t even bother saying ‘hello’ first. He knew the drill.

  “Are you sure?” I asked him now. “Are you certain?”

  Viv was clutching her throat and I registered dimly how my question might sound to her since she hadn’t had the benefit of hearing what Eamon told me.

  There was a brief hesitation.

  “Eamon,” I said. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Positive.”

  “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” I pleaded.

  My eyes were stinging with unshed tears once again. This time, tears of relief, and of release. My chest was already less tight, my breaths coming easier.

  “I wouldn’t lie to you, honey,” Eamon said. “If it was Gideon don’t you think I’d send a car to get you? Don’t you think I would’ve come to get you myself?”

  I smiled a little through the tears and nodded. “Yeah. You would,” I said. “I know you would.”

  “Exactly. But … you okay? You want me to have one of the girls come sit with you? It’s been a crazy night and I know you have to be on edge.”

  By ‘one of the girls’ he meant one of the cop-wives, or girlfriends—the sorority that I still did not see myself as being part of. There had been invitations since that cookout at Eamon’s all those months ago. Unanswered calls and text messages that came occasionally to let me know about spa days, girls’ nights out, and once a weekend in Rehoboth Beach for “women and kids only.”

  Those outings were the equivalent of the boys’ trips that Gideon and some of his friends occasional took to the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and even Colombia.

  “What’re you doin’ on all those trips?” I asked him once with narrowed eyes.

  “You don’t want to know,” he said, laughing.

  “No,” I said, suddenly no longer kidding around. “Actually, I do.”

  “Heavy drinking, strip clubs and for some of us … hookers,” Gideon said without missing a beat.

  I’d gaped at him, openmouthed, as shocked at his honesty as I was by what he said.

  “Hookers?” I repeated.

  He shrugged. “Not me though,” he insisted, hands up as if in surrender. “Swear to god. I might watch girls in thongs on the beach and in the clubs, but I have a strict do-not-touch policy.”

  I stared at him for a few beats, reading his eyes for signs of dishonesty.

  “Who then?” I asked finally.

  Gideon laughed again. “Hell no. I’m no snitch.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well thank goodness some people are. Otherwise your job would be much, much h
arder.”

  I always got the impression the “girls” had some weird don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy with their men. Like they recognized that the extraordinary stressors of the job would sometimes lend itself to extraordinary stress relief. Because what on earth were a bunch of men doing in South America on a trip sans their women if not because they were up to no good? But strangely, I trusted Gideon when he told me he didn’t “touch.” I literally could not picture him doing otherwise.

  “No, I don’t need anyone to come over,” I told Eamon. “I’m with a friend now. I’m fine. It’s just he hasn’t … I haven’t heard from him, so …”

  “Well, there’s very good reasons for that. But I’m sure he’ll call you as soon as he can.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll wait. And please, if you talk to him …”

  “Alright, honey. I will. But I gotta …”

  “I know. Yes,” I said. “You have to go. Thanks, Eamon. Thank you for …”

  “Don’t even,” he said, sounding genuinely offended. “Of course.”

  I ended the call and looked at Viv and Ray who were waiting with visibly bated breath. Malik was asleep on the sectional, curled on his side, looking both like a kid and someone who is a hair’s breadth away from no longer being a kid.

  “What?” Viv demanded. “What the hell did he say?”

  “It’s not Gideon. Gideon’s okay.”

  Viv and Ray’s shoulders sagged in unison. And Viv let her head loll backward, lifting her arms, palms up and hands open in silent thanks.

  “I’ma roll out then,” Ray said, looking in Malik’s direction. “Take him home and get him in a real bed. Viv?”

  “You go ahead,” she said. “Me and Kendra …”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Now that I know Gideon’s okay, I’m going home and get that glass of wine you suggested earlier. We let Demetrius have a key, so no one needs to be here even if they come back.”

  “You sure?” Viv asked, coming toward me. “Tonight is just …”

  “Well, we’d better get used to it,” I said wryly. “This has been going on all ‘round the country for weeks. No sign it’s about to let up soon.”