A Kind of Freedom

by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

  “Come on in,” Spud repeated. “Make yourself at home.” He was holding a duffel bag, and his Glock poked out of his waistband. “Don’t mind that,” he said, catching T.C.’s glance. “I was thinking about using it, but your friend is straightening some shit out for me, and”—he pulled his pants up and adjusted his shirt back over his belt—“so I don’t think we’re going to have any need for that. Are we, Tiger?” He was a big man and he walked wide-legged into Tiger’s room.

  T.C. followed him, listening to his own breathing accelerate as he walked, all the while debating turning around, sprinting out the front door, jumping into his car. He couldn’t do that to Tiger though. And anyway, Spud just said everything had been straightened out.

  Spud had reached the room by now, but T.C. dragged the walk along, listening to him talk.

  “Your friend Tiger the type of nigga think he could get over on everybody, that’s his problem. But that’s my fault for not seeing it. See, a good middleman is content to just be moving your shit. They don’t get big fanciful dreams in their head about turning out larger numbers doing it their own way. Tiger one of them niggas too smart for his own good,” he chuckled, “but then again he not smart enough either. He sort of in between. ’Cause you didn’t end up making more than I do, did you Tiger?”

  T.C. had reached the bedroom by now. Tiger sat on the mattress. A huge dude knelt behind him holding a burner to his head. The man looked up when T.C. walked in. The first thing T.C. recognized was the color of his eyes, that unnatural sparkling green.

  “Yo, Spud, I know that nigga,” the green-eyed man jumped up. “I know that nigga,” he repeated. “That’s that mothafucka I told you was fuckin’ with Natalia. I tried to slice him up when I caught him, you know I did, but bitch’s mama came out with a 19 pointed in my face.” The man looked up at Spud as if he were asking him for permission to finish the job now.

  T.C. just stared at Tiger, whose head hung between his legs.

  “You was fuckin with his bitch?” Spud walked up to T.C., rested his hand on the top of his own piece, but he was smirking.

  T.C. shook his head.

  “You calling me a liar, nigga?” The green-eyed man was in T.C.’s face now. “I remember your ass. How I’ma forget a giant-ass nigga like that? Mothafucka had to duck to get in here.”

  Spud cut his head back and laughed. “Yeah, I don’t believe he confusing you with somebody else.”

  “Nah, it was me,” T.C. started, “it was me, but I didn’t know she had somebody, I swear I didn’t, and since I found out, I never hit it.” When he was done he felt as if he had been talking for hours, as if he had delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech, and he just hoped his message had come out clear, but he was worried that his nerves mixed his words up, clashing them together so they lost their individual meanings.

  “You never hit it that day?”

  “I never hit it that day,” he lied.

  The man seemed to be thinking about whether or not that was good enough consolation.

  “You still with that girl?” Spud asked the green-eyed man.

  “Aww, hell nah, we been beefed out. Plus she one of them bitches just lay there. I could rub myself off for all that. You know I can’t get down like that.”

  “Like that bitch I used to fuck with in Metairie,” Tiger cut in from the mattress.

  The green-eyed man walked back over to Tiger, knocked the burner into his temple. “Shut the fuck up. Nobody talking to you, nigga.”

  Spud turned to T.C., reached inside his bag, and pulled out T.C.’s weed.

  “Your boy was just showing me what a talented nigga you are. Real talented. I couldn’t grow shit like this if I tried. Of course, considering the circumstances, it’s mine now.” He let out his deep belly laugh that seemed as if it might shake the whole house down.

  “You lucky nigga, if you didn’t have this—”

  T.C. wondered if he should say thank you but decided against it, just gulped, kept one eye on the green-eyed man who still held the burner at Tiger’s temple but who stared T.C. down.

  “And why the fuck you even talking about some Betsy friend you don’t even fuck with no mo’? She got your kid?” Spud was shouting at the green-eyed man now.

  “Hell nah.”

  “Well, then, why you even mentioned her? You tryna get me caught up over some bitch in your rearview, didn’t even have no good pussy. Come on, nigga.”

  The green-eyed man stood up and walked over to Spud. “That’s it?” the green-eyed man asked.

  “Yeah, that’s it, for now.” Spud smacked his friend in the back of his head as they walked to the door.

  T.C. listened for the front door slamming, then the car’s, but even once the sounds had registered, he couldn’t find relief. He stayed in his spot, still staring at Tiger.

  “Now, calm down, T.C., I didn’t lie to you.” Tiger stood. “I just thought it would be a win-win, see. Get you back in the game again, hook you up with some cash. You wasn’t complaining when that money was coming in.”

  T.C. just shook his head. The scene had zapped him of his energy, and he wasn’t going to waste any he had remaining on some bullshit.

  “Look, he didn’t even take all of it, see.” Tiger was still talking. “I got a couple ounces in the back. We could sell that, make enough to buy some more seeds.”

  “Just give it to me,” T.C. said.

  When Tiger brought it out, T.C. stuffed it in his backpack and turned for the door.

  Tiger followed him. “That’s it then?”

  T.C. nodded, put his hand on the knob. He was almost out when Tiger called for him again,

  “T.C.?”

  “What?” He turned to him from the doorway.

  “I didn’t have no other way to get the money. I didn’t mean to fuck with your life. I just thought either way you was gon’ hustle and if I helped you out, you’d bring a lil’ bit more in. Look, you got your auntie and your grandma, and I ain’t got nobody else, and I couldn’t see a way out.”

  T.C. nodded. “I’ll check with you later, dude,” he said. Licia’s beat-up old Camry seemed like Tiger’s car the day he’d picked T.C. up from jail, and if he could just reach it, he might see his son again, his girl who was about to be his wife. He climbed in, reclined the seat, and just sat for a minute. Oddly he felt free. There wasn’t much weed left, and he could just pawn the rest off on his old basketball heads. Tops, he’d be done in a week. He’d have enough in his pocket for the ring, bottomed out, but it would be right on time. He would start work the following Monday. That was when his real life would begin, the engagement, the wedding; maybe he and Licia would have another one. That’s what people did, he knew. That encounter with the green-eyed mothafucka had him feeling out of place in his body still, but maybe it wasn’t just the man; maybe it was the realization that his life was moving uphill, and he wasn’t destined to plummet down the other side of it. He needed to take a minute to rest from the adrenaline of it all.

  He turned the ignition on. Goddamnit, “Right Above It” again—Q93 played that song the hell out. Well, it was a good song to smoke to though, and if there was ever a time to smoke, it was now. He was tempted to go back inside and make amends with Tiger; after everything, he still loved to chill with him, hear the crazy shit that came out of his mouth. Nah, Tiger was bad news. T.C.’s mama had been right.

  T.C. already had one rolled, and he pulled it out, flicked the lighter over its end, inhaled, closed his eyes. It was just his okay strain, OG Kush, more body than he liked, but he saved the heady shit for his customers these days. When he heard the siren, he wondered if he had mislabeled. That OG didn’t usually fuck with his mind. The sound must have been in the song. If Tiger were in the car, he’d have them running around the Ninth Ward on a phantom high-speed chase. T.C. was glad he hadn’t gone in to get him. He tapped the blunt out, turned the key in
the ignition. He looked in his rearview before he drove off, and that’s when he saw them. One police car had stopped, and one was in the process of rolling up behind it. The cop in the car behind him sat in the passenger seat just watching him; the other one had already stepped out. He heard the one who was walking call the stop in on his radio. T.C. looked at the weed he’d tapped out in an old coke can, thought about ingesting it, but there was at least an ounce in that bag right beside him. He hadn’t broken any traffic laws, he was just sitting there, but when he rolled down the window they’d smell it on him, and that would be their cause to search his car. He could drive off, but that would just make things worse. On the other hand, he couldn’t go back to that place, he wouldn’t.

  The cop tapped on the window. “Without reaching anywhere can you confirm that you have your license and registration on you?”

  It was too late to leave the scene. They had the plate number and everything. He sat for a minute. One of his last games in high school, he’d been in a bind like this. There were only forty-five seconds left on the clock. His team was behind five points. The coach called a timeout, ordered the play where T.C. would flash open across the court, catch a pass from the point guard, then shoot a layup. T.C. wasn’t nervous—it was impossible to win, so there was nothing to be nervous about. Still, as he waited for his forward to set a back screen, he felt himself floating above his body, looking down at himself posted up, then running, holding his hands out, catching the ball, and tossing it back up at the backboard. If making that shot had given him any hope, he lost it when he got fouled because he was terrible at foul shots. Always had been. But he made it, and then he stole the ball from the best point guard in the state, drove it right back down the court for a shot just outside the three-point line a millisecond before the game ended. He had never felt anything like that to this day.

  The officer tapped again, this time with more force, and T.C. just waited for a miracle to kick in, for that magic that had lit up his heart on that basketball court to drive him away from there.

  Evelyn

  Winter 1945

  Airing out her secret to her mama and sister had given her mind license to let its other private thoughts roam. Her doubt, it turned out, was almost as strong as her faith. In most ways she trusted Renard. When she thought about him a certain way, she could be sure he would muster the strength or nerve or whatever it took someone to do the right thing. But these were difficult circumstances, and when she thought about it that way, she’d remember how he’d collapsed when it was time for him to meet her father; and later, how when he told her he was going to war, everything she’d thought he was made of flew out of him, and she was left with a shell of a man. Not to mention, she’d never met anyone from his family. He could be of any constitution, and she’d have no idea. It was easy to pretend to be good when you were courting someone, and everything rode on their quick opinion of you, but when you had secured their love, and there was nothing left to fight for, it was the rare man who was in constant war with his own sense of himself.

  Her mama tried to distract her with baby bonnets and receiving blankets.

  “You had colic the first year, so you better expect the same from her.”

  “Mother, don’t be so negative,” Ruby would shout.

  “I’m not saying it’s destined; sometimes it skips a generation, but I just want you to be ready in case.”

  Mama had opinions about how long Evelyn should stay in the bathtub, how much pork she could eat, what her relentless heartburn meant. Mama sewed a season’s worth of baby clothes and knitted booties; she bought beef broth from the outdoor market and mixed it in Evelyn’s grits; she forbade her from attending Miss Georgia’s son’s funeral although Evelyn wouldn’t have considered it anyway—she barely left the house save for the walks her mama mandated in the evenings. Most of the time, Evelyn just succumbed to Mama’s whims without a word. The one thing they agreed on with enthusiasm was that Evelyn was carrying a girl.

  “I had a dream,” her mama announced one morning. “The girl was a beautiful shade of brown, one I hoped would show up in one of my own children, but—” she shook her head. “A head full of hair, that’s why your indigestion has been paining you so. She was a perfect angel, just as beautiful as you were when you were born.”

  Evelyn, for one of the first few times since her confession, felt her own joy pulsing inside her.

  “I thought it was a girl, too,” she said.

  “No thought about it,” her mama repeated. “Women make themselves sick to have a boy first, but the truth is,” and she lowered her voice to a whisper, “when I’m old and feeble, Brother will be off with his wife and his new family. You and Ruby will be the ones to see after me.” She shrugged. “Sons are nice in the beginning, a boy who might never leave you, but once they hit fifteen, it’s the girls you can count on.”

  It was like her parents were one body, and her mama had usurped all the happiness there was between them. Mama confirmed that she relayed the information to her father, but otherwise Evelyn wouldn’t have known he knew. Just as he didn’t look in her direction before, he didn’t now. He stopped talking to her and touching her too, but the piece she missed most was the looking. They had shared so much through glances, apologetic eye gestures when Mama made a negative comment, or shining eyes when a shared joke between them cemented their love. Often when she heard him creaking through the house, she longed to go to him, apologize, assure him that she had made a mistake, but she could rectify it. All wasn’t lost. Maybe he would echo the same sentiments back to her, but he didn’t linger inside long, and before he’d leave, she’d lose her nerve.

  On one of the few days she didn’t make it out to the mailbox with Brother, Brother came back in with a letter. It was only the third one she’d received from Renard, the one before it stating more of the same as the first, a little less upbeat but only in tone, and when Evelyn thought back on the words that she memorized, she actually couldn’t find any that made a difference.

  She brought this one back to her room, her heart racing from walking faster than she had in weeks. She sat on the bed, fingering the envelope for a long while, holding the actual paper up to her nose and searching for a scent that she could link to Renard. There was none. Finally she splayed the paper out. Three pages, all in blue careful ink, his handwriting better than her own. She skimmed the letter first, drifting again to the last page, but she couldn’t find anything that her mind could grasp.

  Finally she started at the beginning.

  Dear Evelyn,

  I am coming home. I can scarcely believe it. I’m afraid to. But I’ve been granted a convenience of the government discharge and I’ll be back on the 21st of January. I have missed you more than I can say, and every day that gets closer to reuniting me with you is one I want to toss away, throw back at God, say “here take it.” I didn’t want to scare you, but it has not been as great as I’ve let on. Still it’s over now. And in a few short weeks, we can be together and put it all behind us.

  She felt a tightening in the bottom of her stomach. She’d been having early contractions all week, but Mama said not to worry, it didn’t mean it was time. She didn’t cry out or even grimace. She sat down and rubbed her belly.

  Ruby walked in and called out to her, but when Evelyn didn’t respond, Ruby ripped the note out of her hand. She didn’t need to read the whole thing to grasp the gist.

  “Oh,” she said, dropping the letter, then peeling down her slip and unzipping her girdle on one side. “Well, that’s good then.” Ruby forgot to smile though. “That’s real good. Mama will be real pleased. Daddy too, if he’d admit it. You’ll have your little family, sister.” She paused. “I’m happy for you.”

  She went on talking, her words pouring out like an avalanche.

  “I’m not having any children. I thought I might with Andrew when I first met him, but what if he got called off again? Th
en what? I’d be by myself taking care of something he had half the mind to make. I don’t think so. Wouldn’t be me.

  “Don’t even make me mention what it does to your body. Have you ever looked at Mama’s stomach when she takes off her nightgown? Woo, I wouldn’t want to be Daddy or even a fly in the room. So many stretch marks sliding across that belly you’d think it was a railroad station. No, ma’am, not me. Mama’s an old lady, Daddy’s probably not even interested in that anymore, but I’m young, I’ve got to maintain what the good Lord has given me.”

  She rubbed her hands over her body and let out a sharp laugh.

  “Anyway, all children do is tie you down. Maybe I might travel the world the way you used to say you would. No chance of that happening anymore. Maybe I’ll take the money Mama and Daddy saved, go off to Boston University. They might accept me. They might.”

  She collapsed on the bed.

  “And then Renard said it hasn’t been all good. Well, he’s probably not half the man he was when he left anyway. Maybe that’s why I haven’t heard from Andrew.” She sighed. “That’s my point though. You can’t trust these men. Not you, not me. Sometimes I think they’re the weaker sex really: They’re just more prone to unnatural changes that distort their perspective and leave you all alone. Don’t think just ’cause he’s coming back you’re home free. Did he write about the baby at all? Did he say he would have it?”

  Evelyn shook her head, without answering. A few weeks ago, on Mama’s urging, Evelyn had promised to notify him that she was expecting. She and Mama had decided he deserved to know, that he might fight harder knowing he had life on the other side. And Evelyn had written the words out and everything, but when it was time to seal the envelope and walk it up to the mailman’s truck, she dragged for a long time. She didn’t know why then. Now she wondered if she suspected that the fear of being a father would drive him out further from her, or worse, make him feel he had nothing to lose.