Young and Hungry

by Ms. Michel Moore

  Black Tone pulled up to the curb. He got out and ran over to help Alexis up. As they slowly made their way to his vehicle, he paused and turned to face her. Alexis didn’t have the opportunity to look away so he couldn’t see how ugly the beating had her looking. Yet he didn’t care how damaged she felt her face looked. Ever since they’d been kids playing on the block, he’d been in love with her. Everything he’d done in the past to protect her was out of love, and everything he was willing to do in the future was also based on that same devotion and love. He’d lay his life and freedom down for Alexis, and he wanted her to know.

  “Listen up. I know me and you been hanging out here and there for years. And I done stood by and watched different dudes, one after the other, trying to push up on you. Some was all right, some was just assholes, but I ain’t never said shit about it. I just let you be. You know, let you do you.” Black Tone was caught up in his feelings and had to keep going before he lost his courage. “Even when you had little man, I was posted right by your side, even getting to work late to take you to doctor’s appointments so you wouldn’t be alone. Now, I ain’t mad at you being with Hassan. Never was. But he’s gone. And I swear on everything I know, my timing is fucked up, but just like Granny could’ve died yesterday, so could’ve you.” He braced himself, not knowing how his best friend forever would react to what he was going to say. “And I don’t want another day to go by without you knowing I love you.”

  Alexis wasn’t shocked at what he’d just said. Over the years they’d told each other how much their love was real. She tried hard to smile, but it only hurt her sore jawline. Instead, she reached her arm up and held his arm.

  “Boy, you know I got love for you.”

  Black Tone quickly realized she didn’t understand what he was saying, so he had to make it clearer. “No, Alexis, I don’t just have love for you. I’m in love with you.”

  Now this sudden revelation. It was like everyone around them was going in slow motion. Alexis didn’t know what to think or what to say. She was speechless. It wasn’t that she had never had her own set of extra-special feelings for him, because she had. But he knew all her innermost thoughts, the terrible secrets and the dirty lies she’d told over time. Black Tone had seen her at her worst, so she had only assumed he would never really want to wife a female like her. Besides, she had just been raped, had just shot a man, had lost her son’s daddy, and had committed arson.

  Taking her silence as a sign of rejection, Black Tone apologized. He then helped her up into the truck. He was a real man. He was her true friend. And even if she wasn’t feeling him like he was feeling her, it was still all good. He’d always have her back, no matter what. That was who he was.

  “Okay, look, I don’t think you should go back home right now. Let me take you somewhere where you can chill out at and relax. Somewhere that you can get your mind right until I get back at you,” he said. “I don’t know if you talked to your brother or not, but I need to go see what’s happening on the block firsthand. Plus, I need to see what Amir is talking about and what bag he trying to come out of. I mean, fucked up as them monsters was for that bullshit, them was his people. I need to go do some homework on the entire thing before you or little man come back around the way.”

  Alexis still didn’t speak. She didn’t say a word, just nodded and put on her sunglasses.

  Eleven minutes later, Black Tone pulled up at a hotel. Leaving his truck running in the registration area, he jumped out. After going inside and handling his business, he returned with a receipt and two card-shaped room keys. He gave Alexis both keys, along with the paperwork. He wanted her to know it wasn’t his intention to try to take advantage of the situation. His heart was pure.

  “I paid for the room for three days. The swelling in your face should go down by then. Plus, I think, depending on how shit goes back in the hood, we should move you to another spot before the staff out here starts to get to familiar with you. Just in case things don’t go as planned.” Black Tone dug in his pocket and took out some of the money he’d gotten from Amir down at the club. Even though Li’l Ronnie had hit him hard in the pockets by stealing his main cash stash, he still had other revenue put up here and there. He wasn’t broke by a long shot. “Here take this money and order room service or whatever else you want. I’ll come back later today and bring you some personal shit you females like, or maybe we can run to Wal-Mart or something.”

  Alexis took the cash and put it in her bag. She then got out of the truck on her own and shut the door. She still didn’t say a word, not even “Thank you.” After looking at the card to find out the room number, she disappeared inside the double glass entryway.

  Now alone in the truck, Black Tone started to return all the missed calls and texts he was just now receiving because of the awful reception inside the hospital walls. Trying to take his mind off the fact he was going to hunt Li’l Ronnie down and kill him with his bare hands, he placed a call to Amir. After being sent to voice mail twice, Amir finally returned his call. By then Black Tone was only minutes away from being back in the hood.

  “Hey, Amir. What’s up? Where you at? I’m in the streets,” he said anxiously, trying to peep game.

  “Hey. I just left Home Depot.” Amir’s voice was solemn and cracked with each word he spoke. “Meet me over at Pops’s if you can.”

  Black Tone agreed easily, knowing the shit was about to hit the fan. But whatever was about to jump off, right or wrong, he was gonna ride with Alexis until the wheels fell off, just as he’d promised when they were kids.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Amir had avoided his father’s calls all evening and night. As daybreak was quickly approaching, he knew he could not keep lying to the person who had taught him to be the man he was. He had no choice whatsoever but to go over to his uncle’s store and speak to Pops. Amir felt he owed it to him to deliver the awful news about what he now knew was true. When he finally showed up at his uncle’s store, he sat outside in his car for ten minutes, trying to gather the courage to go break two men’s hearts. Somehow Amir got it together and informed the patriarch of each family about the tragic fire and what he thought was their son’s fate. His father turned pale as a ghost and had to sit down before he fell down. Amir watched all the joy and pride Pops really felt deep down inside for Mikey and Hassan leave his body. His face was blank, as was his uncle’s. Amir called a few other family members before he left and had them come by the store and escort the two elders back to what had become a temporary tomb for their loved ones.

  Amir headed over to his father’s burnt-out store. When the rear area of the store was cool enough, Amir put on one of several pairs of fire-resistant gloves he’d purchased from Home Depot and grabbed some contractor-size garbage bags, which he’d also gotten from Home Depot. Not telling any of Ethan’s East Side soldiers that were on loan to guard the property what he was looking for, he carefully stepped over the huge cinder blocks that had made up part of the reinforced wall. As Ethan’s guys all looked on, trying to figure out what the owner of Detroit Live could possibly want to retrieve in the charred rubble, with its melted metal racks and fallen beams, one lit a blunt. Another pulled out a pint of Rémy and passed it around. It didn’t matter much to them what time of the morning it was. They had been out here all night, babysitting a smoldering burnt-out party store that would never rise again.

  Wishing he had on better shoes or boots with thicker soles, Amir took his time navigating through the debris that was once his father’s pride and joy. After no more than five minutes of poking around with a steel pipe he’d taken from the alley behind an abandoned house, the distraught oldest son stopped. Glancing up and outside the building, he saw the young men passing a blunt back and forth and laughing about something. It had been a long night for him. He was exhausted and mentally drained. This was a nightmare, and he’d been living it alone for hours. Paranoid and in his feelings, Amir felt it was he who was the source of their amusement.

  “What t
he fuck y’all niggas laughing at? What’s so fucking funny? Huh? What? Somebody tell me?”

  At first Ethan’s guys didn’t say a word. They were trained and knew that they were here doing their boss a favor. On the regular, none of them rocked out on the West Side, anyhow. It was a Detroit thing that most people who didn’t live there wouldn’t understand. Although they stopped laughing and tried to figure out Amir’s sudden problem with them, he got loose lipped again and called them niggas.

  “Hey, watch your damn mouth,” one of the guys advised.

  “Yeah, we ain’t with that nigga shit,” said another.

  “Yeah, nigga. Watch your damn mouth,” a third guy yelled out, not realizing he’d called Amir the same name he didn’t want to be addressed as.

  Amir didn’t have time to argue with them and their attitudes, although he felt justified. He had to deal with the worst thing ever imaginable. Turning his head, he got back to the gruesome task at hand. After a few more seconds of working his way to what was once the storeroom, he started to get goose bumps.

  Amir’s hand shook as he moved smaller items in the storeroom with the aid of the steel pipe. He was terrified of what he would find, but he knew for his father’s sake, as well as his own, he had to continue. He had to know if his younger brothers had been somehow trapped inside. After leaning the pipe against what used to be a bin used to store returnable bottles, Amir bent down. Using both hands, protected by his gloves, he lifted up one of the smaller beams. He wanted to yell. He wanted to cry. He wanted to ask Allah why. Most of all, he wanted to throw up. This was the one time he was right but didn’t want to be.

  Here he was, looking at the most gruesome sight he’d ever seen in person. Here lay one of his cousins. He knew this could not have been his sibling, because the blackened, almost skeleton-like remains were too big. The face and arms were a dull red in some small spots where the skin had burned off the bones. The rest of the body looked as if it had been dipped in hot tar and had melted to the floor. His clothes were almost nonexistent, and what was left of them could not be differentiated from what used to be skin.

  As the beam grew heavier, Amir wanted to drop it back down, he but didn’t want it to strike whichever one of his cousins this was. Instead, he used all the strength he had to shove the beam to the far side of the room, praying it didn’t land on another body. Knowing his father and uncle would be arriving soon, Amir wanted to locate all four bodies to ease their grief. He knew there would be no police, ambulance, or other agencies that could help them, so as the oldest son, Amir felt that showing some respect and reverence to his kin was his sole responsibility.

  Looking back over his shoulder, he sucked up his present feeling of contempt for the young guys and asked a few of them to grab a pair of the gloves he’d left in the bag by the wall and come help him. Of course, after his arrogant comments, none of Ethan’s guy’s moved an inch toward the bag. Amir asked again. This time when they laughed, he had no question in his mind that it was directed at him.

  “Look, I need some help over here. Can a few of y’all just please grab some gloves and come help me?” Amir swallowed his pride for Pops’s sake.

  “And get my new gym shoes dirty? Hell, naw. I just got these Jordans,” the biggest of them all responded.

  “Yeah, he right. We niggas can’t get our shoes or clothes fucked up by messing around with you.” His boy gave him a fist pound as he sipped on the last of the Rémy.

  Amir was no fool. He had found out a long time ago the one rule of the streets. Money talks, and bullshit walks. “Okay, I tell you what. If I can get some help, I’m paying a thousand dollars, plus replacing them shoes.” The offer of cash had their attention. “And if you don’t think I’m good for it and don’t know exactly who the fuck I am out in these streets, east and west, call Ethan. But trust when you do call him to ask about me, I’ll bet that thousand you’ll be over here helping for free.”

  One guy, then another thought about what he was saying and knew it was true. If Ethan had them come clear across town to stand around some dumb-ass building that had been on fire all night, Amir was right. Just like that, that thousand dollars seemed like a million. After following just about the same route through the debris as Amir had, the guys who had opted to come had almost the same response as Amir—shock.

  “Oh, hell naw! What the fuck you want us to do with this bullshit? These is burned-up bodies! I ain’t picking up no dead, burned-up motherfucker.”

  With all of them refusing to help lift both his deceased cousins, who were laid out close to one another, Amir knew that trying to get them to help pry Mikey and Hassan apart would be like asking them to kill their own firstborn. He was glad he had found his brothers’ bodies. And glad they were together. Amir couldn’t figure out what exactly had happened to make them all be this close to the rear door of the storeroom and yet unable to escape. The huge steel door appeared to be unlocked, further confusing him.

  After practically begging them for help, Amir upped the ante, offering five thousand dollars to whichever one or two of them helped. Needless to say, they were fighting with each other to help remove all four bodies from the ruins. After they placed them on the trash bags in the alley, Amir hurried to his trunk and grabbed the beige-colored painter’s tarp he’d also purchased during his early morning trip to Home Depot. He had them assist him in wrapping each body completely, so no parts were showing, not even their faces.

  Amir was out of breath. He felt as if his soul was damaged. Both his brothers were gone, and he didn’t know why. One of Ethan’s soldiers who had wrapped either Mikey or Hassan swore the body had a huge hole right through the front of the skull. If that was true, then it was easy to figure out why they couldn’t escape from the flames. Seeing through the almost wall-less structure that Pops and some more of his family had shown up, Amir knew better than to uncover either of the four bodies. It was best that they remembered them the way they were, and not as what the fire had made them become.

  When Pops came around to the alleyway and almost fell to his knees in grief, Amir broke down as well. Out of nowhere Black Tone bent the corner. Seeing that his friend and Pops were hysterical, he could only stare down at the four dead bodies that lined the side of the store and wonder how he was going to protect Alexis if and when the truth ever got out.

  * * *

  “Oh, hey, Tone. I see you finally made it.” Though Amir was devastated as he mourned the loss of his brothers, he still found the time to add sarcasm to his tone, as if his troubles were more important than others.

  Black Tone sucked it up, knowing he had to remain calm. He was definitely sad that Hassan and Mikey had died, but considering the circumstances that led up to their untimely demise, it was hard to shed a tear. Yes, he was going to support Amir, knowing he and Pops had to be going through hell right now with their loved ones laid out in the back alley of their party store, but Black Tone’s number one mission was to try to see exactly where Amir’s mind was as far as how the fire initially started, to ascertain whether he had any suspicions or had heard anything. Most importantly, Black Tone wanted to know if Amir or any of these other strange faces standing back there with them had noticed anything wrong with the bodies. He knew if any of the four had sustained half the gunplay Dre had said went on inside the storeroom, there would have to be visible holes in their bodies, burned or not.

  “Yeah, I’m finally here. I was posted with my grandmother all night. She was doing really bad at first.”

  Amir didn’t respond. His attention was focused on the four wrapped painter’s tarps. Nothing anyone else said mattered, not even Pops, who was praying out loud, in denial. Black Tone took it upon himself to fall back just a bit and let the entire scene play itself out. Keeping an eye on the guys he didn’t know, he started to wonder what he’d really missed while he was posted up with his grandmother and out of the loop.

  Something seemed strange about the way they were glaring at him. Black Tone tried to remember if he�
�d maybe thrown them out of the club before or even denied them entrance because of what they had on. However, he’d come in contact with so many people and glanced up briefly at so many faces, it was hard to tell what exactly their fascination with him was. But whatever it was, his gun was on his hip—locked, loaded, and ready to make an example out of anyone who felt some sort of a way about this, that, or the third thing. He’d find out for sure who they were; he was just giving Amir time to cope with the ugly reality he was dealing with.

  After a short while of just standing around, allowing Amir to come to grips with the fact that Mikey, Hassan, and his cousins were gone and were not coming back no matter how hard Pops and his uncle prayed, Black Tone decided to move forward. He told Amir they had to move the bodies.

  Amir knew that under normal circumstances, it wasn’t a great idea to disturb a body, let alone remove one from a crime scene, but this was different. This morning was like none other. Even if he did choose to wait for the fire trucks, the police, an ambulance, or the county morgue, there would be no telling how long they’d be out in the alley. The sun had come completely up, and it could only cause the four burned bodies wrapped in thick burlap-type cloth to decompose even more, if at all possible.

  Black Tone was ecstatic that they had somehow managed to get the bodies outside and onto the ground. They had compromised and tainted any evidence that Alexis and Dre could have possibly left behind. If the scorching hot flames had failed to eliminate indications of who did what and when, Amir and whoever these guys were with the gloves lying at their feet had. There was so much going on within the city limits, the blame game could go on forever and a day. Black Tone exhaled. This situation seemed like it might work out. If it did, that would be one less worry on his plate. Li’l Ronnie, however, was a horse of an entirely different color. That worry would never work itself out until he had choked the life out of him.