“As are you, boo, but we all got our truth and then the man got what he say happened. Hell, I was out there bootin’ and tootin’ it up for these doctors and lawyers. Hunty, they was payin’ thee big dollars to suck it and make it spray and I am not lying. The only thing I couldn’t do was let everyone run up in my chocolate starfish. No, what the hell I look like?”
I was momentarily blinded as we walked out of the building and into the yard. The sun felt different when I was feeling it from behind these brick walls. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t absorb its warmth. It was mid-July and nearly ninety degrees outside, but I felt as cold as January on the inside. As we approached the area lining the basketball hoops, I could see Aeron standing to the side, towering above most of the females. She gave me a worried glance when she saw me wiping my eyes with my sleeve. She covered the distance between us in several quick, long-legged strides.
“Somebody been fuckin’ wit’ you again?” She was always quick to defend me and her reputation. If someone messed with me she’d have to step up or she’d look weak.
“No, I just talked to my sister. Everything’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
Aeron took my hand and led me over to a picnic table. She realized what she was doing and dropped it just as quickly. The guards were funny about inmates and body-to-body contact. I sat down and she sat on top of the table with my shoulders between her legs. She pulled a comb from her pocket and started to unbraid my hair.
“Yeah, A, you unbraid that bird’s nest and I’ma do it up real nice in just a minute. Say got some bid’ness to handle right quick.” Having said that, Sayzano put his hand on his hip and pranced off.
“Aw look at Timone and Pumpa.” Aeron giggled in my ear.
Say was busy sashaying over to his boo, a skinny little white guy we all called Milan. He had to be the prettiest man I’d ever seen in my life. He kept his eyebrows arched and his long jet-black hair was always pulled back into a cute little ponytail. I’d never in my life been around gay men before and never had any idea they could be so feminine. The way that man sashayed around the yard, one would think he was on a Paris runway.
The couple looked so odd yet extremely happy together. Say was tall and chocolate with high cheekbones. I guessed he looked like a real queen on the outside, rocking wigs and makeup with those big pillow breasts. Say had once described a few drag shows that he’d done and I smiled from just picturing it in my head.
I pulled some fresh cherries out of my pocket that I’d snuck from breakfast and popped a few in my mouth. I munched silently as I thought about life before I was locked up. Dontay and I used to always go pick cherries or hit the Strawberry Festival in Pungo. We enjoyed each other’s company so much and we also wrecked each other at times. He was my best friend but I knew firsthand how best friends could hurt each other, become complete strangers. I was distracted from my thoughts and the show Say and Milan were putting on, kissing and cooing at each other, when I felt Aeron’s breath beside my ear.
“Mami, I want to tell you something and I don’t want you to get upset okay?”
What in the world did she want? To share me with another one of her cellies? Wouldn’t be the first time. Or wait, maybe she wanted to tell me that she’d found some other chick to make her plaything. I didn’t know why, but the thought instantly made me a little jealous. I squashed that emotion like an ant. I wasn’t gay. I was only doing what I needed to do in order to survive in this place. If she moved on it would be hell without her protection, but God would see me through it.
“Well, what is it?” I tried not to sound impatient.
“My ex works for the sheriff’s department in Virginia Beach. I asked her to run your fiancé’s name.” She spat the word “fiancé” out as if it were toxic. She hated thinking of me belonging to anyone but her. “She said she couldn’t find anything in the court system on a Dontay James.”
“What does that mean? My public defender said he was part of it. He and I were the only ones with administrative accesses to the system to make the kind of changes that were made.”
Her hands stilled in my hair and I craned my neck to look back at her anxiously, waiting for her explanation.
“Do you think he could have plea bargained or gotten off? Never even gone to prison? That’s what I mean,” she replied, giving me a solemn stare down.
My mind was a flurry of activity as I tried to process a thought it kept rejecting. He wouldn’t. There was no way Dontay would do no time at all and leave me in here for years.
“Of course I’m sure. What you’re saying is unthinkable, unfathomable, unbelievable, un . . . un . . . I can’t think of any more ‘un’ words but you get my point.” My voice was getting raspy and it hurt to swallow past the lump forming in my throat. I turned back around, content with staring at a patch of clovers growing next to the bench. A ladybug scuttled across one of the clovers and I’d have given anything to switch places with her.
Aeron rubbed my shoulder compassionately and said, “Anything is possible when money is involved. Money is the undoer of millions of men and women. Look through history; it happens all the time no matter the century or the currency. Money doesn’t make a person evil, it just shows us who the evil ones really are, sweetheart. Speaking of money, you’re taking over my business when I leave.”
She’d gone back to combing out my hair and I cringed whipping my head around catching some of my mess up in the comb. “I don’t know anything about your business and knowing my luck I’d get stabbed before I made a dime off it. No.”
“You want to survive until you get out with no commissary and no respect or do you want to take over some shit that can get you both overnight? You know the prices: smokes, cash, or real candy. Sell the smokes and candy, add it to the cash and mí tía, well she’s not my real aunt, she’s an old family friend, she’ll help you out. You’ll go hard because your ass will depend on it, theses puntas will respect you because you’ll have their shit. We don’t sell to everyone, just the bitches that are down. I’ll give you a list.”
Everything just seemed so overwhelming. Aeron gave my shoulder a soft squeeze. I could tell she was genuinely trying to figure out a way for me to make it without her and find Dontay. That made my heart warm toward her ever so slightly. At least someone in here cared about me.
“Oh shit.” Aeron’s outburst broke my train of thought as she tensed behind me.
I looked up to see what had her on high alert. Lord knows I wasn’t ready for any more drama.
“Speak of evil and I guess it’ll stride on over and say hello,” Aeron snapped, focusing her attention on Juarez marching across the yard.
Say and Milan stopped chatting and posted up with their arms crossed and lips pursed up as they stood behind Juarez. It looked more like they were Vogueing than protecting anything. I hid a small giggle at my two gay warrior guardian angels.
“What the hell you want, Juarez?” Aeron climbed from behind me to address her older sister. They were identical twins. Antonia was born five minutes earlier, so she claimed the title and bossiness of being the oldest. When Aeron got caught she didn’t dare say who her accomplices were. Antonia, on the other hand, decided she wasn’t taking the blame alone. She was all too willing to take the witness stand and incriminate her sister for a lesser sentence. Aeron never called her sister by her first name. When I asked why, she said it was to remind her that she was disloyal to her own blood. They were beautiful, angry Amazonian mirror images of each other. It looked like a WWE prison match was about to take place.
“Hey, I come in peace this time. I just wanted to let you know I’d take good care of your, um, kitten when you get out of here,” Antonia replied, shooting a slick grin in my direction.
A visible shiver ran through my body at the cold and menacing way she spoke about me. I didn’t want to be taken care of by anyone, but I was sure I’d suffer a helluva lot worse if Antonia ever got her hands on me. Aeron bristled up and for a split second I thought she was go
ing to go off and punch Antonia. But her release date was only a week away. She wasn’t stupid.
“What?” Sayzano jumped in angrily. “Who the hell you calling a kitten? Ain’t nobody got no damn pets up in here. You ain’t taken care of no gotdamn body, and I suggest you back da fuck off before I go Cleveland bus driver on ya Amazon ass. I ain’t scared to hit a woman.”
All eyes focused on us as the yard fell silent at Say’s outburst; everyone was anticipating a fight. Say started to go in before any of us could react. The COs ran over to put a stop to it before anything else could transpire. Say winked at me as he was being led to solitary, and Milan wailed like someone had just died. He’d done all that just to diffuse the situation to keep Aeron from getting caught up in some mess. I’d need to get my guardian boo a present for that. Hopefully Aeron’s tía auntie or whoever would be able to help.
Free time was cut short and we were all led back inside. Antonia shot me a look that made me feel physically ill. It would only be a matter of time before Aeron left and she got to me, and I had no idea what I could do to keep me from the hell that I knew was coming.
As we entered our cell, Aeron pulled me into a tight hug. Her sudden display of affection caught me completely off guard.
“Don’t let my sister scare you. She’s always been more bark than bite. I promise.” She leaned back, still holding me in her arms, and winked.
“Well big or small a bite is still a bite; it hurts all the same.” I couldn’t bring myself to return her hug and stiffly tried to pull myself away, but she wasn’t ready to release me.
“Stop it. I’d give you a kiss to calm you down but I’m allergic to cherries. She isn’t going to do anything that you don’t allow her to do.” She nuzzled the side of my neck with her lips before letting me go. A myriad of emotions swept over me. Regardless of Aeron’s reassurance, the thought alone of Antonia scared the hell out of me, and I prayed God would see me out of this before I had to deal with that woman one on one.
Chapter 25
Dontay Back to Sunday School
We were in a large cabin three winding staircases below the top deck. The area was wide open with mounted flat screens and so far I’d counted fourteen leather lounge chairs surrounding and a fully stocked bar. Somehow salted ocean air still found its way through the heavy cherry wood walls. I couldn’t tell if it was a live piano or just a recording coming. I couldn’t help nodding along as someone played the hell out of “Bennie and the Jets” or Mary J. Blige’s “Deep Inside.” Staring out of the giant paneled window as we sliced soundlessly through the black ocean my mind wandered with the chords from the piano to lazier happier days.
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel was lit up in the distance and I felt a sad pull in the pit of my stomach, tightening in my chest. Somewhere way out there was a little stretch of beach that Eva and I used to go to and bury our toes in the sand. We saw two shooting stars on a night when the sky looked about as clear as it did now and we made wishes. All I’d wished for was Eva. So much for that; who knows what she wished for?
I snapped myself out of my reverie and looked toward my boy Bear who was busy fighting with his bowtie. It had him looking like a little dark chocolate Chippendales dancer. At least mine complemented me, with my height and baldheaded goodness. I’d rather be Mr. Goodbar or Mr. Clean than Lucky the Leprechaun. We were night and day in every way possible, which was probably why we got along so well. Ever since his girl accidentally got shot he’d been on this new-age spiritual journey, even-tempered, neat, and always organized. I was on an all-expenses-paid crash collision course with hell. He didn’t even get salty when I took Eva back after being an asshole about it for a couple of years. Shit, Bear was the one with all the real business sense. When she said she wanted to start a business he walked her through building it from the ground up and even helped me on the road with all those bullshit deliveries.
“Is it fucked up that I’m still going through with this even though Destiny ain’t make it?”
I was referring to the elaborate yacht party we were about to have that would be followed in a couple of days by an even more elaborate wedding.
He gave me a sideways look. “Sounds like your woman got you doing what she wants to do. Regardless of how it looks or don’t look, happy wife happy life.” He shrugged. “You gave your daughter a good few months and a proper funeral—”
“A daughter I ain’t even know I had until how long ago? On top of being sick she had to think Daddy didn’t want her for ten years. I could have fixed that shit sooner, man.”
I fell back into one of the many seats, the leather squeaked and the wood groaned. Splaying my long legs out in a wide V in front of me I scowled at the world in the strands of carpet at my feet. I rubbed my forehead like a dry-erase board trying to wipe away my past and the bad memories all at once. When did things get this complicated?
“Dontay, man, all you can do is take care of the little girl you got left and don’t drink or think yourself crazy behind what went down. I told you join up, let the brothers help. I put in a word or two.”
Bear smacked me hard on the shoulder. He was my ace for life; we grew up across the street from each other. Him and his pops stayed in this run-down bamboo-green ranch-style house with gray shutters. He’d always run to my place and hide out. His pops used to beat his ass like nobody’s business over any- and everything. When we got to high school he started wrestling, working out, and he got big on that nigga. That’s why we called him Bear, he’d raise up and scare the shit out damn every nigga in school. The next time his pop’s tried to give him one of those old-school beat downs Bear handled him like light work; I opened my front door to find his Pops was at our door begging for somebody to call the police.
It was only right that he be my best man for this over-the-top dramatic wedding we were gonna have in a couple of days.
“Nigga you betta nod, smile, and get fucked up if you have to. We stuck out here in the middle of this damn water. I wouldn’t walk into a room full of them champagne-campaigning friends of the bride to say you’ve got a cold. Let alone cold feet.” Bear huffed at me from his mighty he-nigga stance.
I stood and shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my fitted slacks and stared down studying the bronze buckles on my Cole Haans. You’d have thought I was waiting for them to give me some kind of advice instead of Bear.
Straightening my shoulders I took some breaths and started feeling like 007 in my black tux. I adjusted the lapels of my jacket and strode toward the upper deck faking a sense of confidence and purpose I really didn’t feel. The air was supercharged with affluence. The hairs on my arm were standing up like I was cold but there no chill. I could feel it like a winning three-pointer, over the shoulder, at the buzzer from half court, nothing but net, eyes closed.
All the black elite and politicians were invited to celebrate and rub elbows. When I’d called and told Pops about me getting married he gave me the same surprised, disappointed congratulations. He wouldn’t be making it to any of the parties or the wedding, on account of the accident he had. One of the ladders he was working off of fell four stories and shattered his vertebrae. Years of back surgeries kept him laid up and medicated most of the time.
The pianist, who was damn good, broke into Alicia Keys’ “Diary.” I wandered in that direction, stopping in my tracks when my nose caught a familiar scent. If the color pink had a smell it would be the smell of lotus flowers, ginger, and patchouli in the morning. She was the only person I knew who wanted to be buried in Ralph Lauren Romance perfume and the color pink.
Back in the day, Toikea, my stepmom, would get all fancied up and take me to church every single Sunday. Growin’ up my family was always on some middle-lower class shit. No matter how hard she tried Toi couldn’t accept the karma for stealing and marrying another woman’s husband. My family belonged to the race of niggas known as “have-nots.” When I was eight Pops started his little side thing with Toi. She was
this cinnamon-brown twenty-year-old waitress with a figure that’d make an hourglass jealous. Ironically Pops met Toi when he took my moms to Red Lobster for her birthday. Moms was in the bathroom and Toi hopped on it, in more ways than one. After that me and Moms had even less than our usual.
Someone should have told Pops that house painters with families can’t afford side hoes. They cost more than regular corner hoes. Seriously, you could buy some ass for less than what it cost to keep a side woman, who thought she was the main woman, happy. He’d overdraft the bank account on new rims, clothes, and jewelry that we never saw and mad weekend getaways where we didn’t see him either. Money my grandparents sent for my birthday or Christmas usually went missing out the envelope; it probably paid Toi’s lights or cell phone bill. The penny that brought the house down was when Pops took money out of my mom’s savings account so Toi could get an abortion. I guess Toi got mad when he didn’t stay the night to take care of her after the procedure. But, hell hath no fury like that of my mom’s when she saw Toi had taped her abortion receipt to our front door.
My parents fought and shouted the rafters down. I was sure the neighbor’s neighbors knew our business by the end of that night. I was thirteen the night my mother disappeared.
My mother’s screams woke me up. They always got a little heated when they argued but they normally kept it down to sharp whispers with occasional shouts. I slid out of my bed at the sound of the front door slamming and crept to the window. The floorboards creaked under my foot and the washing machine rocked downstairs like it was trying to detach itself from the wall. I watched the silent movie out my window as my moms limped after Pops. She was holding her side like she was out of breath or hurt. Frowning, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and squinted hard through the glass. A panic alarm went off in my head the same blaring red as the stain on the side of her fitted T-shirt. The words JAMAICAN ME CRAZY were barely visible on the back. She was in her house clothes, hair tied up, barefoot. I watched her grab the front of his shirt and he shoved her away.
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