Ghost to the Game

by Orion Pharoah

  I smiled, “Thank you.”

  She grabbed me by both sides of the face and kissed my cheeks, “Obrigado, thank you- Obrigado.” We took our seats and gave our drink orders to the waiter.

  We talked all dinner, well, I spent most of my time listening as Belle explained how we met, and her mom would smile every few minutes and turn to me and say, “Beleza.” Belle excused herself to freshen up and her mom told her “I'll be right there.” She looked at me, grabbed my hand and very calmly stated, “If you let her fall you better be there to catch her and protect her, she's the only heart I have left.” I squeezed her hand back and smiled as she walked away to join Belle in the ladies room.

  We concluded our evening by taking a walk through Barcelona and it was like a dream, while we walked down the streets Belle and her mom pointed out all buildings and architecture, and they told me some history about the town Belle grew up in. My phone rang and Belle grabbed her mom’s hand as I slowed my pace. I finished my call and walked over to Belle. “That was the bank, I'll be back.”

  Her mom looked at me, grabbed my hands and kissed them, she smiled, then looked at her daughter and said something in Portuguese. Belle looked displeased at the words her mother warranted and her reply was very clear, “I'd rather live in his world. Don't you regret that mom?” Her mother smiled and looked at me but addressed Belle. “You’re just like your father. I was too smart for myself.”

  Belle kissed me. “How long will I have to wait?”

  “Baby girl, this will be a quick trip I just gotta go do some boring paperwork I'll be back in the morning.”

  “You promise?”

  “Of course, I promise.”

  She looked in my eyes, “Will it always be this way?” I gave a light smile, “I don't know how long always is baby.” I kissed her gently and her smile faded, she placed her hand on my face, stroking my cheek and said in a low voice, “I'm not worried about you coming back, I'm worried about the fact that I might love you more when you return. I grabbed her hand and brought it to my chest,“Belle baby, I have no heart to give you-I lost it a long time ago. I'm not able to, and I can’t promise to love you.” She grabbed both sides of my face, put her forehead to mine and looked me in the eyes. She smirked, “Enjoy your flight Orion. It's okay, I can love hard enough for both of us, I'll see you when you get back.”

  Chapter 9

  I called Belle as soon as the wheels touched down the next morning and I could hear the excitement in her voice as I asked her to meet me at the top of Montjuic Castle. She ran up the path to the castle and jumped in my arms and I couldn't help but admire how ravishing she looked. Even at the highest point, standing next to her and seeing a brilliant 360-degree view of all of Barcelona, she was still the only thing I was thankful for existing in that moment. She cuddled into my arms, “This place is a perfect for you, isn’t it? A fortress of solitude.” She paused and I squeezed her tight and placed my lips on her forehead, “It's not solitude if you’re with me, Belle.”

  I could feel the first tear hit my arm as I turned and wiped it from her face, “Baby look, this is just a transition in my life, when I get home the game changes like twenty-seven levels. That means real shit can happen, that means real shit could happen to you.”

  She took a deep breath and lifted her shoulders back, “I don't care if it's twenty-seven years or twenty-seven levels, I want to know that I get to spend them all loving you and you loving me. Who cares how long we have together?”

  I kissed her deep enough for her to know that her offer was fully accepted, deep enough to hide the fact she had put into words what my heart had had been trying to say to my parents for seven years.

  Chapter 10

  The sun was rising as the plane broke the clouds and I smiled and whispered to myself, “Beautiful Texas skies.” Belle’s eyes opened gently and she stretched, “We must be home.” I kissed her on the forehead, “Yes, we are.”

  When we exited the plane in our private hangar at Hobby International, two limos pulled up and Pops jumped out. He had a big smile on his face and chuckled,

  “You must be Barcelona?” He wrapped up Belle his arms and twirled her around. She blushed, “Yes Sir.” She hugged him back, strong and he looked directly at me as he put her down.

  I immediately greeted him, “Pops!” We embraced and he interrupted, “Don't Pops me. This is your show son, and speaking of shows, did you notice that the electronics were a little outdated?” I snapped, “Yea, I did, and I plan to see if we can get updated replacements ASAP.” Pops smiled at me, “My thoughts exactly. Tell you what, I'm gonna show this beautiful woman how wonderful H-town really is and we’ll meet you at Chudi’s tonight.”

  I shook my head. “Bet.”

  He turned and looked at Belle, “You look like you belong in the arts district, you're gonna love downtown.” She giggled as she walked up and gave me a big kiss.

  “Be careful please.” She ran her hand across my face.

  I smiled back. “Always. I'll see you tonight baby, have fun.”

  I looked at Pops, gave him a nod and got into the car.

  Chapter 11

  I walked into an elegant office on a private floor of the Circuit City and a man sat on the other side of a desk smiling at me.

  “You must be J’s boy? What shall we call you?” He laughed.

  I closed the door behind me and told him, “People that know me call me Little J.”

  “Little J? Why is that?” He chuckled.

  I replied, “They say I’ma lot shorter than my pops.”

  He interrupted sarcastically, “Oh yeah? Well, did those that named you ever see you in person? Cause you look like a damn linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys.”

  I stared at him, “I don't think they picked it because of the size of my body, I just happen to have a shorter temper than my pops so things piss me off a lot faster. Like flyin’ to Switzerland to sign off on a deposit that was $16,000,000 short for my family, and like tryin’ to figure out why your company made an $84,000,000 deposit instead of a $100,000,000 one. Now, I would like for you to pull up your computer and open up the files to the company that we fund for you and make a $20,000,000 deposit.” I continued never breaking eye contact, “Because unlike my father, I would hate for somethin’ bad to actually happen to you, that’s no way to do business, we’ve got a family to take care of, right?”

  He stood up and walked around his desk towards me looking me in my face and smiled. “You don't scare me little J, hell, how long have you even been in this game?” I paused for a second before I replied, “I’m not here to scare you. I'm here to advise you that you need to make a $20,000,000 deposit right now. I afraid if you don’t at 4:30 when Elaina’s boyfriend, who is a member of MY family picks her up, they might have some car trouble. And this afternoon your wife Sharon, might not make it home from her stockholder meeting at the firm that MY family owns, the one that just promoted her to partner. So, if your final response is that you're not scared of me that’s fine, I’m not going to do anythin’ to you. I'm just going to sit back and watch you plan two funerals.” His eyes widened then he squinted at me as I continued, “Now, open that computer or roll the dice.” Every color in his soul left his body as he turned his back and walked to his desk to begin the transfer.

  Chapter 12

  I looked up at the surveillance cameras just in time to see what looked like a teenager getting snatched up by a security guard, so I grabbed my cell phone and called down to one of the crew and told them to grab him and take him to the car.

  I got in the car and across from me I saw a tough, angry kid who looked kind of familiar. “Before we get too far into this, you need to know I saw you walk in with us and I figured you were close enough to hear me tell the fam to shop. What I didn't figure though, was that you don’t understand the game well enough to know not to walk out without us.” I could see the willingness to die in his eyes as he started to talk. “Fuck you and the game! ‘Specially your pops. He didn't
do shit about mines!”

  I could see the anguish in his face and then it hit me, “You're Malcolm Junior. Your pops worked for mine and when he died, Y'all ghosted.” I could see his chest puff a little. “Bullshit! My mom’s told me what happened, My pops went in on some bull shit with your Pop’s and got tore up. Your precious family just bailed and left us to rot.”

  I nodded in disbelief. “Man, Malcolm, I've got two-million reasons why that’s not true.” He turned his nose up at me, “Let's see who's gaming who then. Say it to my Mom’s, say it in front of both of us.” I nodded, “Bet, drop the address.”

  We drove just south of the wards and I had my people wait in the car while Malcolm Jr. and I walked into the projects. I could see his demeanor change when he saw how the OG’s showed respect and I could feel his mind start to believe my words-that what I was telling him was true.

  When we walked into the house his mom jumped up and started screaming, “YOU’RE NOT WELCOME IN HERE!!!”

  I raised my voice, “No its y’all who aren't welcome here. No disrespect but this is not where you belong. You can get as hostile as you want but you know he don't belong in this damn filth and neither do you.”

  She hissed, “My boy wasn’t gonna grow up just to be another death certificate for your daddy.”

  “You know damn well that's not true.” I corrected. “You know my pops loved and respected your husband and you know Malcolm was my Pops’ boy when he was still alive. Pop’s honored him in his death and when the family came looking for y'all you were nowhere to be found. We scoured the damn hood tryin’ figure out where you went.”

  “I was protecting my damn baby.”

  “No!” I shouted, “You were tryin’ to rescue him from the game, a game that you didn't even understand.”

  “Mom!” Malcolm Jr spoke up. “Shut up, Junior!” she cut him off. “It wasn’t your decision to make. You didn’t belong in this game.” She cried, looking back to me.

  I looked at him then at her and pleaded, “Can't you see he's already in it? They know his name, his face and hell, he's already got a record, look at what y'all are living in. You got $2 million waitin’ on you and you’re just sittin’ here livin’ in this hell.”

  “I don’t want your money! I want my husband back!” She shouted. “Well, you can’t have him back.” I rebutted. “The game took him. He sold his soul and now you’re gonna watch his only son do the same thing!”

  She cried, “What I want, is to make sure Malcolm Jr. doesn’t die in this game, to make sure that he understands that he can rise to a higher surface then this thing instead of drowning in it. If that’s what’s owed to me, then give me my two- mil and I'll take my son and get outta here.”

  I smirked, “Really? You know that's not how this works. You can have the money that Malcolm Sr. earned for his retirement but you can't have Malcolm Jr., you can have your life back and make sure that the game your son is in is the right one,but judgin’ by where he’s standin’-” I turned to acknowledge him standing behind me. “He's already made the right decision. Are you?”

  She straightened her back and said, “I will make the right decision but you’re gonna make me a promise. Watch out for him the way J watches out for you, protect him and teach him, but most of all be there for him.”

  “Yes, ma'am. I can make you that promise. Now, can we all get the hell outta here? We’ve got business to take care of.”

  Our drive to Chudi’s was ghostly silent and all that was heard was the low music on the radio. When Malcom Jr and I walked in Pop’s and Belle stood up at the table and everybody went quiet. Pops looked at Malcolm Junior, “I hear they call you C in the streets?”

  “Yeah, I mean, yes Sir.” C responded, “They call me C-murder.”

  Pop’s looked him up and down, “Tough to earn a nickname like that.”

  C looked down and walked around me to hug Pop’s and he put his hand on Malcom’s head and whispered, “It's okay Son, you're home now, let’s enjoy a meal.” I kissed Belle and we all sat down. Pops looked across the table at me and smiled. “Orion’s belt, this is going to get interesting.”

  Chapter 13

  “Hey man, why are we goin’ to the airport? I thought we were headed to a basketball game?” C questioned.

  “We are but first, it's Christmas time and we’ve got a friend stuck in the airport, we’re gonna go say hi.” We walked into Chicago O'Hare and there he was sitting in the VIP lounge, “Mitchell.” I smiled.

  “Orion! What are you doing here?”

  “Well you had a layover and I was in Chicago and I have a Christmas gift for you.

  “A Christmas gift, for me?”

  “Yeah, it's Christmas time man.” I laughed “Merry Christmas!”

  I handed him a card. The front had Merry Christmas Family printed on it and when he opened it, it read very simply: Our family is better because you're in it. It had my signature and $1,000.

  Mitchell looked up after reading the card and smiled. “Man, that's real nice. Thanks brother.”

  I replied, “No thank you.”shaking his hand. I continued by asking, “Can you do me a favor? I know you're heading back to Peru and I know Dakarai and Parnell are on that side of the Atlantic but I have no idea what the postage rate is. Do you think you can you drop these in the mail when you land, please?”

  He put his hand on my shoulder, smiled and exclaimed, “Are you kidding me? For this kind of celebration, I'll hand deliver them. That’s what family does.”

  I smiled, “Thanks Mitchell. Hey man, enjoy your flight. We’ve gotta game to catch.” Mitchell smiled with tears in his eyes, “Thanks Orion. And C, man, Merry Christmas man, thank you guys.”

  “No problem. Merry Christmas.” C reluctantly smiled.

  While we were walking back into the airport parking lot, C looked at me. “We just gave that man a thousand dollars, for what Bro?”

  I shook my head and put my hand on his shoulder, “C, I didn just give him a grand, I gave everybody who was not a low-level worker a grand.”

  “Yo, Orion that’s like 10 million dollars!”

  “No, it's exactly 10 million dollars but thanks to our friend at Circuit City we had an extra few million layin’ around.” I chuckled

  He shrugged concerned, “So you just gave it away?”

  “I didn' just give it away C, I hand delivered it, or it was hand delivered to everyone but not just to give away; to do two things: first, to let everybody know that in order to lead a family you have to be thankful for it and they have to know they are part of it and hopefully that has a trickledown effect to their workers. The second reason: every single card has the address in which they lay their head at night and I signed it. That means everybody who got a card from me understands that I now know where they all call home. You understand now C?” I smiled and waited.

  C shouted, “Oh shit man! That’s next level! Yo, did J teach you that?”

  I smiled shaking my head, “That's all me brotha.”

  He laughed, “Well now that school is out, can we get to the game?”

  “Hold on, we didn’ just come to this big ass airport to deliver a card, you see that right there?” I pointed to Belle walking towards us

  “Oh damn! Why she all dressed up?”

  “Because in New York City if you send a pretty girl with her legs showin and looking professional to hand deliver two Christmas cards, no one questions why she's walkin’ through the building.” I kissed Belle and turned back to C,

  “Now, grab that bag and let's go enjoy this game.”

  Chapter 14

  The game was eventful and the Bulls delivered as always. C was like a kid in a candy store. (all he ever talks about is basketball and boxing.) We got back in the limo to head to the airport and sitting in the seat was a basketball signed by the entire team addressed to Mister Malcolm Junior. C was ecstatic and he jumped across the car hugging both of us.

  “Man, y'all are great!”

  I looked over at Belle a
nd whispered, “What do you want for Christmas?” She smiled, “I have all I want for Christmas right here beside me- and a little crazy across from me.”

  She smiled looking over at C hugging the basketball and then turned back to me. She kissed me softly as I slipped a box from Tiffany's in her hands and I could feel her smile interrupt our kiss. C sat back in his chair and joked, “Well damn, I guess my New Year's ring side tickets in Vegas aren't even gonna compare now.”

  Bell and I broke our kiss and the three of us laughed as the limo drove us into the hangar.

  ***

  I walked in to check on Pops in his office and I barely closed the door before he started in on me. “Son I just got an invitation for a groundbreaking on a stadium in my name at the new high school. What the hell are you doin’?”

  “Pops, Houston is my home. It’s all I've ever known and I can't just be walkin’ around like it doesn' mean anything. There’re people dyin’ in the projects, not because of the stupid shit they choose to do but because of the livin’ conditions. I started this project with a bunch of connections from our companies and bought most of the slumlord projects, then I offered good money and got some contractors that are going to remodel the buildings and if it's out of code, they're just gonna to tear it down and rebuild it.”

  “What about the people?” Pops asked.

  I walked over to his side of the desk and sat down.

  “That's the crazy thing about it, I’m offerin’ summer jobs to the kids and Pops they’re gonna get paid. If anyone's unemployed and wants to work they’ll get paid. For those that live in the places bein’ fixed up if they want to learn a skill or just help with their own place they can live rent free while it’s being worked on, but if they want to help the entire project, I'm droppin’ two years of rent off their lease. The hood will build itself Pops.”