5 Minutes and 42 Seconds (16 page)

“Not on the run, huh?”

“You got me,” he says quickly and dryly. “When's the train?” he repeats.

“Train to anywhere?”

“Yeah, anywhere!” Smokey yells, then looks around to make sure he hasn't drawn too much attention to himself. He calms his voice and says, “I can get to New York from wherever I go next, but I gotta get the fuck out of here—now.”

She smiles and begins typing on her keyboard. “So what did you do?”

Smokey hopes the question is rhetorical, but she looks him in the eye, expecting an answer.

“I just gotta go. Look, I ain't got time.”

“All right, all right. Let me stop being nosy.” She taps a nail on one key on her keyboard; taps it over and over again. The sound begins to drive Smokey crazy, and he has to fight the urge to reach across the counter and choke her for being so annoying. He's about to yell at her when she finally gives him the information he's after.

“The next train goes to Boston—in five minutes.”

“All right, Boston. Boston's what's up. That's all out of the way and shit. They ain't gonna think I went there.”

“Nope.”

“That's good lookin' out,” says Smokey.

“Thank you,” says the woman, flashing him every single tooth in her mouth as she speaks.

Smokey sees her making googly eyes at him but ignores her. “How much?” he asks.

“A hundred and five. I guess you don't want me to check your ID, huh?”

“Nope,” he says, smiling in a way he knows will show off his dimples as he digs through his wallet.

The woman laughs. “I'll give you a pass from the stop before to make it seem like you've already been on board.”

“Thanks,” says Smokey, trying to concentrate on counting his money. Only twenty-four dollars. He looks down at the suitcase, then back up at the woman. He doesn't want her to see the money and start wanting a share. She seemed nice enough, but you never know what people will do when it comes to money.

“What?” asks the woman. Smokey can tell she thinks he's looking at her because she's pretty, from the way she twinkles her finger around in her short but stylish hair.

“I need you to look away.”

“Why? You got somebody in there or something?”

“Just look away,” says Smokey, flashing her the smile with the dimples again, the one that always worked with Dream.

“I want to see,” says the woman with an insistence that catches Smokey by surprise. She leans over the counter and whispers, “Unzip. I ain't gonna tell nobody.”

Not having any other choice, Smokey agrees. He unzips the suitcase and screams. He ramshacks the suitcase for the money, and hundreds of gay porn magazines fall onto the floor of the train station.

X
ander hangs up
and calls Fashad, whom he has on speed-dial.

“What?” answers Fashad.

“We need to talk.”

“You always say ‘We need to talk,'” says Fashad. “We don't need to
talk
about nothing. You are not the person I talk to.”

Xander ignores Fashad's disrespect because he knows it's just Fashad's way of saying I love you. “Who
do
you talk to, then? Everybody's got to talk to somebody,” he says smugly, baiting Fashad.

“My wife. I'm married, Xander.”

“Happily?” he asks, baiting him even more.

“Damn skippy.”

“That's not what I heard,” says Xander, going in for the kill. He waits for Fashad to respond, but hears nothing but
breathing on the other side of the line. So he repeats, “I saaaaaaaaaaaaid, that's not what I heeeeeard!”

“Oh, I'm sorry. Was I sposed to care or something?” asks Fashad sarcastically. “All right, Xander, what did you hear?”

“I heard you and Cameisha never talk. I heard she knows you been messin' around on her and don't like it one bit. I heard she asked you about it yesterday, jumped an attitude, and planted white roses instead of red ones.”

“Who you hear that from?” says Fashad, interested all of a sudden.

“I got my sources,” says Xander, pleased to let Fashad know he's not the only one who can be mysteriously in the know.

“No, fuck that!” yells Fashad. “You ain't Barbara Walters. Who you
hear
that from?”

“Cocoa,” Xander blurted out, feeling threatened.

“Who?”

“Cocoa Dupree,” says Xander, giving Fashad his drag name.

“That name does sound familiar…,” says Fashad.

“Her and Cameisha are best friends now,” adds Xander, a little relieved.

“Cameisha got a friend?” he asks, sounding pleased and surprised. He pauses in contemplation, then continues, but skeptically. “Since when?”

“Since, like three or four
years
ago,” he says condescendingly.

“And you just now telling me this!” yells Fashad.

“I thought your wife was the person you talked to,” says Xander smugly.

“She is.”

“Well, I guess both of you got some pretty big things you don't talk about, then, because she's about to turn you in.”

“What?” he asks, trying to sound detached.

It pains Xander to be the one to tell him, but it's for his own good. For their own good. If he doesn't tell Fashad what Cameisha's planning how will Fashad ever see that she's just not the one? That he and Fashad are soul mates.

“As soon as you drop off the last bit of money around four this afternoon, she's going to let the cops in without a warrant to search.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Don't believe me, then. I guess I'll see you every other Saturday,” says Xander, flinching because it's the most disrespectful thing he's ever said to Fashad.

“Don't get smart,” says Fashad. His voice breaks as he speaks, and now Xander knows Fashad believes him.

“So what you going to do?” asks Xander.

“I'm going to get rid of the shit myself,” he answers.

“That ain't gonna be enough.”

“Why?”

“She's going to testify against you.”

“A wife doesn't have to testify against her husband,” says Fashad

“She doesn't
have
to, but she can if she
wants
to. And trust me, Cameisha
wants
to,” says Xander forcefully, then thinking better of it, adds, “At least that's what I heard.”

Fashad says nothing.

“If she don't get you this time, she'll get you the next. You got to leave her. We got to leave the state,” suggests Xander.

“We?” says Fashad. Xander can hear the engine stopping in the background and knows Fashad's just pulled into the driveway.

“Yes, we—and now ain't the time for that ‘I ain't gay' shit. We got to get that shit out of the house, and go.”

“We?”

“I'm right around the block from your house.”

“Stay away!” says Fashad. “I told you never to come back.”

“If someone sees me, I'm one of your dealers,” says Xander.

“There ain't no fags in my business.”

“I look straight today,” says Xander lying through his teeth, and knowing Fashad would be mad at him for it. He also knows Fashad needs his help; besides, he has to be there when Fashad finally lets her have it.

Xander screeches down the road and parks on the curb. He gets out, wearing a tight pink shirt and some jeans he ripped himself. Fashad looks at him in disgust. Xander sees him out of the corner of his eye but walks toward the house, ignoring him. Fashad grabs him violently by the shoulders.

“You better not say nothing about nothing,” says Fashad, making sure Xander is looking him directly in the eye. Fashad nods his head and Xander follows. Fashad opens the trunk of his car and pulls out a suitcase.

“What's in there?” asks Xander

“A message,” he answers cryptically.

“You knew this was going to happen someday, didn't you?”

“I guess.”

“So why did you wait on it? Why didn't you take all your shit and put it with me where it's safe?”

“Because it's not sposed to be with you, it's sposed to be
with my wife,” says Fashad, agitated by the mere question. Xander doesn't know if Fashad is still talking about the yayo and the money or his heart.

“Besides,” adds Fashad, “maybe I deserve it.”

“You don't des—” Xander begins before Fashad interrupts with a
shush.

“When we go inside I'm going to check and see if anybody's in the living room. When the coast is clear, you're gonna take a right. You'll see a big old TV with a plant on top of it. Move the plant, then take the lid off of the TV. There's going to be a suitcase full of money in there. All you got to do is take this suitcase and switch it with the one in there.”

“Okay.”

Fashad goes in and looks. He nods his head, then cues Xander in the direction of the TV room. Xander points to the room, silently asking Fashad whether or not it's the right one—as if he hasn't sat in that room hundreds of times before. He bangs the suitcase on the couch, and Fashad shushes him again.

“Sorry,” says Xander, cursing himself for not taking advantage of the only time Fashad's ever asked him to do anything that didn't involve sucking or licking. “Now what?” he asks, after switching suitcases.

“Put it in the trunk,” whispers Fashad.

Xander closes the door quietly and carries the suitcase to the car.

Once he reaches the cars, he realizes he doesn't know which car Fashad meant. Xander figures Fashad probably meant his own, but he can't open Fashad's trunk without Fashad's key. Xander puts the suitcase in his own trunk,
then goes back in to tell Fashad what he's done because he doesn't want to seem like he's trying to pull a stunt like Cameisha's. He knows Fashad will be angry that he came back inside the house but also knows that he spends more time inside the house than Fashad does.

If anyone sees him he'll pretend he's there to visit with Cameisha. He figures Fashad's upstairs and begins to turn the corner to meet with him when he sees Dream in the garden on the side of the house—setting it on fire. Xander's jaw drops in shock.
This bitch is crazier than her momma. I guess she really was heated over Cameisha tellin' her that her nigga wasn't shit.
Amused with himself, Xander giggles.
That's what Cameisha get. She should have been worried about taking care of her own man.

Xander starts to walk up the steps but hears footsteps stumbling up above him. He knows it's Cameisha by the clank of her stilettos. At first he decides to tell her he lost something when he was there earlier and simply came back for it, but just before Cameisha turns the corner of the winding staircase he decides to duck and hide behind the stairs, because he can't risk Fashad hearing him and Cameisha being buddy-buddy.

From his crouched position underneath the stairs, he peeks out into the TV room, hoping that no one will sit there. He sees Dream running in from the garden and pouring herself a glass of champagne. She sits down on the couch in front of the old TV. The smoke has thickened, but he sees Cameisha entering the room out of the corner of his eye. Dream tells her mother the garden's on fire, and Cameisha
races to the garden, going ballistic. As soon as she leaves, Dream goes into the garage.

A couple of seconds later Fashad comes down the steps. Xander assumes Fashad's flushed everything because he walks out the door looking pretty calm. He takes a look outside, and then walks back in the house looking startled, probably terrified at the possibility that Xander is somewhere telling Cameisha everything. Xander whispers to him from underneath the stairwell, “Fashad, Fashad, down here.”

Fashad sees him and is about to call his name when Dream screams so loudly they can hear it between the blares of the fire alarm. Xander looks to his left and sees her staring at Fashad suspiciously. Suspiciously, Fashad stares back before pretending to walk out the door. As soon as Dream goes back into the garage, he turns and looks at Xander.

“Come on!” mouths Fashad, not bothering to yell over the fire alarm. He walks out and Xander gets up from beneath the staircase. Xander looks to his left and sees the garage door open, so he runs into the living room. He kneels and peeks around the corner, waiting on Dream to leave, and sees a suitcase. She walks over, and trades the suitcase Fashad gave him to switch with a fake suitcase of her own. First Xander is shocked by her cunning, then outraged by her deceit. But more than anything he's sympathetic. He reasons Dream must be getting mind-fucked by the boy Cameisha doesn't like. She's supposed to take the money to him, and wonders what he's going to do when he sees there is no money. Xander figures he'll probably break her legs, but he's sure he'll break her heart.

Xander wants to run to Dream and hug her, to console her, because he feels the two of them are victims of a common social taboo. Dream is in a so-called unhealthy relationship because her man is using her for money. Xander is in one because his man is married with children. He wants to tell her how he's learned that there's no such thing as healthy and unhealthy, just happy and miserable. That whenever someone calls someone else's relationship unhealthy, they're jealous because their own “healthy” relationship is miserable.

Dream takes Fashad's suitcase and disappears into the garage. Xander is still sitting in shock when Fashad comes back inside. “What the fuck are you still doing here?” whispers Fashad, angrily enunciating each syllable.

“I was just—”

“Just hurry up before Cameisha see you,” he says, although Xander can barely hear him over the fire alarm.

Xander doesn't want Cameisha to see him in the house, because she would make their friendship known to Fashad; but what he doesn't understand is why Fashad is hiding. The way Xander sees it, Fashad has every right to take his own money, and flush his own cocaine, anytime he pleases.

“What happens if she does see us?
She's
the one that did
you
wrong,” says Xander, not bothering to whisper.

Fashad shushes him and motions for him to come on, without answering the question.

Xander begins to walk out just as Taj and JD come down the stairs. He turns his head quickly, hoping they don't notice him.

“Daddy, what's going on?” asks one of them.

“It's the garden. Go in the backyard and practice your layups until somebody tells you it's safe to come back inside.”

“Who's that man?” asks JD.

Xander turns his head even more, and closes his eyes, as if JD won't see him if he can't see JD.

“No one,” says Fashad.

“Is he a fireman?” asks Taj.

“Didn't I tell you to go play basketball outside?” commands Fashad, sweat pouring down his face.

“But, Daddy, I'm scared,” says Taj.

“Go find your mother, then,” orders Fashad without thinking, as if she were the answer to all their fears.

The boys leave, then Fashad and Xander walk to their cars as discreetly as possible. The two-car entourage drives away from the home as the trumpet sounds, making it sound like a decrescendo.

 

X
ander pulls into the parking lot
of his apartment building and Fashad pulls up right behind him. Xander gets out, and Fashad does the same, except his motor is still running.

“Is it in your trunk or mine?” asks Fashad.

“Mine.”

“Good. Take it inside and put it somewhere safe until things calm down between me and Cameisha.

“What?”
Xander's blood begins to rise, and he knows he's about to go off on Fashad for the first time. Still, he wants to make sure he heard Fashad correctly.

“Put it somewhere safe.”

“After that.”

“Until me and Cameisha work things out.”

“What?”

“Did I stutter, dumbass?” asks Fashad.

“I know you are not about to go back to that bitch after what she tried to do to you!”

Fashad pauses to walk over to the car, he turns off the engine, and walks over toward Xander. “Me and Cameisha just talked…She is my wife.”

“You talked when? After she blew the trumpet and tried to turn you in?”

“Yes. She called me when I was on my way over.”

“Saying what?”

“Saying that she couldn't go through with it.”

“It's a trick.”

“No it's not.”

“How you know?” asks Xander. “You wouldn't have even been able to get that shit out if it wasn't for me. Now that there wasn't anything to find, how you know she ain't just trying to backtrack.”