A Deeper Love Inside (26 page)

All my little mind was thinking was, before what? Before what? Before what?

They say a person’s first time at anything good is the best feeling in the world, a strong high, a feeling a girl or guy would chase forever. I wasn’t sure if that’s the truth, but I know all of the first-time good feelings I had in those forty days made me feel good enough to stay alive, become strong, and smile for more than a few quick seconds.

• • •

In the parking lot, we were leaning over and looking inside the Volvo right before the automatic lock opened. Me and Riot got in.

“Honey, you got everything?” Riot asked.

“Yep, right from the dollar store,” she answered.

“Pop the trunk,” Riot told her. Me and Riot both got back out.

“Baseball bats?” was the first thing out of my mouth.

“Just in case, you never know. We might have to knock somebody out. I’m not holding. Bats are legal,” Riot said in complete seriousness.

“A beachball, a baseball, a water cooler, a flashlight, a jump rope, a grill for two . . .,” I laughed. “A box of matches, charcoal, and a bunch of boxes of pampers. Pampers!” I said, pointing.

When I looked inside one of the pamper boxes, there were neatly packed and stacked cartons of cigarettes from the reservation and not diapers.

“You remembered.” I clapped for Riot. I liked that she listened to what I suggested even though I was younger. Riot didn’t smile. She was serious like how she is on any mission. Before closing the trunk she showed me a small shopping bag, which held a sack which held a clay pot. “A gift for you from NanaAnna,” Riot said. My eyes welled up with tears.

Inside the car Riot checked under both seats in back, then in front under the driver’s seat. Honey lifted her legs for her.

“Damn, don’t you trust me?” Honey asked her.

“Let’s go,” was all that Riot replied. I understood.

I thought to myself,
Poppa would say, “Always be good to a good worker and a good customer.”

But Momma would say, “Never trust a fucking dope fiend crack head!”
Now the Volvo was moving down the road.

Chapter 24

Almost seven hours. Of course, I slept some. Funny thing, it was only when the car stopped that I would wake up. When we stopped at the gas station, me and Siri stayed laying down on the back seat on purpose. Riot stayed seated in the car while Honey raced around pumping gas, going inside paying and coming out with a coffee cup bigger than her head and a few chips and sweets.

Riot and I was camera shy. Or should I say we were camera smart. Same as she never stepped foot inside the casino because of cameras, and wouldn’t take me to the nearest mall because of cameras. She also wouldn’t let us enter the service stations or the rest stops heading home. I’ll tell you one thing, we were definitely going shopping at Macy’s on Thirty-Fourth Street in Manhattan across the street from Madison Garden, a place that was crystal clear in my memories. I chose the place. We figured they had cameras also, but Riot said she agreed to it because “New York got ten million people and nobody gives a fuck about anything except money. So, as long as we’re not stealing (and we
are not stealing
) nobody will look twice at two white girls shopping with their pretty black daughter. I had switched from being her son to becoming their daughter. A cokehead blonde, with a blonde-head girl dressed as a boy, posing as the cokehead’s husband and their pretty black daughter, whatever. Me and Siri were already unbraiding my Allen Iverson, long front-to-back braided boy hairstyle. I was lying in the back turning from a caterpillar to a butterfly. We had agreed I would blossom soon as we seen the city lights.

• • •

We parked at an extra expensive pay lot down the block from Macy’s. I could’ve copped a pair of kicks for the amount of that rip off parking fee. We had to park there. It was Friday night. Cars of every make were circling Madison Square Garden looking for parking. Every other nearby lot was filled. All the streets surrounding the famous
Macy store said no parking, no standing, and no stopping with threats of seizing vehicles. Cops were stationed here and there, sitting and reclining and snacking in their cruisers. Tow trucks were laying and waiting for victims.

“Give me your handbag,” Riot said to Honey.

“Why? Okay . . .” Honey handed it over. “There’s no money in it.” Honey laughed like,
gotcha.

“I know. I have all the money,” Riot checked her.

“You promised . . .,” Honey said in a teasing voice.

Riot gave her 150 dollars—one one-hundred and one fifty-dollar bill. I couldn’t believe the high price Honey had obviously demanded for driving us down, and driving her and Riot back upstate. That was three days on our knees picking strawberries for eighteen hours!

I began to hope Riot wouldn’t blow the five-thousand dollars I was investing on this “money chick”!

“Stay by my side while we shop. Don’t go nowhere,” Riot told Honey.

“I won’t. I’m so excited. This is my first New York visit. We’re close to the famous Forty-second Street. We gotta go there!” Honey said.

“We gotta get the kid some clothes. I told you that already.”

We weren’t shopping thirty minutes before Honey disappeared.

“I gotta pee . . .” was all I heard her say.

Riot stayed by the rack where I was flipping through dresses instead of following Honey to the restroom. She didn’t even glance at her as she left.

“You better follow her,” Siri whispered. Riot didn’t budge.

An hour later we were done with our Macy’s shopping. Even Riot had picked out a few items.

“What about Honey?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about her,” Riot said casually.

In a nearby Foot Locker I chose some kicks, and got an overpriced pair of tennis socks with a fuzzy white ball on the back of my ankle.

“Do you mind if I change in there,” I pointed, asking the Foot Locker salesman, a young dude. “We got a birthday party to go to.” I smiled. He agreed.

• • •

Riot smiled. “You look nice, like a different person.”

She was right. Fashion makes a pretty face and figure go from gray to fluorescent. In my new neon green Airmax, my feet lit up. My denim Guess dress stitched to my young shape. I was feeling nice about myself.

• • •

In McDonald’s I stood at the register ordering our food. Riot went to the bathroom. One side of my mind was asking me,
What if she doesn’t come back?
I felt a little panic easing into me. I kept my eyes on the bathroom door and turned away from the register and cashier, waiting.

“That’s $8.25,” the cashier said with an attitude as though she was repeating the price for the tenth time.

“One minute,” I told her, reaching into my side pouch. I counted the money, my eyes checking the amount, bouncing back to the door. I couldn’t let Riot slip past me.

“Here go your change, take it,” the cashier based. She turned around, grabbed my white bag off of the back stainless steel counter, and turned back towards me, plopping it down. As I walked towards the bathroom with the bag in one hand, orange juice in the other, Riot came out wearing a dress like mine, and some pink ACG kicks. She was a girl. I could tell she had wet her hair and combed it down into a short bob.

“I can blow-dry it some more with the McDonald’s hand dryer. Check me out. How am I looking?” She smiled a free and soft and pretty smile, like she had finally taken a brief break from her constant calculations.

My green-eyed Diamond Needle was a pretty butterfly. As we walked back to the parking lot where the car was, I thought of Lina. I always wanted to walk down the street with twelve Diamond Needles in a row fluttering. But I especially wanted to walk besides Riot and Lina and Rose Marie.

“What about Lina?” I asked Riot as we walked. There was silence for a long while.

“She didn’t escape like us,” Riot said. “She had already served out the majority of her time. She’ll be home before Christmas.”

Riot handed the man the ticket. We stood to the side while he pulled our Volvo out. I didn’t say anything. I know Riot was the queen of plans. I figured Honey would roll right up, on time.

“Get in,” Riot said to me.

I climbed in the back. Riot got in on the driver’s seat, pulled the gear into drive and pulled out towards the down-ramp that led to the street. We waited there. I was looking left and right for Honey. Riot opened Honey’s handbag, opened her wallet, then laid it on the seat. She pulled out a napkin and Honey’s lipgloss. She used the napkin to clean off a layer of the gloss, then stuck one finger in and spread it on her lips. She took out a case of colored powder and dabbed on some eye shadow. She then lined her eye with heavy black eye liner. A car honked behind us, as she was finishing up. She pulled out into the crowded New York streets.

“A promise is a promise,” she said. “Let’s go.” She turned on the music.

At the red light she opened the map. We were on our way to my house. It was 7:15 p.m.

• • •

The Dix Hill, Long Island, nights were dark. I remember Winter lying on our palace roof facing the sky, puffing a blunt. As we weaved around the jigsaw curved corners, one ways, dead ends, and alcoves, all of the street signs said no parking after 6:00 p.m. It’s an exclusive neighborhood. Every resident owned luxury vehicles and had long winding, gated driveways to park themselves, their relatives, and guests easily. Any car lurking on the main streets instead of parking on the private properties would raise suspicion.

“It’s there!” I said, excited. “That’s my house! Stop the car!”

“I see but . . . I can’t just let you off. I gotta park and make sure you’re alright,” Riot said, moving slowly on past my house.

“I’ll jump out,” I said, with my hand on the handle.

“Please don’t! Give me two minutes,” Riot said.

Around a couple of neighborhood corners, she found a house that was obviously under renovation. Where there was supposed to be grass, there was dirt. A Porta-Potty was plopped down to the side.

“There’s a sign,” Riot said laughing. “You know we gotta trust the
Porta-Potty!” She pulled in and parked the car on what seemed like an empty property. We both got out.

“We’ll walk,” she said. “Don’t forget nothing in the backseat.”

“I got everything,” I assured her.

She unlocked the trunk, grabbed the flashlight, and dropped it into her side pouch. She was also clutching Honey’s handbag.

With each step closer to Momma, I felt my heart pound. It felt like what a heart attack should feel like, I thought. And I felt like I had to pee. Instead of being a beautiful butterly, I felt like the butterflies were in my empty stomach. My stomach rumbled. We both laughed lightly, nervously. Neither one of us had touched the McDonald’s. Guess we bought it for show.

My driveway was gated up and locked. We walked past to the smaller gate that led to the walkway to my house. A metal plate lodged into the bricks had some words engraved on it. We stepped in closer: mario and maria schettini residences.

“Mario and Maria Schettini?” Riot read aloud. “Are you sure this is the right address?” she asked, turning to me. That’s when she saw my tears and my face, which was the face of a girl who was 100 percent certain.

“C’mon, we can’t just stand around like this,” Riot warned.

But I couldn’t move.

“C’mon, Porsche. We’ll put together a plan B,” Riot said.

I walked to the mailbox and reached in the mail hole.

“Don’t put your fingerprints on nothing,” Riot warned.

I pulled out a flyer from a pizza delivery place. All it said was “Resident” and it had the right address on it, my Long Island address that was engraved in my memory. The same address I had recited out loud a hundred times to Ms. Griswaldi, the kidnapper caseworker. I walked to the closed gates that stretched across our driveway. I looked
up the driveway for Momma’s red Mercedes Benz or any fly ass whip I would recognize as Momma’s, or maybe Winter had her own ride by now. Either no one was home, or the cars were parked round back.

“Where are you going now?” Riot asked.

“To the other side where my money tree is at,” I told her. She followed me.

Soon as I rounded the corner to the other side I could hear the thunder, then the rumble of a pack of high-speed dogs charging in our direction. At the same time, a bright spotlight came on, piercing through the night darkness.

“Let’s be out,” Riot said. I didn’t move. I wasn’t afraid of dogs, and I knew Riot wasn’t either.

“Those are motion lights. They’ll know someone is near their yard!”

They were stuffing their faces between the iron bars barking hatred, flashing fangs and spilling spit. Riot grabbed my little hand and yanked me. “Four German Shepherds, they might even be police dogs,” she said as she pulled me away. After we got off my block, we ran a block before we slowed down to walking like nothing happened.

Inside the Volvo, rolling in reverse, I yelled, “We gotta get my money tree!”

“Porsche, take a deep breath. Slow it down some,” Riot said. “We gotta get moving. In neighborhoods like these you never know who’s watching.”

She was almost on the Long Island Expressway.

“Please, take me to Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn,” I said.

“I don’t know the way there,” Riot said.

“Use the map!” I yelled. I was hurting.

Chapter 25

Could I read faces four years later? That’s how long it had been since I stepped foot in Brooklyn. I knew the exact location and addresses of every one of my relatives, especially Momma’s sisters. I even still knew some of their phone numbers by heart. They were the same numbers on my emergency contact list at school. I knew my sister’s friends and definitely where Natalie’s apartment was at, although she used to be all up in our place.

Crazy, soon as I got on my block, it looked unfamiliar, smaller, dirtier but still busy and noisy. Me and Riot stood still for some seconds as people passed by us this way and that.

“Can you still trust whoever’s apartment you think you’re going to?” Riot asked, still looking calm although she was the only white girl on the streets of Bed-Sty at 10:30 p.m.