At the Crossroads (13 page)

Franky couldn’t help but smile. This was great news. He didn’t care how they got Stick to confess as long as his cousin wasn’t facing a murder charge.

“What’s up with this young lady who has your nose all open?” Nigel asked.

“Yeah.” Franky smiled. “She’s cool.”

“She’s cool,” Nigel said sarcastically. “Yeah, right. She’s more than cool. Got my lil cuz cheesing from ear to ear. Look at you. It’s all good, whoadie. I like love.”

“I got my classes changed, too. I’m out of the dumb group. And my new classes are a whole lot more like real school.”

“What were the other ones like?”

“A zoo. They had had so many clowns in there that the teacher couldn’t teach. All she did was fuss at fools all day. I’m still tryna figure out why getting a laugh is so important to them.”

“That’s just how it is, whoadie,” Nigel said. “Ya see, Uncle Frank always stressed education to you, so you look at it differently than these kids. Most of these ghetto kids wasn’t raised like that. They go to school just to get out of da house. And you gotta understand that life is hard in the ghetto, so when they get a chance to have some fun, theydo it. If you ain’t never had nobody tell you how to be a student, you won’t know how. And by the time they get to high school, it’s a wrap. Too late.”

“Yeah, well, thank God for my mom and dad,” Franky said.

“Yeah,” Nigel said. “The good Lord looked out for you. I’m proud of you, whoadie. We should’ve got you back in school a long time ago.”

“Yeah, but it’s cool. I’m gonna be playing football, too,” Franky said.

“What position they gonna put you at?”

“I don’t know,” Franky said. “Been so long since I played I might be the water boy.”

“Nah. Our family is full of athletes. My daddy played, yo daddy played, I even heard our granddaddy played baseball, and all of us played. So you’ll be fine, whoadie.”

Nigel’s name was called, and he shot his head around and looked at the huge guard whose shirt was far too tight.

“What’s up?” Nigel said with a frown.

“Visit is over,” the guard said with a smirk on his face. “Time’s up.”

“Are you serious? My people just got here,” Nigel protested. “I’m talking not even five minutes.”

“Time’s up,” the guard barked as his smile was replaced by a menacing scowl. “You can get up or I can come help you up.”

“I think I’ma need a lil help,” Nigel snapped, finally showing the signs of a man stressed out from being wrongly incarcerated.

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” the guard said, walking toward Nigel. “That can be painful.”

“Painful for you, potna,” Nigel said. “I’m begging you to put your hands on me.”

“Nigel,” Franky called out. “Just go, man. It’s okay. We’ll be back up here to see you tomorrow.”

The guard walked over and stood behind Nigel. He cracked his knuckles. “Get up, punk,” the guard said.

Franky’s heart skipped a beat. He knew his cousin wasn’t the type of guy to let this kind of disrespect slide. He also knew he wasn’t going to just sit there and get beat up. This was going to be a fight—a very brutal fight—because although Nigel was easygoing, he was hell on wheels once his temper got the best of him. And all that meant was there would be more charges added onto the bogus ones he already had.

Nigel stood and faced the guard. Both men’s eyes blazed and they sized each other up.

The guard held out both of his hands as if to ask Nigel what he was going to do.

Nigel didn’t say anything, nor did he move one step back. His chest was rising and falling at a rapid pace.

“Get your butt outta here and go pack your things,” the guard said. “You outta here.”

“What?” Nigel asked, still on edge. “What did you just say?”

“Don’t ask questions, Bourgeois,” the guard said with a smile. “Just get your tail up outta here before I tell them to lose your paperwork. You know it’ll take another two or three days before we get around to finding it. Then you’ll be stuck in here with me.”

“Don’t want that,” Nigel said.

“Wait a minute,” the guard said. “How you gonna try to fight me? I thought we were cool?”

“We’re cool, man,” Nigel said, smiling and shaking the guard’s hand. “We’re cooler than a fan.”

“I guess the clown who did that crime they had you in here for decided to find Jesus. He singing like a bird, but on himself. In all my years of being a CO, I never seen anything like it. The boy is shook. Something got him scared out of his mind,” the guard said.

Nigel smiled, turned to Franky, and said, “Geechie girl got him.”

Franky sat there with his mouth open. He was stunned as he watched his cousin slap the guard on the back and walk out of the side door.

Franky pulled himself together and stood. He walked over to the big orange door that he had just entered and pressed the little silver button. The door clicked open, and he walked out. He was happy to be leaving this place but even happier that his cousin Nigel would be going with him.

F
ranky was sitting at the desk in Khadija’s mother’s office, which was really a converted bedroom, playing a game on his cell phone. Now that he had become business partners with Bubba and Nard, he had a few extra dollars to join the cellular crowd. They had just finished studying for their Spanish test and were trying to think of something else to do.

“I have an idea,” Khadija said, standing up from her position on the sofa by the window.

“What?”

“Let’s go out to Stone Mountain Park,” she suggested.

“What? Why?”

“Because you need to get in shape, dude. Coach English is no joke. And unless you want to be sitting on the bench the whole season, you need to get your butt in shape. You’re already behind the power curve, shawty.”

“Why can’t we just go over to the school and use the track?” Franky asked.

“Because we’re always at school, and I need a new scene. Have you ever been to Stone Mountain Park?”

“Nope,” he said.

“Then that’s a good enough reason. It’s five miles around the mountain, and it’s really pretty out there, lots of colorful flowers and everything,” she said.

Whenever Khadija said things like that, it always took him by surprise since his initial impression of her was that of a hard girl.

“Isn’t Stone Mountain supposed to be where those Ku Klux Klan fools live?”

“Man,” Khadija said, fanning him off. “That was back in the sixties. Like when my momma and daddy were two years old. You’d be hard pressed to find a white person out there now, let alone a Ku Klux Klan member. Stone Mountain has been blacked out.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I’m down like four flats,” Franky said. “I need to go home and change into some workout clothes.”

“Duh,” Khadija said, rolling her eyes. “I didn’t expect you to go running in those shell toes and skinny jeans. You would look like a complete fool.”

“You’re always getting smart with somebody,” he said, balling up a piece of paper and throwing it at her. He missed.

“I hope you’re not trying to play quarterback, throwing like that.”

Franky walked over and picked up the paper. He faked left, then right, and shot the paper in the wastebasket by the desk. “Five, four, three, two, one … swish,” he said with his hand up in the air with a follow-through as the wad of paper hit the bottom of the can. “Game. I need to play basketball. The game is sick.”

“Ahh,” Khadija said. “I’ve seen you play basketball, so … no, you don’t.”

Franky laughed. “Hater. I’m a little rusty but give me a lil bit of time, whoadie. I’ll be like Chris Paul up in there.”

Khadija looked at one of her many colorful G-Shock watches. “It’s almost one o’clock now,” she said. “I’ll meet you in front of the school in an hour. Then we can catch the train out to Stone Mountain. Is that cool?”

“Why can’t I just wait for you and we go together?” he said. “It’s not gonna take me that long to get dressed.”

“That’s fine. I’ll go get changed.”

“Five miles, Khadija? I need to ease into getting in shape. You’re tryna kill me.”

“No, I’m not,” she said. “Let me go get into my workout gear. I need to be back here by seven to eat.”

Franky walked over to his girlfriend, reached out, and gave her a hug. He liked touching her; he liked being in her presence. To put it plainly, he liked everything about her. As he held her in his arms, he looked down into her eyes. She stared back up at him and smiled.

“I have something to tell you,” he said with a serious expression on his face.

“What?” she asked with a worried one on hers.

“Your breath is kicking it,” he said, fanning his nose.

Khadija pulled away and punched him in the arm.

Franky rubbed his arm, getting the sting out. He looked at her and couldn’t stop smiling.

“Whatchu smiling about?” Khadija asked.

“You,” he said.

“Okay. Let me go get dressed, shawty.”

Finally. He was happy.

He was back in school, his cousin was home from jail,and he had the most popular female freshman at M&M High School as his girlfriend.

“What are you two lovely people doing in here?” Mrs. Davis, Khadija’s mom, said as she hurried into the office and searched her filing cabinet for something.

“We were studying, but now that we’re done, Mrs. Track Star over there wants to go running around Stone Mountain. And she said it’s five miles.”

“Yeah, but it’s a pretty five miles,” Mrs. Davis said. “Your dad is cooking out tonight, so make sure you’re back by six or seven,” she said to Khadija.

“I know,” she said.

“Well, make sure you’re not late since you know.”

“Franky, you are more than welcome to come back and have dinner with us.”

Mrs. Davis looked like an older version of her daughter. The only exception was she was lighter in complexion and a little heavier in the hips. She was cordial to Franky and seemed to be feeling him out.

“That sounds like music to my ears,” he said. “I doubt you’ll ever hear me turn down a home-cooked meal.”

“Good,” she said, and retrieved the paperwork she was trying to find, smiled at him and Khadija, then walked out.

Franky wished his parents could’ve met Khadija’s family. He could see all of them sitting on the deck of their huge house in New Orleans overlooking the water while his dad and Mr. Davis talked shop over a smoking grill. Khadija was exactly the kind of girl his dad talked about.

I like people who are from the hood but who never let the hood define them,
he would often say.

Khadija fit that bill. She was serious about her schoolwork and her future. She was truly her own woman, andher parents gave her lots of freedom because she had proved time and time again that she could handle it. Both of her parents were cool, but Mr. Davis treated Franky like he was a member of the family. Franky often felt like he was talking to his own dad when they sat around and had their chats. Mrs. Davis was a workaholic and had a mean streak in her, but there was no doubt how much she loved her children. She was an elementary school teacher but moonlighted as an income tax preparer. Mr. Davis was a military man and was often out of the country doing his soldier thing. They both had a love for football, and when Mr. Davis picked him up and took him to get his football physical, they were connected from that point on. Mr. Davis was a diehard University of Georgia fan and even named their family dog UGA.

Franky walked around the converted office and looked at the family pictures that lined the bookshelves. There were all kinds of pictures of Khadija in all phases of her life. He picked up a picture of Khadija taken when she was around four or five years old. Both of her front teeth were missing, yet she was smiling for the world to see. He smiled when he looked at her. She had a million and one different color beads in her hair. Times change but some things stay the same.

F
ranky and Khadija sat beside each other on the MARTA bus, laughing to themselves at the passengers. Khadija pointed out a man who was sitting across from them wearing a tight-fitting one-piece jumpsuit and some platform shoes that were straight out of the seventies. He was skinny and had on a large set of headphones that had probably been popular in the seventies as well.

“He has to be going to a party,” Khadija said. “Please tell me he’s going to a party and this is not his everyday attire.”

“I think the brother looks fly. Super Fly. I’ma get me one of those outfits for our prom.”

“Who you going with?”

“You,” Franky said.

Super Fly wasn’t paying them any attention. He was bobbing his head to the beat of whatever he was listening to. Then out of the blue, he yelled out the James Brown tune he was listening to, then started fanning himself.

“That’s right,” Khadija said, laughing. “Cool yoself down.”

“Go over there and wake up your auntie,” Franky said, nodding toward a woman who was asleep. Her large wig was tilted to the side, and she was nodding back and forth. Her mouth was open, and when her head tilted back too far, she would open her eyes, close her mouth, and look around to see who was watching.

They couldn’t control their laughter when she turned her attention to them. The old woman twisted up her lip and turned her body away from them in her seat.

The skinny singer’s song must’ve gotten good to him, and he yelled out another verse.

“He is killing that banana-yellow one-piece suit,” she said.

“Maybe he has a show. I don’t know—that’s your family,” Franky joked.

“He looks just like you,” Khadija said. “Look at his lips. Y’all gotta be related.”

“Then his Jheri curl juice is dripping on the seats,” Franky said. “He’s gonna mess around and make somebody slip and fall.”

They were enjoying themselves way too much and had just found another target to laugh at when the driver stopped, and it was time for them to get off. Franky gave the skinny singer a thumbs-up before exiting the bus.

“I’m glad you said good-bye to your people,” Khadija said. “You’re so polite, Franky.”

“Yeah,” Franky said. “My future uncle-in-law.”

They were laughing as if they didn’t have a care in the world when all of a sudden, Franky heard footsteps coming up behind them. Something told him to turn around, and just as he twisted his head to the left, a fist came flyingat his face. The blow landed flush between his eyes, knocking him off balance. He hit the ground, and his head slammed into the pavement. The pain was instant and caused him to temporarily black out. He heard Khadija yell and looked up to see her throwing wild punches and screaming profanities at her assailant. Then he didn’t hear her anymore and saw her fall backward. He tried to get up to help her, but his attackers were on him in no time. They were like a pack of hungry hyenas as they pummeled him from all angles. Fists with rings on them found his head, face, and chest. Steel-toed Timberland boots rained down on his back, legs, and buttocks. Franky was getting hit and kicked in every place imaginable, yet he kept his hands over his head. He counted three different people while covering himself. But as he was being pummeled by this pack of maniacs, his only concern was for Khadija. Where was she? He couldn’t see her anymore, and that caused him to panic, but every time he tried to get up, he was kicked and more punches battered his body. He tried to make out what the boys were saying while they attacked him, but nothing registered. He stayed covered up in the fetal position on the sidewalk and tried to wait out the assault. He saw his own blood on the pavement, but he couldn’t do anything but try to protect his head. He felt someone tugging at his pants pockets, and he was thankful that he had only ten dollars on him. He felt his cell phone leave his possession. There was a loud boom, and just as sudden as the assault started, it was over.