Bronxwood (18 page)

I go visit Troy at camp the next day like I said I would. It’s
raining and all the kids is playing inside. Just like before, Troy ain’t playing with nobody. He in the back of the room sitting and watching a cartoon on the TV with a couple other kids, but none of them is talking to each other.

I don’t know, but every time I see Troy he getting more and more quiet and to hisself. The agency sent him to this camp so he could make friends and have fun, but he just look bored and sad.

I sit with Troy for a little while, then when the commercial come on, I bring him over to the other side of the room so me and him can talk before Ms. Woods get there and bust me. The thing I wanna make sure he know is that, yeah, our pops is out and all that, but that don’t mean things is gonna change for him right now. He gonna hafta be chill where he at for a while.

But I don’t even get to say none of that ’cause when I ask Troy how he doing, he get real sad and say, “Ms. Woods.
She said, she told me that she gonna change my school. And I gotta go to another school where Ben and Dondre don’t go, and I ain’t gonna have no friends now.”

Fuck.

I gotta take a breath and not say something that’s only gonna make him more upset, if that’s possible. “She say why she wanna do that?”

“She said my first school is too far, and she said they got a school that’s really, really close, but I never seen it.”

My mind running, trying to think ’bout what I can do, if I can even do anything. “I’ma talk to Ms. Thomas,” I tell him. “You know, from the agency? I’ma try and fix this, a’ight?”

He nod, but I can tell he don’t think I can do nothing. And I don’t think so neither. But least I can try. I don’t want Troy to hafta start going to a whole ’notha school now with no friends. How many things gotta change in this kid life?

I don’t even get a chance to talk to him ’bout nothing else ’cause a couple seconds later I see Troy foster mother coming through the door on the other side of the gym. It’s only like a couple minutes after five. She musta got off work early or something. And ain’t nothing I can do now neither ’cause she looking right at me.

Ms. Woods come ’cross the gym, walking real fast. She fucking pissed, but damn, I’m like, I hope she don’t start nothing in front of all these kids. And I hope she don’t
say nothing that’s gonna make the counselors tell me I can’t come and see Troy no more.

When she get to us, she say, “Tyrell, what are you doing here?” She ain’t yelling or nothing. She look like she holding her anger inside.

“I came to see Troy,” I say. I mean, why else she think I’m there?

“Well, isn’t it enough to see him at the agency? Why do I bring him there if you’re just going to sneak behind my back and see him here?”

Troy look from her to me and back to her again. “What’s wrong?” he go.

“Nothing,” I say, staring at Ms. Woods.

I tell Troy to put the cartoon back on and that I’ma be over there in a second. When he run back to the TV, I say to Ms. Woods, “He my brother. Just ’cause the state took him away, you know that don’t mean I only wanna see my brother once a week.”

“I understand that, but you have to see things from my point of view. Troy’s been with me for a couple of months now and he’s adapting to life in my house, a home with structure. Then every week, I have to take him to the agency, and most of the time, before your father was released from prison, your mother wouldn’t even show up. And you weren’t there either. So I had to bring him home and deal with his disappointment. That wasn’t easy.”

Damn. Why she gotta make me feel guilty?

She keep on talking. “Now your father is out and you all are filling Troy’s head with promises, telling him he’s going home and making him think he doesn’t have to listen to me anymore. Now he’s disobedient and mad all the time. You know, Tyrell, we all have to work together here. I’m not working against you. We’re all doing this for Troy.”

“You doing this for Troy? Then why you changing his school? That ain’t gonna help him none. He ’bout to get put in the regular class, but if you move him, they pro’ly gonna keep him in special ed. That ain’t good for him.”

“Tyrell, I’m a working woman and I don’t have time to take him halfway across the Bronx every morning to get him to school. There’s a good school right near my apartment. And they have an after-school program with tutoring. It’s a good thing for him. Don’t worry.”

“He got friends at his old school, you know.”

“He’ll make new friends.”

I ain’t in the mood to fight with Ms. Woods, not here in front of all these kids. So I drop it. I go over and tell Troy I hafta go, but I’ma be back soon. No matter what Ms. Woods say, no way I’ma let her keep me from my brother.

I try calling Jasmine again ’cause I still ain’t heard from her, but her cell go to voicemail. She probably at work. Her boss don’t let her use her cell and she usually too busy for that
anyway. But I need to talk to her. This is stupid already. I need to know what’s going on between us.

So I walk a couple blocks even though it’s still raining and get on the bus and take it to the restaurant where she work at. The whole way there, I’m not sure why I’m even going there. Why she couldn’t just call me back yesterday? Why she ain’t acting like herself? Me and her used to be able to talk ’bout anything. Then we hooked up and now everything changed and I don’t know why.

On the bus, I try calling the first foster mother again, but the call go to voicemail and I leave another message, asking if she could call me back real soon. Damn. I don’t know why I can’t get ahold of her. I wish I knew her cell number. Time running out. I gotta get Troy outta Ms. Woods house before she put that school transfer through. Then it’s gonna be too late.

I get to Jasmine job at the Spanish restaurant and stand in the little waiting area for a couple minutes watching her work. She go by two tables smiling, checking to see if everybody okay, and then she go to another table and take the family orders. She look nice and she acting kinda friendly and everything, but something ’bout her is off. She acting kinda fake, you ask me. She just going through the motions.

Jasmine still don’t see me standing there, and after she take the people order and start to walk over by the counter, I whisper to her, “Jasmine.”

She turn ’round. “Ty? What? Why are you—?”

Weird thing is, she look kinda embarrassed or something. What, she don’t want me coming to her job no more? She don’t wanna be seen with me? “I ain’t heard from you, so I—”

“I’m sorry,” she go. “I know I didn’t call you back, but I, I’m just tired, you know. We took Yesenia back to Connecticut right after the party and stood there all day yesterday. Then we had to drive back real early this morning so Emil could get to work on time, and I had to come to work too.” She look down.

“What time you getting off?” I ask her. “’Cause I wanna talk to you.”

“I get off at seven, but Emil’s gonna pick me up on his way home from the gym, you know, because it’s raining. And he—”

“A’ight,” I say, and stand there waiting for her to say something, tell me she wanna spend time with me too.

But all she say is, “I gotta get back to work, Ty. I’ll call you when I get some free time.”

She give me a real fast hug and turn back and go to the counter. It take me, like, two, three minutes standing there before I get it.

I been dismissed.

I wake up hearing banging. Banging. lt’s Tuesday night –
nah, it’s Wednesday ’cause it’s something after three in the morning, and my first thought is that somebody musta broke into our place. Then I think somebody must be tryin’ to attack Cal again. I remember that Cal crashed on the couch, and I jump outta bed and run down the hall, ready to kick ass if I need to protect my friend.

But the apartment dark and the banging still happening on the other side of the door. I can tell there’s more than one person kicking ’cause no way one dude could kick that many times that fast. Even though it’s dark, I can see that Cal awake now too. “You know who out there?” I whisper to him.

“Nah.” He sit up straight. “What you think they want?”

“I don’t know.” But we both probably thinking the same thing — that they either the same dudes that attacked Cal last week or some other dudes that’s trying to rob the
apartment or something. They kicking so hard, for the first time I’m happy Andre put all them locks on the door.

When the kicking stop, I go closer to the door and look through the peephole to see who out there. I see two guys, both looking like they ’round twenty years old or something. I never seen them before so I know they ain’t from Bronxwood, but least they don’t got no weapons or nothing. Nothing I can see anyway. One of the guys see me and yell, “Where Greg? Get Greg.”

Me and Cal look at each other. I’m thinking, Greg? What they want Greg for? I mean, yeah, he the one that handle the stash, but what they think he got here?

Cal get up off the couch. It take him a while but he come over to the door and look through the peephole. He shake his head. “I don’t think they the dudes that, you know …” He stop talking.

I don’t know what to say neither. Or what to do ’bout this situation. “Greg here?” I ask.

“I think. All I know is before I went to sleep he was coming in and out all night. I don’t know what he was doing.”

Greg don’t never make no sense to me.

“I’ma wake him up,” Cal say and go down the hall. He still walking real slow, so it’s gonna take a while. I check the peephole again and the guys is still there. Matter of fact, one of them looking right at me. They know we in here and we just ignoring them.

I move away from the door just in case they do something stupid like shoot up the door or some shit. I don’t know what they want or what they ’bout to do. Wouldn’t be the first time somebody at Bronxwood got they door shot up.

Cal come back and say, “He coming.” And me and him wait.

Finally, I hear Greg door open and slam behind him, and he come down the hall. He musta been dead ’sleep ’cause half his face is dented in and shit. He look mad too, but what he want us to do? Not wake his ass up and let some dudes keep kicking our door all night? I don’t even get how he could sleep through all that noise. It probably woke up everybody on this floor. “What the fuck going on?” he ask. He mad but he whispering.

I shrug. “They want you.”

“Me? What for?”

The kicking start up again and I don’t know if it’s ’cause they heard Greg voice and know he up now or what. If it’s possible, the kicking even louder now. They wanna get in here. “Greg, you sure you don’t keep no weed or nothing in the apartment?”

“How many times you gonna ask me that, Ty? I told you. Everything at the stash house. We don’t even got no money.”

“Then why they here for? They must know something?”

“I ain’t lying to you,” Greg say. But this time, even though it’s half dark in here, I’m looking in his eyes, and I
know for a fact that he lying his ass off. Probably been lying this whole time.

And while I’m thinking ’bout it, and while I got the chance ’cause for the first time I ain’t hear him lock his door behind him, I take off running down the hall to his room so I could see for myself what he got in there.

When I push the door open all the way and flip the lights on, all I can say is, “Oh, shit,” ’cause Greg whole room full of drugs. Not weed though. All I see is plastic bags of pills, all kinda pills with different colors and shit. Dude got enough pills in here to — “You running a side business,” I say as Greg come up behind me. “You fucking—” Greg crash hisself into me and knock me down on the floor.

“Get outta here, Ty,” he say.

I jump up, ready to fight if he wanna. “How you gonna do this?” I ask him.

Cal finally get to the room and his face go from surprised to pissed in, like, two seconds. The first thing out his mouth is, “This the reason them dudes is out there? This the reason why you wasn’t where you was supposed to be when …” He shake his head. “You the brother they was talking about.” His eyes is like stabbing Greg. I ain’t never seen Cal this pissed. Never.

It all making sense now. Cal said they beat him up ’cause his brother was selling in somebody else hood. I thought they was talking ’bout Andre, but it wasn’t him.
“You a asshole, Greg,” I say. “’Cause of you, your brother almost was killed out there. How that make you feel?”

“I ain’t do nothing,” Greg say. “I’m just making my own money. You think I wanna work for Andre my whole life?”

“You were s’posed to be protecting Cal,” I say. “But you too busy—”

“You don’t know shit, Ty. Get the fuck out—”

That’s when Cal run up on him. I ain’t think he had the strength in him, but he must be working on crazy power or something ’cause he jump on Greg and knock him down and then Cal start swinging on his head. Hard. He ain’t playing neither.

But as much as I wanna see Greg get his ass kicked, I don’t wanna see Cal hurt hisself doing it. So I grab Cal under his arms and pull him up off Greg. “C’mon, man. C’mon.” He stronger than I think. “Cal, c’mon. You don’t wanna do this.”

“Yeah, I do.” He spittin’ mad.

I finally pull Cal off him and make him leave outta Greg room. The second we out, Greg slam and lock his door like, what’s the point now? We already know what he got going on in there. I take Cal back out to the living room real slow. I make him sit back down on the couch and go get him some Pepsi. He gotta calm down. Chill. Dude ribs ain’t even through being healed.

“I wanna kill him,” Cal say after a while.

“Me too.”

Good thing Greg locked his ass in his room ’cause it take a lot for me to not go back down the hall and give him a little of what Cal got from them dudes. But Cal sitting on the couch breathing hard and back in pain again, so for now I gotta look out for him. ’Cause nobody else gonna do that. Andre all talk, saying how they running a family business and they doing everything for everybody else. But that’s all bullshit.

They only looking out for theyself.