Bronxwood (19 page)

I couldn’t hardly sleep, even after them dudes left
and everything settled back down. Cal took one of his pain pills and passed out on the couch. And I went back to my room to try and sleep, but I was too pissed off for that. My brain couldn’t stop thinking ’bout the fact that Greg been lying all this time, telling us what we wanted to hear. And all this time, living here, I been putting my own freedom on the line for some shit Greg doing just for hisself.

The thing that I couldn’t stop thinking ’bout all night is, now that I know what’s going on here, what I’ma do ’bout it? Can’t stay here, I know that for a fact. But where I’m s’posed to go now?

I ain’t looking to up and leave Cal here with Greg by hisself. And I know Cal wouldn’t wanna be alone here neither. But everybody else looking out for theyself. Time I started doing that too.

I’m still dragging my ass ’round one in the afternoon
when Patrick come downstairs with his old-ass basketball, like, “C’mon, Ty. We supposed to be working out today.”

Shit. I forgot ’bout him. Trying to get Patrick in shape ain’t been easy for him, but it’s damn near killing me.

But I gotta say, after we done playing, I’m glad he came down to get me ’cause working up a sweat felt good. Patrick can’t play for shit, but them other guys that was playing out there today wasn’t no good neither so it worked out alright.

I had to leave anyway ’cause we got a agency visit at 5:30 and I gotta be there this time.

“You lookin’ tired,” my pops say to me the second I walk into the visiting room. “You not getting no sleep?”

“Nah.” I shake my head. This the first time I’m seeing him since he came by Cal apartment acting like a fucking asshole, and now he trying to act like he wanna know how I’m doing. Like he care. But if he wanna know what’s going on, I’ma tell him. “A couple dudes was kicking at our door in the middle of the night. Shit getting crazy. I don’t know how long I’ma be able to stay over there.”

I wait for him to say something, but all he do is look at the time on his cell and go, “When that lady bringing Troy? I can’t be waiting all night.”

I sit down on one of the chairs ’cross from my moms. In her lap she got a big bag from Target. “You buy something for Troy?” I ask.

“Yeah, your father wanted to get him some stuff for school.” She look over at my pops. “We still need a lot for the apartment, but …”

“I’ma get him a backpack, so don’t get that.”

“Too late,” she say. “Your father got it already. And new sneakers. What you think is in this bag?”

Fuck. What I’m s’posed to get him to go back to school? Underwear and socks? And the thing that get me is the way she saying everything. Like my pops beat me in a competition or something. The look on her face is like she happy her man won.

I’m too tired for all of this. Okay, they wanna buy everything for Troy. Cool. He know who been there for him through all this, and it wasn’t them. Definitely not my pops. So what I got to worry ’bout?

Through the whole visit, I sit there while Troy act all excited ’bout the backpack they got him even though I can tell it ain’t exactly the one he wanted. He having fun though, and I’m trying not to let nothing my moms and pops do get in the way of that. ’Specially ’cause by the end of the visit he gonna start crying again and we gonna hafta deal with that too.

When he do, I gotta watch the whole thing play out again. I’m fucking tired of this and it ain’t over, ’cause my pops set up a meeting with Ms. Thomas after Troy leave to find out what they gotta do to get Troy back.

All three of us squeeze into her piece of office and my
pops get right to the point. “I’m back now and I’m trying to get my family right. What I gotta do to make that happen?”

Ms. Thomas look like she wanted to go home a while ago and she woulda if it wasn’t for us. She turn to my moms and say, “You’re doing real well with the parenting classes. I got a report that you haven’t missed any and that you’re asking questions and getting involved in the discussions. That’s good.” Then she turn to my pops. “Have you been looking for a job? The judge is going to want to know that you’re able to support your family.”

“I’m a DJ. I know I’m not supposed to throw my own parties because in the past they got outta hand, so what I’m trying to do now is find a club that needs a new house DJ. I been talking to some people and there’s a spot out in Staten Island that wanna hire me. I’m waiting now.”

I don’t know what he talking ’bout, but I know it’s bullshit.

“What’s the name of the club?” Ms. Thomas ask. “I’ll put it down in my notes.”

“It’s a small club near that college they got out there. You should come check it out sometime.” He smile at her like she the hottest woman he ever seen. Like my moms ain’t even in the room. “When I start working there, I’ma get you free passes.”

Ms. Thomas shake her head, but for the first time she got a little bit of a smile on her face. “Wish I could,” she say. “But I never have time anymore. I used to.”

“Soon as I get the job, I’ma bring you them passes. You gonna have fun.” He still working her, looking her in the eyes and shit.

It don’t take long before she say, “Well, since you’re all doing everything you’re supposed to, I’m going to come by the new apartment and check it out. Then, if the home is safe and everything looks good, I’ll let Troy come for a short visit.” She don’t even see that my pops got her to forget ’bout the name of the club.

After the meeting over, my moms gotta stay there for her parenting class. Me and my pops go down in the same elevator. When we get outside, I’m ’bout to walk to the train when he turn to me and go, “I need you to come by the apartment and help me get Troy room set up before that bitch come by tomorrow.”

“I’m s’posed to help you after the way you came to my place the other day and broke my shit? How that helping me?”

“You want Troy to stay where he at?”

Me and him just stare at each other for what seem like a long time. I know what he doing, using Troy to get me to do what he want. It piss me off, but if Ms. Thomas come to the apartment tomorrow and say it ain’t good enough for Troy to visit there, I’ma feel like shit. I sigh. “I’ma give you a hour. That’s it.”

My pops go, “A hour. That’s all I need.” And we walk down the block to his van.

Setting up Troy room ain’t all that hard and don’t take
that long. All I’m thinking ’bout is that I’m doing this for Troy. The foster mother he with now is fucking crazy and I can’t take him being with her no more. If this apartment pass the inspection and the visits go good between Troy and my moms and pops, then maybe they could let him come home faster than we thought.

The room come out looking real nice when we through. I know he gonna like it.

I’m thinking we done and I can bounce, when my pops go, “We gotta make your room look like you live here.”

“My room?”

My pops stare at me like I’m dumb. “The room with your shit in it.”

“A’ight,” I say. Might as well get this over with so I can get the fuck outta here already.

Fixing up that room ain’t too hard neither. All we do is move all the furniture ’round, put the bed together, and fix
the knobs on the dresser that got broke when the marshals moved everything. Weird thing is, me and my pops ain’t hardly talking, except when we hafta, like when he tell me to give him the screwdriver, or when I ask him where they put the pillows. I wanna make the room look like I really stay here, so Ms. Thomas could believe it and tell the judge the family together. That the only one missing is Troy.

After I put the sheets and blanket on the bed and everything look alright, I go in the living room where my pops is, sitting on the couch smoking weed. Chillin’. “We done?” I ask him. “’Cause I’ma go now.”

“I ordered a pizza,” he go, not even looking at me. “You ain’t hungry?”

I stand there for a second, not knowing what he want. He trying to get me to stay or something? “I could eat,” I say. “I could always eat.”

I don’t know how it happen, but a hour later both me and him is fucked up, eating the pizza and watching the Yankees, who getting beat 4–1 in the third inning. And we actually talking ’bout shit and laughing. To me, this the way it used to be with him. He always used to be the kinda pops I could chill with and tell stuff to. I’m just trying to figure out if that pops is back for good or what?

“How you and Novisha?” my pops ask, cracking open another can of beer. He on his third can already. I’m still on my first. “Y’all still together?”

“Nah,” I say. “We broke up, like, in January.”

“Damn. The way you was talking about her, I thought you was gonna be with her forever like me and your moms.”

“Yeah, I know. I thought that too, but, I don’t know.” I think the weed starting to take over more.

“Why y’all split up?” he ask.

I shake my head. “She was lying to me, telling me what I wanted to hear.”

“She cheated on you?”

I nod. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Shit.” My pops take another bite outta his pizza. “You did the right thing, cutting her loose, then. You can’t be with a girl like that, that you can’t trust.”

I lean back against the couch and try to get my high to settle down, but talking ’bout Novisha ain’t helping. It just remind me that we through, that she moved on and got another man, and I still don’t got nobody. Matter of fact, I still ain’t heard from Jasmine, so I don’t know what’s going on with her neither. Damn, why I get high? Only thing it’s doing is making me feel depressed.

My pops light up a cigarette. “You know, Ty, the whole time I was away, your moms came to visit me every week or every other week, but you, you ain’t come to see your pops one time in the whole year.”

He ain’t really asking no question. All he doing is stating a fact. So I don’t say nothing.

“How you think that make me feel?” he ask. “My own kid don’t make the time to come and see me.”

“How you think it make me feel that my own father can’t stay home where he s’posed to be? You ever think ’bout that?”

My pops just shake his head.

But I ain’t through yet. “You ever think ’bout what it’s like for us when you sitting in that jail? Us, living in a motel that got crazy roaches and shit. Us, not having no money ’cause all the money we had went to trying to keep you outta jail. You think ’bout us when you was locked up?”

“Every day,” he say. “I thought about y’all every day.”

“Truth is, you thinking ’bout us, that ain’t help us eat.”

Me and him don’t say nothing for a while. I wanna up and go, but the weed really messing with me now. I close my eyes for a minute. Then my pops go, “You think I don’t know what y’all was going through? You think I wanted to be there?”

I open my eyes and look at him, but he looking down. “I know you ain’t wanna be there, but every time you get out, you keep doing the same shit, what got you locked up in the first place. So how that s’posed to look to us, to me? Why you can’t just stop?”

“Stop and do what?”

“Something else. I don’t know. You figure it out.”

He turn to look at me and I stare at him back. “When you get to be a man, you gonna see that sometimes you gotta do shit you don’t wanna do just to provide for—”

“I am a man,” I say, and think ’bout standing up, but my head so fucked up I don’t know if I can right now. I just need him to know that I’m serious.

“Like I was sayin’,” he go, “a man gotta do things he don’t always wanna do, if he got good reasons. I ain’t saying I never made no mistakes. I did. But I made them mistakes for your moms. For you and Troy.”

I hear him and I know he believe that shit, but it don’t make me feel no better. He act like he don’t got no other choice ’cept to do what he doing, but he could just do something different. “If you ain’t keep making them mistakes, me and Troy would be home with you. But Troy living with this fucking bitch that don’t even want me to see him, and I’m living with a bunch of dealers that ain’t even watching each other back. ’Cause of you, ’cause I don’t got no father helping me, you know what I had to do? I had to get in they business. I had to risk my own freedom.”

I don’t know why I’m telling him this, but I’m pissed off now. He ain’t the only one that made mistakes, but all of mines was ’cause of him. At the same time, I know what he gonna do now. He gonna say I gotta come home, that staying with Cal and them is too dangerous or something.

“The difference between me and you, Ty,” he say, “is I don’t complain about my situation. I handle it.”

Damn, where that come from? I jump up off the couch. “What I’m complaining ’bout?”

He stand up too and we facing each other eye to eye. “Every time I see you, you telling me about how bad it is at Cal place. Sound to me like you wanna come home.”

“I don’t.”

“Good, ’cause you told me you don’t need no father no more. Ain’t that what you told me the other day? Or was you just running your mouth?”

“I don’t need you. How long I been on my own now? You see me needing you?”

He get a little smile on his face, like he laughing at me or something. “I’m saying, if you don’t like it at Cal place no more, you got a room right here. It’s all set up for you. You could be laying in that bed tonight. But you ain’t moving back in here ’less you ask me if you could. That way, both of us is gonna know the reason you back living with me is ’cause you wasn’t man enough to make it on your own.”

I don’t get this guy. He losing it for real.

“There’s only gonna be one man in this house, Ty. And that man ain’t you.”

“It’s like that,” I say, shaking my head. I must be the stupidest nigga out here. How I ain’t seen what he was doing all this time? He testing me. He all ’bout trying to make me a child again when both us know I ain’t. I’m my own man, and he need to recognize that.

I get back to Bronxwood kinda late and, straight up, Cal
looking mad scared outside by hisself. He leaning up against the building trying to look hard, but I been knowing Cal too long. Something ’bout the way he standing all stiff, with his eyes all wide and shit, give it away. Dude look like he ’bout to piss hisself.

This the first night since he went back to work that I wasn’t out here with him the whole time, keeping a eye on him. I don’t know if he could do it by hisself no more, not if this the way he gonna look.

Without saying nothing, I drop my backpack on the ground and lean against the building on the other side of the door. Cal look over at me. “You a’ight?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“You look fucked up.”

“I am.”

“You gonna stay out here?”

“Yeah.” I hafta. Anybody walking by could tell Cal can’t handle hisself.

For a while I stand there watching him work and try and act like I’m just chillin’, not trying to protect him or nothing. I can tell he happy I’m out there ’cause he ain’t looking like no damn statue no more. Even still, I’m hoping nothing go down tonight ’cause this high don’t seem to be wearing off no time soon.

Keith moms make him come home by midnight, so after he leave, Cal on his own and gotta keep his own stash. He still don’t actually hold no drugs on him though. He keep most of it in a plastic bag that he stuff in a drainpipe on the side of the building ’bout two feet from where he standing. Then he keep a little in the grass right next to him. So now I’m not only watching out for Cal, but I’m trying to help him keep a eye on his weed too.

And trying to keep my eyes from crossing.

I ain’t been this high for a while.

“You talk to Greg?” I ask him.

He shake his head. “Got nothing to say to him. He doing his thing, I’m doing mines.”

“Brothers, man,” I say. “Y’all s’posed to be tight.”

“S’posed to be.”

“Only one doing what they s’posed to do is you.”

He shrug. This conversation look like it’s starting to get to him. So I start telling him ’bout my pops and what he
told me. “He think I’ma get on my knees and beg him to come home, but he don’t know me. I don’t even wanna live with them no more.”

“You don’t gotta go nowhere,” Cal say. “Fuck your father.”

I laugh ’cause he right. Why my pops think I wanna leave outta Bronxwood for? How I’ma go from being on my own to being with them again. For what?

Anyway, I can tell Cal don’t want me to leave. If I was him, I wouldn’t want me to go neither. I’m the only friend he got. Even his own brothers don’t look out for him the way I do.

I hang out with him as long as I can, but that musta been the craziest weed I ever smoked ’cause I’m getting higher and more tired every minute that go by. Really, what I need is to get in my bed, but this weed making me dumb hungry too. “What time the Chinese place close?”

“I don’t know,” Cal say.

“I’ma go see.” I start walking and turn ’round and see that look on Cal face again. Damn, I’m just going ’round the corner and he already scared. I don’t know how he gonna do this job no more, not this way.

When I get back with my food, I tell Cal I’ma go upstairs to eat and go to sleep. I can’t hardly stand up no more.

“You know what,” he say, “my ribs is starting to hurt. I’ma go up with you.”

I wait for him while he get all the weed together. I know it ain’t been easy for him, standing out here all night with
two broke ribs and shit, but me and him know it’s way too early for him to be going upstairs. This the time he usually start getting most his business. Late.

Every night this week he been going upstairs earlier than he s’posed to, saying he in pain or something. But now it’s just past midnight. I don’t know, but something tell me Andre gonna have a problem with this.