Bronxwood (20 page)

I’m hardly awake when I hear Andre banging on Cal door and
telling him to get his ass up. Fuck. We need to change the locks up in here. For real.

Not only is Andre knocking and making all that noise but Bin Laden is barking his brains out too. It’s after ten in the morning, but after me and Cal came upstairs last night, we stood up late watching a karate movie on cable and eating them chicken wings and pork fried rice. Shit had me blasting all night, lighting this room up. Still funky in here.

I need to go to the bathroom, but I try to hold it ’til Andre leave. Fucking asshole. After the shit he put me through in Brooklyn, I ain’t trying to run into him and hear him tell me how I should work for him again and how I ain’t doing nothing to help them out. I’m trying to stay outta his way for a little while more.

Andre must go in Cal room ’cause I don’t hear him knocking no more. So I open my door and see that Cal
door is closed. I can hear talking but no yelling or nothing, so I go to the bathroom and, no lie, I’m in there a long time. Real long. Fucking Chinese food.

I barely get out the bathroom when I hear Andre voice all loud and shit. What the fuck is his problem? The door to Cal room is open now and Andre standing there, half in and half out. “I don’t wanna hear none of this shit no more,” he tell Cal. “How long you gonna say you in pain? Two months? A year?”

Damn. Andre acting like he ain’t even human no more. I mean, Cal ain’t just some guy that work for him. Cal his brother. What, he forgot that?

“This is a business,” Andre say. “You can’t decide to come upstairs when you feel like it. Why you don’t get that?”

That’s all he think ’bout. Money.

“I’m getting word that folks around here is starting to get they shit from dudes over by Baychester. Why? ’Cause my brother don’t like working long hours no more. ’Cause my brother thinking more about his ribs than the family business. ’Cause my brother think he the only one that ever been in pain before.” I hear Cal start to say something, but Andre still talking, or rather screaming, “I got shot, motherfucker. Shot! And did you see me pussying out like you doing?”

I come down the hallway and stand close to Cal bedroom door. Cal standing there, looking down like he got something to be ashamed ’bout. “Andre,” I say. “Cal still hurt, man. He working as hard as he could.”

The way Andre look at me, it’s like he wanna kill me right here and now. “Ty, you the one who telling him he can do what he want? You the one telling him he don’t gotta think about the rest of his family?”

“It ain’t ’bout the family, Andre. It’s ’bout Cal.”

“It’s always about the family!” He full out screaming now. “With us, it’s always about family. Cal my little brother, Ty. I’m trying to teach him how to be a man, a man that know how to take care of his responsibilities. He need to learn how to work hard because that’s what a man do.”

“The dude got broken ribs, man,” I say, raising my voice my own self. “How you ’spect him to—”

“I expect him to be a working part of this family!” Andre yell.

“You don’t even know what the fuck going on in your family right in fronta your face,” I say, looking him dead in the eye. “You need to talk to Greg ’bout—”

Cal grab my arm. “Ty, c’mon, man. Don’t do this.”

“Yeah,” Andre say to me. “You always going, ‘I ain’t in this. I ain’t in this.’ If you ain’t in it, then stay your punk ass the fuck outta it, then.”

“A’ight,” I say ’cause now it’s like both of them is ganging up on me and I’m the one here trying to help, trying to calm the situation down.

I walk past them to my bedroom and that’s when Andre say it. “Ty, you gotta get up outta here. Before you got here, Cal knew his priorities and knew who to listen to. Now he
got you filling his head with shit and I can’t be having this no more.”

I turn ’round. “Andre, I ain’t—”

“You through here, Ty. Get the fuck out. Next time I stop by, you better not be here.”

Now it’s Cal turn to try and talk to him. “Ty don’t got nothing to do with this. It’s my ribs, not Ty, making me leave work early.”

Andre ain’t hearing it. “Tell your friend to pack his shit and leave. I ain’t saying it again. He better not be here when I come back around.”

“When you coming back?” Cal ask. “Least give him time to find another place to stay.”

“I’m coming back when I get here,” Andre say. “That’s all you need to know.”

I go in my room and sit on the bed listening to them two arguing for a while. Andre just being Andre, but it piss me off that Cal ain’t even trying to get him to change his mind. Yeah, he asking for more time, but that ain’t the point. Andre throwing me out and I don’t got no place to go.

After Andre leave and after I’m dressed, I go in my room, close the door, and call the only person I know I can call when I need something.

Regg pick up on the third ring. “Ty?” He sound kinda busy or something. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m … I mean, I’m a’ight.”

“I’m in the middle of something. Let me call you back later.”

Damn, he rushing me off the phone, not even letting me get a word out. “A’ight, but, Regg. Can I ask you something?” I don’t know why, but I can’t stand having to ask nobody for anything. Make me look weak when I ain’t.

“What you need?” he ask.

“Um, a place to stay for a couple days or a couple weeks, I don’t know. I gotta get up outta here and—”

“Ty, look, you know I would help you if I could, but I don’t want your pops thinking I’m trying to step in where he don’t want me to be. He your pops, you know.”

“I know, but—”

“He my friend, Ty, and the other day me and him got into it. He outright told me to back up off you, that you his son. And I gotta respect that. He trying to get his family back together and—”

“All he want back is Troy, not me. He told me that last night.” Regg don’t say nothing so I go, “All I need is to stay with you a couple nights.”

“Look, Ty. It ain’t safe for you at my place. That little weed business Andre running ain’t shit compared to what I got going on, and I don’t want you getting mixed up in it.”

I sit there holding the cell, trying not to hear what Regg telling me.

“Call your pops,” Regg say. “Call him and tell him you
wanna come home. Y’all need to find a way to live together again. Y’all used to get along good, the two of you, and not all that long ago neither. Call him, Ty, and go home.”

I just wanna get off this phone. “Talk to you later, Regg,” I say.

I hang up before I hafta listen to any more of his bullshit.

Ms. Thomas said she was gonna stop by my moms and pops apartment ’round six o’clock, so I go by there a couple minutes early so she would think I live there. My moms is at the agency for her parenting class, so it’s just me and my pops again. He put the TV on and we sit there watching the news. I ain’t sure what the point of this is, really. How long I’m s’posed to act like I live here? Just ’til they get Troy back?

My pops kinda in a good mood though, and I’m thinking ’bout what Regg said ’bout talking to him ’bout me coming home for real, but the way he was talking last night, I don’t know. Is that the way he really feel, or is that just the way he feel when he high?

I wanna talk to Jasmine, tell her ’bout all the shit going on at Cal and them apartment, and find out what she think I should do. But since I stopped by her job on Monday, I texted her twice and I still ain’t heard back from her.

And I ain’t gonna lie. Since I got with her last week, I been thinkin’ ’bout her a lot, ’specially at night. But still, I don’t wanna be chasing her down like some chump that
can’t get no other females. Jasmine know my cell number. She could call me too.

The whole thing is frustrating as hell.

The caseworker finally get there ’bout ten minutes late. My pops start right in on her. “I like the way you got your hair,” he say. “It wasn’t like that yesterday, was it?”

She smile. “It’s a little different,” she say. “You notice everything.”

My pops nod. “Everything.” He look at her for another couple seconds, then go, “Let me show you the apartment.”

I follow them as they go from one room to the other. I can tell my pops smooth act getting to her ’cause she smiling more than I ever seen her smile before. Matter of fact, Ms. Thomas ain’t really a smiling kinda person, you ask me.

But she don’t let my pops keep her from doing her job. She check all the window guards in the apartment, like Troy stupid enough to fall out a open window, and she make sure all the fire detectors work. Then she check the refrigerator and the cabinets to see that we got food in the apartment. The whole thing don’t take all that long, and when she done, she say, “Everything looks really wonderful, Mr. Green.”

“Wonderful enough that Troy could visit us?”

“Well.” She still smiling. “I’ll recommend a short visit this Saturday. How does nine until noon work for you? Will you and your wife be home then?”

“They gonna be here,” I say for him. And, yeah, I’m probably smiling now my own self. I ain’t think she was gonna let Troy come visit this fast.

My pops tell her they gonna be home, and she say she gonna bring Troy herself on Saturday. “He’s going to be so happy,” she say.

“Yes, he is,” my pops say. “Especially when he see his new room.”

Since I got Ms. Thomas right there, and since everybody in such a good mood, I’m like, this my chance to bring up the problem with Troy new foster mother. So before she leave, I say, “Ms. Thomas, can I ask you a question?”

She stop by the door and say, “Sure, anything, Tyrell.”

“I wanted to find out, like, if there was a way you could do something to change the home where Troy at. ’Cause he ain’t happy there and now Ms. Woods, she wanna take Troy out his school, and he was getting mainstreamed, or whatever they call it, out of the special ed classes, and now I don’t know if that’s gonna keep happening at the new school, and he don’t got no friends there.” I spit all that out at one time ’cause I want her to get it, that she gotta do something for Troy. That this is serious.

Ms. Thomas look kinda surprised. “I didn’t know anything about that. Let me look into it and see if there’s anything I can do.”

My pops clear his throat. “Ty, don’t bother Ms. Thomas with all this right now. She a busy woman.”

But I ignore him. What Ms. Thomas so busy doing? This her job. “You remember Troy first foster mother, Ms. Reed? I been trying to call her to see if she could take him back now that summer almost over. ’Cause she treated him real good and Ms. Woods ain’t all that nice to him.”

“You shouldn’t call the foster parents, Tyrell. It’s not the way we do things.”

“I know, but she didn’t mind when I called her when Troy was living with her. And if he could go back with her, he could stay in his school.”

“Like I said, I’ll see what I can do. No promises though.”

My pops walk her out to the elevator, and I stay inside trying to figure out if she really gonna try and help Troy or not. I hope she do ’cause Troy could use a break. Least he gonna get to come and visit us this week. That’s a good thing.

My pops come back inside and slam the door behind him. Hard. I look up at him. “What?”

The words is hardly out my mouth when my pops push me against the wall and get in my face. “Did I ask you to talk to that bitch ’bout Troy foster mother? Who told you you had to do that?”

I’m looking at him, and his eyes is locked on mines and he so mad. Like he just went from zero to sixty in a second. “What you …? I’m trying to help Troy,” I say and try and get away from him, but he so close to me with his arm holding me in place, that I can’t move.

“Who Troy father, me or you?”

“You,” I say.

“Then let me take care of his situation. You seen how I had that bitch right where I wanted her, then you had to fuck everything up.”

“I—”

“Stay the fuck outta it, Ty. I got this.” He let me go.

I grab my backpack up off the couch and head straight for the door. I got nothing more to say to this man. I swear.

I open the door and he go, “Tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at nine.”

Shit. I forgot ’bout his stupid party.

The door close behind me and I’m in the hall waiting for the elevator, pissed. What the fuck is wrong with him? Ever since he got out, something real off ’bout the man. Damn, and I was thinkin’ ’bout asking him if I could come stay with them for a while. That woulda been so stupid if I did that. Crazy stupid.

I wish I coulda just told him to go fuck hisself ’bout the party, but I need the cash. ’Cause after tomorrow, I’ma hafta find another place to live.

It’s been a long fucking day, and I ain’t feeling like standing
outside with Cal again tonight, ’specially not after the way he only half had my back with Andre this morning. But still, I stand there with him for a while.

“What’s up with you?” Cal ask.

“Just pissed off,” I tell him. “And tired.”

“Me and you both.”

I must just wanna talk, ’cause in between customers I tell Cal ’bout how my pops just turned on me and how crazy he was acting. “He think that just ’cause he ready to start actin’ like a father again, I’m s’posed to stop looking out for Troy. When I was more a father to that kid for the last year than he was. Why I gotta be the one to step aside for?”

“You don’t,” Cal say.

“Damn straight, I don’t.” Talking ’bout this make me more mad. “And you know what’s gonna happen, right? The second I let him start actin’ like a father again, and Troy
start thinking his pops is back, his ass gonna get locked up. How I’m s’posed to let Troy go through that again?”

Cal quiet.

My brain just keep going though, thinking ’bout how close I got to asking him if I could move in with them for real. “I don’t know what I’ma do,” I tell Cal, walking back and forth in front of the lobby door, which ain’t really doing nothing to calm me down none. “I know Andre said the next time he come ’round, he don’t wanna see me, but … where I’m s’posed to go?”

Cal just shake his head, like maybe he don’t care or something.

“Why you being like that?” I ask him.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, like—”

“You just paranoid, Ty. You high again?”

“I ain’t high and I ain’t paranoid. I’m tired of everybody fucking with me. And now you too?”

Cal stare at me like I’m being stupid. And it’s pissing me off more than everything else.

“Cal, I ain’t standing out here with you so you can … I’m hanging with you, right? I’m being your boy. But you—”

“Ty,” Cal say, and his voice come out real tired. Tired and old. “Go home. Just go home.”

First Andre, then Regg, then my pops, and now Cal turning on me too. Shit is fucked up. “What you saying?”

“I’m saying go home. You got a place to go. You got a moms and a pops. You don’t gotta—”

“A’ight,” I say. “Be like that.”

Cal sigh. “You being stupid, Ty. You know that.”

“I’m stupid?”

“Why you here, Ty? You don’t need to put up with none of this shit. I gotta be here. I gotta do this. You don’t.”

Fuck. Cal actually throwing me out.

“Look, Ty. I know your pops kinda hard and shit, but—”

“He ain’t hard, he outta control.”

“Okay, a’ight, I get that, Ty. But he right. And you know that. He the one s’posed to be looking out for Troy now that he back. You don’t gotta do that no more, not like you used to. You gotta let all that go now.”

I shake my head. I can’t believe the shit coming out Cal mouth.

“Ty, you acting like Andre, man. Like you own Troy or something just ’cause he your little brother. It ain’t right when Andre do that shit to me and it ain’t right when you do it to Troy. You know that.”

I’m tired of listening to him. Here I am, talking to my friend, telling him ’bout shit that’s getting to me, and he gotta turn it ’round and make it ’bout him. That’s some fucked-up shit. I’m standing out here, trying to look out for his ass and what he doing? Telling me I’m like fuckin’ Andre.

I pick up my backpack off the ground and tell Cal I’ma go to sleep. “Last time I’ma stand here with you,” I tell him.
“I’m helping my pops at his party tomorrow night, and after that, I don’t know, man. I’ma hafta find some other place to stay or something.”

Cal lean against the pillar and kinda nod and go, “Okay.”

“A’ight,” I say back, and that’s it. The seven months we been living together like brothers is through. Time for me to move on.

Even though I’m pissed at Cal right ’bout now, I can’t lie, I’m still feeling like shit for leaving him out here by hisself when his ribs is still broke and he still walking ’round all fucked up and shit. But he gonna hafta get used to working alone again.

No matter what he say, I got my own brother to look out for now. My real brother.