Bronxwood (4 page)

The second Cal see me, he get half a smile on his face and go, “Told you.”

And I can’t help myself. I shake my head and start cracking up with him, like we used to do back in, like, seventh grade. Just being stupid. ’Cause I shoulda knew better than to think getting with a girl like Adonna was gonna be easy. Girls like that, that look like her, it’s like they born knowing how to make guys work to get them.

I lean against the building and stay outside for a couple more hours, hanging with Cal while he work, laughing with him ’bout all kinda shit. It feel good being out here, ’cause the truth is, I don’t know how much longer this kinda freedom gonna last.

Shit, knowing my pops, this whole thing might be over for me tomorrow.

It’s mad early when my cell ring and wake me up. It feel like
I only been ’sleep ’bout a hour, but the ringing so loud ain’t no way I can sleep through it. I grab the cell and see the time. 5:14. In the morning. What I wanna know is, who I know gonna call me this early? I hit the talk button. “Hello?” My voice come out all rough and shit.

“Be downstairs in a half hour and bring the key for the storage room.”

It’s my pops. And that’s all he say. Before I can even think of what to say back, he hang up.

For a while I don’t move. I just stay in bed thinking ’bout what he said and how he said it. Weird thing is, I can’t tell what kinda mood he was in, like, is he mad ’bout something? I used to could tell a whole lot by the way he sounded, but I ain’t heard his voice in so long I don’t know no more.

A half hour later, I don’t know why, but I’m standing outside in front of the building like a fuckin’ asshole. Ain’t nobody out here at this time ’cept some guy pushing two
shopping carts full of empty cans and bottles down the street. The carts is tied together and he probably got a couple hundred cans in there, plus he got a whole lot more in the two garbage bags hanging off the sides. Dude musta been up all night to pick up all them cans by hisself by this time in the morning. It look like he ready to cash out, and the sun just coming up now.

After a couple minutes of me standing there, a black van pull up to the curb in front of me and stop. To be honest, I don’t even hardly recognize the driver at first. I look in the window and first thing I see is some dude with a goatee. Then, when the guy in the van turn to look at me, I see it’s my pops and I’m like, damn. How I ain’t recognize him?

Still, for a couple seconds I just stand there on the curb ’cause I don’t know what I’m s’posed to do, get in the van or just wait for him to get out and come get the storage room key? ’Cause that’s probably all he want anyway.

Before I can do anything, my pops get out and come over to me. I’m getting the key from my pocket when he grab me up in a big hug and laugh and say, “You just gonna stand there when you ain’t seen your pops in damn near a year?” He hug me the way he used to, ’cept even harder now and he don’t let go as fast.

But I ain’t looking for this shit from him. I pull away and, ’cause I don’t got nothing else to say, ask him, “Where you get the van from?”

“Borrowed it,” he go.

I don’t know what else to say, so I just hold out the key. “Here.” Now that I seen him, all I wanna do is get back in my bed.

My pops take the key from me and say, “Come on.” Then he just go back ’round to the driver side and get in like he know I’ma do what he say.

Part of me wanna just turn ’round and go back in the building and not care what he think. But that ain’t gonna work with him. He don’t play that, ’specially not from me. So I end up getting in the van and as soon as I close the door, he make a U-turn real fast and we outta Bronxwood.

While he drive, my pops is just smiling and talking, saying shit like, “Ty, man, you don’t know. You don’t know how good it feel to be out, know’m saying? When they take away your freedom, shit, man, you don’t know how it feel to get it back.”

He go on and on, and I just stare at him, trying to think what look different ’bout him. Most of the time people be telling me I look like him, but I never seen it. He a little taller than me and he used to be bigger than me, but he ain’t hardly bigger no more. Somebody ain’t spent no time in the prison gym, that’s for sure. And his goatee got some gray hairs in it now, and the hair on his head is turning gray too, and that make him look mad old. He need to get up on that Just For Men shit.

When he stop talking for a second, I say, “What time they let you out yesterday?”

“Supposed to be nine o’clock in the morning, but by the time I got out it was more like ten thirty. They be taking they time letting niggas go.” He laugh.

But I’m serious. “You go see Troy?”

“Not yet,” he say, making a left turn and merging onto 95, which is practically empty at this time a day ’cept for some trucks.

“If you woulda called me yesterday, I coulda took you over to see him at his camp.”

“I was in jail for a long fuckin’ time, Ty,” he say. “Going to see Troy at camp wasn’t the first thing I had on my mind, know’m mean?” He laugh again all loud and shit, like I even wanna hear this. Like I need to know anything ’bout what him and my moms do.

He go back to talking ’bout all the shit he wanna do now that he out, and I go back to not listening. I mean, I know he happy he out, but I ain’t feeling the same way. Now that he back he gonna start wanting to change everything and make me move back home, wherever that’s gonna be. He gonna expect me to go back to doing what he want. But I ain’t the same no more, and he gotta know that.

I’m looking out the window, thinking, and the sun really coming out now, but when we get to the exit we s’posed to get off at, the one for the storage place, my pops drive right
past it. “Where we going?” I ask him ’cause, really, it’s too early and I’m too tired to have him just taking me places I don’t wanna go.

“Wait and see,” he say. Then he turn on the radio and start talking ’bout how much music he missed out on and how I’ma hafta tell him ’bout all the new stuff ’cause he gotta be up on it. Like he ever was. Dude don’t never play nothing but old skool.

It ain’t ’til he pull off the highway that I figure out where he taking me — the Black Rock Diner over by Castle Hill, this twenty-four-hour spot me and him used to end up at all the time on the weekends after his parties. We would get there ’bout four, five in the morning, not really drunk or high, but still kinda buzzed, and me and him used to eat and talk ’bout the party and all the crazy shit that just happened, and laugh like we was stupid or something. Then we would go home and either stay up some more out on the balcony, getting high, or we would pass out, all tired and full.

He park the van in the parking lot and get out, but I take my time ’cause I ain’t in the mood for the Black Rock today. I don’t even know why he doing this, bringing me here. Them days is over.

But I get out anyway and say to him, “You woke me up for this?” But he already walking ’cross the parking lot and probably don’t hear me.

I follow him in the diner. The way I see it, I ain’t really got no other choice. What I’m s’posed to do? Stand out here in the parking lot the whole time he in there eating?

The thing ’bout the Black Rock is that it ain’t never empty, no matter what time you get there. My pops go right to a table in the middle of the place, sit down, and start looking ’round like he expecting to run into some friends or something up in here. He, like, always ready to party. No matter where he at.

I sit down ’cross from him and don’t say nothing. While we wait for one of the two waitresses to even see that we there, my pops go, “This place ain’t change none. Shit, it look like they ain’t even do no cleaning up in here since the last time I was here.” He laugh.

I shrug.

Finally, a waitress come over to our table, and when she see my pops she smile real big and go, “Oh, my God, Tyrone! Where have you been? We missed you around here.”

My pops go right into his smooth act and tell her right out that he was locked up and just got out yesterday.

She hit him on the shoulder real light. “Oh, I always knew you were a bad boy.” And she still smiling at him, like what he told her don’t matter to her at all.

My pops don’t wait a second before he go, “You like bad boys?”

“Can’t help myself,” she say, and wink at him. And the two of them go back and forth, laughing and flirting like I ain’t even sitting here. I’m just watching him, the way he acting all cool and shit. Telling everybody his business, all proud that he was in jail or something.

When they stop talking long enough for the waitress to ask what we wanna order, we don’t gotta look at no menu or nothing ’cause we always get the same thing when we come here. They got this thing here they call the Breakfast Beast. It’s ham, sausage, eggs, hash browns, and cheese in a French toast sandwich. It got some kinda sauce in it too, but I can’t never figure out what it’s made outta. The thing look real nasty, but shit is slammin’. I ain’t lying. Me and my pops get it with a side order of grits and cheese, and it’s on. Make you so full you can’t even move for like a hour. But it’s that good kinda full, where you in pain but you still happy and satisfied and shit.

When the waitress leave the table, my pops is still smiling, checking out her ass as she walk away. And me, I just can’t take it no more. “Can I ask you a question?” I don’t wait for him to say nothing. “Why you bring me here for?”

The smile on his face go away real fast. He lock his eyes on mines hard and go, “You got a problem, Tyrell?”

I don’t like the way he looking at me. “It ain’t no problem,” I say, keeping my eyes on his. “I just wanna know why I’m here. Why you wake me up for? To come and eat with you? ’Cause if that’s what you was—”

“You gonna shut the fuck up long enough for me to answer you?” He don’t raise his voice none, but he still looking me dead in the eye and I can tell he starting to get mad. Like I care. He stare at me some more, and take his time before he say, “I woke you up ’cause I need your help with something. Tonight.”

I sit back against the pleather on the chair, fold my arms in front of me, and say, “What you need help with?”

Then he tell me ’bout this party he throwing and how much he need to do between now and ten o’clock tonight when the party s’posed to start. “This ain’t gonna be one of my regular parties. I’m only gonna have, like, a hundred people. Folks that got money and ain’t afraid to spend none of it to come to one of my parties and have themselfs a good time. A real good time.”

I can’t believe this shit. He ain’t learn nothing in prison.

“I need you to help me DJ,” he say. “Give me more time to spend with folks and give everybody that personal touch. And we gonna have some backroom shit going on too, you know’m saying, right?” He laugh.

But I don’t laugh with him. “You remember why they locked you up, right?” The words is out my mouth before I think, but I ain’t gonna back down from what I’m saying.

“Yeah, I remember.” He shoot me another hard look. “You remember who is the father and who is the son, right?”

“I remember,” I tell him.

“Good, then.”

Me and him don’t say another word, not in the whole time it take for the waitress to come back with our food. My pops talk to her again while she put the plates and bowls down in front of us, but me, all I’m thinking ’bout is the smell of the food. I mean, by the time I get the first bite of that sandwich, with all them flavors in my mouth, just like that, I ain’t all that mad no more that my pops brung me here.

My pops go, “Good, right?”

I don’t say nothing. I just keep eating.

“I been dreaming about this breakfast for a year,” he say, food all in his mouth and shit.

Funny, but I ain’t think ’bout this place once since the last time me and him was here.

Something happen to my pops when we ’bout halfway through with our food. He start talking ’bout everything, telling me more ’bout the party he throwing tonight. All the details. “I’m gonna charge seventy-five this time, but I’m gonna give folks a open bar for the first hour. They gonna like that. Then, to make up for it, for the rest of the party, I’m gonna be overcharging like a motherfucka.” He laugh again.

I’m hardly listening to the man. I’m too busy eating. It’s a good thing he keep talking so I can get started on them grits and cheese.

After a while, he tell me ’bout this apartment Regg hooked him up with. “It’s over by Mosholu Parkway,” he say, “not far from the reservoir. It’s nice over there.” Then he tell me that him and my moms is moving in on Monday and he wanna make enough money tonight to give Regg back all the money he laid out for the apartment, the first and last month rent. “I gotta get your moms out that place she living at now, Ty. Apartment is smaller than the fucking cell I just got outta.”

Damn. What he saying is messed up. When ACS took Troy away from us and I left outta that shelter we was staying at, my moms ain’t had nowhere to go. First she went to stay with one of my pops friends, but I knew for a fact my pops wasn’t gonna want her living there. So I’m the one that found that little studio apartment for her. I seen a sign in the front of the building saying they was renting studios, no credit check. It was me that helped move her in there and me that paid her rent all this time. Almost seven months. Me. So why he gotta criticize instead of telling me I did alright taking care of his wife while he was sitting on his ass doing nothing for none of us all this time?

But I don’t say none of this to him, ’cause, at the same time, I know there’s a lot of shit he can blame me for too. ’Specially what happened to Troy. I know he probably thinking I fucked up ’cause I ain’t made sure my moms was
doing the right thing and taking care of Troy the way she was s’posed to. I shoulda stepped up and ran the family the way he woulda did if he was ’round. And even though I tried, I wasn’t good enough. And I don’t wanna hear that from him right now.

So I stop talking and keep eating. Meanwhile, my pops is talking and eating at the same time. You ask me, he just rambling though. The man musta been in solitary or something, ’cause he acting like he ain’t had nobody to talk to for a while.

A cell phone ring and I know that ain’t my ringtone. My pops reach into his pocket and pull a cell, a new one. He ain’t even been outta jail twenty-four hours. How he get a cell already? And why his phone better than mines?

My pops start talking. I can tell it’s my moms and it sound like she ain’t know he left her place and wanna know where he at. He smiling big when he talk to her too. He saying, “I ain’t wanna wake you up. After last night, I knew you needed to rest.” He laugh. “And I’ma be back in about a hour for more.”

Me, I swear, I’m sitting here hoping some terrorists or somebody will roll up in this diner and shoot all of us so I don’t hafta listen to none of this shit no more.