Bronxwood (7 page)

By the time I get upstairs, I’m all ’bout sleep. Between
being up all night and the big fuckin’ Beast, damn, I can’t hardly stand up. But, course, shit don’t work out the way I want it to. Even before the elevator open on my floor, I can hear the baby crying. Damn. I forgot. Cal told me he was gonna have his son today.

When I walk in the apartment, Cal standing in the living room holding CJ, who crying the brains outta his head. He only, like, seven months, but still, why he gotta scream like that? “What you doing, killing the boy?” I ask Cal, locking the door behind me, which take a minute ’cause they got three fuckin’ locks on they door.

Cal look like he through. Already. He still in the raggedy sweatpants he sleep in and he look half awake, holding his son like he a football. “I don’t know what he want,” Cal say. “He wildin’ out for nothing.”

Cal don’t get to watch CJ all that much, not by hisself. Tina don’t hardly be letting Cal take the kid outta her sight,
and definitely not bring him over here ’less she here too. Most of the time he only get to see him when they at her moms house. Tina say it’s ’cause she don’t want CJ in Bronxwood, ’round where he do business. “Why she let you have him today anyway?”

“Told you. Her cousin getting married.”

“Funny that it ain’t all that dangerous over here now, when she need something from you.”

He shake his head. “You should know by now, females is like that.”

“You mean, full of shit, right?”

Me and him both laugh ’cause it’s true. If I ever started understanding girls, I would write a book or something. Make some real money.

“You shoulda been here,” Cal say. “The second Tina set foot in this apartment, she was arguing with me and complaining. Telling me this place is too nasty for her kid, like he ain’t my kid too, and telling me I don’t know how to take care of him right. She was all in my face. I swear that girl gonna turn out just like her mother and I ain’t gonna be around when she turn.” He shake his head, looking mad frustrated. “I’m so fuckin’ tired of arguing with that girl.” He don’t say nothing for a while, just look down at the floor, and I don’t know what to say neither ’cause he right ’bout Tina. She is kinda off the hook most of the time. After a couple seconds he look at me and go, “Where was you anyway?”

I tell Cal all ’bout the party and how Dante showed up and wouldn’t leave for shit. And how he was at the diner and kept looking at my moms. All that. Cal shake his head ’cause he know all ’bout what happened and how fucked up it was. He know there really ain’t nothing I can do ’bout it, that I did what I could already.

“Damn, I’m tired,” I say, but the second it come out my mouth, it sound stupid ’cause when I work all I gotta do is spin some records for five, six hours. But for Cal, when he work he gotta bust his ass all fuckin’ night and put his freedom on the line at the same time.

“Your pops want you to move back in with them?” Cal change CJ from one arm to the other, but it don’t work to shut the baby up none.

“Nah, not yet. They moving to they new apartment tomorrow, and it look like him and my moms is working on something. I don’t know.”

“He ain’t tell you what they up to?”

“Nah. Probably some kinda new business, something to make fast money. Something illegal, knowing him.”

“That’s who he is,” Cal say.

“Yeah, I know.” Which is why I ain’t gonna move back in with them even when my pops try and make me come back. Why I’ma go through all that trouble, moving my shit over there when he only gonna get locked up again a couple months later, if that? When we only gonna end up losing that apartment too?

I go into the kitchen and put my Pepsi in the refrigerator. The sink is full of dishes, and all I know is somebody need to start bustin’ some suds up in here. And it ain’t gonna be me.

The baby keep crying and Cal try walking ’round with him. He come in the kitchen, then go back in the living room and walk ’round in a circle, but nothing work. I remember when Troy was that little. I was eight when he was born, and sometimes my moms couldn’t get him to shut up, no matter what she did, and she couldn’t handle that shit for nothing. My pops used to tell her to just put him down and let him cry hisself to sleep, but when she did that, I used to sneak over to his crib and pick him up ’cause I couldn’t take him crying neither. It ain’t seem right to just leave him alone like that.

I go into the living room. CJ look real tired, but he crying and fighting hisself to stay awake. “Look at him,” I say. “He must not wanna miss nothing. He wanna be in it.”

“I don’t know why babies do that.”

“Give me him,” I tell Cal even though I’m tired and not in the mood for none of this. “Go take a shower or something. I mean, I ain’t sayin’ you kickin’ or nothin’, but damn, you definitely got a hum jumpin’ off you.”

Cal laugh. “Oh, it’s like that?” But it don’t take him a second to hand off the baby to me, like he been ready to make that pass for a while. “I ain’t gonna take that long,” he say, and he gone down the hall, and I’m standing
there with a screaming baby and no idea what the fuck to do with him.

I know babies be liking music, so I walk ’round the living room with CJ and start rapping to him, anything I could think of that got the word “baby” in it. I’m rapping shit from back in the day like,

I just do that part over and over ’cause the rest of that rap is ’bout some fucked-up shit, and no baby need to hear that, no matter how young he is. Tupac lyrics is deep.

I ain’t lying when I say rapping to a baby work. I mean, he ain’t relaxing really. He still moving all ’round and looking like something bothering him, but he ain’t crying no more. Maybe he gonna grow up and be a rapper or something, make back some of the money Cal spending on him. Keep his father in style with cars and clothes and shit.

And his father friend Ty too.

Yeah.

’Bout half hour later, Cal still getting dressed. He got music playing in his room and he must be taking his time or something ’cause how long it take him to put some clothes on? And right then, outta nowhere, Andre show up. He don’t ring no bell or nothing. He just unlock all the locks on the door and walk in like he still live here. True,
his name is still on the lease, but he act like he got the right to just roll up in here anytime he want, just ’cause he the boss of the business and the man of the family.

The thing ’bout Andre is he don’t never show up nowhere by hisself no more. After he got shot he bought this stupid pit bull he call Bin Laden. Crazy dog, you ask me, that never stop barking and act like he don’t know nobody, no matter how many times he seen you.

Andre close the door fast and lock all three of the locks like somebody chasing him. Dude mad paranoid and shit, thinking the drug dealers that shot him are still out to get him. Like anybody even care ’bout his ass or where he at. All he do is run a small-time weed business. It ain’t no Scarface up in here.

“Cal, where you at?” Andre go, talking all loud over the barking, and acting like he don’t even see me standing there. I don’t get no “Hey, how you doin’, Ty?” or nothing.

Cal come down the hall. He wearing jeans and nothing else, and now his face look all confused and his mouth is open all wide.

Before he can say anything, Andre say, “Me and you gotta talk.” He grab hold of Bin Laden collar and walk past Cal down the hallway, fast, even with that fucked-up limp he got going on now. Cal give me a look like, what the fuck? Then he turn ’round and follow his brother. A second later, his bedroom door close and I’m still out there in the living room with the baby. Stuck.

Cal and Andre don’t come out the room for ’bout a half hour, and the whole time I can’t hear a thing they saying in there ’cause that dumb dog is losing what’s left of his stupid mind. Even through all that noise, I do get the baby to go to sleep in his stroller and I lay on the couch trying to relax my own self, but I sit up when I hear Andre coming down the hall. I ain’t sure why, but I don’t want him seeing me sleep.

Bin Laden still barking and shit when Andre get to the living room. “How long he gonna be here?” he ask Cal, and for a second I think he talking ’bout me. ’Til he go, “’Cause you gotta work tonight.”

“I know,” Cal say, breathing kinda funny. “Tina coming to get him by four thirty.”

Andre nod. Then he look at me. “What’s going on, Ty?”

“Chillin’,” I say.

“Your pops out, right?”

“Yeah. Friday.”

“You still gonna stay here?”

“Yeah,” I say. I ain’t think he was just gonna come out and ask me like that. I ain’t mind when Cal asked me, but this is different. To be honest, I don’t even know why I said yeah when I don’t really know what I’m doing. But something ’bout the way he asked made me wanna have a answer.

“Look, Ty,” he say. “We need more guys out there working for us, you know, guys we can trust. I don’t mind you
living here, but you not really helping us out like this. We gotta work, all of us. This is business.”

“I know, Andre, but I been paying a third of the rent and buying food and shit. I know that ain’t a lot, but—”

“That ain’t shit,” he say. “We need you bringing in money.”

“Yeah, I know, but—”

“You need to make some decisions.”

“I know,” I say again.

Andre never used to be like this, all hard. He used to be cool, back when he lived here and they was just selling weed here in Bronxwood. Now he all serious and got his brothers scared of him. I don’t get it. Just ’cause he running two projects, he think he gotta be a asshole now.

Andre just stand there looking at me for a couple more seconds, hard. Even Bin Laden staring at me now. Then Andre unlock the door, stick his head out, and check the hall real crazy and suspicious, then leave. Damn. That dude losing it.

I wait ’til I hear the elevator doors open and close before I ask Cal what up.

“He say I ain’t making enough. Shit is hard now. The economy is fucked up.”

“What else he want you to do?”

Cal shake his head. “Work harder. That’s all he said.”

Cal already working hard, and Andre act like he don’t see that. Nothing good enough for him. And he think I’ma wanna work for somebody like that? Yeah, right. “Don’t
worry ’bout it,” I tell Cal. “You know how Andre act when he on his period.”

Cal smile. “It’s that time of the month again?”

Me and him laugh loud, and I gotta point to the baby so we don’t wake him up. Last thing we need.

After a while Cal go get his shirt and finish getting dressed in the living room, and I finally get to my room. I put on some music in case the baby start crying again, so he don’t wake me up, and change into some sweatpants to sleep in. Not that it’s gonna be easy sleeping after dealing with Andre. I would be lying if I said he ain’t got me thinking. I do got some decisions to make. Not only ’bout where I’ma live, but ’bout a lot of things.

I mean, it was alright being here when my pops was locked up, but now I don’t know. If Andre think he gonna get me to start selling for him just ’cause I’m here, that ain’t gonna happen. I don’t need to. All this time I been taking care of myself by just throwing parties and charging kids to get in. I wasn’t living large or nothing, but I paid my bills and my moms bills and still kept myself looking good.

And I see what selling is doing to Cal. Yeah, he walking ’round with a lot more money than me, but it ain’t worth it, putting up with Andre and looking out for the police and all the other shit that go with it.

Me, I ain’t looking for no more stress in my life. I already got enough to deal with.

It’s after five o’clock when I wake up and I only got one
thing on my mind — the rest of them Cocoa Puffs. I get up out the bed, cut the music off, and go out into the hallway. When I pass by Cal room, the door is closed and I can hear the bed squeaking and all kinda moaning and shit. Tina musta came to get CJ early, and from what they doing in there, it sound like they not still fighting. Even the baby ain’t crying no more.

I go to the kitchen, and all I see is Cocoa Puffs all over the table and floor. And damn, the box is still on the table and there ain’t even hardly none left in there. The whole kitchen is jacked. A glass is broke on the floor and soda is spilled all over the place. My Pepsi.

Everything ’bout living here is starting to piss me off. But then I think ’bout my pops and I don’t know where it’s worse, here or with him.

I’m ’bout to knock on Cal door to find out what happened to the kitchen, not even caring that I’ma be breaking
up whatever him and Tina is doing in there, but before I even get down the hall all the way, Greg come home. I hardly seen him the whole time I been back from down south.

“What up, Ty?” he go.

“Chillin’,” I say. “What up with you?”

“Working hard. Trying to stay ahead.” He go in the kitchen and say, “What the fuck?”

I shake my head. “Cal and Tina musta been fighting in here or something.”

“Where he at?”

“His room. With Tina and the baby.” “He did this?”

“I don’t know. Pro’ly. Or the baby.”

“Your friend losing his mind,” Greg say. “And he losing money for us. You need to tell him to start working harder, you know what I mean?”

“I ain’t got nothing to do with y’all business, Greg. You know that.”

“That’s fucked up, Ty. Least you could do is help when we need you. We ain’t saying you gotta do this shit forever.”

He leave the kitchen and go to the living room, right for the PlayStation. He turn it on and say to me, “Don’t touch that game. Me and my boys gotta get our guys outta this battle and kill them Vietcong assholes. Shit taking too fuckin’ long.” He go down the hall, looking pissed, like any of that shit is real. I hear him pull out this big set of keys
he walk ’round with so he can get in his room ’cause he always keep it locked.

Even though Greg in charge of handling the weed, Cal always tell me that Greg don’t keep no big stash of drugs here in this apartment ’cause he ain’t stupid like that. From the little I know from hearing them talk, Greg s’posed to be keeping the drugs in different spots, and making sure the guys they got out there selling always got what they need. And he also s’posed to be driving ’round, making sure them guys is alright out there all night. That’s all I know.

My whole thing is this, I don’t wanna be the one to go down for some shit they doing. All three of them brothers know how I feel ’bout that. I’m not ’bout to live in no apartment that got drugs stashed in it, ’cause it ain’t gonna matter to the police that I’m not part of they business. They gonna arrest my black ass just for living here.

Greg go in his room and close the door. I ain’t never stepped foot in his room, but the way he lock it all the time make me wonder what he got up in there. I know he got a lot of clothes and sneakers and shit, ’cause ever since he started working harder for Andre, he definitely making more money. But that ain’t no reason to lock his door like we even care what he got in there.

I go to the bathroom, take a shower, and get dressed. I missed most of the day working for my pops, helping Cal with CJ, and sleeping. Now I wanna have some fun.

While I’m passing the living room, Greg on the couch with his headset on, screaming battle commands into the microphone real loud. Dude think he really in the war or something. On the TV screen, shit is blowing up and heads is flying off and blood is shooting out all over the place. Greg don’t even see me. He too busy shouting crazy dumb shit like, “I wanna see dead bodies on that bridge, men! Make them motherfuckers taste they own blood!”

I gotta get up outta here.

It’s nice outside. Hot. Too hot to be sitting inside, which is probably why everyone hanging out. Not Novisha, not that I’m looking for her or anything. I know she been back from church for a while, but she don’t be hanging out no matter how nice the day is. She always upstairs in her apartment.

Or, for all I know, she could be out with that dude.

I walk over by her building, the same building where Adonna live at. Man, I used to come over here so much when me and Novisha was together that now, for a couple seconds, it’s like I’m walking over here to see her.

I pass by Kenny truck and ask him if Adonna ’round.

“She’s somewhere around here,” he say.

“Yeah? She with somebody?”

“She ain’t with no boy,” Kenny say, staring me down like he wanna know what up. “She’s with Asia, probably watching them knuckleheads play basketball behind Building C.”

I nod, trying to play it off like it don’t really matter to me who she with or what she doing. “A’ight,” I tell him. “I’ma go over there and see if I can get in the game.”

I walk a couple steps away and hear Kenny go, “What, you like my sister or something?”

I turn ’round and Kenny leaning out the window to his truck and shit. “We talkin’,” I tell him, ’cause it ain’t none of his business. “I gotta go, Kenny. Check you later, a’ight?”

I’m walking ’cross the street when Keith come up behind me. He trying to ride his scooter and carry a cherry icee at the same time and it ain’t working.

“You gonna bust your head,” I tell him.

“Not me.” He smile big. “I’m gonna be a stuntman in Hollywood. A famous one. Watch.”

I wanna tell him he gonna hafta stop working with Cal and them first, but I don’t wanna bust on the kid for trying to make money, ’specially when I don’t know what his family situation is like. I mean, this kid is thirteen and he out to, like, midnight almost every night. No way his moms don’t know what he doing and ain’t using the money he bringing in. So I tell Keith I’ma look for him in the movies and he keep on scooting down the street.

Adonna right where Kenny said she was gonna be. Sometimes I think he be sitting in that damn truck keeping track of everybody and what they up to. Adonna and Asia is running they mouths and watching the guys play ball. I
gotta figure out a way to get Adonna away from her friend this time, ’cause ain’t nothing gonna happen with them two girls together.

Adonna smile when she see me coming ’cross the playground. That’s a good sign, I’m thinking. She do like me. As usual, Adonna looking hot today. She got on another pair of shorts and one of them tops that leave the whole back out, and she still rockin’ my pops chain. Make me walk faster past the basketball court over to where they sitting.

I say hi to the girls and sit down next to Adonna. Her legs is looking nice and smooth. Girls don’t know what they be doing to guys when they show this much skin to us. We weak. We lose our minds when girls is this sexy.

“Why you hiding out back here?” I ask her. And I ain’t gonna lie. I make my voice a little deeper, kinda like one of them baritone brothas girls be getting excited over. “You ain’t want me to find you?”

She look me in the eye and smile so damn cute. “Can’t you tell? I like to be chased.”

I smile my own self. “I like chasing.” And just like that, I lean over and give her a kiss on the lips. Nothing like we was doing the other night in the elevator, just something to keep her wanting more. And it look like she do too, ’cause when I stop kissing, she still leaning into me like she thought it was gonna go on for a while longer. “I wanna talk to you,” I tell her real quiet so Asia don’t hear me. “Alone.”

It ain’t easy, but after ’bout twenty minutes of me sitting there, talking and joking with both them girls, trying not to show how bad I wanna spend time with Adonna, Asia finally take the hint and say she gotta go home and help her moms cook. I think that’s what she say, but to be honest, I ain’t really paid her no mind. This time ’round, my mind is focused on what I want.

As soon as Asia gone, I grab Adonna hand and get her to walk with me away from the basketball court. I’m trying to find someplace where me and her can go where there ain’t a whole bunch of other people ’round, but that’s hard to find in the projects. They got us packed in here like fuckin’ rats. I mean, I don’t know why we don’t all go crazy at the same time.

I take Adonna back ’cross the street over to the side of the community center that’s closed now. They only open in the morning on Sunday to give the old people ’round here breakfast and a sandwich or something to take home with them. I lean up against the building and bring Adonna close to me, and before she can start talking, I go in for the kill. My mouth is on hers and we doing some long, hard kisses. I know it ain’t easy to turn me down, but at the same time I’m kinda surprised that Adonna kissing me outside like this, even if there ain’t a lot of people that can see us. I mean, she don’t never mess ’round with guys from Bronxwood, and now it’s like she letting everybody know she like me or something, and that’s cool. Funny thing is,
if Novisha in her apartment right now, she could see us if she was looking out her kitchen window.

My hand is on Adonna back, right on her nice smooth skin, and I start sliding it down to her ass real slow so she won’t even hardly notice. It don’t work though. She pull her lips away from mines and is like,
“Where
is your hand going?”

“I don’t know,” I say, and try to go back to kissing, but she keep her lips away. I smile. “Both my hands got a mind of they own. But this one, the right one, it’s a bad hand.”

“Bad hand?” She raise her eyebrows, but she still got that little smile on her lips.

“Yeah, it always been like that. When I was in fourth grade, you ain’t gonna believe this, but this hand actually threw a Pokémon eraser ’cross the classroom and almost hit Mrs. Milner in the back of her head while she was writing on the board.”

Adonna laugh.

“And when she turned ’round and was like, ‘Who threw that?’ I ain’t say nothing, ’cause I ain’t do it. My hand did it by its own self.”

Adonna shake her head. “You are so full of it.”

“I’m serious.”

“All I know is, you better find a way to keep that bad hand off my ass.”

“I don’t got no control over it.” I try and make myself look innocent, but I can’t help smiling myself.

Next thing I know, I’m putting my arms ’round her and we hugging, and I’m kissing her ear and neck, and she trying to act like she ain’t a hundred percent into me, but she still letting me do what I want. Damn, I’m starting to like this girl. And the way her body feel against mines, it’s all good. I could get used to this. “When you gonna let me take you out?” I whisper in her ear. “Show you a good time.”

She smiling. “How good?”

“Real good.” In my head, I can’t believe she actually gonna go out with me. Cal ain’t gonna believe this when I tell him. I give Adonna another kiss.

“My mother’s not gonna let me go out with you ’til summer school is over on Friday.”

“No problem. Let’s go out on Friday, then. I’ma come over and say hi to your moms, and take you to see whatever movie you wanna see and then we gonna go for something to eat. How that sound?”

“Good,” she say. Then she kinda wiggle herself outta my arms, just trying to be extra sexy. “I have to go now, Ty.”

“You sure you can’t come back to my place for a little while? I got some new music we can listen—”

“Remember what I said before,” she say. “I like to be chased.”

Damn. “A’ight. I get it. I’ma let you go home and sit in that apartment all bored outta your mind. That’s cool. But let me get your digits so I can call you.”

Adonna pull her cell outta her pocket and I tell her my number and she call it. After I save her number I walk her to her building but don’t go upstairs with her this time. I’ma be patient. Ain’t no rush. Friday gonna be here in five days and I know I’ma get her. I can tell. That girl is so into me it ain’t even funny no more.

On the way back to my building, I’m thinking that I just told Adonna, of all the females I know, that I was gonna show her a good time. A
real
good time. Why I say that shit to her? She probably thinking I’ma spend crazy money on her when I ain’t even got it like that. It’s true what they say, girls can really get a brotha in some deep trouble.

It ain’t ’til I’m upstairs that I’m like, shit, I forgot to get my pops chain back from her.