Chardonnay: A Novel (20 page)

I could hear the same rattle in his chest I heard in my
Grandfather’s before he died. Out the corner of my eye I saw Zasmyth throwing
up on the sidewalk from the gruesome scene and crying too hard. Konstance ran
out the house and down the front lawn, her steps tracking slowly down as she
saw the scene before her.

“Man how the hell they find us?!” Gehvoni yelled staring down at
Slim.

“I’m tired of Miscogey! He done fucked with me for the last time!”
said a furious Myron.

I was now in a bewildering world, outside of that bubble Slim told
me was custom built around me and that Myron was trying to protect me from.
Seeing Myron this way...seeing my life spawning away, I was now officially a
woman with the innocence of a child ripped away from me.

“What the hell are you talking about,” my voice dragging, singing
the ugly cry.

Myron looked away from me, his face tight. Slim’s breathing
wheezed and his chest rose. I feared the worst until he started taking slow
easy breaths.

“He’s breathing! Where are the fucking ambulances?”
I yelled

As if on key an ambulance arrived on the scene driving like a bat
out of hell. They rushed us and took Slim’s limp body from my arms. I watched
them tear his clothes away and hook him up immediately to machines in the
ambulance. The police pulled up just as soon as the ambulance did and begin
asking questions. Since I was the one with the most blood on me, they begun
with me.

17

All-American
Gangster

He was
still a man in my eyes, my man I thought as I leaned over the bathroom sink and
ran cold water. I splashed it on to my face trying to relinquish the gruesome
images that spawn into my eyes only hours ago. I looked back up in the mirror
to see Myron in his blue silk pajama’s looking at me through the mirror. We
were at his penthouse down town.

“I wanted to tell you but—”

“But what?
Why, how, just tell me now! Who are you?”

“Char, I’m still the man you know, I just have been—”

“Leading two different lives?”

He sighed and dropped his pleading arms.

“There’s a lot of shit I can’t tell you! I was raised that way.
Chardonnay, my father is who he is...the richest drug lord in Kansas City.”

“So, let me get this straight. Your father is a big time drug
dealer and you’re what...one too?”

Myron’s glare became intense and displaced as he flexed his jaws
and answered, “I wasn’t...until recently. I’m his son, the Heir to his
foundation so...he’s been testing me.
He’s wanting
to
pass it down to me.”

My mouth dropped. The foreign words swarmed around me in a sense,
taught and sharply destructing each lie fabricated to glorify the Kent’s image.

“But you have a NFL contact, Myron!”

“You don’t know the shit I have to go through daily that I really
don’t want to do! I see better for my life, but my pops don’t!”

“You can’t control that?”

“I don’t have a choice.” Myron said as tears flooded his eyes.

“Char, if I don’t take the reign, my father will not only disown
me, but my family will starve. He started this thing from the ground up when he
moved here from West Africa to build a better place for his family, any way he
could.”

I wasn’t having it. Any of it!
 
I moved from the sink and around him to his dimly lit bedroom. It all
seemed preposterous to me.

“So what happened tonight? Why the gun shots and people running
away? Fuck—I don’t even know if my girls are okay!”

“They are. Denim and Gehvoni hid them away like I thought I hid
you.”

“Have you always done this? Protected me?”

He nodded his head yes.

“What about the buildings he owns, investment he’s supposedly has
secured for you, Mystro, and Myra? The charity events he’s sponsored?”

“That’s all true—”

“How can he give blood money to a health organization?!”

Myron lowered his head and shrugged his shoulder. And now, more
than ever I wondered about the businesses Mr. Kent had invested in with my
father.

The neighborhood we were resting our heads in...

“You mean to tell me your father gets his profits to fund his
investment in the neighborhood we had our childhood in by selling drugs. His
household name is courtesy of drugs?”

Myron couldn’t even answer those questions let alone look me in
the eyes after the words left my mouth.

“YOU LIED TO ME!” I screamed.

Who was he? What kind of man was I dealing with all…this…
time.

“Were you ever going to tell me? I WAS GOING TO MARRY YOU?” I
screamed.

Myron reached for me but I swung his arms away. He sat down on his
bed. And said,

“There’s a lot of things I’ve done you don’t know about that I’m
not proud of, baby. But I have sacrificed it all for the well-being of my
family and most of all you.”

I chuckled and looked up at Myron.

“You sound so...stupid for the first time that I’ve known you in
nineteen years. Sacrifice?! That’s what you call it? Man your father has you
screwed.”

“The truth about tonight...I—I’m in trouble with some guy named
Miscogey. I lost about sixty grand of his money. Money my dad owed him for a
drug order. My pops don’t know...he can’t know,” he said dropping his head.

“Slim nearly died because of me. I never thought I would let this
shit happen again.”

“What happen again?”

He looked up slightly and whispered, “Them getting this close to
me again—my
family
again. If keep getting caught slipping, I’ll mess up
my father’s empire. I don’t want to let him down.” Myron began crying. I shook
my head. Not only was he not made for this shit but he didn’t want to do it. I
felt bad for him.

“What would happen if you weren’t able to get him the money?” I asked
in fear.

 
“They came after me tonight
and instead got Slim. These muthafucka’s don’t care! They’ll pull the roots to
ya family tree if they have to.”

“So...I take it they know about me.”

He looked at me as tears fell down his eyes.

“I—I—”

“
It’s
okay, Myron,” I said interrupting
him.

“We’ll get through this.”

“And Jasen Vonseigneur?” he asked.

I looked at him.

“You know his name?”

Myron looked away from me and nodded his head.

“How?”
I asked.

He shrugged,

“
He
big time ain’t he? Everybody
know
who he is.” Myron stood from the bed and walked over to
his sky line window.

“But Myron, he’s not from here. Hell I’ve never heard of him.”

He looked at me and said,

“I know everybody.”

I waved him off and left that question open to his subjectivity. I
grabbed my things and headed for the door when he said,

“In the bible...God says the man’s role is to protect his
wife...with my flaws in all, I’ve done
my damnest
to
do that.”

I turned to face him and said,

“Well that’s good for you.” and left out the door.

I woke up to my shoulder being nudged. I jumped and looked up to
see my father stretching out his arm with a Starbucks latte in it. I smiled and
took it from him since it was very cool in the emergency room. I came here
straight from Myron’s penthouse and been there the whole night. I looked at my
daddy and his face looked sympathetic for me. I looked around the empty room
and then back to him before I asked,

“Can we talk?”

He nodded his head and said,

“You know it baby.”

I took a deep breath and prepared myself for what was next to come
from probably one of the most dramatic responses I could receive from my
father. My father had brown eyes and a beautiful brown even skin tone. I
relaxed my head back and looked him dead in the eyes,

“Slim and I have been seeing each other for some time now...I
—
 
I
—”

“Shhhhh.
It’s okay. You’re a big girl now.”

“But I don’t want momma being—”

“She’ll survive. She doesn’t know we’re here anyway.”

I smiled and said,

“Thanks daddy.”

The waiting room doors swung open and Myron and Mr. Kent walked
in. Mr. Kent who
looked
 
like
a Don once I actually looked at him closely, strutted
towards the ICU unit. I jumped up and ran to Myron telling him he didn’t belong
here. I was hysterical. Mr. Mychale Kent took his hat off and
winced
his eyes at me. Then he looked at Myron like he had
lost his place in life.

“Get your woman and make sure she keeps her keep.” he ordered.

I don’t know when or how my father got so gangster, but he smooth
jumped up out his chair and got all in Mr. Kent smooth chocolate face and said,

“Don’t you EVER confuse my daughter for some two bit
hoe!
You hear me boy?!”

Mr. Kent sniffed and said, “Now, Carnegie...let’s not get
delusional.”

Whatever that meant, my father backed off. How could one man have
so much power? I spat on Mr. Kent’s suede coat.
 
Security stormed the room and Mr. Kent told them to let me go
immediately before he had their asses sued. And they did. And just like he knew
it, he looked me dead in the eyes, making sure I would never forget the words
he was about to speak to me, and said,

“Chardonnay, you best to mind...you not ten inches from being
kicked on your ass ya self.”

“Dad, don’t speak to her like that.” Myron protested.

“Then you better get her ass in check...all them damn Houston
women are loose and out of check—don’t know why I—”

“DAD!
Enough.” ordered Myron.

I looked over at my father wondering why he let this shit go on.
When the doctor entered the room he spoke with me since he had already spoken
with Slim’s mother in the ICU room and she told him to speak directly with me.

“Skylar is in critical condition. It looks as if he will be for a
while. I advise all hospital visits to a minimum of two a week. Right now I’m
ordering no
visits,
he’ll need as much rest as
possible.”

“So his surgery?”
I asked as if it would have fixed
everything.

“It went okay.”

“What’s wrong with his internal?” asked Mr. Kent.

As far as I was concerned he was the cause for this whole thing.
He would have loved to kill
Slim
dead if it meant him
being out of the way. But the more I listened on to Mr. Kent the more I heard
concern in his voice for Slim, yet became completely disgusted by him each
second he spoke.

 
“Give him the best care
possible, otherwise if anything happens to him, I’m suing this place and every
single last person in it from the Founder to the little Mexican cleaning lady I
saw when I came in here today.” he said and took out five one hundred dollar
bills and stuffed them in the doctor’s coat. The doctor, a White man, was
dumbfounded and looked at my father and myself as if we had the clue. I was
becoming more and more puzzled by the man myself.

*
 
*
 
*
 
*

Rain clouds
casted the sky, slowly darkening and hovering over the large crowd of people
sitting in plastic seats in rows of ten on muddy soil. People were either
looking down at their laps or ahead at my Pal pal’s casket. As I sat in the
first row with my Donna Karen black suit on and Italian silk hat that covered
most of my eyes, I wished my grandfather could have died at a more peaceful
time in my life. Rain drops began to sound as they gently hit the ground. The
Priest began saying the final prayer as a woman with a soulful tone sung
Yolanda Adam’s
Open my Heart
. I looked up out the corner of my eye and
saw my grandmother crying her heart out and making her final steps to my
grandfather’s casket, with the help of my father, to give him his last kiss
goodnight. I
wanted
to love a man as hard as she loved him.

I sat there after most of the crowd began to walk towards their
cars. I sat there until they had finished lowering his body into the ground. I
felt a brushed wind rush past my back and turned to see Myron sitting in the
seat directly behind me. He was leaned forward and his eyes dripped sadness and
love. I turned back to my Pal pal’s grave that he now rested in and watched
them throw the first soil over him. Myron’s hand touched my shoulder and I
snatched back. He sighed and said,

“I’m sorry about your lost. I just didn’t want you to think that I
wouldn’t be here.”

I sat silent.
Wrong place, wrong time.
There was no way I was discussing us at this moment. The thought of him being
here repulsed me.

I stood to my feet and blew my Pal pal a kiss. When I turned to
leave Myron followed. I jogged down the steep hill to my parent’s limousine
where others stood around and said good-byes. Myron grabbed my arm and I turned
into his body due to his strength. I could hear off sided whispers and comments
about Myron and I from, “Oh look at the happy couple”
to
 
“
Uhmp, young people don’t know how to
keep their business home”. I sighed hard and looked at him in order not to make
a scene. He had tears in his eyes and was choking on his words about how sorry
he was. I didn’t feel like hearing it; although I didn’t resist being held in
his arms. He kissed my cheek and told me that he would be with me for the rest
of the day if I needed him. To me he was just performing in an act staring him.

*
 
*
 
*
 
*

My whole
family had a dinner back at my parent’s home. Konstance and Myron sat with me
in the formal living room as people came by to give support and extra food that
the already stuffed kitchen didn’t need. This day that brought so many memories
of my grandfather only prompt me to new questions about my family. Aunt Fallon.
Why was she coming to me? And if My Aunt Hattie was right about the ten year
thing, her mark was off by one year seeing how I was twenty-one and had had a
birthday on January 1
^st
. I was a New Year’s baby. Anyway, I had so
much information about this lady, and realized my mother or anyone else never
spoken one word about her, that it was obscene. No pictures...but I had an idea
of what she looked like. I looked over at Konstance and she looked at me as if
she could feel me looking at her. We smiled at each other. Myron’s hand touched
my knee and squeezed it. I didn’t look at him, so I wouldn’t give him the wrong
impression...Slim was still in the hospital, practically on his death bed. I
wouldn’t live with that shame for the rest of my life.