Eviction Notice (12 page)

CHAPTER 19

The hike to
Debbie’s building was a short one as only six blocks separated the projects from her Central Park West high-rise. The tall building sat on the corner of 110th Street overlooking the park and the newly gentrified Harlem. It was considered prime real estate, but like most of the older buildings that had been renovated with the rest of Manhattan they had to allow a certain number of rent-controlled apartments that they gave away in lotteries or through city-controlled programs. The waiting list for the building was five years, but Debbie had managed to pull it off in under a year. She had been a home attendant for a woman who lived in the building and one day the woman had mysteriously died of a heart attack and Debbie had taken over the apartment. The building’s board of directors tried to challenge it, but strangely enough, before the woman died she had added the name of Debbie’s oldest daughter, Josephine, to her lease. There was some speculation that Debbie had forged the document but no one could prove it, so they had to let Josephine, and by extension Debbie, stay.

Frankie led the charge, swinging open the glass doors of the building as if she were about to announce the arrival of the president. With her cornrows swinging and her face twisted into a gangsta-ass scowl, Frankie drew quite a few stares as she stormed through the lobby. The doorman raised his hand for Frankie to stop but she ignored him and kept walking to the elevator. Frankie managed to catch the elevator doors just as one of the tenants, who had been watching them, tried to shut the doors in her face.

“Thanks for holding the door,” Frankie said sarcastically, looking him up and down. He was an older white guy with thinning salt-and-pepper hair and a beet-red tan. At the end of the studded lavender leash that hung limply around his wrist was a stocky white pit bull with a pink ribbon tied around a tuft of its hair. The dog glared up at Frankie maliciously as she held the door for Sahara. The low growl coming from the pit made Frankie and Sahara back into the far corner.

“So, I don’t recall seeing either of you sign the guest’s book when you came in.” The man looked them up and down as if they had just blown in with the trash.

“That’s because we didn’t.” Sahara rolled her eyes.

“All guests are supposed to sign the book when they’re visiting someone in the building.”

“That’s for the guests who are visiting on pleasure; we’re here on business,” Frankie told him while tapping the button for Debbie’s floor.

“Judging by the floor you’re going to, I can only imagine what kind of business it must be.” He smirked.

“I don’t know what kind of business you think it is, but I can tell you what it ain’t and that’s none of your business.” Frankie laughed and gave Sahara a high five. Their laughter turned into shrieks when the pit bull started barking at them.

“You’d better restrain that mutt or else,” Sahara warned from behind Frankie, where she was cowering.

“Or else what?” The man placed a hand on his hip and looked them up and down. “Holly and I are residents and you two are trespassing, so if she decides to take a chunk out of those sweet little asses, the law will be on our side.”

“You might have the law on your side, but I’ve got this on mine.” Frankie uncapped her pepper spray and shook the can. “Fuck around if you want to and I’ll blind this bitch.” She aimed the pepper spray at the dog’s face.

“Don’t you touch my Holly!” The man jumped in front of his dog. “You would think that for as much as we pay for these apartments we would be able to live without fear of these Harlem bitches terrorizing us night in and night out.”

“Bitch”—Sahara looked around the elevator, confused—“I don’t see ya mama in here.”

“Fuck you, you broke-ass Lil’ Kim,” the man spat at Sahara and Holly began to bark again.

“Gimmie the spray, Frankie.” Sahara grabbed for the can but Frankie held it out of arm’s reach. The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Frankie pushed Sahara out and then backed out slowly, keeping the pepper spray aimed at Holly and her owner.

“This isn’t over,” the man threatened, staring hatefully at the two girls. “You’re all going to burn for this, and that includes that high-yellow bitch you’re going to visit. You think management doesn’t know what’s going on in that apartment? As soon as I get upstairs I’m calling the police and you’re all going down!”

“Well then I might as well give them a reason to take us,” Frankie said before blasting the dog in the snout with a stream of pepper spray. Holly let out a bloodcurdling howl as she flapped about, scraping her muzzle across the carpet to get the pepper spray off.

“Holly!” the man yelled before throwing himself on top of the dog as if he were about to take a bullet for her. “Leave us alone, you, third-world savages.”

When he opened his mouth this time, Frankie blasted him with the pepper spray, too. Frankie kept her finger on the trigger of the can until the doors finally closed and all that was left of the man and his dog were their painful shrieks, which could be heard throughout the building.

“Elton John–looking muthafucka trying to play us.” Frankie gave Sahara dap and they shared a laugh.

“Frankie, that was so foul, but funny as hell. You know he gonna call the police though, right?” Sahara pointed out.

“Please, hopefully by the time he can see well enough to even get into his apartment we’ll be long gone. Besides, if Debbie don’t have something good to tell us, then they’re gonna need some serious police presence in this muthafucka.”

The farther down the hall they got, the more potent the smell of weed became. Whoever was smoking tried to mask it with dollar-store incense but the cheap, perfume-heavy sticks only made it worse. When they reached Debbie’s door it was obvious where the smell was coming from, not just because that end of the hall reeked of it but because you could almost see the smoke seeping from under the door. It was a wonder that no one had called the fire department on them.

“Damn, they getting blazed in there,” Sahara said.

“Curve that shit, pookie, we ain’t here on a social call,” Frankie reminded her before ringing the doorbell. They waited for a few seconds, and when no one came to the door Frankie rang the bell again. When there was still no answer she knocked aggressively.

“Hold on a damn minute,” a deep voice came from behind the door. There were a few more muffled curses before the locks came undone and the door was snatched open, bathing Frankie and Sahara in a cloud of smoke. When their vision finally cleared they were greeted by Debbie’s youngest child, Valentino. Valentino looked like a darker version of his mother with his high cheeks and big brown eyes. He was wearing a pair of black Dickies that sagged off his ass and a pair of Scooby-Doo slippers with a blue bandanna tied around his head Aunt Jemima–style. Valentino was barely out of grade school but already looked like a top prospect in the next prison draft. “Oh shit, what’s hood, li’l mama? I knew you’d get off that bullshit and come see about a nigga,” Valentino cracked, looking at Frankie like she was the last porterhouse steak on the planet.

Frankie rocked back on her heels and looked down at the brown-skinned boy. “First of all, watch ya mouth, and second of all, where’s ya mama?”

Valentino sucked his teeth. “She in the back putting in that twirk. Come on in.” Valentino stepped back so they could enter. As Frankie passed, he reached out to touch her ass, but she caught his hand in midair.

“If I gotta tell you about these pervert-ass hands of yours one more time, I’m gonna take them from you, feel me?” Frankie said seriously.

“Stop acting like that, ma. Every man wants to test-drive the car before he buys it,” he said in a sly tone.

“Valentino, it’ll be years before you even come close to being on the radar of a thorough bitch, and even then you’ll still be just a li’l nigga trying to play grown-up.” Frankie shoved him out of the way.

“Frankie, you’re cold as hell.” Valentino laughed.

“Valentino, who the fuck did you just let in my house?” Debbie shouted from the back of the apartment. Now that they were inside, they heard what sounded like a large machine running.

“It ain’t for me, so why don’t you come find out instead of yelling like a crazy person,” Valentino shot back and walked off into the kitchen.

“Yo, that’s on my moms if you don’t stop playing with me I’m gonna bust your shit,” Debbie barked as she came down the hall. She looked like a mad scientist, dressed in a white lab coat and latex gloves. She was a big girl, standing around six feet tall and weighting a little over two hundred pounds. When she saw Frankie and Sahara, her eyes went wide, making her look like the cat that had swallowed the canary. “Oh, what’s good, y’all?” Debbie quickly pulled the gloves off and stuffed them into the pocket of the lab coat.

“You tell us,” Frankie shot back.

“Ain’t shit, I was just in here cleaning up a little bit,” Debbie lied.

“In a lab coat?” Sahara questioned.

“Oh, that’s just to keep that Ajax from getting in my clothes.” Debbie brushed the phantom dust from the lab coat.

“That looks like ink, not Ajax,” Frankie said upon closer examination.

“There you go on your pet detective shit.” Debbie tried to laugh it off as she slipped out of the lab coat and stuffed it into a laundry basket in the hallway. “Come in the living room, I was just about to light an L.”

“We ain’t really trying to stay, we just came to holla at you about something right quick,” Frankie told her as she and Sahara followed Debbie into the living room. The living room was plush, from the peach carpet to the flat-screen television to the imported suede sofas and the stained-glass lamps in each corner.

Debbie flopped in the high-back chair under one of the lamps and lit the half of a blunt that was resting in the ashtray. “So what’s going on?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. We got home today and found an eviction notice taped to the apartment door,” Sahara explained.

“Say word.” Debbie’s eyes went wide with shock. She was so good at what she did that it almost passed as genuine.

“Word,” Frankie picked up. “The notice says that we’re behind on our rent and I know that’s impossible because we’ve been paying you every month since we subleased the joint from you last year. So we figured you may be able to help us solve this li’l mystery.”

Debbie exhaled a stream of smoke and shrugged. “I don’t know, B. When y’all kick me the rent I kick it to Housing, so I don’t see what the problem could be.”

“Well, have they contacted you about anything?” Sahara asked.

Debbie thought about it for a few minutes and then snapped her fingers as if she had suddenly had an epiphany. “You know what—I did get a budget-adjustment letter in the mail a few months back. They were talking some shit about going up on the rent, but they can’t because I get public assistance. I sent them proof of income and all the rest of the shit they asked for to straighten it out. I gave it to Valentino to mail off for me.”

“You mean that paper from court you got in the mail?” Valentino asked from the entrance of the kitchen, where he stood eating a sandwich.

“It was not a court paper, it was a budget-adjustment letter,” Debbie corrected him. She tried to give him the eye signal to go along with it, but Valentino ignored her.

“The envelope sure looked like it had the housing court as a return address,” he said smugly.

“If you could read so good, your stupid ass wouldn’t be getting left back again. Now mind your fucking business and go in the room,” Debbie barked.

“What-the-fuck-ever,” Valentino mumbled under his breath, and did as he was told.

“Stop playing with me before I fuck you up,” Debbie shouted after him. “I swear that boy is gonna make me go upside his head. Now, like I was saying: I gave Valentino that paperwork to drop in the mail and his dumb ass probably didn’t do it when I sent him to do it. You know how these kids can be, right?”

“No, because I don’t have any, and if I did I wouldn’t have them handling important business for me,” Frankie snapped.

“Ain’t no need for the attitude Frankie, it was an honest mistake. I’ll get it straightened out, don’t worry about it.”

Frankie looked at Debbie as if she had taken leave of her senses. “What the fuck do you mean don’t worry about it? Debbie, these muthafuckas are talking about putting us out if we don’t pay them that back rent.”

Debbie rolled her eyes. “Frankie, you know Housing is all talk and no action. By the time they even get around to executing the eviction we’ll have straightened it out. I told you I’ll take care of it.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll take care of it, but I’d rather it be sooner than later. Look, if it really went down like you said, then it ain’t nothing for us to go to management and get it cleared up. Today is Thursday and we’ve got roughly until Monday to stop this eviction, so tomorrow morning you can grab whatever paperwork you need and let’s shoot down there,” Frankie suggested.

“Ah, tomorrow’s no good for me. Valentino got suspended from school again so I gotta go see his principal in the morning and I gotta take Lucy to the doctor Monday. Why don’t y’all give me a call Monday night and we’ll set up a day next week to do it,” Debbie said.

“Debbie, we’re gonna be in the fucking streets by next week. We need to get this shit done ASAP,” Frankie said aggressively.

“Well, ASAP ain’t gonna work for me because I got shit to do,” Debbie said, matching Frankie’s tone. The tension in the air suddenly became very thick and it looked like Debbie and Frankie were gonna go at it, but luckily Lucy came into the living room before it popped off.

Lucy’s face was smudged with ink and she held what looked like a bank check in her hands. “Mom, I ran this one through the machine twice but the routing numbers still look like they’re lining up wrong. Should we—”

“What the fuck, don’t you see grown people out here talking? Take your ass in the room until I’m finished!” Debbie roared. Lucy was so crushed that she all she could do was spin on her heels and run back into the room, crying. “Like I was saying,” Debbie turned back to Frankie, “Housing can’t just come and put y’all out into the street without taking it to court, but it ain’t even gonna go that far, trust me.”