Friends and Lovers (36 page)

Shelby said, “Go sit down. The baby.”

Nikki wobbled a little bit, then caught her balance. She said, “I want to apologize to everybody.” Each word sounded awkward. Made me think she’d been up all night, practicing each word or pause. “I am so sorry. I know that there is nothing—”

“I’ll never forgive you,” Debra sliced into Nikki’s dialect.

Shelby was wiping her face. Bobby too. So was I.

Debra said, “There is nothing you can say to me to make me feel better, so don’t even go there. There’s not a damn thing can say to make me understand why you did what you did. Your crying won’t make me feel sorry for you. When your tears dry, nothing will have changed.”

Debra looked at each of us, straightened her posture and ran her hand across her auburn hair. She eased Shelby’s hands off her shoulders, then stepped to Nikki.

This time Debra’s voice was more political. “At eleven, news reporters will be here. If you want to do something, if you are sincere and are not here for show, be back here and talk to them. Tell them how you feel about what you’ve done.”

She stammered and her eyes bucked. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And after that, don’t ever step foot on my husband’s property again. Understand?”

Before the girl could answer, Debra put her hands to her own face and hurried toward her bedroom. Shelby
followed. Richard was gone from the hall. Bobby opened the front door. Nikki bumbled out of the foyer with her head hung low enough to drag on the ground.

Me and Bobby stepped outside into the light. Nikki had made it down the stairs, into the mouth of the cul de sac, and was being comforted by an elderly Asian couple who looked like they needed comforting themselves.

“Tyrel! Bobby!” That came from behind us.

Shelby was in the French doors, her head sticking out.

“Debra said come inside and close the door. Now.”

She let the door go and went back inside.

We headed back up the stairs. Nikki and her family walked back toward their car. Bobby put his hand on my shoulder and led me back into the house. I put my hand on his shoulder.

He asked, “You all right, Ty?”

I shook my head. “What about you?”

Bobby shook his head. Wiped his eyes.

I was on mile seven in the eighty-degree heat. I didn’t slow down when Bobby had cramped up and faded, and that was almost three miles ago. My pace and pain were a bit too much for him. When his breathing had slowed and became controllable, he headed toward the bleachers and stretched.

Mile seven and a half.

I was passing runners left and right, but it didn’t feel like I was moving. Everybody was less than a blur. I couldn’t hear. I’d run a couple off the track on my last lap. The sweat on my back made my shirt stick to my skin and show off the outline of my sports bra. My shirt was clinging to my bubble butt. Stares were coming from brothers and Mexicans. I ran by lusty comments. That was the last I heard for a while.

I was gone. Spiraling deep inside my head. I wiped my face on the front of my shirt, kept on having a talk with myself.

Mile eight.

A damn bug flew in my nose. I coughed it out and sped up.

After Nikki left us shattered, I had sat on the bed and comforted Debra the best I could. She ranted and screamed about the nerve of that bitch. But even then, while Debra was going off, my thoughts were being dragged in a different direction.

Nikki was barely nineteen and had stepped up to the plate and confronted her troubles. She had looked at her problem, had been honest with her mistake, and had done it as soon as she could, didn’t let it linger, did it face-to-face. If that girl had the address, she could’ve been a coward and just mailed a letter or an anonymous sympathy card. Or come in the middle of the night and left a note on the door. She took control, made a decision. Hell, by stepping inside Debra’s house alone, Nikki had put her life on the line. And she didn’t run when she felt the heat.

I was mad as hell, wanted to strangle the rug rat myself, but jealousy was brewing and bubbling over my bereavement. Resentfulness because of Nikki’s character, the way she’d handled herself in a crisis. That made me disgusted with my own damn self. Nikki was honest. Couldn’t help but respect that.

We thought she’d flake out and vanish until it was time for her to go to court, but she showed up with her shoulders slumped and a pack of tissues in her hands. When they interviewed Nikki, she didn’t offer any excuses. Not a one. We all wanted to know how the hell she made it from the jail to the streets before Leonard’s heart had barely taken its final beat. Her folks had some cash and had bailed her out before the blood had been rinsed away from the sidewalks. That girl sat by herself, aimed her bloodshot eyes right into the camera and said she was willing to accept her punishment. She said that
on a tape that would air on national television before the sun had set.

Nikki had wiped her eyes. “I was wrong. I let my friends talk me into doing something that I already knew was wrong. I let my grandparents down and hurt a family. Forever. And I want to do whatever it takes.”

The sister reporter asked, “Would you go to jail, or do you think it would be the proper punishment to do community service?”

“Whatever I deserve,” she cried, “and more. There are no excuses for what I did. I will not make any. It was my fault.”

Nikki said all of that in front of a crew of black people, in front of her family, in front of Leonard’s family and friends. The
Sentinel
had sent a reporter and a photographer. So had the
Times.
Now, before another sunrise had dipped into an orange-colored sunset, everybody and their momma would recognize Nikki. She’d stepped up to the plate and created her own scarlet letter.

Mile eight and three quarters.

Every time my shoes met the ground, I asked myself about last night. Why couldn’t I just tell Richard, “Yeah, I called Tyrel.”

That wouldn’t’ve killed anybody.

Part of my pisstivity was coming from the fact that it seemed like I was wading in the pool of life instead of swimming through. Just treading in the same old comfortable spot and avoiding any ripples. I’d had the same job for the last few years. The same safe position that kept me zooming from place to place and didn’t leave enough mental space for me to stop and think about me. Debra said Tyrel had changed positions, had been promoted, and he’d moved into a different place. Debra’d jumped the broom and taken her existence to another level. Now my friend was widowed, but she was standing in the face of heartache and disaster with her head high and her shoulders back. This situation was another transition that would redefine my friend and our
friendship. So much has happened. Everybody had changed.

Here I was being the same old Shelby. Still confused and making bad decisions every chance I got. Waking up smiling like life was fine. Not being honest with myself or anybody else.

I picked up the pace. Punished myself a little more.

I was on a mission, running away from dark parts of me and chasing the things I’d never brought into the light. For a second I thought somebody was slapping my booty. It was the heels of my Reeboks hitting my backside with my hard strides.

Another lap. The pain was deep. I wanted to scream like a slave being branded.

After the interview, Debra pulled Nikki to the side and had a talk with her off camera. Debra apologized for her harshness. She thanked the kid for doing the right thing. Told her that Leonard would smile on her for that. Then she told her again not to step on her property.

I’ve never known what made Debra so strong. I had strength, but mine didn’t feel like it had that kind of depth.

After the camera crew cleared, Debra changed and left with Tyrel. It didn’t take much talking to convince Debra to go by the clinic and have Faith check on the baby. When I told Richard I was going running, he had an attitude furrowing in his brow, but I blew him off and told him to hang out with Alejandria. She had to go downtown, then into Watts to pick up a picture that Debra wanted on the obituary. Richard got dressed and tagged along so he could see some of the inner city.

After they left, I ran out of the house. Bobby followed.

Two more laps of pain and suffering.

I refused to allow thoughts of any man—or woman—to invade my mind. Refused to allow anybody to drive what I needed into my life.

Mile nine and some change.

I stopped. Didn’t slow down. I just did a Forrest
Gump and stopped. My body had been begging me to give it up, turn it loose, because I’d run far enough from whatever I was leaving behind and had almost caught up with whatever the hell I was chasing. The numbness in my head faded when I walked around the track once. People were in the stands, applauding and whistling. I looked around to see what the hell was going on, then I realized that I’d been the show. Bobby was in the stands leading the woof, woof, woof thing. Nothing could make me smile. I wiped my face, dropped my head, put my hands on my hips, then walked on by with my thoughts, soggy T-shirt, and drenched spandex. Kept moving around the track. Kept going in circles.

“You one bad sister,” a brother huffed as he went by.

Weak-minded brothers always felt obligated to say something when nothing needed to be said. I stayed in the slow lane, kept my eyes on my feet, and let the slowpokes jog on with their lives.

Somebody whacked me on my butt. That felt like a man’s hand. Did the same crap that Bryce used to do. I jumped around with my fists doubled up, arm cocked, ready to throw down.

“Whoa!” Bobby said and jumped back. A few people in the stands laughed. I flipped him off and kept on trucking.

“Looks like you’re ready for a wet T-shirt contest.” Bobby tried to make eye contact. “Feel better?”

“Don’t ever do that again.”

I was in the middle of enduring pain and numbness. Felt like my legs were swollen. Feet ached. My lower back throbbed. I put my right hand on my waist for support. Obliques cramped. Throat was dry as Bobby’s conversation. I licked my lips and tried to spit. My insides were so dehydrated, dust came out. All my lotion had been sweated away, so I had to be ashy as hell.

Bobby said, “You’re limping.”

“Legs hurt.”

He took my hand, led me over to the grass, and made me stretch my calves and hamstrings. Bobby was running his mouth. I stayed in my world and let him have that
conversation by himself. I wasn’t ignoring him. I just wasn’t with him.

Bobby’s mouth was dried around the edges. He scratched the top of his scalp, dug under his dreadlocks and asked me, “Wanna talk about it?”

I whispered, “No.”

We walked forty minutes back to Leonard’s house in silence. By the time we made it up the hills, soreness and stiffness were taking control. All of it was a new pain, and I made myself welcome it under my backache and grimace.

I limped into Debra’s room, closed the door. After I stripped to my skin, I filled the master bathtub with hot water and Epsom salts. Soaked and listened to some Marvin Gaye.

Mercy, mercy, me. Thangs ain’t what they used to be.

From the Christopher Columbus International Freeway—the 10—smog was thick enough to make both the Griffith Park Observatory and the Hollywood sign disappear.

We were riding eastward and sweating in the sixty-five m.p.h. breeze. Debra cranked up my Brand New Heavies CD and let the ear candy lead us around the southbound exchange to the Harbor Freeway. Traffic was thick and Mr. Heat wasn’t a joke, so I jumped off at Manchester, slowed down long enough to pull into the car wash and get the road stains and streaky smudges washed away.

Back on the road, Debra tapped my arm. “Thirsty.”

Graffiti-tagged trees, monikers etched in street poles. Debra pointed at a Boys Market up the street. I headed that way. In the store’s lot, Debra looked at the armed security guards, craned her neck toward the wrought-iron
fences around the parking area. Every store had armed-and-dangerous foot security patrolling behind fifteen-foot gates. Some lots had barbed wire.

Debra said, “Paint must be a good thing to invest in.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Stores sell the kids paint to spray the graffiti, then sell the businesses paint to take it down.”

After we got the bottled water, I hopped back into the car and said, “You’ve got an hour before your appointment.”

Debra’s eyes were glued to my dash. “Head down to 107th.”

Minutes later, we were parked outside of the Watts Tower of Simon Rodia. Debra was still staring at my dash. Her eyes went to my steering wheel, then her attention went back to the dash.

I asked, “What’s wrong?”

She sniffled and shook her head.

Her hand reached out and felt the grooves where my passenger-side air bag was installed. She’d been staring at the one on my side too. She massaged the dash, patted it, eased her hand away, then did her best to smile while she turned off the music.

We were on a narrow street lined with stucco bungalows. I let the top up, kept the engine running, and tuned the air conditioner to sixty-five degrees. Traces of water left over from the car wash rolled down the window like tears.

The African-American center was down a narrow street in an area that was damn near all Hispanic. A crowd of brothers were standing around talking, sipping drinks from containers hidden in paper bags. I pushed a button and made sure all the doors were locked. Then I thought about what I’d just done. I shook my head at the irony of how, when we stopped around a crowd of my own people, my guard went up. But like the man said, stupid is as stupid does. If a brother had jacked Rosa Parks, then nothing and nobody was sacred. Everybody was up for grabs.

I asked, “What are you thinking about?”

Debra smiled, rapped her fingers on her leg and said a wispy, “Poetry readings. Kite-flying. Storytelling.”

“Nice.” A second later she sighed. I asked, “You okay?”

“I was thinking about how most of our neighborhoods have turned Mexican, that’s all. There’re no real black areas.”

Debra wore a something’s-on-my-mind expression. I waited for her to get to the point she was creeping up on.