In the Nick of Time (65 page)

The man nodded, a sad smile on his face.

“You were his best friend, Nick. Ma would say, ‘If you can’t find Jonathan, go to Nick’s house. If you can’t find Nick, come to our house.’”

They both chuckled as he nodded in full agreement. He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and rolled in the uncomfortable waves of discovery, recovery, and potential healing.

“I remember that. Uh…” He looked down, then back up again. “That you felt responsible for his death. We never blamed you, Nick,” he said, his bloodshot eyes sincere. “When I saw you breaking down at his funeral, you remember who lifted you up?”

Nick lowered his head, nodded and sniffed away a sign of weakness better known a motherfucking tear drop.

“Yeah, you, Javier, Edgar, your mother, your uncle Teyo, and Brian. You all came and got me off the floor… picked me up and hugged me.” He kept his head down as one of the fuckers got away, fell from his eye and landed on the concrete step. He sniffed once again. “I could barely look at him in that casket… It really messed me up, man…messed me up real bad.”

“When I heard you’d became a cop, Ma and everybody here was proud of you. She always said you were smart.”

He slowly lifted his head, stared at the man in confusion.

“Your mother called me a trouble maker, and I was!” He laughed sadly.

Diego nodded, slicked a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit it. A swirly cluster of smolder soon framed his full face then faded away with the grayness of the day.

“She did, but she loved you like a son, man. When you stopped hanging around in the street just before it happened, Jonathan told ’er you’d changed. He said you wasn’t no fun anymore, but we knew he was still proud of you…still saw you as his best friend. We missed you. You ain’t come around as much. He said you had your head in some books, was trying to pass, to graduate. It was so strange, man,” he said. “I remember that shit like it was yesterday. I didn’t imagine you like that though, but after a while, it made sense.”

“What do you mean, it made sense?”

“Maaaan.” He smirked as he watched a car pass by then turned his attention back towards Nick. “You were smart, that’s why. I used to watch you and my brother doin’ shit, and I was so impressed by you. You were so smooth. People never saw you coming. Maybe it was because you were little.”

Nick lifted his head and cracked a smile. “Yeah, I was a late bloomer…”

“Kinda short and skinny… Who tha fuck grows like six inches their senior year in high school? That was so funny, man.” He cackled.

“I know, right? I was thankful for it though…coulda ended up a runt.”

“Yeah…yeah.” The guy’s eyes narrowed on him as he took another puff of his cigarette. “But like I was saying, you could get in and out of somewhere just like that. You had a slick way about you. You were what the bitches would call a charming mothafucka.”

They both burst out laughing.

“I’m serious, though. You had people convinced of shit.”

“I was just a good liar is all… That was nothing to be proud of, but yeah,” he said with a shrug. “I lied pretty good and if lying could have been a career, I would have been the CEO of the company.”

Diego grinned. “But you know, people that have a way with others can make people believe shit, make them feel good even though it’s a bunch of bullshit. Guess you could call it a gift.” He paused, neither of them saying another word for a spell. “So.” The man took a toke of his cigarette and continued. “You used your powers for good instead of evil.” He laughed lightly. “That’s good. That’s real good.”

“A, Diego, where did you go? Like you said, last time I saw you was like five years ago. I even stopped by your mom’s house once a long time ago, but no one answered.”

“Oh, man.” The man drew on his cigarette once more, cocked a lazy smile. “I was in and out of jail.” He tapped his cigarette, forcing ashes to fall alongside his foot. “Then Palm Partners.”

“The rehabilitation center?” Nick raised his chin a bit higher. “Okay.”

“Yeah… so uh…” The guy shifted his weight. “I understand the predicament you were speaking of earlier… Yeah, I get that…”

Nick wanted to barrage him with a bunch of questions, sit down beside him, hug him real hard, and drive him to a detox facility immediately. But, those were simply pipe dreams and that wasn’t how this shit worked. He had no say over Diego’s life and furthermore, it would have been a twisted attempt to once again somehow redeem himself regarding Jonathan. No, he couldn’t be impulsive, not think the shit through, make rash decisions when he knew better.

“Yeah… I get it. I understand.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“So you got clean, huh?” the man asked, an air of doubt in his tone.

“Yeah, been sober for over six months now.”

“Not a drop of nothing?”

“Nothing, not even cough syrup.” He smiled.

Diego nodded, crossed his arms over his protruding stomach, still looking unconvinced.

“Six months ain’t that long, but it’s longer than most.”

“Yeah, not a fan of the twelve step thing but I take it day by day, Diego… day by day. I have a good support system. That is a must.”

“What? You gotta sponsor ’nd meetings ’nd shit?”

“I go to meetings three times a week. Matter of fact, just had one this morning. I also have a supportive girlfriend and people I can call. I have people that believe in me, and people that would probably like to see me fail. The last category of individuals sometimes inspire me the most…real talk.”

They glared at one another, a heaviness taking over the conversation.

The tide had changed; a new dynamic was at play.

“Hey, you want to come to a meeting with me, man? They’re cool…not a bunch of preachy shit. They don’t try to get you to come to church or anything like that, and you come when you want to. It’s real informal and works well for me.”

The man stared down at his shoes, seemingly sorting it out, thinking it through. Nick heard childlike laughter, then spotted two children giggling as they played in the middle of the street. The two little girls crossed the road, getting smaller and smaller, and their voices more and more distant, until he could hear them no longer.

“I don’t know.” Diego shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Well, look, take my number, okay? If you want to talk, call me. If you want me to pick you up and take you, call me. Shit, if you just want to catch up about old times, call me!” They grinned at one another.

“Cool, cool…” The man pulled out his phone with one hand while with the other he held onto the dangling cigarette. “What’s your number, man?”

“917-420-7121.”

“Got it…cool man, cool.” He took another puff of his cigarette, flicked it away like a bastard that had pissed him off, and stomped it hard and heavy. “I might call you and go. I just might.” Diego continued to look off into the distance, fading…fading away, just like the little girls’ laughter. “This my girl’s house.” He flicked his thumb behind him. “She ain’t home right now or I’d introduce you.”

“No problem. Hopefully, I’ll meet her soon. I want us to keep in touch.”

…I NEED us to keep in touch, Diego…

“I’ll call you, man. Shit, you seem like you got some good luck that could rub off on me. The one warehouse I was working at laid me and uh bunch of other guys off…fuckin’ losers, man. I’m kinda struggling right now… Yeah, I could use some good luck.” He offered Nick a miserable smile, one that cracked his heart, made it bleed in his name. “You were
always
lucky…
Suerte dedos pegajosos!
‘Lucky Sticky Fingers’.” He cackled.

“Awww, you remember that shit?!” Nick laughed heartily. “I’ll never live it down.”

“You don’t need to live it down, man.” Diego bit into his lip, looking proud of him. “It was amazing. Like I said, you were a work of art, man. You’d slide in and out and have a bunch of shit in seconds flat. That was fuckin’ amazing… Then, when you became a cop, of course we all laughed, but again, I understood it.” He pointed to himself. “It made sense. You stealing and shit was just survival. That’s what we did…didn’t mean that’s who you
actually
were. People get that sort of thing twisted all the time.” Diego lowered his head, causing thick, dark brown loose curls to tumble forward. “But, congrats man… you know, on getting back on track.” He slowly looked him back in the eye. “It’s hard, you know? Ain’t shit out here, man…ain’t shit out here…” Diego shook his head as he clasped his large, puffy hands together, no hope in his eyes, no sense of faith or self-trust. Nick knew that look all too well.

“You’re right.” Nick stooped down to his level, wrapped his arm around him real nice and hard, and whispered in his ear, “And that’s why sometimes you gotta make your
own
shit.”

“My own shit, huh?” The man kept his head down, his words husky and rich.

“Yeah, your
own
shit, man. Be an inventor of your destiny. It’s a big ass black hole; fill it up with something good, so that
something
is finally there. You can say that you made something outta nothing… something you can hold onto and call your own, before it’s too late. Diego, it’s not too late for you. If you need me, you know where to find me. Jonathan was my brother, and that means you are, too, man. And I
am
my brother’s keeper…”

I expected nothing less…

T
he vast twenty
storey building on Warren Street in Tribeca proved to be exactly what his imagination had cooked up several hours before their arrival. North East New York wasn’t on his beat; matter of fact, he seldom ventured in the area but still, he was quite familiar with it from his brief travels. Mrs. Brown, the Queen hostess, better known as his soulmate’s mother, had invited him for brunch. Taryn had been gone since the wee hours of the morning, working her tail off. She’d left dressed in tight black yoga pants and a long coat that swung around her body like flapping wings, eager to get up and at ’em, coffee in tow. After all, she’d landed a decent paying shoot and had plans for the funds before they’d even reached her hands. One of which, she insisted on paying rent… This resulted in a low grade argument, a level 2 on the Richter scale, but it shook the foundation nevertheless. Afterwards though, she phoned him just before going straight to her parents’ home, as it wasn’t located far from her engagement.

He, on the other hand, had spent the morning preparing for the damn event. For he was certain either one or both of her parents would have questions and concerns—he hadn’t forgotten the way both of them looked at him upon their first meeting, especially Mr. Jones with his sallow face, deep set, small, dark eyes, and stern demeanor. Nick didn’t scare easily, but this wasn’t a corner drug dealer on the run after a transaction gone bad, or a half dead body slumped over a passenger’s car seat. No, he could take that like coffee with no sugar or cream, but he had to balance himself, be careful… ever so careful, for these were Taryn’s parents. This was his love life, his future—and what a different world that was to navigate.

Nick stole a stifled breath from his damn lungs. The double-barreled bastards didn’t want to give it up. He ran his hands together as his chest tightened. Taking a deep exhale, he tried to convince himself that he could still sell flames of fire to a soul condemned in Hell. Those days were long gone, whispers of a glib life gone bad, and he wasn’t exactly interested in pulling tricks like some mysterious magician gripping the tattered, mangy rabbit from an old dusty top hat.