Leaving: A Novel (25 page)

She went into the living room and wandered around, looking for something to bring him. Love E’s eight-tracks were no good, and the carved wooden animals were too fancy. She stood in the middle of the room, spinning like a merry-go-round, then stopped, looking at the stairs. She could give him some of Love E’s clothes, a jacket, but it might not fit. And Lida’s stuff was too girlish. She turned toward the kitchen and thought for a moment. She walked to the counter and pulled the jar from the cupboard above, took out ten dollars, put it in an envelope, and wrote his name across the front.

While she waited for the bus on San Pablo, she found herself smiling at the other women waiting with her. She imagined how Tony would come in the house and see her, how he would give her a big, strong hug and kiss her cheek, like he had when he left. He’d probably be dressed in a suit and tie, his hair cut short, already like a successful lawyer.

She’d never introduced him to Lida, like she’d always said she would. But she’d told him all about her as they were growing up, He’d even seen a picture of her on her sixteenth birthday and said she was pretty. But they went to different schools and didn’t know any of the same people. The closest they ever got to meeting was in seventh grade when Lida was supposed to go over and tutor him, but his parents decided to hire someone else.

Ruby leaned against the bus-stop pole. She felt a heaviness trying to fill her, and she pushed all her thoughts of Lida from her mind as quickly as she could. She stared at the pavement to keep the faces from appearing in her mind. But the heaviness grew, and the pole wasn’t enough to support her, so she sat down on the bench. The other women asked if she was okay, and she nodded and hung her head.

She heard the engine of the bus coming from down the block, and as always, the women stood up and got in line. The bus pulled to the curb and opened its doors with a long sigh. The women slowly climbed the tall metal steps, pulling themselves up by the metal bar, trudging into the bus like the oldest survivors of the longest war. Ruby waited until the last woman was through the doors, then stood up and got on.

SANTA RITA JAIL

TODAY, I READ
to you from
A Bad Seed: My Life as a Slave,
by Branson White:

What is a crime for me? When I stole the kitchen knife and chicken, was I wrong? Was it immoral of me to steal the necklace to have money for my journey? Was it a crime, after a day of building, to run to my children’s home in Alabama? Yes, it was, and I was severely punished. Was it a crime to whip me for being late with the water? No, it was not.…

What is not justified action against those who enslave me? Was it a crime to kill my master and his family?.… Can I choose, now that I am a free man, to abide by my own conscience? Should I choose to abide by the laws of this nation? What will I teach my new child, and what will he know from my eyes? I escaped to the North by the light of the stars, but where is True North on my moral compass?

CHAPTER 13

JANUARY 1994   •   LOVE 14, RUBY 56

LOVE DIDN’T GO
into the shed to make the pickup anymore. He’d met a kid named Perry who hustled up at People’s Park and came by the store to score some smoke. He was a White kid the same age as Love, punked out with a leather jacket, black tips on his spiked blond hair, and thick circles of black eyeliner around his eyes.

Perry rode to Berkeley on the handlebars of Love’s bike. Love went inside the gate to drop off the money but then waited outside while Perry went into the shed. He came out with the bag and an extra forty dollars and everyone was happy.

One night on the way back to the store from a pickup, Love saw two police cars parked at the liquor store. Curse was lying facedown in front of his wheelchair, a policeman frisking him and kicking his limp legs open. As Love turned on to Cranston, he saw Freight against the wall with his hands cuffed. Freight yelled at the White cop standing next to him, but loud enough that it was clear he was yelling to the neighborhood:

“Fuck this racist shit! Oppressing the Black man for no reason! We oughta riot in this city.”

“Shut the fuck up,” the Black cop yelled.

“How can you do this to your own people?” Freight yelled back.

“I could ask you the same question.” The cop swung Freight around by the back of his jacket, “It’s fuck-ups like you—”

“Naw, it’s Uncle Toms like you,” Freight spat back.

As Freight was being pushed into the car, he spotted Love standing on the sidewalk. “What the fuck you lookin at, nigga?”

Love rode to his house and carried his bike upstairs.

In his room, he took the bag of coke out of his jacket, went into the closet, and put it into one of Easton’s old boots.

Ruby came to the open door in her nightgown. “What’s all that fuss at the corner?”

Love shrugged and closed the closet. Ruby came in and sat on the bed.

“You just came from there, but you don’t know?” She looked at the closet as Love stood in front of it. “You know I’ll go in there if I have the mind to.”

Love shrugged again and wandered away to the window. Ruby stayed on the bed.

“I’m telling you, little boy, don’t think God ain’t watchin. Don’t think He don’t know.”

“I hope He do, ’cause it’s scandalous down here.”

She shook her head and stood up to leave.

“Ain’t you gonna check the closet?” Love asked. “You can go ahead. See if I care.”

“I’ve been down that road before and t’aint gonna do no good. Things’d only get worse. You’d just up and go. Can’t be my decision. I’m jus here to help you choose to be a man.”

*   *   *

ONCE FREIGHT AND
Curse had been arrested, Love became the main presence at the liquor store. At the end of the month, Curse got out of jail, but he couldn’t be caught holding or he’d get another strike and be put away forever, like Freight.

Love let Li’l Pit hang out with him on the weekends, but he wasn’t allowed to do any of the slinging. One Saturday, while Love stood out front tending to business, a thin, orange-striped cat, not a baby but not fully grown, ran up to the liquor-store building and rubbed against the sunny corner wall. It tilted its head and slowly shut and opened its eyes, flirting with Li’l Pit. He bent down and scratched behind its ears. It smiled and closed its eyes again. But then, as Li’l Pit pressed his hand more firmly into its body, it took off and ran up the block, suddenly frightened by the affection.

Li’l Pit followed the cat. It stopped and turned to let him get closer, then dashed off farther up San Pablo to a vacant lot covered with dry grass. The cat rubbed against an old cement foundation and Li’l Pit bent down again, reached his hand out and stroked the cat. It rippled its body and pointed its tail in the air. He moved closer, inching forward in a squat. The cat let him dig his fingers into the fur around its rump. He put his hands around the cat’s body and picked it up, held it close in to his chest, but the cat squirmed and bit him in the fleshy part of the hand.

“Shit,” he yelled, dropping the cat, and the cat ran deeper into the lot. Li’l Pit chased after it into the dry grass filled with broken bottles. As he got closer to it, he stumbled and screamed.

“Something bit me!” he yelled. He held up his ankle, hopped out of the lot, and sat on the pavement. “Get it off me. Get it off me.” Love walked around the corner and sat down next to his brother.

Li’l Pit lay on his side and held his foot up in the air. Love pulled a thistle from the ankle of his sock.

“What is it? Ow, ow. It’s biting me.”

“Lay still, dog. You’re such a baby. You need some lotion. Look at your skin.” Li’l Pit lay silently now, his chapped leg in his brother’s hand.

A beeping went off, two quick chirps again and again. Love looked at his beeper, but there was no number flashing.

“You got a beeper?” he asked Li’l Pit. He reeled his little brother up by the leg like a fishing net. He got to his hip and lifted his jersey.

“Stop that.”

“What the fuck is this?” He pulled a neon-green beeper off his little brother’s hip.

“That’s mine. Gimme my beeper.”

“What do you need a beeper for?” Love read the number on the top of the digital readout. He didn’t need to ask about the number. He knew it by heart from his own beeper, the number to Curse’s house, where Freight was relaying all his orders from jail.

Li’l Pit pulled his leg away and stood up. He reached for the beeper, but Love switched hands and held it from him.

“Who gave you this?”

“It’s mine. I earned it.” He slapped at Love’s arms and reached for it.

“How’d you earn it?”

“It’s mine. I rapped for it.”

“We’re going to call this number and find out. And this better be your school calling to say you got an ‘A’ on your math test.” Love stood and walked to the pay phone on the corner by the store. He took a quarter out of his pocket and dropped it into the slot. A bus pulled up and let off a kid about Li’l Pit’s age wearing a green backpack with a Bart Simpson patch on it. Li’l Pit stared at him and the kid kept his face down as he walked toward the store.

Love dialed general telephone time and listened to the operator say, “At the tone, the time will be three-forty-seven and thirty-five seconds.”

“Who’s this?” Love yelled to the recording on the phone. “Curse? What you want? Why’d you give my brother a beeper? I ought to kick your ass. You’re scandalous, man. He’s only ten years old. All right, what you want?” Li’l Pit pushed into the phone booth and pulled on the metal cord.

“Let me talk. Tell him I’ll do it,” he yelled. “It’s my beeper. He gave it to me.”

“He thinks you have something for him to do. I don’t want my little brother slinging, Curse.”

“I can do what I want.” Li’l Pit hit his brother in the stomach.

“Okay. Okay. Hold on.” Love turned to Li’l Pit. “I can’t hear what he wants you to do.” Li’l Pit stopped and waited attentively, staring at Love’s face as he spoke into the receiver.

“All right, tell me what you want us to do.” Love nodded. “Okay. Uh-huh. I’ll tell him. All right. We’ll do it. I’ll tell him. How much? Okay. Where should we do the pickup? You want me to go too? Okay.”

“But it’s
my
job,” Li’l Pit whined.

“It’s his job,” Love said into the receiver. “I don’t want to go. You want me to go along for backup? You’re sure? I’ll let him go on his own if you want. All right. If Freight wants me there, then it has to be that way.”

“Let me talk to him,” Li’l Pit whined. “Give me the phone.”

“Okay. We won’t call again. The cops got the beeper numbers. Okay. Go then.” Love hung up.

“What’d he want me to do?”

“I can’t say out here, dog. You want to get yourself locked up? We got to go home and I’ll tell you. We can’t call him anymore, though. Your beeper might be bugged.”

“Let’s go. Come on.” Li’l Pit skipped ahead down the block and then ran back to him. “Come on. I got a first job. Hurry up.”

Li’l Pit ran up the porch stairs and waited at the top for Love to unlock the front door. Love took his time trudging up, thinking of a plan. Even with only two keys, he put the wrong one in each hole and then put each one in upside down.

“Tell me what I got to do,” Li’l Pit begged.

“Just hold on. We’re not inside yet.” When the door was finally open, Li’l Pit went running into the living room almost to the kitchen, as if it were only a matter of getting inside to find out about his job and he could just leave Love behind.

“Where’s that black rag Mama gave you?” Li’l Pit asked. “I’ve got to show my colors.”

“First off, that’s wrong. See, that’s all wrong.” Love closed the door and locked it. “You got to not show anything. See. This is why I’ve got to give it to you slowly, so you know every part of it. You can’t make a mistake or else you’ll have Freight on us.”

Li’l Pit went silent and nodded up at his older brother. Love couldn’t help but smile at the earnestness in his eyes.

“How come you want to do this so bad?”

Li’l Pit wrinkled his eyebrows and yelled, “’Cause!”

“You think this is going to be like some TV show. This shit gets dangerous.” Li’l Pit smiled and nodded eagerly. Love shook his head.

“Alright. This is what you’ve got to do: first, Nanna is home, so you got to shut up. Now, what you’ve got to do is this.” He started to speak more slowly, word by word, to give his brain time to think. “Go upstairs into your room. In your room, look around for something. We need something for the pickup.”

“Like what?”

“You need something to carry stuff in, something big, ’cause this is a big job, it’s going to be very dangerous.”

Li’l Pit nodded his head. “Like that old trunk?”

“Yeah. Okay, take everything out of that green trunk at the bottom of your bed. All them clothes and anything else. Yeah. We have to get that trunk ready. I’ll come up when you’re done. And put on some of them clothes I got you.” Li’l Pit leapt up the stairs by twos and disappeared.

Love looked around the living room in desperation for some inspiring object. Ruby’s purse was next to the Bible on top of the table by the rocking chair. The Bible was supposed to be filled with inspiration and advice, but it never kept him from doing something wrong, so it surely wasn’t going to keep his brother from it. The canvas notebook of insects was on the coffee table. He hadn’t had to take any more out since he started up with Freight. Instead, he’d bought new ones to add to it, a large red ant and a fuzzy caterpillar. He had new black jeans and he even had a savings account at Wells Fargo on Shattuck with four hundred dollars in it, but the account was in Freight’s name and he had to get permission every time he wanted to take out money. He got twenty dollars for every run he made, and now he got forty dollars for just standing at the store and giving directions.

His beeper went off and he grabbed it from his pocket. It was Curse calling him. He was bound to come look for them if they didn’t respond. He set both beepers to vibrate and took them to the kitchen. He considered putting them in a drawer, but ended up wrapping them in tinfoil and putting them in the freezer.