Leaving: A Novel (48 page)

Love took out his key and opened the door, then slipped inside and slammed it shut. The policeman laughed and talked through the door: “Okay. Now you stay there until your parents get home.”

Love heard the cop walk away.

The room was empty except for the mat on the living room floor. He walked into the bedroom, but no one was home and Paul wasn’t on his blanket.

He rubbed his wrists and went to the window. He pulled aside the white towel and watched for the cop to leave. There were people staring at the police car and kids playing kickball in the street. He recognized a guy from Ace Trey on a bike, riding up and down the block ringing his bell, warning the dealers.

There was a thump from the bathroom, and Love turned. There was another thump, and he went to check it out. He found Paul sitting in the empty bathtub in a pool of his own urine, kicking the tub with his heel.

“How long you been here?” Love knelt by the side of the tub and turned on the water. It was cold for almost a minute, and he let it run over his wrists until it warmed up. He plugged up the drain with his palm and the water filled in around his brother’s legs and waist, mixing with the urine.

“I got busted by the cops,” Love said. Paul looked at him silently. Love watched the water rise, slowly swallowing his brother’s body. When it reached his own elbow, he pulled his hand away from the drain and the water emptied at nearly the same rate as it poured in. He took an old towel from the shower rack, soaked it under the faucet, and rubbed the warm cloth around the back of Paul’s neck, across his thin ribs, and over his small potbelly.

*   *   *

NO ONE FROM
CPS ever came to check on them as far as Love ever knew. He continued to hang with Ace Trey, and when Paul got old enough, he brought him to the crib too. The crew called Paul Li’l Pit since he was Pit Bull’s little brother.

Carlyle made Danish pastry braids for Li’l Pit’s fifth birthday. He’d seen how to do it on
Julia Child
which he reserved the right to watch every afternoon at three. Soda Pop was up for it, bought him all the ingredients he ever wanted. Love was up for it too, and so was Li’l Pit. Pop had them stay in the kitchen while the rest of the set worked in the living room, planning. Ace Trey was going to war. They were going to war for the Tigers against Four Deuce after Four Deuce sent Fletcher Washington to the hospital with a bullet in his spine. Everyone knew it was Claude Sonny who took out Fletcher because Claude just came out of Fulton for trying to get Fletcher two years earlier. There wasn’t anything else to know except that Ace Trey protected the Tigers and the Tigers protected Ace Trey.

Li’l Pit sat on a stool at the kitchen table and Love stood at the counter. Love got to mix the flour and eggs, mash the berries, and add the sugar.

“Give me the measurer,” he told his brother. Li’l Pit brought him the waxed-Pepsi cup on which Carlyle had drawn measuring marks. “Now!” Love poured in twice the amount of sugar called for. “Taste this.” He dipped his finger in and held it out for Li’l Pit.

Snapple sauntered in from the living room with a smile. “How the womenfolk all doin? We got some hungry men waitin out here.”

“Seem like some niggahs don’t want no food,” Carlyle said to Love.

“Damn, dog, I’m just playin wit you.” Snapple tapped Carlyle’s shoulder. “Smell good. Like some serious jam. Well, you little girls keep yourself safe in here.” He walked out again, sure to return, as he had all morning. There wasn’t much for him to do in the living room. They let him watch, but he was still too young to speak up.

“These fools ain’t gonna let me do nothin,” Snapple said when he kicked the kitchen door open a few minutes later. “They too scared I might go crazy and kill a whole lotta niggahs just ’cause I feel like it.” He bumped Li’l Pit off the stool with his hip and sat down.

Li’l Pit stood up and began to bark at him loudly.

Snapple laughed. “Damn, you a sick puppy, Li’l Pit.”

“What you doin, niggah?” Love walked up to Snapple, his fists clenched at his sides. “Give my brother back his stool.”

“This ain’t got nobody’s name on it.”

Li’l Pit continued to bark at Snapple, baring his teeth.

“He was sittin there,” Love said.

“I was sittin here yesterday. I was sittin here ’fore your tiny butt was born.”

Carlyle stepped between them. He was tall and thin, and it was known that he hadn’t hit anyone even once in his life, but he stepped between them, a cookie sheet in his hand.

“Snapple, why you hanging out with the young kids? You growing up or down?”

Snapple spit on the kitchen floor near Li’l Pit’s feet.

“Why don’t you go on out with the big boys?” Carlyle said to him.

“Naw. I got to be in here.” Snapple turned his head to the side and cracked his neck.

“That punk gonna get a lip full,” Love said to Carlyle.

“Yeah,” Snapple replied. “A lip full a your ass.”

“I’m gonna count to three,” Carlyle said, “and then I’m gonna step out the way and let happen whatever happens. But then I’m gonna have Pop beat both your asses, and no telling what he’s gonna do on a day like this.” Carlyle counted out loud slowly. Snapple waved his hand in front of his nose.

“Man, what’s that burning? Somethin in the oven burning.” He went over to the oven, opened it, and looked in. There wasn’t anything in it yet. Li’l Pit got back on the stool.

Love laughed. “It’s not even on.”

“Well, something smell like it’s burning.”

Carlyle went back to the table and rolled the dough out into long rectangles. He gave Li’l Pit a butter knife.

“Cut these like this, in little triangles.”

Li’l Pit took the knife and cut. Snapple stood by the door. Every once in a while, they could hear someone raise his voice in the next room. Carlyle turned on the radio to a jazz station, and Li’l Pit cocked his head to the beat, then started to sing.

I do the cutting

You do the baking

I do the dough and

You do the jam.

“That’s right,” Carlyle said.

“Fuck this noise. I got to go,” Snapple said. “I got to go home and see my brothers.” He put his hands in his pockets and waited.

“What’s keepin you?” Love asked.

“Don’t want to see my pops.”

“I thought your daddy was in the army?”

“He is.”

“The army of God,” Carlyle added.

“No he ain’t. He over there fightin in Panama. I just got a letter.”

“Show it, then,” Love said.

“I lost it.”

“You lost your mind,” Carlyle said, and put the pastry in the oven. He laid out a new sheet of dough, and Li’l Pit cut it into triangles, singing his song again. Love helped press down the edges as Snapple watched silently from the corner.

“Y’all is whack,” he said. “I got places to be.”

“Be there, then,” Carlyle said.

Love pushed his brother off the stool in front of Snapple and sat down. Li’l Pit looked stunned but didn’t bark this time.

Snapple spat on the ground, halfway between them.

“You gonna clean that up, you know,” said Carlyle.

“I can spit if I want.”

“Not in my kitchen. Now grab a rag and wipe that up.”

“The hell I will.”

“Didn’t your mama teach you nothin?”

“My mama taught me not to hang around with no little faggots.”

Love walked toward Snapple again with his fists ready, but then Li’l Pit started to bark and they all stopped to watch. This time his barks were not like an angry dog, but like a sick, rabid dog, foaming and sloshing with spittle. He wiped his hand across his mouth and nose, leaving a long strand of shiny mucus. Immediately he threw his arm against the tray of dough triangles and sent them flying onto the floor, covered with his saliva.

He stood over his mess, and the rest watched him as he seethed.

Snapple burst out laughing. “Damn. Those look like some good snot tarts you made there, Li’l Pit.” Carlyle reached out to slap him but missed. Snapple backed to the door, smiling.

“‘Didn’t your mama teach y’all nothin?’” he said. “You gonna have to clean that up, you know?” He laughed and went back into the living room.

“What up, bro?” Love asked Li’l Pit. Li’l Pit just turned around and sat on the floor.

Soda Pop opened the door with Snapple behind him.

“See,” Snapple said.

“Who the fuck did this?” Pop asked.

“It was Li’l Pit,” Snapple said. “I told you.”

“Why the hell do you let him in here?” Pop yelled at Carlyle. “You know how he gets.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Love said.

“Didn’t he throw them on the floor?” Snapple yelled in.

“Shut up, Snapple,” Pop yelled, then turned back to Carlyle. “If you can’t keep control of the kids, then get them the fuck out of here!” He closed the door, but not before Snapple got in one last smile.

*   *   *

THE NEXT MORNING
the war table was used for breakfast. The first battle had not gone well the night before. Puke, Sam’s girlfriend, was supposed to entice Claude Sonny. She’d given him her number the week before, and they were supposed to go to the barbershop on 27th to get him a haircut, and while he was in the chair, Soda Pop was supposed to come in and shoot him in the head. But someone had tipped him off, and Sonny took Puke to an abandoned house where she was raped by five guys. So Ace Trey and the Tigers went and shot up the house, but by then Four Deuce was long gone.

Carlyle served scrambled eggs with mushrooms and diced tomatoes, English muffins with leftover strawberry jam, and a concoction of lemonade and grape juice he called Get-the-Fuck-Up! It was Snapple’s favorite thing to say, and he often finished four glasses of it in one sitting just to ask for more.

“Get-the-Fuck-Up,” Snapple said to Love, his hand reaching for the pitcher. This was not a morning Pop would tolerate any bickering. Love paused, then handed him the juice and shook his head.

“What’s your problem?” Snapple said.

“Nothing.” He went back to eating his eggs.

Li’l Pit sat on the other side of him. He didn’t eat, just squeezed the eggs in his hands. No one told him to stop, because they knew from experience that he would start throwing food. Soda Pop sat directly across the large round table. Fourteen members of the crew were there that Sunday morning, and the TV was on behind them, playing the U.S. Open. Soda Pop was a big golf fan and a member of the Lake Chabot Municipal Golf Course, where he was going to take the younger set to watch him tee off later in the day. He usually let them drive the golf cart and putt on the greens.

When breakfast was over, they were all told to wash up the dishes so the older members could plan another attack to go down later that evening. Love called drying first, so Carlyle washed, which he would have done anyway since he didn’t trust the others to get the plates clean. Snapple rinsed, but in order to reach the sink, he had to stand on a milk crate they kept for such occasions. Li’l Pit sat on the stool by the table.

Love and Snapple stood right next to each other. They both knew that if they caused any trouble, one of them was bound to be left at home when the rest went golfing.

Carlyle got the lather up in the first sink and then let the water run over Snapple’s hands. When Snapple was through rinsing a plate, he handed it to Love up high, like he was teasing a kitten with a piece of food.

“Don’t drop this. It’s very slippery.”

“Just give it.”

“I’m just making sure you know.”

“Well then just give it and stop playin.”

“Why you a playah-hater?”

Love dried the plate with the clean T-shirt they used for a towel and placed it on top of the table in front of Li’l Pit.

“You know I’m going to hit a hole in one today,” Snapple said.

“Uh-huh,” Carlyle said. “You gonna hit a hole in one of them trees.”

“You see. You want to put money on it?”

“You got a hundred dollars?”

“Sure.”

“All right,” Carlyle said. “I’m gonna put a hundred dollars on it. But you got to hit a hole in one, not just from the place it land on the green.”

“I’ll put a hundred on it too,” Love said.

“You ain’t got no money yet,” Snapple said. “You got to do some slinging first.”

“I got money from Pop.”

“You got money from yo mama’s snatch,” Snapple said. He hung a plate out for Love to take.

“Shut up,” Love said.

“Don’t tell me to shut up, bitch. It ain’t my fault your mama’s a ho. I’m just tellin it like it is.”

“Shut up, Snapple,” Carlyle said.

“You just angry ’cause you like to be with these little boys and touch they things.”

“That’s it.” Carlyle threw the plate into the sink and grabbed Snapple in a bear hug so that his arms were trapped.

“Get off a me, faggot! Help, the faggot’s trying to rape me.”

“Get his legs,” Carlyle yelled to Love. Snapple kicked, but Love was able to hold on to one foot after he pulled off a shoe. They carried Snapple out of the kitchen into the living room, where the rest of the crew sat around the war table, watching TV. Snapple yelled again:

“Pop, get these faggots off a me,” but no one moved. Li’l Pit ran and grabbed Snapple’s loose foot, but Snapple kicked him away, and he stepped back and followed them into the bathroom, the only room with a window that opened, which was in fact perpetually open to air out the smells.

Carlyle pulled Snapple to the window and put his head out of it faceup so that all he could see was sky. Snapple got his hands loose and grabbed on to the walls around the window to keep from being pushed out farther, but Love let go of his feet and punched him in the stomach. When Snapple let up for a second, Carlyle was able to force him out the window along his back, all the way to his knees, which he hooked around the windowsill like a gym bar.

“Fuck you faggots,” Snapple yelled as he clawed behind him. “Let me up, you fucking faggots.” Love looked back and smiled at his brother, who stood in the doorway.

Carlyle peeled Snapple’s legs from the windowsill and held them, locking them over his forearms. Snapple didn’t kick at all anymore.

“Here,” Carlyle said to Love, and gave him Snapple’s right ankle to hold.