No More Mr. Nice Guy (3 page)

The sun was shining through the windows of the cab as it exited the Southern State Parkway headed toward Wyandanch. I'd just left that waste of time interview with Dynamic Defense and was staring out the window like some lost tourist visiting for the first time. The neighborhood I'd grown up in didn't look anything like it had when I left ten years ago, straight out of high school. It had undergone a real transformation, I thought, as we passed a strip where a small row of stores had been torn down to make way for commuter parking lots and the new apartment building and shopping complex next to the Long Island Railroad station.

Despite the new buildings and the urban renewal, some things would never change, and as far as I was concerned, Wyandanch was one of them. When we turned off Straight Path down Long Island Avenue, I spotted ten or fifteen drug boys standing in front of the convenience deli like it was lunchtime and they were giving away free sandwiches. I swear they were the same dealers who used to stand around there when I was in high school. You could put lipstick on a pig, but when it came down to it, it was still just a damn pig. I guess you could say the same thing about Wyandanch.

“What's going on?” I asked as we turned up my block and the cab came to a complete stop. The driver began babbling in Hindi, pointing at the police cars and an ambulance blocking the street. I Wish I could say it caught me off guard, but in my hood, the police were always showing up to carry someone off to jail, the morgue, or if they were lucky, just to the hospital.

“Just pull over. I'll walk the rest,” I instructed the driver.

“You sure?” he asked, though he looked relieved as he stared at me through his rearview mirror. This was supposed to be a hardened NYC cabbie, but it was obvious he was scared shitless.

“Yeah, my house is just up the block.” I glanced at the meter then reached into my pocket to pay the fare. I was going to let him keep the change, but then snatched it back when the son of a bitch popped open the trunk and gestured for me to get my own bags. I don't even think the trunk was all the way down before he pulled a U-turn and gunned it down the street toward the Southern State Parkway.

With my knapsack over my shoulder and two duffle bags in my hands, I made my way up the block toward home. I hadn't imagined I would ever wind up back here for an extended period of time. Hell, I'd only been back to visit about five times in the past ten years, but here I was, me and all my worldly possessions, along with no job and no prospect for a job. I could have done another tour and stayed in the Army, but I decided it was time to come home, or at least close to home. Truth is, I had really been counting on that consulting job so I could get a place in the city and still be close to my mom.

Speaking of Mom . . .

“You fucking devils!” An eerie voice shrieked loud enough for half the neighborhood to hear. “I'm going to kill all of you!”

“Shit,” I cursed.

I'd been through hell and back as a soldier for my country, but that scream put more fear in my heart than any of the shit I'd seen in the military. You see, that scream wasn't just random. I'd heard it many a night while growing up, and it told me one thing: The commotion was coming from my house. I broke out into a full jog.

“You fucking devils! Stay the fuck away from me!” The voice continued to get louder the closer I got to my house.

By the time I got to the edge of my mother's property, there was a gang of nosy neighbors standing outside the house. I made my way through the crowd to the stoop, where I was stopped by a cop.

“Sir, you're gonna have to stop right there,” the cop stated, blocking my entry.

“This is my house. Those are my people inside.” I dropped my bags, staring him down, but he stood his ground. Based on my military training, I knew there were at least two dozen ways I could take him down and get past him, but I didn't want to do that if I didn't have to.

“Don't touch me!” The voice came from the house again. “I'll kill you all!”

The cop looked back at the house like he might be needed in there. What he didn't understand was that he had just as big a problem standing in front of him.

“Sir, we have a mentally ill person in there with a knife. I need you to stay back for your own safety.”

“Look, officer, I'm the only one who is going to be able to defuse this situation. Now, let me pass, please, so I can help you. Those are my family members in there.” I looked past him to his sergeant, who was standing in the doorway with his gun drawn

“The devil! You're all devils!” She kept repeating. “I'll kill you all!”

“Let him go, Stanford,” the sergeant announced, and the cop finally let me pass.

As I walked by the sergeant at the front door, he told me, “You better do something quick or we're going to have to take matters into our own hands. You don't want that.”

“No, I don't,” I told him.

I entered the house to see a room full of very intense-looking cops. All of them had their guns out pointed in the direction of a panic-stricken man, who had his hands raised in submission beside a deranged, knife-wielding woman. The man was my uncle, Willie, my mother's younger brother and caregiver. The woman was my bipolar mother.

“Sir,” an officer shouted at Willie, “I'm going to need you to step out the way and let us handle this.”

“I'm not going to let you shoot my sister,” Willie answered.

“Get out! Get out of my fucking house, you demons!” my mother screamed, stabbing at the air behind Willie, daring them to come closer.

“Lorna, please! Please! You're not making this any better,” Willie pleaded, but she was too far into another realm to be able to comply.

Seeing me, Willie's face flooded with relief. “Niles, man, please help her! Please, man, if she don't calm down they're gonna kill her.”

“They aren't going to kill anyone,” I declared, stepping into the line of fire. Like Willie, I held my hands up so that the officers understood my passivity as I moved further into the room. Last thing I needed was a trigger-happy cop to make me another casualty in the ongoing war between the cops and people of color.

I turned and stared at my mother as she stabbed at the air with the knife. Unfortunately, seeing her in this state wasn't a rare occurrence. It was actually the reason why I had joined the Army and gone overseas. I loved my mother more than anyone in the world, but eighteen years living with a bipolar parent had almost sent me to the nut house along with her.

“Ma. Ma,” I called out to her, my voice calm and coaxing.

She turned to me, her eyes glassy in that way that let me know she hadn't really seen me yet. “Willie! Get these devils out of my house! They're trying to poison me!” she shouted, flailing her hands and waving the knife around.

“Ma!” I raised my voice a little, hoping to jar her out of her current state. She froze for a split second. I took that moment to move toward her, waiting for her to recognize her only son. “Ma, it's me, Niles.”

“Niles?” A spark of recognition glinted in her eyes. She glared at me hard, but then her face began to soften. “Oh my God. Niles? Willie, it's Niles.”

“I can see that.” Willie's voice was flooded with relief, but I noticed that he still kept his hands raised. He wasn't taking any chances with those officers. “Now give him the knife.”

“Niles.” Ma smiled and reached out her free hand to touch my face. “My Niles is home.”

“Yes, Mama, your Niles. I'm home now. Home for good.”

She kept grinning at me like I was a little boy, until one of the cops moved behind me. That set her off again, and she leaped in front of me, gesturing toward the cops.

“Stay behind me, baby. These are the devil's demons. They must've found out you were coming home, and they're going to try to take you to their master.” She looked like she might attack them at any moment.

I tried to place myself between her and the cops, who looked even more confused than before, but she wasn't having it. She was like a mama bear protecting her cub.

“Don't fucking move!” I shouted at the cops then turned to my mother. “Ma, take a good look at them. Those aren't devils. Those are angels in disguise. Can't you see it?” My tone sounded light and sing-songy—nothing like how I felt.

She shook her head. “No, baby, those look like devils.”

“Look closely and you'll see it.” I began to massage her shoulders, hoping to loosen her up and also make sure I could stop her if she attacked one of the cops.

“You know, I think I'm starting to see it.”

“Of course you are. They're right in front of your face.”

My mother glanced from me to them and back before her face broke out in a sweet smile. “Niles.”

“Yeah, Ma?”

“Those angels really should get better disguises, 'cause they are ugly as hell.”

I laughed, and as she lowered the knife, I guided it out of her hands.

“I know you ain't wearing that shit tonight. That boy done bought you a closet full of clothes, so you ain't wearing that shit.” My mother drilled me with her shrill voice. She snatched the outfit out of my hand and rolled her eyes at me.

I loved my mom to death, but sometimes I hated her just as much. She had a tendency to play fashion police every time she knew my son's father was coming around.

“You know he likes for you to show off that caramel skin and those sexy-ass curves you got from me.” She was feeling herself as she switched her way over to my closet and pulled out a tight-fitting halter top and some short-shorts. “Look at this shit. These still got the damn tags on them.”

“If I put that on, he's going to be all over me tonight and you know it.” I sucked my teeth as she waved the revealing outfit in my direction. “Whose side are you on anyway? You know he wants another baby.”

She looked at me over her sunglasses. “I'm on the side of having a roof over our heads. Besides, if I had a man that treated me as good as he treats you, I'd be working on giving him more than one baby.”

“Then why don't you fuck him?” I shot back, tired of her being his full-time cheerleader. She smirked at me, and I knew that if he gave her even the slightest chance, she would sleep with him. My mother was only fourteen years older than me and closer to my sons' father's age than I was.

“Well, I certainly would treat him better than you do. You have no idea how good you got it.”

When I first met my sons' father, I was just out of high school: young, dumb, and looking for fun. He was fine as hell and drove a Land Rover. All the girls wanted him, which, of course, made me want him even more. Well, when it was all said and done, he chose me. Back then I didn't know who I was or what I wanted. I was just a kid who wanted to be popular, and being with him made me just that.

I can't lie. It was fun for while, at least until my son was born. Once I got pregnant, everything changed. Now I was a grown-ass woman with a baby daddy and a child, but I wanted something more out of life. I wanted to go to college and get my degree and make something with my life, but he wasn't having it. He didn't want me to do anything except take care of his son and wait for him to come fuck me. I felt like a prisoner, but as far as my mother was concerned, I should be happy as long as he was giving me money.

“Let me ask you a question, Mom. Would you be kissing his ass so much if he wasn't paying your car note and cell phone bill?” I snapped, annoyed at how many times I'd had to sit by and watch her gush over him, taking his side in every argument like he was her son—or her husband, for that matter.

“You young girls don't know shit. You think a man like him just gonna come along again 'cause you something special? Please. It's not going to happen. He's the best thing that ever happened to us, and if I were you, I'd remember that before he gets sick of your ass and finds somebody new. Damn, that boy's a great catch.”

“He's a controlling pain in the ass.” I pouted.

“Man pays the bills, he's got a right to say what goes on in his house. I don't see your ass handing him the keys back.”

There wasn't much I could say to that. Now you know why I hated her sometimes.

She placed a hand on her hip and handed me the outfit. “Now put this shit on and stop playing games.”

The doorbell rang, giving me the break I needed from my mother. I went racing from the room, not wanting the sound to wake up my son, MJ. Of course my mother followed right behind me and stood over my shoulder like this was her house as I opened the door.

“Giirrrrrlllllll, wait till you hear this!” Jasmine Peterson, my wild and ghetto fantastic girlfriend shouted when I opened the door. She was wearing one of her favorite catch-a-man outfits: a skin-tight burgundy dress with matching heels, hair fresh off the Asian beauty supply shop shelves, and a huge grin on her face. “Matter of fact, you need to sit down before you hear this shit.”

I glanced over at Tanya Brown, my next door neighbor, who was standing next to Jasmine with a concerned look on her face. They both stepped inside. Tanya didn't put it out there like Jazz, mostly because she didn't have to. Unlike Jasmine, Tanya was smart, natural, fine, and employed as a home health aide. She was thirty-five years old but looked younger than me. I liked her because she was more like a big sister than a friend. She also didn't take any crap from my mom.

“Hmph! You bitches always gossiping,” my mother muttered under her breath. She knew my baby daddy didn't like my friends, so she decided she didn't like them either. He was worried that I'd see how much fun they were having and want to join in. That wasn't that far from the truth these days.

“Stop playing games, Jasmine, and tell me.”

Jazz kept doing some dramatic movements with her hands before she spilled the tea. “Guess who got arrested?”

“Who?” I was anxious for some dirt that didn't include my baby's diaper.

Jasmine started rolling her neck and looking around like she was thinking about moving in.

“Dammit, Jasmine, who?”

Tanya burst out with, “Your baby daddy!” ruining Jasmine's big reveal.

“You lyin'!” My mother jumped in the middle of them.

“If I'm lying, I'm dying, Ms. Smalls,” Jasmine snapped. “That shit is all over the block. Majestic and Bruce got locked up for murder.”

“Wow!” I couldn't believe it. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I had been freed from prison myself. “You know, I guess there really is a God.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” My mother snatched my arm. “Do you know what this is going to do to me—I mean us?” Suddenly all eyes were on my mother. “You need to go down to that precinct wherever they got him and see what you can do to help get him out.”

“Mommy, you must have fell and bumped your head, 'cause I ain't going nowhere.” I gave her a look like she was smoking rocks or something. “I been with that man for six years, and the last two I've been completely miserable. Not that you care. This is like my get out of jail free pass.” I threw my hands up in celebration.

Tanya raised her hand to meet mine in the best high-five I'd given in what seemed like years.

Jasmine was already onto the next thing. “C'mon, girl. We need to go party.”

“Shit. You got that right. I know exactly what I'm gonna wear,” I said as I started for my closet. “My mother just picked it out. Isn't that right, Mom?”

“Not for you to be strutting around some other man!” my mother shouted at me like she thought I was still a child she could control. “You ought to be worried about who's gonna pay your bills.” She said it firmly, like she thought that would shut my party down.

“I'm gonna get a job, Mama. Isn't that what normal people do?”

“I swear to God you better find some good sense and get down there and help that man get out of jail.” She kept at it, obviously worried her meal ticket was over.

I fixed my eyes on her. “Not tonight. Now that his ass is the one locked up, I'm free, and I'm going to party. And you are going to watch your grandson. This is not open to debate,” I told her as I turned and strutted toward the bedroom, with my girls following my happy dance down the hallway.