Outcast (18 page)

A cold rain subsided by the time Tirrell got off the train and crossed through Centennial Park toward Alex's condo. His buddy, Scotty, provided him with a change of clothes. It had been two incomprehensible days since he walked away from the Biltmore. He was prepared to face the firing squad, or so he thought.

He wavered as he reached out to press the button on the intercom. He stepped back a few paces and tried to shake off the anxiety. His first instinct was to forget about Alex and cut and run back to the warmth of his grandmother's home, but he couldn't leave things as they were between them. If he did, there would be no telling how she would react. “Man up, T,” he told himself and he pressed the intercom.

“Who is it?” Alex's tone was sharp and agitated.

Tirrell swallowed. “I . . . It's me.”

“Who the hell is ‘me'?”

“C'mon, Alex. It's Tirrell.”

There was no immediate response. Seconds lumbered by before the buzzer sounded and the door clicked open. Tirrell's heart beat furiously, magnifying the blood pumping in his ears as the elevator ascended to her floor. The door was ajar as he approached. He slowly pushed it open to find her seated at the dining room table, facing him. Owning up to what he'd done propelled him forward.

“I would have packed your shit and thrown it out the door. But, everything in that closet I bought, and you don't get a consolation prize for fucking me over,” Alex snapped.

Tirrell couldn't make eye contact. He stared down at the floor. “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, you are. Too bad I refused to see it before now.”

He forced himself to look at her. “Just let me explain, a'ight?”

“Explain what, Tirrell? How you decided to embarrass me and take off without so much as a good-bye? Or, how you stayed away for two whole days and couldn't even be bothered to call.”

“Alex.”

“You know what, I don't want to hear it. Get the hell out. I don't know why I let you in here in the first place. You're pathetic!”

He started toward her and she eased up from her chair.

“I said, get out. I don't ever want to see your sorry ass again. You could have had a good life with me, you know that? There was no limit to what I would have done for you.”

“Maybe I didn't want you to do anything. You ever think about that? I'm a man. Maybe you buyin' me every goddamn thing was more than I could handle.”

Alex laughed callously. “You are many things, Mr. Ellis. But, a man is not one of them. So, why don't you run your little raggedy ass back across town to your precious
Noonie.
I'm sure there's still some milk left in those healthy breasts of hers for you to nurse on.”

He angrily slammed her into the wall and clutched his hand to her throat. It was a recognizable but unexpected response. “You wanna be nasty, bitch, huh?”

Her eyes teared up. She remained eerily calm. “Get . . . your . . . damn . . . hands . . . off me!”

He withdrew, shuddering. She slapped him. He recoiled. She slapped him again.

“Are you high?”

He turned away. She yanked him back around and looked in his eyes for confirmation.

“Get out of my house.” She snatched the amethyst from her neck and threw it at him. “You can take this cheap piece of shit with you. And don't even think about telling anybody what you think you know about me, or you know what will happen.”

“What I
think
I know?” Tirrell countered. He pointed his finger in her face for emphasis. “Bitch, if you come near my family I swear you'll be the one who's sorry.”

She smacked his hand away. “Don't you ever put your hand in my face again.”

“I got all the proof I need to blow your little operation to hell. And if anything happens to me or mine, it's all over for you.”

“You're full of shit.”

“You wanna go to prison and have some big dyke shove a stick up your pretty little ass, just try me.”

“You better be careful who you try to intimidate. I'm not the only menace to your family.”

“Then you better make damn sure that no one else comes after them either.”

Tirrell backed out the door slowly, afraid to turn around.

Alex massaged her throbbing neck muscles and racked her brain, thinking about what Tirrell could possibly have that could be used against her. Other than the fact that he'd been to Rivera's house, what else could he know? She replayed every conceivable time since meeting him that she could have slipped up. It suddenly dawned on her what it could be. She raced into her bedroom, fumbled for the key in her jewelry box, and threw open the bureau drawer. She breathed a sigh of relief to find that the computer jump drive was where she'd left it. “What does he know?” She moved to her bed, sat down, and picked up the phone. “Bobby, it's me. You need to get over here, right now. I don't care that you have company. We've got a big problem that we need to make disappear.”

Alex hung up the telephone and went to the living room and poured herself a double shot of vodka. Bobby made it to her apartment within the hour; by then, she was nursing her second drink.

“I fucked up,” he said.

“We both did,” she admitted.

“I thought he could handle it. I never expected him to go ape-shit. Are you sure he was high?”

“I looked into his eyes and all I could see was Ray.”

“He wasn't gettin' that stuff from me, I swear.”

“Unfortunately, we're not the only game in town. He could have gotten it from just about anybody.”

“You wanna call Rivera?”

“No. We can't do that. He can't know that we were that stupid and careless. You know he would eliminate every possible connection to him.”

“So, what are we gonna do?”

“We have to find out what Tirrell has, and we have to stop him before he can use it against us.”

“You think we'll have to kill him?”

“I'm not going to jail, Bobby. We have to protect ourselves.” Alex poured another drink and poured one for Bobby. “Remind me again how his brother being an ADA and the threat against his family was supposed to keep him in line.”

Tirrell castigated himself as he walked toward downtown.
How the hell could you be so stupid? Why did you tell her that you had proof that could put her in jail? Why the hell didn't you just leave well enough alone? If she hurts Noonie it's gonna be on you.

He stopped and leaned against a building, pounding himself in the forehead with his fists until tears flooded his eyes. It was nearing seven o'clock in the evening. He had to know if Betty was all right. He patted his pockets for his cell phone and then remembered he must have left it at Scotty's apartment. He reached in his pants for change and searched for a payphone. When she answered a wave of relief washed over him.

“Hello. Hello. Is anyone there?”

“Noonie.”

“Tirrell?”

He sucked in a mouthful of air to arrest his anguish.

“Tirrell, what's the matter? Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. I just wanted to call . . . and . . . and tell you that I love you.”

“I can hear that somethin' is wrong, Tirrell. What is it?”

“Nothin'. I'm okay as long as I know you are.”

“Do you need to come home?”

“No.” He couldn't let her see him like this.

“I made dinner. I could warm somethin' up for you.”

“I'm okay . . . I'll talk to you later, a'ight?”

After ensuring that she was definitely all right, Tirrell sank to the ground in a puddle of shame and sobbed. A sudden storm burst through the clouds and forced him from the sidewalk. He darted into a building where it appeared some sort of gathering was going on. Everyone inside turned toward the door.

“C'mon in. You're among friends here,” said the man at the front of the room.

Tirrell took inventory of the varied faces of the men—old—young—black—white—battered—tired—distressed—hopeful; most seemed homeless.

“You're just in time. We were just gettin' started.”

All the men stood up, eighteen in total, and together they joined in a litany they recited verbatim.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Damn,
Tirrell thought.
This is some kind of AA meeting.
He turned to leave.

“Where you goin', man? No need to feel ashamed. None of us is here to stand in judgment of nobody else. We've all been where you are at one time or another.”

Tirrell glanced around and saw heads bobbing in agreement.

“What makes you think you know where I am?”

“You're here, aren't you?”

“This was a mistake.”

Tirrell headed for the door, but stopped in his tracks as the rain beat down harder. He turned back around and the man leading the meeting stared at him. It made him uncomfortable.

“Maybe it's time for you to come in out of the rain, literally and figuratively, bruh.”

Tirrell pulled tightly at the windbreaker he wore and took off. He ran as if he could somehow dodge the pelting raindrops, but his efforts were futile. He was soaked by the time he made it to the MARTA station.

 

 

Alex opened her eyes. She shot straight up in bed and turned on the lamp on the nightstand next to the bed. She found her briefcase in the living room, pulled out her laptop, and booted it up. She looked at the browsing history and found a site that she was sure she hadn't visited, and no one else, not even her assistant, should have accessed; that would be easy enough to verify. Clicking on it brought up Flexmail—this was not her e-mail service. “Dammit. When the hell would he have been on my computer?”

Alex called Tirrell. He didn't pick up. She opted to leave a voice message. “Whatever it is you think you have, if you're thinking about giving it to the police or to your brother, you better think again. What I could do to you is nothing compared to what Xavier Rivera will do when he finds out.”

Bad dreams shook Tirrell awake. He gasped and looked around the room to get his bearings. He inhaled the smell of cheese from a half-eaten pizza that lay in a box on the table in front of him, surrounded by empty beer cans. He threw a blanket back, sat up on the sofa, and rubbed his face. The alarming sound of sirens drew him to the window. It was barely daybreak. The cold autumn sky looked as if it were gearing up for another downpour.

“Damn, that noise wake you up too?”

Tirrell turned to see Scotty plodding out of his bedroom, yawning and scratching his pinkish bare chest. He proceeded to the refrigerator.

“You want a beer?”

Tirrell shook his head. “How the hell can you drink beer this early in the morning?”

“I just think of it as coffee.” Scotty popped the top of the beer can, leaned against the kitchen counter, and chugged it. “What's so interesting out there?”

“Nothin',” Tirrell said as he moved away from the window and sat down. “Hey, Scotty. I wanna thank you, man, for lettin' me stay here.”

“No sweat, T. You're welcome to the couch at least until my roommate gets back next week.” He belched. “Oh, man. I gotta take a dump. I think that pizza we had didn't agree with me.”

Tirrell chuckled. “Aw, dude, that's nasty. Thanks for sharin'.”

When Scotty left the room Tirrell moved the pizza box and found the CD he'd made. He recalled getting in and using Scotty's computer to access his e-mail account. Before they got trashed and everything became a blur, he'd burned Alex's file on to it. He needed to stash it somewhere safe, someplace where someone could find it in case anything happened to him. For a split second he thought about Kevin, but how could he bring himself to tell him that he'd potentially put the entire family in peril?

His cell phone rang. It was Bobby. He ignored the call. The phone rang again—this time it was Betty.

“Hello.”

“Tirrell, are you all right?”

“Yeah, I'm good.”

“You had me worried after you called last night. Are you sure you're okay?”

“Yeah, I'm sure.”

“I couldn't rest thinkin' about how you sounded on the phone. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

Tears stung his eyes. This was a predicament that he caused and somehow he was going to have to fix it.

“Are you with that woman? Is that why you can't talk? You know you can always come home, Tirrell. If you're not ready to—”

“Noonie, I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me, okay?”

“I'm gonna worry until I can see for myself that you're okay, you hear me?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

When he ended the call with Betty he dialed Kevin. It rang to voice mail—he didn't leave a message. He listened to the one Bobby left:

“You done messed up now, T. You're gonna be real sorry.”

It was peculiar that Tasha should cross Tirrell's mind at a time like this; Marquis did, too. Even if they were speaking to him he couldn't drag them into this. He was completely alone and needed an escape if only for a little while. Shuffling through the mess on the table he found the pipe and just enough crack to assuage the foreboding.

On his way back to the Inman Park transit station, Tirrell found a pawn shop. He went in and produced the amethyst in his pocket.

“How much can I get for this?”

The grouse proprietor behind the glass enclosure looked at Tirrell and examined the pendant. “The clasp is busted. Did you steal this?”

Tirrell wiped his mouth. “No . . . Me and my girl got in a fight and she broke it pulling it off her neck.”

“Uh huh,” the man grunted, doubting the validity of the story. “You got a receipt?”

“Nah, man. I gave it to my girl as a gift. I don't have the receipt anymore.”

“I'll give you ten dollars.”

“Ten? C'mon, man. I paid three hundred. I got it from Tiffany's.”

“Where's the receipt?”

“I don't have it.”

“Ten dollars. Take it or leave it.”

“C'mon, bruh. Do me a solid. I really need the cash.”

“I'm not runnin' a charity.”

The look in Tirrell's eyes implored the man to reconsider. He rang the register open and handed him twenty dollars.

“Get out of here before I change my mind.”

Tirrell thanked the man and hustled to the exit. He vacillated between finding a dealer and continuing to his grandmother's house. He chose the latter.

“I'm glad you decided to come home,” Betty said enthusiastically, embracing him tightly.

How many times had this scene played out whenever he found himself with no one else to turn to? She knew him better than anyone else. She loved him harder than anyone could.

“You come over here and sit yourself down. I'm gonna fix you something to eat.”

“I'm not really hungry,” he said.

“Nonsense,” Betty insisted. “You are gonna sit down and eat and I'm not gonna take no for an answer.”

“Let me just go get cleaned up, okay?”

Tirrell went into the bathroom, closed the door, and braced himself on the ledge of the counter. He examined himself in the mirror. He looked haggard. He knew that Betty saw it, too. He opened the linen closet and pulled out a towel to wash his hands and face. It wasn't much of an improvement, but he felt better.

The mouthwatering aroma of pork chops and fried corn caused his stomach to grumble, indicating that he was a lot hungrier than he thought. He sat down to a heaping plate of love, and ate until he could feel the pressure in his stomach. When he finished he discovered that Betty had gone into his old room and changed the sheets and made the bed for him.

“How's work?” he said, forcing conversation as he helped her put away the food and clean the kitchen.

“It's fine. I had somebody quit on me last week, though. If you're lookin' for a job I could talk to the head of housekeeping and put in a good word for you.” She smiled and winked.

“I just might take you up on that,” he responded.

When the dishes were dried and put away Betty went into the living room and turned on the television. She sat down in her favorite chair and scanned the channels until she came across a movie she'd wanted to see.

Tirrell went to his room and hid the CD on an upper shelf in his closet inside a shoebox. He then joined his grandmother and sat down on the sofa to watch with her.

“I can find somethin' else,” Betty said.

“No, this is cool,” Tirrell responded, noting how much Sanaa Lathan reminded him of Alex.

It wasn't long before he drifted off to sleep. A truck backfiring jarred him awake.

“Tirrell, why don't you go on and get in the bed.”

He didn't argue. He was exhausted. It would be the first non-drug-induced sleep he'd had in several days.

The next morning, after Betty went off to work, Tirrell found himself back downtown, peering through the window of the building he'd stumbled into a few nights prior. He saw an elderly man sweeping the floor.

The man poked his head out the door. “You lookin' for somebody?”

“Yeah, I was here the other night and there was some kind of group thing goin' on.”

“Oh, you mean the NA meetin'?”

“NA?”

“Narcotics Anonymous,” the man clarified.

Tirrell swallowed nervously. “Yeah. There was this black dude. He was about this tall. He had a gray patch in the middle of his 'fro.”

“You must be talkin' about Charlie Preston.”

“Yeah, I guess that's him.”

“He works at The Mission over there off Ivan Allen. They come here two or three times a week for them meetin's.”

Tirrell nodded. “Thanks.”

He walked up Marietta Street and crossed over Luckie Street until he found The Mission. He wasn't sure why he felt compelled to do it—something in him just knew that he had to. When he got to the door he was directed where to find Mr. Preston.

After a few minutes the man came out from the back office. “Can I help you?” His eyes were piercing, but kind. His voice was deep with a resonating Southern drawl.

“I uh . . .”

“You're the young man from the other night, ain't you?”

“Yeah.”

“What brings you in here?”

“I'm not exactly sure.”

“You do know what this place is, don't you?”

“Yeah.”

“So, you are lookin' for
that kind
of help after all?”

“I don't have a drug problem. I was maybe thinkin' . . . I'm not really sure what I was thinkin'.”

“What's your name?”

“Kev . . . Tirrell.” He sighed. “Shit, this is crazy. I don't know what the hell I came here for. Sorry I bothered you.”

“Tirrell, wait,” the man said. “Here. Take my number. Call me if you figure out what it is you're lookin' for, or even if you just wanna talk.”

The man gave Tirrell his card with the name and address of The Mission on the front of it and his phone number written on the back.

Once outside, Tirrell felt like his lungs had opened up and he could breathe again. “This is crazy. I'm not an addict. I'm not like the rest of those dudes.” He tossed the man's card in the street, pulled a cigarette from his pocket, and kept walking. He returned a few seconds later to retrieve it.