Team Seven (27 page)

I turned around in my seat, my back to Reggie. I was still stuck on that initial grin I saw on his face. Somewhere inside of himself he thinks this shit’s funny. He’s been all over me about tightening up and cleaning up my act, and I been telling him I got my shit under control and not to worry. But the
blood in my mouth, on my hands, face, and shirt tells a very different story. All I wanted was some ice and a blunt, I wasn’t in the mood for a Reggie-sermon but I felt one coming on anyway. He took a joint from his pocket, sparked up, and passed it to me.

“So what happened, Dre? How is it I see Kendrick and Smoke and them dipping out of the parking lot and a few minutes later you come out the woods looking like a basket of bruised berries. They jumped you?”

I tossed my hand up. “Nah, they ain’t jumped me. Smoke gun-butted me across the face and then Beezy bitch-ass-punched me in the eye and ran my weed while I was on the ground. It’s all good, though. Smoke said we even for that old debt. So I got off, kinda. I took the whooping and I got the money to pay you for the bud they up took off me. They only got me for half an ounce.”

I looked over at Reggie and he stood up. His nostrils belled out and his narrow cheeks flexed. He had on a white wife-beater and it looked a size too small for him. He looked down at me and balled his fists and his muscles bulged. A large vein wiggled across his forehead.

“Wait. That nigga took something up off you that belonged to me. No bet. Ain’t no letting that shit slide, Andre. Especially when it comes to Smoke. Fuck the money, he ain’t ’bout to be running around here bumping his lips, ’bout blazing up my trees or anything else. Cool fucking haircut too, nigga.” He giggled but didn’t smile. “I been waiting for a reason to ride.”

Reggie shook his head at me and turned around and started walking away toward the parking lot. He called back, “Let’s go.”

We stormed off and got inside Reggie’s Jeep and as we rode there was a glazy red distance in his eyes, his mind was made up. I thought we were ’bout to flash on the block, jump out, and roll on Smoke and his crew, and I was down for the action, but instead he took me over to some apartment off River Street in Mattapan.

We didn’t knock. Reggie had a key.

“Who?” called a mousy voice as Reggie turned the key, pushed the door open, and we walked into the dark hallway of the shotgun apartment.

“Fuck else gotta key, Jasmine?” Reggie said as we walked up the hallway to the living room.

“Nigga, you need to knock. Scarin’ a bitch half to death.” Reggie flicked on the lights and he pointed at her.

“Andre, this is Jasmine, and she talk too fuckin’ much.” He gave her one of those charged-up glares and she sat up on the couch, took off her head wrap, and started brushing down her hair. It smelled like she’d freshly cocoa-buttered her long rum-brown legs. She looked at me and her forehead twisted into a puzzle of wrinkles. She tossed her hand over her mouth and kicked her feet into her slippers.

“Eww, nigga! What happened to your friend?”

“Lil’ tussle … nothing that concerns your business. Now stop asking questions.” She gazed down at the floor and
looked away. Reggie walked into the living room and sat on the couch, put his pistol on the glass coffee table, and started unleafing a Backwood. I stood in the doorway watching. He tossed the tobacco in the little bin beside the couch and paused to look at Jasmine.

“Do me a solid—clean him up.” He opened the bottle of Johnnie Walker Red that Jasmine had sitting at the shiny gold foot of the coffee table. She groaned like she was annoyed, stomped toward me, and grabbed my good hand and pulled me toward the hallway. Reggie didn’t look at her, he just started breaking down a neon green bud.

“Rude-ass nigga,” she snapped under her breath as we walked down the dark hallway of closed doors.

Even though Reggie talked to her like she wasn’t shit, I knew he didn’t feel that way. Reggie never seemed impressed by a bad bitch, he had a gang of ’em, but Jasmine still intimidated the fuck outta me. She was one of the fat-booty flat-stomach broads—way out of my league. I stood in the doorway and slick-eyed Jasmine. She stood there in the mirror, tiptoeing around the bathroom looking for something, giving me a moment to glance her up and down, acting like she ain’t seen me watching her donkey-stiff booty until she finished braiding her long jet-black hair into a ponytail. In the good light I could see that she had green contact lenses in her eyes. Her hair looked soft and wavy. I wondered if she was one of them stuck-up black girls that claim she got Cherokee or some other kind of Indian in her blood. She opened the medicine cabinet and the mirror swung out and I caught a good look at myself. The white part of my right eye was pepper red and underneath bulged up plum purple. My forehead looked bad. The blood was crusting, but I could tell the cut was deep and very much still open.

She slammed the cabinet closed and turned on the faucet and let it run until I saw steam coming off the water. My upper lip was all swollen. It didn’t really hurt, it mostly felt fat and numb.

“Sit down, lil’ nigga.” She shifted her juicy hips to the side, reached up into a closet, and pulled out a washcloth. She tossed it into the steaming soap water and came over and knelt down in front of me. She rung out the rag and swiped the cloth over my face. My entire head throbbed and burned. I winced and balled my fists, scrunching my eyes and clamping down my jaws, trying not to squirm or look like a bitch. I opened my eyes and she smiled at me with her round spaced-out dolphin teeth.

She held my chin. “So you at least whoop the niggas you was beefing wit’?” She grinned.

“Yeah,” I mumbled as she paintbrushed the rag over my face.

“Mmmm hhhmmm.” She bunched her lips to one side of her face. “If that’s true, I bet you left ’em wishing they never messed wit’ you.” It wasn’t until she laughed and smacked a handful of Vaseline onto the cut on my forehead that I realized she was being sarcastic, playing me out completely. “You gonna need some stitches for this gash up here.”

I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Nothing a few Band-Aids won’t fix.” I looked away as sharp pains lightning-streaked across my face.

I heard boots stomping up the hallway and Reggie appeared in the doorway smoking a blunt.

“Is he gonna make it? Shit, you doing surgery back here?”

Jasmine rolled her eyes and pouted her lips.

“Yes. He’s fine, but that cut on his head is big. Butterfly strips ain’t fixing that. Take him to a hospital.”

Reggie took a long drag from his blunt and blew a few smoke circles.

“Just put some tape and gauze on it and get him one of my old T-shirts.”

She looked away from him, jilted. She stood up and walked out of the bathroom and Reggie smacked her ass, and Jasmine smacked Reggie’s hand away and they both laughed as she walked off. It was like watching a magician at work the way Reggie had mind control over Jasmine. Even though she acted like she was aggravated about all of his demands, it didn’t stop her from listening and doing exactly what he said.

“Here.” Reggie handed me the blunt and the bottle of Johnnie Walker and I took a gulp and coughed. My chest burned as I swallowed and took a drag from the blunt. Jasmine came back with a gray V-neck T-shirt and handed it to me. I put it on and held still as she put a few butterfly strips and some gauze and tape on my cuts. I sniffed her fruity perfume as she bandaged my face. Reggie tapped his hands on the top of the door frame as Jasmine finished cleaning me up. He passed the bottle back and I took another swig and heard a baby start crying. She stood up and arm-barred Reggie out of her way and swaggered up the hallway.

“Y’all loud-asses woke up your son,” she called back to us.

Reggie looked at me as I stood up, he chuckled and shook his head, but I could tell he wasn’t amused. He took a big gulp from the bottle as we walked back to the living room. My head was beginning to spin and my vision bounced a bit whenever I moved too fast. I heard a door slowly squeal open and then I heard little feet smacking against the hardwood floor and I froze. I looked behind me and saw a little boy in just a diaper baby-waddling toward us, his arms in the air, the light from the bathroom glowing through his little baby-thin ’fro.

“Da-da, Da-da, Da-da, Da-da.” Reggie stopped and turned around. He smirked at the little boy and knelt down and the boy fell into his arms. He picked him up and suctioned his little body against his chest. He walked past me into the living room and sat the little boy on his lap and took the pack of Backwoods out and tossed ’em to me. I took one out and started to unleaf it. He picked up the little boy and placed him one cushion away on the three-seater and I sat on the love seat on the other side of the room. The little boy sat grinning at Reggie and he took another swig and pushed his pistol out to the side and started breaking up some green. I heard Jasmine’s slippers sliding up the floor and she popped into the doorway, hand on hip, neck crooked to the side, in her meanest ghetto-girl pose with the screw face on heavy.

“Umm, no. Y’all ain’t ’bout to sit here smoking in front of my son.”

Reggie tossed his hands in the air like he was innocent and opened his eyes all wide, waving at me, mocking her, “Andre, I think she wants me to put away my gateway drugs.”

Reggie busted out laughing and swigged down the last sips of Johnnie Walker. I grinned, but didn’t really think it was my place to be cracking up like Reggie was. I figured she wasn’t wrong and put the leaf back inside the pack of Backwoods. Reggie’s eyebrows arched at me and his broad nose scrunched in and his forehead wrinkled up stiff. His eyes narrowed to slits and he growled, “Gimme the bag.” No questions asked, I slid it over to him.

He opened the bag and took out the leaf and started rolling a blunt and Jasmine stood in the doorway watching him. I glanced at a neutral spot between Reggie, the floor, and the coffee table, and we all watched him. I don’t know how babies
can tell when something’s up, but the baby boy stayed put and watched Reggie with us too, until the tension got too stiff and his little lips started to ripple and his eyes pinked up as tears wiggled down his cheeks. The little boy’s face twisted like he’d tasted something sour, and he reached out for Jasmine and bawled out.

“Ma-ma, Ma-ma, Ma-ma.” The little boy bounced on his butt. “Up. Up. Up. Pick … up.”

Jasmine glared at him.

“Dammit, Reece, stop it!” She groaned again and stomped over to the little boy. His fingers waved out for Jasmine. “What! Reece, your little ass should be in the bed anyway.” She picked him up and walked back over to the doorway, balancing Reece on her hip. I looked at Reggie and he flicked his lighter and inhaled the blunt and blew the smoke right at Jasmine. She shrieked like a hawk about to attack and tossed Reece on the couch next to me and charged at Reggie. Reggie stood up and stopped her charge, snatching her by the throat and shoving her back in the direction she came from.

Reece crawled over and grabbed onto my arm and started wailing, “Ma-ma, Ma-ma.” He alternated loud moans and screams and drooled all over my arm but I didn’t have it in me to push him away. Jasmine popped back up off the wall.

“You ain’t shit-ass nigga, you gon’ hit me? You gon’ die by that.”

I looked at Reggie and maybe it was the Johnnie Walker but from where I was sitting on the couch Reggie looked like he’d grown an entire foot. He took two big stomps across the room and swung his open palm at her face.

“Shut up, bitch.” It sounded like he’d popped a can of rolls.

“Mmmmmm,” Jasmine sighed deep. He’d hit her so hard
she could only hum and hold her face as she rested on the floor balled up like a fetus, Reggie standing over her. “You need to get yo ass in the motherfuckin’ bed.”

Images of Reggie jumping my father back on that Christmas Eve seven years ago flashed in my head. I don’t know if it was the liquor, the shock, or hearing screams and cries, but as I sat watching Reggie and Jasmine fighting, and as Reece clung to me screaming, drooling, and nibbling away at my arm, my heart broke for him. I reached out and hugged him to my side and patted the top of his head until Reggie walked back to his seat. Jasmine wasn’t behind him. Reece whimpered into my shirt and Reggie looked up and his face softened. He lit the blunt back up and hit it a few times, then he stood up to pass it to me and snatched Reece up and sat him on his lap. He kissed him on the forehead and bounced him on his knee.

“Mama hurt, Dada. Mama hurt.” Reece tugged at his sleeve.

“No, Mama bitch. Mama bitch, baby,” he said in a baby voice as he laughed and bounced him on his knee.

I could hear Jasmine in the kitchen tearing through the pots and pans, clanking glass together. It sounded like she was looking for something or just breaking things. I smoked the blunt and watched Reggie as he bounced his son on his knee. In all the days I’d kicked it with him I’d never heard him mention having a son. I’d never even seen Jasmine riding in his car, and for whatever reason, knowing Reggie was somebody’s daddy made me realize what responsibilities he was talking about that day at Kelly Park. It’s like I’d drifted off into a trance and forgot what had just happened. I just sat watching Reece bouncing on his knee until I heard fast footsteps up the hall and Reggie bounced his knee up extra high and shoved Reece to the side and hopped to his feet. I thought he was about to hit me for some reason, so I tossed my hands
over my face but he wasn’t worried about me. He grabbed the empty Johnnie Walker bottle from the table and flung it into the doorway. I heard the glass shatter. He lunged at the door and I stayed in my seat, looking at Reece reaching out at the door.

“Bitch, you lost your fuckin’ mind. I’ll fuckin’ kill you dead before you cut me.”

“Get … the … fuck … off … of … me,” Jasmine struggled out the words as I could hear the skidding squeal of her skin dragging up the hallway. She screamed until he tossed her in a room and shut the door behind them. The walls were thin but they muffled their words and all I could hear were muted bumps and thuds. Reece howled with his eyes closed, kicking and screaming up at the ceiling. I stood up and walked over to him and picked him up as he sobbed and balled his hands into my shirt, shaking his little fists, gnawing at my upper arm.