The Corner II (5 page)

Ant was sitting on the bench looking over the rec yard at nothing in particular when Baby G walked over looking pissed.

Ant raised his fist ready to play fight then asked, “What’s up, nigga? I know you ain’t pissed that I’m getting the fuck out of here next week.”

Baby G looked dejected when he said, “We fucked, fam. We broke.”

Ant’s brow furrowed, “What the fuck you mean, broke?”

Baby G handed him the newspaper. It was already folded open to the section that he wanted him to read. When Anthony saw the headlines he wanted to throw up. ELDERLY COUPLE DIES IN FIRE. The article explained that it seemed to have been accidental, caused by a pipe that the old man fell asleep smoking. Anthony couldn’t believe it. The come up they had hoped to have when they got out had just gone up in smoke—literally.

Anthony threw the paper to the ground as he cursed. It was bad fucking timing. He had a place to go but no money. A girl from the hood he’d grown up in had been writing and visiting him the past three years and he was to move in with her when released. He really didn’t want to kick it with her but felt kind of obligated since she rode out half his bid with him. His plans were to lay his head at her spot while he got with some of his and Baby G’s old connects who now had their feet in the game. He had also planned on paying Winchester a visit. He heard that the now forty year old had moved to the east side, still selling guns and a little dope. Soon he wouldn’t be selling shit.

Anthony griped, “Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“
You
, nigga what about me? I ain’t got shit. Moms and pops dead. Both brothers doing life in the fed joint.” Baby G lit a Black & Mild then continued. “You at least got your Pops. Anyway that nigga from the Chi over on C block said that your father is doin’ the damn thang. Got major paper. Call his ass, holla at him and get your release to there. You got a week before you get out so these bitch ass counselors got the time. Put that fat muthafucka to work.

“I haven’t talked to my pops since the day my mom packed and left. She didn’t want me around him and that life.”

Baby G waved his arm toward the rec yard saying, “And what do you call this shit. Boy Scout camp?”

Anthony gazed at the rec yard. He noticed every walk of life and race—young and old. For the first time he thought about how his mother had taken him and left her boyfriend, his father, to get away from the lifestyle his father was leading. How ironic, he still ended up living the life of crime. And now he was stuck with a felony. He had never worked a job and didn’t desire to. He had always thought about his father and wished that his mother hadn’t taken him away. He loved his mother and a part of him left when she passed a year ago. He wanted to call his dad to tell him, but he didn’t know much about him, only his name.

While at rec one evening, he and Baby G were kicking it with an older cat from Chicago who caught an attempted murder case while visiting a woman in Saginaw. The man recognized the name and asked Anthony if he had a dad in Chicago. Ant was defensive at first, but when the man told him that they had some of the same features and the same name, it was obvious. A few days later the man had a number to give to Anthony. He had made a phone call and got the number since he needed some items from the commissary and never had any money coming in. Anthony had some stacked on his commissary account. Money that the woman who’d been visiting him would send and he wouldn’t spend. Just in case something went wrong and he couldn’t move in with her he’d have some loot to work with. After receiving the number Anthony put it on his list and on the next commissary trip he stocked the man’s locker for the favor.

“I guess you’re right.”

“I know I am. Now call your pops and tell him you comin’ home.”

Anthony was in the counselor’s office. The fat red neck, who was as racist as they came, was on vacation so a young grad fresh out of Central Michigan University was filling in. He listened to Anthony’s story and offered to let him call his dad from the office phone, which was perfectly legal depending on the situation. Most inmates never get the chance to use the privilege since most of the counselors don’t give a shit about inmates. Their staff’s saying was one out the door, in two more.

The red headed Opie Taylor looking young man moved away from the desk but not out of the office to afford Anthony some privacy. Nervously, Anthony dialed the 773 area code and then the rest of the number. As it rang he thought about how he’d never been anywhere or done anything. He had never dialed any number that didn’t have a 313 area code. He thought about hanging up so he wouldn’t have the embarrassment of getting hung up on. Just when he was about to pull the phone from his ear and set it into its cradle and lie to the counselor that there was no answer, a voice spoke on the other end.

*     *     *

“Lucky’s. Hello, Lucky’s,” the woman named Tesha said.

Anthony hesitated then asked, “Can I speak to Anthony Davis?”

The woman paused, then covered her other ear with her hand so she could hear over the music that a band was playing. With someone calling asking for her boss by his real name, she needed to find out who it was. “Who is this?” she asked.

“My name is Anthony, his son.”

The woman was taken aback. She’d never heard of Lucky having a son—she almost hung up but decided to ask, “Lucky never mentioned that he had a son. Is this some kind of joke?”

Hurt by the statement and also not wanting to tell the woman all his business not knowing who the hell she was, he told her, “Look, I’m his son and this will probably be the only chance that I have to talk to him and I know he’ll be pissed if he finds out that his only son called and you didn’t put me on the line with him.”

With that the woman snapped, “Hold on.”

She pressed the phone to her chest so the man who claimed to be her boss’ son couldn’t hear. She walked over to Lucky who was sitting with one of his long time partners Frank. He was listening to a jazz band, evaluating their talent to see if he wanted to put them on for Saturday night’s show.

“Excuse me, Lucky.”

“What’s up girl? You know I don’t like being bothered while I’m evaluating talent,” he told her as he continued to rub his salt and pepper goatee while keeping his eyes on the band that was playing a rendition of Miles Davis.

“A guy is on the line. I tried to tell him that you were busy—”

“I am, honey. Come on now, do your job.”

Cutting to the chase, she said, “He said his name is Anthony, that he’s your son.”

Lucky’s fingers froze on his goatee.

Frank’s bobbing of his head ceased.

Lucky asked, “That’s what he said?”

“Yeah.”

Lucky stood, she handed him the cordless and he headed to his office. “Hello, this Lucky.”

Nervously, Anthony said, “Hey, I know this is kind of crazy and I don’t know where to start, but I guess hi Pops will do.”

Lucky made it to his office, and Frank watched as he paced back and forth as he talked on the phone. Frank had been Lucky’s partner since childhood and knew Lucky had a son named Anthony that was taken away from him when his mother just up and left one night with the boy without saying a word. For several years Lucky tried to find out where his son was but his search was futile and he gave up to quell the pain that was inside of him.

Tesha looked toward the office and then at Frank who was now standing. She noticed the stunned look on his face then asked, “Is it true?”

Frank said nothing.

She had her answer.

They both waited and about fifteen minutes later, the time the counselor allowed Anthony, Lucky walked out of the office. He looked at Tesha telling her, “I need you to head to the mall and buy some clothes for a twenty-eight year old. Whatever the type of shit these boys wear now-a-days. Get a grand out the safe. Get one of them MP majigums—”

She cut him off, “MP3 player.”

“Yeah, and load it with music from ten years back until now. I need it all by tomorrow.”

“I gotcha,” she said wondering if the man on the other end was really Lucky’s son.

“What’s up Luck? Is it really little Ant after all these years?” the tall, slim, baldheaded man asked.

“Yeah it’s him. Get your shit packed. We’re heading to Michigan for a few days.”

These Bars Can’t Hold Me Now

“
G
irl, you the fuck up outta here,” Nessie said as she sat in the chair to the desk.

“I know I can’t believe it. It’s only been fifteen months but damn! I’m ready to get the hell out of here,” Lisa told her cellmate.

Lisa’s lawyer had gotten her out. He had worked hard on her case, but the big break was when a confidential informant for the Chicago PD told detectives of a guy he knew who claimed to have planted drugs in Lisa’s BMW. Once they finished working a case on the young man and he was in custody, during his interrogation he offered up the information. He agreed to testify for the feds when and if they ever arrested Slim or anyone in his crew who they attempted to prosecute.

“Fuck, I wish I had your lawyer then I wouldn’t have spent six years in this fucking place,” the thick half black and half Puerto Rican hissed.

“Yeah, but you’re going to be out of here in a few months though.”

Nessie jumped up from the chair and did her dance. She popped that thang then dropped it like it was hot while saying, “It’s going to be on. My cousin said he gonna have me a ride and a spot to rest my head. I ain’t got to pay for shit! When his girl came to visit, she told me that they were going to kick me down with about ten Gs to get me on my feet. I’m glad he still with her cause she the one who be keepin’ his head right. I remember when we were teenagers them girls used to trick Carlos out his money. I mean them chicken head vultures used to be on his ass since my uncle his dad got mad loot.”

“Nessie.”

The fast-talking young woman paused and looked a little dumbfounded when she asked, “What, I’m rambling on again?” 

When they became cell mates a year ago, Lisa realized that Nessie got caught up because she talked too much. Once she started talking she couldn’t stop. And with her cousin being Carlos Fuentes, son of the largest drug dealer in Chicago, she needed to learn to pump the brakes on her motor mouth sometimes.

“Yes, you’re rambling.”

“Look at you with the ‘yes’. You done got all proper since you walked in here,” Nessie teased.

“It’s not that I got all proper. I just have to be ready to tackle the world when I get out of here. Mr. Goldstein told me that I could have a job as an administrative assistant and I’m going to do that and go back to school. I already have an associate’s so I’m going to get my bachelor’s.” 

“Do you girl? I’m proud of you. Shit we need to keep in touch cause if I need a lawyer I’ll know who to call.”   

“You not getting back in the game, are you?” Lisa asked hoping that her cellmate wasn’t. Time had taken six years of Nessie’s life and she was only twenty-five. Lisa couldn’t believe that she was thinking about heading back into the lifestyle of being a drug mule and keeping drugs stashed in her apartment.

“Girlfriend, I don’t know what else to do. I mean you’re smart so that lawyer offered you a job. Or either he just wants to have that secretary - boss relationship. If you know what I mean,” she joked trying to make light of the situation. Months earlier Nessie had told Lisa that she was going to get out and get a job and make something of herself. But the closer it got to Nessie’s release, the people from her cousin’s drug family started visiting. These were the same people who hadn’t visited at the beginning or the middle of her bid. Nessie had got caught carrying a kilo and kept her mouth shut. She had been a mule for her family from the age of fourteen to nineteen and was a good one. Never lost a package. Never came up short on money—the perfect mule for a kingpin.

Lisa leaned toward her friend and took hold of her hands. She looked into her friend’s eyes telling her, “Look, I know they have been coming and visiting you telling you that they are going to hook you up with this and that and going to give you all this money. I know it sounds good but what about if you get caught up again. Look at how many of us ended up in here because of snitches and you never know where that knife that ends up in your back is going to come from.”

Nessie broke free from Lisa’s grip and stood. She slid her grey sweatpants down her shapely hips and legs and Lisa looked at her friend’s body as she slid a pair of shorts up over her prison issued panties. Not that Lisa swung that way as a matter of fact she and Nessie beat a girl down when the dyke tried to come in the cell on Lisa and gorilla her for some head. Lisa was just thinking that her girl was built to get any dude she wanted. Her body was tight and her face was on dime piece status. And with men on this exotic video look, Nessie fit the bill with her mixed heritage. All she needed to do was get the hood out of her and she could very easily cop her a man that was doing it—legally.

“Girl, I know you mean well, but you got more doors opened for you and more avenues you can travel. Me,” she shrugged her shoulders. “I ain’t got nobody but the streets. That’s all I know and that’s what’s been good to me,” she told Lisa as she hopped up on the top bunk hoping that Lisa was ready to end their conversation.