The Family Business 3 (26 page)

I checked the simple, black Timex watch on my wrist while pretending I was playing the trumpet with my other hand. Kool and the Gang's “Jungle Boogie” was on the radio and just getting to my favorite part. You know, where the horns first kick in. Too bad one of the speakers was damaged and crackled with static each time I tried to turn the volume knob past three. DJ Tony Mitchell was spinning the best music in town on GROOVE 770 AM. Before long, he would be out of tiny Hillcroft, Georgia and working the request lines at FM stations in the big cities like Atlanta or Birmingham. He was just that good.

“I don't feel comfortable about this,” she said, nervously wrapping her hand around my shaft, peering over the old van's cracked and faded dashboard. I'd parked us in the corner of the lot, away from anyone else, which gave us some privacy.

“Nah. You're good. Keep going,” I replied to my fiancée, Donna, coaxing her to get back to business. Besides, I was still doing the air trumpet to Kool and the Gang.
Get down, get down. Get down, get down.

I planned to drop Donna off at home after class, but she promised me something special if I let her tag along. I knew that the reason she wanted to come along was because she didn't trust my brother's influence and wanted to mark her territory and remind him that I was taken and not free to cat around like him. Not that I would have even looked at another girl, because my brother and I were cut from an entirely different cloth.

Shoot, I felt lucky that a girl like Donna had even given me a second look. She was nothing like the girls I had grown up knowing. For one, she was really classy. Donna's father was a doctor, and she came from three generations of college-educated professionals. Her father graduated from Morehouse, and her mother from Spellman. In my family, I was the only one that had graduated from high school, and now I was in my third year of college.

Donna and I met in high school, and she was adamant that she could not even consider a guy who didn't have college in his future. Instead of admitting that I had never thought about higher education, I buckled down and set myself on track to be the kind of man that she could see herself with. Thanks to Donna, I had become a better man, and I loved her for it.

“Ouch!” I yelped as her hands suddenly felt like sandpaper on my dick. “Put your mouth on it. It's too dry,” I said, trying to convince her to do a brother a solid.

“I'm not going to do that, and certainly not in a parking lot,” she said, rolling her eyes at me like I had lost my mind.

“Baby, please, just put your mouth on it to get it wet,” I pleaded with her. The look she gave me had me regretting saying anything.

“I would never disgrace my family name by acting like some low-rent tramp. My parents would disown me,” she shot at me. But I was too far down the road to cut my losses.

“Donna, I love you. And I need you,” I cooed, hoping to get her back in a loving mood.

“LC, I know the kinds of girls you're used to, but most of them don't know the names of they babies' fathers. How dare you try to put me in the same category as the kind of girls that do that.” She gave me a look of absolute disgust before continuing. “So if you want me to be like them, then I suggest that you go find you one of them.” She slid away from me, real upset. Shit! I had gone too far. I put myself back in my pants and tried to comfort her.

“I am so sorry. I would never want you to feel that way. You are everything that I want in a woman. You're my dream. Please don't be mad at me.” I gave her my puppy-dog-trapped-in-the-doghouse face, hoping she'd forgive me. Thankfully, she broke out into a smile, and my heart felt a hundred pounds lighter.

Within minutes we were laughing and cracking jokes, and though that felt good, a blowjob would have felt so much better. I hoped that after we got married Donna would feel more comfortable and give a brother some head, but I knew better than to say anything about that. Hopefully, she'd be up to it later, and that meant sex without any extras. Loving Donna taught me that you can't expect everything, and so I reminded myself I was lucky for what I had—and that was a good woman.

By my guess, my brother Lou's bus was thirty minutes late to the Trailways station on the edge of town where we waited. My boss, Mr. Mixon, was gonna have something to say about my being late to work—especially this late—and also for taking his van to run the errand. But I'd smooth things over; I always did. Besides, where else he could get someone who catered to the customer like me and who worked so cheap? My business acumen and hard work made me “invaluable and indispensable,” as my professor at Hillcroft College—the tiny historically black school that catered to the area's underserved “colored folk”—would say.

It was another thirty minutes before the bus that bore Lou pulled into the station. Things never ran on time around here, and I'm surprised Lou put up with the hassle, since he had a car. It was a super bad Chevy Monte Carlo with a tricked-out V-8 he wouldn't let anyone else touch, even though I was the one who painted it for him and made sure it ran so well. His trips up to New York were the rare occasions when he didn't want to attract attention, and with good reason. Of my two brothers, I was the only one who had chosen to walk the straight and narrow.

By the time Lou stepped off the bus and onto the gravel outside the station, Donna had already blown me off . . . literally, leaving me in a mellow mood. I would need it once my brother's mouth started running. Let's just say that he and Donna were not each other's favorite people. Only thing that they had in common was me.

I exited the van, telling Donna to remain inside, then walked over to meet Lou. I wanted to prep him to be nice to her and to not get pissed that I had brought her along. Outside the bus, the smell of diesel fumes clung heavy in the air, reminding me of my job back at Mixon's service station and garage. My brother and I slapped hands, giving each other five, followed by the “black hand side” before sharing a hug.

Although Lou and I were around the same height, he outweighed me by about fifty pounds of muscle. That's not even speaking of the fly threads and shoes he loved to sport, which I never could afford.

Lou had been gone a month this time, tending to whatever relationships he was trying to cultivate beyond Hillcroft. From his demeanor, I guessed he was successful.

“Still workin' at the gas station, huh, college boy?” he joked, flashing that smile of his nestled beneath his full moustache and untouchable afro. His eyes scanned my oil-stained shop coveralls only briefly before moving on to survey the people around us. Lou could be here, but his mind always seemed to be operating somewhere else. This town made him restless, and he wasn't afraid to let it show.

“Yep. It's an honest job,” I replied, trying to cut my brother with words that I knew would merely bounce off his impervious ego. But they did bring his attention back to me as we waited for his luggage to be unloaded from storage beneath the bus. I had a good idea of what he brought back with him from his trip up north.

“I'm honest with my work too, boy. No preconceived notions about what I do,” he said, playfully slapping me across the back of my head. From inside the bus, a girl in the window was frantically waving to get his attention.

“A friend?” I asked as I looked at the girl with high cheekbones and long, straight hair like she had some Indian in her family. She looked to be younger than me.

“Yeah. You might say that,” he replied, offering up a mouthful of teeth and a disingenuous wave to appease her. “She on her way down to Tallahassee. Parents back in Philly can't manage her no mo'. Goin' to live with her grandma is what she said. I actually thought she was
quite
manageable. Especially when we stopped back 'round South Carolina. Pussy so good it needs its own name—first, middle, and last.”

“Uh-huh. Watch you wind up in jail over something you can't talk your way outta. That girl is what? Sixteen?” I said, shaking my head.

“Nah. She's seventeen and a half, and a damn good half too. And I'll leave jail to Larry. For somebody who lies so well to all these women he's juggling, he sure hasn't figured out how to use it with the law,” he said with a hearty laugh, referring to our brother, the middle one.

I joined in on that, knowing it was true. Larry was one unlucky motherfucker, and quick to blame it on someone else when the world came crashing in like it always did.

The bus driver, following his list, pulled out a large, olive-green Army duffle bag and a Samsonite suitcase for which Lou produced his claim ticket. Knowing Lou, neither his bus ticket nor his ID was in his real name.

“Here. Let me get one of those,” I requested as I reached for my brother's duffle bag.

“Nah. I got it, scrawny. You tryin' to be as skinny as JJ on
Good Times
?” he clowned, stepping in front of me. “Take the Samsonite. Don't want you catching a hernia, boy.”

Out in the open, I knew better than to question Lou about the contents of the duffle bag in front of the driver, especially since I wasn't going to like the answer. Let's just say that Lou preferred to take chances with his freedom and had no problem carrying drugs across state lines. I did, so I just took the Samsonite like he told me, and we walked to the van waiting across the street.

“Damn, LC. You need you some of your own wheels instead of fixin' 'em all the fuckin' time,” Lou said, frowning at his transportation from the bus station. Whatever the van's original color was, it was long gone. In its stead was a dulled coat of powder blue with rust fully showing on the back end of the old Ford. I used it to pick up parts from the auto supply store and, in exchange for keeping it running, Mr. Mixon let me use it from time to time. “You might like that job, but you ask me, it's just another kind of indentured servitude.

“Don't worry 'bout me, bro. When I graduate from college, I'll have my own garage,” I said and made sure that I wasn't in striking distance of Donna. This was one thing we disagreed on, but I felt certain she'd come around.

“That's what I love about you, li'l bro. You got plans. Stay that way, because not everybody's cut out to be a risk taker,” Lou remarked, absent any bullshit.

“Well, when I have my shop, Lou, you can work for me,” I stated, puffing out my chest with pride. I was going to be helping out my family and know it would make our parents up in Heaven proud.

“Me?
Work for you
?” my brother remarked, his nose crinkling as we stopped to the rear of the van to stow his luggage. “No offense, li'l bro, but that'll be the day. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not the manual labor type.”

As I swung the rear doors open, light flooded the van's bleak interior. Donna peered back at us from the front bench seat, her eyes adjusting.

“Oh. Hey, Donna,” Lou chimed in, shooting me a dirty look. He plastered on a fake smile, acknowledging my fiancée as he threw his duffle bag in back. I got why she didn't like him, but I couldn't quite figure out why my brother was not a fan of the woman I loved.

“Hey, Lou,” she replied like she had smelled something sour. Normally Lou had women falling all over him, even our female relatives, but that wasn't the case with Donna. “Sweet Lou” is what they called him. Or maybe he started calling himself that. Hard to say, but it stuck.

“How was Queens?” I asked him to take my mind off silly, bothersome thoughts.

“Talk about it later,” he responded curtly.

“It's just Donna. She's okay,” I reminded him. I had no idea why he was acting all secretive around her. It's not like they ran in the same circles. Besides, everyone in town assumed we'd be married one day, so she was virtually family, both mine and his.

But virtually wasn't the same as real.

“Nah. No bitch is ‘okay,' jive turkey,” he snapped, a growl popping up outta nowhere.

“Hey!” I snapped back, my annoyance evident on my face. “You're home. Show some respect for the lady.”

“Sorry, bro. No harm,” Lou apologized, light returning to his demeanor as he retrieved a black fist rake from his back pocket and tightened up his 'fro. “Now let's get outta here. We'll talk after you drop her home.”

Reluctantly, Donna moved over and made room for Lou as he climbed into the van. They could barely mutter three words to each other, making me realize what a bad idea this had been to bring her along. Who could blame me for wanting the two people I love most in the world to also love each other, or at the very least get along? But today that would not be the case.

Driving away, the three of us huddled in the front as if it were Scooby Doo's Mystery Machine, but without the fun and games. I knew that Lou would have a fit if I didn't drop Donna off first, but it would have served him right if I didn't. The longer I made him pretend that he didn't mind her company, the bigger the chance of me having to hear about it later. He thought that being my big brother meant he knew what was best for me, but he'd have to understand that I wasn't a little kid anymore who needed him to look after me. He certainly didn't get a vote when it came to my girl. He just needed to give her a chance, and with time I would show him that he was wrong about Donna. I had to, because despite us getting on each other's nerves, we were all we had.

On the highway to Dr. Williams' house—Oh. That's Donna's father's house, by the way. He was the most successful black man in the biggest five counties around, if not more—we didn't say much. Donna stared straight ahead, ignoring my brother. Lucky for me Lou was keeping focused on the radio. “The Hustle” was playing, and he began whistling along and bobbing his head to the song, probably imagining himself back in some swanky Manhattan discotheque being “the man” or something. I figured that once Donna and I got married we'd take a trip up there together. That way she could keep an eye on me.