West End Girls (18 page)

Ms. Jackson decided today would be a great day for a barbecue. Her house was in the middle of the block and had a big yard in the front. Her fence was in sore need of repair, and she needed to just tear it down, because it made the house look even more raggedy. But she kept it up, what was left of it.

Her son Jamal had done some time a few years back, maybe about six years or so, and was still living at home. He'd used his ex-con status as his reason for not being able to get a job ever again in life. For the most part, it probably was true, especially since he'd not fully removed himself from the life he lived prior to going to the pen. He was a bad actor. Everybody knew it, except Ms. Jackson. She either didn't know or didn't want to accept it. Otherwise she wouldn't have had him up in her house, still running game and slanging yay. But a mama's love goes deep sometimes.

The gansta rap poured from the ghetto blaster that sat on the porch, and some people even danced on the lawn, their short dukes and tight jeans showing more cracks than the Grand Canyon. But who was there to judge? The food was good and, best of all, free.

Ms. Jackson had money. Everyone suspected that, somewhere along the line, she'd been married to a white man, who'd left her with a bundle when he died, but she never confirmed it. And her son was black as a dot of ink on white paper.

The day drifted on into the night without even a hint of the festivities ending. The music was playing, the smoke was wafting off the grills, the smells of hot sauce and grease still freshly filled everyone senses, nauseating some, making others froth with desire. People who had eaten earlier were more than likely on their second or third rounds.

Nobody was paying attention to the cars going up and down the street, especially since all the drivers were grinning like Cheshire cats, gold and gem stones flashing in their mouths. When the light from the streetlights hit the rolled-down windows, their mouths glowed like Vegas lights, blinding and all that.

But nobody noticed the slow-moving car, the one with the hooded light-skinned nigga that had no smiles, only hate and revenge in his eyes. Suddenly the rounds of shots blasted out over everyone's heads. Those shots were intended to miss. That was clear, because nobody got shot. Well, except Ms. Jackson.

With all the ducking and running, only a couple of people noticed the bowl of potato salad going up in the air as she took the hit. The bowl flew out of her hands as she fell forward down the steps of her front porch. She was all bloody before she hit the ground.

One of the women who saw screamed, but most folks probably figured she was just screaming to be screaming.

Jamal looked up and screamed out with the cry of a wounded animal, “Maaaaaaammma!” His voice rose at the end, as if he was running out of air. He pulled out his gun and began shooting at the car, running out to the middle of the street.

“Ms. Jackson is dead!” somebody called. “Oh my God! And Dolores too!”

But Jamal didn't care about Dolores. He only really cared about his mother, and by the look on his face, hearing about her death was more than his ears could handle. He put his gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

“Shit! Jamal just blew his fuckin' head off!” somebody yelled.

There was more screaming, and then the sirens. No ten-year-old should have witnessed anything so graphic, but Marquis did. At that moment he felt a mixture of terror and gallantry; it was an infusion of instruction on loyalty and love. Jamal had taken his life because his mother's had been taken. Forget the reasons. Forget that, if he hadn't been such a thug, his innocent mother wouldn't have been killed for his shit.

The scene affected Marquis deeply, and he was moved to tears. He understood why Jamal did what he'd done. Marquis loved his mother too. But he was just so angry with her right now. How could she try to teach him about loyalty and love, yet be so selfish and blind to her own children's needs?

Curtis was the reason for all that was wrong with his mother, his family. Marquis realized that, and that's why he was here at this barbecue. He was in search of a solution to the problem.

As the police cars rushed toward them, the people scattered. Some who may have wanted to stay knew they needed to go; others, too scared to think straight, ran for no reason.

Marquis was scared because he was there to get a gun from one of his gang brothers, a cat named Red, but the deal was cut short by the shooting. Red hadn't even showed up anyway.

This whole thing was a waste in his eyes.
I could have been somewhere else
. Marquis thought about his sisters. If he lost his family, he would do the same thing Jamal did. But, before he did that, he would take out some folks. Some guilty people would die. Jamal didn't even shoot at the niggas in the car. Marquis thought about how slow they were traveling,
I'da shot somebody
. Somebody would have died for taking my family from me. There would be no standing around for hours on end, talking to cops who really didn't give a shit.

This wasn't justice
, Marquis thought to himself.
This wasn't right
.

During the commotion he avoided the cop's inquiry by acting like a terrified ten-year-old, screaming and calling for his mother, then running off in the darkness.

The sirens woke Tanqueray, as surely as her convoluted dreams of sex, drugs, and all else did not. Normally she could sleep through all the madness, but this one actually took her from the sofa where she'd just laid down what seemed like moments earlier. Curtis was already up and at the window, oddly so. What was he doing in the living room? Tanqueray thoughts were interrupted when Marquis bust through the door.

Marquis was crying, but as soon as he looked at Curtis and then at Tanqueray laid out on the sofa, he dried up.

Tanqueray reached for him, but he wouldn't let her touch him. He ran into the girl's room and locked the door. It took ten minutes before he let anybody in.

As soon as the door opened and Unique gained entry into the room, she yelled, “What happened, boy?”

“Mr. Jackson is dead. There was a drive-by at the barbecue.”

When Marquis spoke, he was calm and cool and appeared unaffected. Unique knew this was not normal, her son holding in emotions as if he was a grown man. She knew tomorrow she'd have to make call to get him some help. He was angry and now even she believed it.

“Buncha Gold Mouths did it.”

“What are they doing over here?” Curtis asked.

“Don't know. Why don't you ask ‘em?”

Curtis sucked his teeth and headed back into the bedroom, closing the door with intent.

“Baby, why you and Curtis always fighting? Why don't you try to get along with him?” Unique asked, her soft beseeching voice faltering.

Marquis's eyes were cold and dark, the way Unique remembered his father's.

“What? Get along? Why would I want to get along with him? I hate him.”

At that Cammie covered up her head.

Marquis looked over his shoulder at her. “Why you scared, Cammie? I told you I'm here to protect you. All y'all. I'm a man; it's my job.”

Unique sat up straight and looked at him. “Protect us from what?”

“Curtis,” Marquis growled. “He's a dirty pig. Needs to be shot in the head.”

Unique jumped to her feet. “Marquis, don't say that. You can't be violent like all these people you are hanging out with. You are just a boy,” she said, her lip trembling. Her fear was showing through her façade.

Marquis didn't care about why she was afraid because, in his mind, it was all Curtis' fault. It was his fault that Cammie and Gina were afraid. Marquis refused to be afraid. Curtis was a coward, like Jamal turned out to be. Yeah, that's what Jamal was, a coward. He couldn't live without his mother.

Marquis' thoughts were changing, morphing into something new. He reasoned, if Jamal had taken care of business a long time ago with “the Gold Mouths,” then his mother wouldn't have been killed in the first place. If he and Red had done their jobs as leaders, they would have been there to protect those innocent people at the party and engage in the war they talked about so often. But they all ran and hid and allowed Mother Jackson to be killed.

“I won't let anybody hurt my sisters,” Marquis said boldly, standing tall.

At that Cammie began to bellow from under the blankets. Gina began to try uncovering her, but it didn't work. Apple's middle fingers went into her mouth as she eased her way into the corner of the bed, watching.

Tanqueray came into the room now and saw Marquis with his fists balled up. “What is going on in here? Little man, why you up in here yelling and stuff?”

“He's angry!” Gina called out. “Like that man at the store said, he's an angry boy.”

“Angry at what?” Tanqueray asked. “Well, everything probably. It's an angry time.”

“Nobody is gonna hurt my family. Nobody is gonna take my mama from me!” Marquis yelled, staring blankly toward the floor, his jawline taut, and his fist still balled up.

Unique wiped the tear from her eye. She and her son stood toe to toe but did not embrace. It was as if they were frozen in their position.

Just then the silence was broken with the sound of the door slamming.

“Good,” Tanqueray muttered. “That fool is gone. I can sleep with both eyes closed now. Pervert was probably in there molesting me. Go on out there to your spot, boy. I'll sleep in here with the girls, where I'm safe. You go on, nah, and watch over us.” She chuckled, feeling her hangover coming back.

Unique stepped off the bus with Apple in tow. Tanqueray agreed to watch Gina and Cammie until Curtis got back, just in case Marquis took off. That way she didn't have to take everybody with her.

She wasn't a fool. Curtis liked Tang, and sometimes he let it show whenever she was at the apartment. And now that she was staying there, she was a little worried. He would look at her like he wanted “some.”

Tang was never interested in the men Unique liked though. As a matter of fact, Tanqueray never seemed interested in men at all for very long. She sure wasn't interested in Curtis either. It was more than obvious Tanqueray was already seeing somebody new, the way she would go off and not come in until the wee hours of the morning. Maybe this one was special, because she hadn't even told anybody who it was. Normally she was quick to fill everybody in on her mess.

It was obvious Tanqueray wasn't back with that fool Omar, who'd called the other day. Unique hadn't thought to tell anyone because his number was clear as day on the caller ID. That was all Tang's mess right there. In all honesty, Unique heard the message but left it as saved. Unique had never seen Omar's face and had only spoken to him once on the phone. He seemed like a straight-up freak. And from some of the stories Tanqueray had been telling her, he probably was gay.

“Ain't no straight, normal black man gonna suck no women's toes, not a black woman's anyway, but yeah, he might suck on some white bitch's shit!”

She'd forgotten to tell Tanqueray about the call—with all the activity going on—but Omar sounded like he was gonna kill her for jacking him like that, going on and on about choking her chicken neck if he ever saw her again on his block. But—not that she wanted her sister hurt—but yeah on his block fo' sho, 'cuz nigga hadn't showed his face in the W.E., not once.
And besta not.

Unique thought about the gun. She still hadn't seen hide nor hair of it. She'd even located Sinclair's stash and moved it to a new location.

The bus started toward her. It had just come from around the corner. The Jacksons lived around that corner. She thought about the innocent women who had been gunned down and her son Marquis being a witness to such awful violence. The cops hadn't come by to question Marquis, but even if they did, he was going to play dumb and not tell them anything. Unique was worried about Marquis. She'd called Curtis' cell not too long after he left but he didn't want to talk about it, calling it
her
family drama, not his. So she didn't want to bother him with her concerns or her trip to visit Derrick Winfrey.

Marquis wasn't happy about Curtis being at the apartment anyway, and between that and Cammie's changes, with her not wanting to eat and moping around, acting moody, Unique didn't have a choice but to pull out the card and head downtown—to Derrick Winfrey's office.

She needed to talk to somebody, and he was the only one offering. For surely Curtis didn't give a damn.

Unique grumbled under her breath, releasing some pent-up frustration concerning Curtis and what she'd been hearing through the grapevine, which she didn't visit often. But every trip to the Laundromat brought something new about what her man was doing when they weren't together. Curtis had such a trifling cousin. She was such a liar that Unique didn't even question Curtis about her mess and all she was saying. She had told Unique that Curtis had been cheating on her with some white girl over in Oakland.

“Market and First!” the bus driver called out.

“Come on, Apple. This is our stop,” Unique said, sounding sweet and loving to her favorite child, well, her youngest child anyway.

Derrick's office was downtown and easy to find. She smoothed down her summer dress, a cheap, easy-to-wrinkle fabric, but still a pretty jungle print. She had shaved her legs and wore white flip-flops and some matching white sunglasses. She had put on the ritzy for this dude and hoped he appreciated it by helping her with her problem with Marquis—fo' free. Nah, for this she'd be willing to find some money. She was getting scared, and this situation between Marquis and Curtis wasn't funny no more.

She'd been thinking about Derrick—purely professionally of course, she told herself. No, no, no, none of that, she had a man—Curtis. There were problems between her man and her son, but talking to Derrick would help her sort them out, right? Right. So, yeah, any thoughts about Derrick Winfrey had been purely professional. She'd convinced herself of that anyway. She just wanted to talk to him about the kids. He seemed to care. Yeah, he cared.
A helluva lot more than Curtis did.

Pushing open the large glass doors, she read the black bulletin board, hoping it would give her direction to Derrick's office. It was on the third floor.

She and Apple entered and took the short ride up. Apple looked at the tall men and women all dressed in blue and didn't say a word. Surely she was thinking her mother was crazy bringing her here. It was bad enough she had taken them all to the jail to see Uncle Deb. Everyone was dressed in blue that day too, except for Uncle Deb. He was dressed in a real pretty orange. The other kids didn't get to see him. They had to wait in the hallway, but she got to go in. They didn't stay long.

Unique hesitated before going in the office. Just the thought of going into an office made her anxious. She'd had a lifetime of offices—doctors, welfare, counselors—and now this. Would it ever end? When would she ever be able to just live her life or make a decision without everyone having to give her advice?

She'd been working so hard to keep things in order in her life and for her kids. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe they were being dramatic. Troubled child? Wasn't no troubled children in black families. Life was trouble, and black kids just had to learn to deal.

Only white kids went through all this kinda intervention. Unique thought about the TV shows on shopping intervention and text-messaging intervention. “Wish I would have a small problem like that.” But Derrick was black and he seemed to truly understand this issue she was having with her son. “Black issue.” She snickered.

The door opened a couple of times, people coming and going. Finally an older woman asked her who she was there to see. “Mr. Winfrey,” Unique told her.

The woman smiled and led her back in the office. She was probably on her break but canceled it to direct Unique to Derrick's office.

“Thank you,” she told the woman, who smiled warmly, wiggling her fingers at a giggling Apple.

Derrick was on the phone when she walked in and sat in front of his desk. His back was to her, but when he turned around, his eyes widened. He held up one finger to her. “Okay . . . oh . . . okay . . . Mike . . . let me get back to you . . . buh, bye.” He hung up. “Helllllo,” he said, sounding perky and a little bit square.

“Hi,” she answered, sounding unsure of why she was there.

Apple too greeted him with a smile, noticing his jar of candy, and was rewarded with a piece.

“I can't believe you came,” Derrick said, clearing his throat and moving things nervously around his desk.

“Well, yes, I did. I told you this was about my son. I love my kids. Just yesterday there was a shooting in my neighborhood. My son was a witness to it. It's awful, and I just want to know what's best to do.” Unique was using her office diction—professional grammar, her fake persona.

Derrick grinned as if recognizing it to be such.

“So tell me about your son. Marquis, is it?”

She was surprised and let it show in her face. “You remember his name?”

“Of course. And this is Apple, and let me see, your other daughter is Gina, and your angry daughter, the one who admitted to being angry, is Cammie.”

“He knows my name?” Apple bounced in the seat.

“Yes, Apple, the nice man knows your name,” Unique said, all the while looking in Derrick's eyes.

The crush began immediately. Forget the professionalism. This man was beautiful suddenly, and Unique just wanted to take him home and keep him all to herself.

Unique and Derrick talked for over an hour, first about Marquis and then about her life and then about his. Unique wanted to get to know him better. But how and why would a man like that want to get to know her better? She was from the ghetto. She had four kids and lived in county housing. He had a good job, and sounded like he came from a good family.

“I just would like to be your friend,” he had told her. And maybe it was true. She'd never had a male friend before. God knows Marquis needed a male figure who wasn't all about getting at his mother or adding a new mouth to feed. But she was scared. True, she still fought him on the idea that Marquis was angry. She just wasn't buying it. She was okay with admitting to him being “affected” but not angry.

But what good came out if it was a dinner date. Not just any dinner date, one with her and her children.

“We'll do like Chuck E. Cheese or something.”

“You mean with the big rat?” Apple asked.

“Yes, the big rat,” Derrick laughed, tugging playfully on one of Apple's pigtails.

“How did you come up with
Apple
?” he asked Unique as he waited with her at the bus stop. Her transfer had expired, and so he gave her a monthly pass. That way she could come see him any time at no charge to herself.

“Oh, I've always wanted to go to New York and so—”

“Ohh, so she's ‘the Big Apple,' huh. Cool,” he said, directing his excitement toward the little girl, who grinned proudly.

Unique liked Derrick a lot. She could only hope her kids liked him for real, because he seemed to want to like them. She figured as much by the way he kept bringing them up. Unique wanted a man like Derrick. She'd dreamed of one day meeting a man like him, good job, respectable. There were no red flags, none.