Authors: J. Gail
“Yea, it’s me,” Quanisha chuckled at how surprised Tony sounded. “What you up to?”
“Nothin’. You?” he asked cautiously. He was surprised because Quanisha hardly ever called him those days.
“Well, I was just sitting down here… thinkin’ about you,” Quanisha admitted.
“You was thinkin’ about me? You lyin’,” Tony said as a smile cracked at the corner of his mouth.
“No I was! I was thinkin’ about how nice it was for you to leave that money and those flowers at my door. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome Nish. How you know it was me?”
“I just did. But anyways. I’m down here in VA with my Godsister you know,” Quanisha said, changing the subject. She didn’t want to get too mushy about the gift.
“No, I ain’t know. You don’t tell me nothin’ no more,” Tony said. “I thought you was done with me for good after I made you lose your job.”
“Tony, it wasn’t your fault I lost my job. It was my own lazy ass – I mean my lazy butt not getting up on time. I ain’t mad no more,” Quanisha explained.
“You ain’t? Then how come you ain’t call me?” Tony asked.
“How come you ain’t call
me
?” Quanisha came back.
“Cuz I thought you was mad!” Tony answered enthusiastically. He looked around and almost forgot where he was at, and what he was about to do. He had even let go of his anger. He lit his cigarette and took a long drag from it.
“Well I ain’t mad no more, so you better call me!” Quanisha said in the same tone and then laughed. Tony chuckled. It felt good to laugh with Tony again, like they used to when they were teenagers just starting out together.
“I think we got a lot we need to talk about Tony. I’m gonna be back in Philly in a few days or so, so just come by then,” Quanisha said. “You’re welcome to stay at the house too, if you need to.”
“Thanks Nish.”
“You aiight? You don’t sound too good,” Quanisha said, picking up something in his voice.
“Naw, naw, I’m aiight. Just a little tired, and drunk,” Tony said as he flicked his butt out onto the street and looked back over to the bar entrance. He saw one of the patrons leave and head down the block.
“I told you about drinkin’ them St. Ides forties. Call me later then, aiight?”
“Aiight, talk to you later.”
“I love you Tony,” Quanisha said with an anxious smile, and then held her breath.
Tony was quiet for a little while, and then it finally came out. “I love you too Nish.”
Quanisha closed her eyes and took in the moment for all it was worth. She heard the phone line disconnect in her ear, and knew that Tony had hung up. She opened her eyes and put the cellphone down on the nightstand. She was utterly blissful as she settled herself underneath the covers.
Tony sat in the car for what seemed like an eternity, thinking. For some reason now he couldn’t shake the memory of how he had opened his big mouth when he and Scoop were robbed off of Kingsessing.
You wouldn’t be doing shit without that gun in ya hand.
That comment had gotten him the ass whooping of his lifetime. When he looked down at the gun, he thought about how that same comment actually might apply to him right at that moment.
He finally just shook those thoughts out of his mind. Regardless of the past, he knew what he had to do now. He took the gun and put it in the inside front of his pants. He got out of the car and walked slowly across the street until he reached the entrance of the bar.
He took two long deep breaths before opening the door and stepping inside. There was no turning back now. He struggled with himself even as he walked in about whether this was the right decision to make or not. The choice he made in this bar right now could potentially have an effect on his entire life. It could mean the choice between whether he even had a life to live.
Everyone in the bar was carrying on as they were before, talking and drinking, until Boo noticed Tony standing on the inside of the door with a very strange look on his face. It was not quite anger, but it was not exactly happy either. Something was about to go down.
“Yo, didn’t I tell you to stay out of here?” Boo said, frozen in place as he was about to pour a shot of straight vodka. A fear now came over him that something really bad was about to happen, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything in time. He looked over at Hook, who was also looking over at Tony with a very serious look on his face. There weren’t anymore smiles in the place like before.
“Yea, but I got something I need to tell ya’ll,” Tony said loudly so that everybody in the bar could hear him. He pulled the gun out from the front of his pants and pointed it right at Hook. Everybody in the bar started bracing themselves for what was about to happen. Hook immediately put his hands up in the air and started begging for his life. He was trying to figure out how he was going to make a dash for the back entrance without getting shot. Maybe he could throw one of the females out in front of him and get out of there unharmed. Rob was wrong – Hook wasn’t holding anything.
“Come on man, I was just kidding before. Come on, don’t shoot me man. I got kids!” Hook pleaded.
But all Tony did as he held the gun was reach into his pants pocket. He pulled out one of the last two $20 bills he had and tossed it onto the floor.
“Look at ya’ll bitchin’! Ha ha. Ain’t shit funny no more though huh? Ya’ll ain’t even worth me ruining my life. Just go ‘head and get a round of Steel Reserves on me,” he said with a sly smirk, and then backed his way out of the bar with the gun still pointed in the air.
Prologue
8 Months Later
Tony was hustling to catch the bus that had just pulled up. The driver looked like she didn’t even want to stop. If Tony missed this bus he would probably have to wait another hour for the next one in the darkness; not something he wanted to do. Fortunately, he got there just in time.
“This bus go down Philly right?” Tony asked the driver once he had climbed aboard.
“Yup,” the driver said and closed the door.
Tony sat in the window seat at the center of the bus and looked out of the window. He was dead tired, having just finished his second week of work at the restaurant in King of Prussia where he now worked. They had him doing basic kitchen duties, but it was pretty good pay at $10 an hour.
These days, Tony was not only working, but also studying to get his GED. He had never passed the 10
th
grade in High School, and needed some serious brushing up on his skills. He wanted to go to college, or a technical school one day.
Tony had finally decided that there were two options for his life. To go in the wrong direction and fall victim to the streets, or to go in the right direction and try to become a responsible young brother. He spoke to Dr. Stephens just about every other week and updated him on what was going on in his life. Sometimes the doctor even helped him with homework problems over the phone. Dr. Stephens had become a big influence on Tony’s life. It was no instant transformation however – Tony still had some of his bad habits to shake, like yearning for other women and opening his big mouth when he shouldn’t, but he managed to keep both vices under control, at least temporarily.
Quanisha was back and forth from Philly to VA every few weeks. She would stay with Stephanie for the weekend and then head back. It was like her respite away from home when she started to feel the pressure of family and life in Philadelphia. In the meantime, she had found a new, better paying job at a supermarket in the suburbs, where the conditions were a lot more pleasant. She was saving up every penny she could spare for her plans to move to the Virginia area within the next couple of years. She and Stephanie were talking just about every other day, and Stephanie was trying to help Quanisha enroll in a community college near Philadelphia now, so that when and if she did move to Virginia she could then go to a four year college. Quanisha was also considering going to a reputable beauty school instead of college, so that she could be on the right path towards opening the beauty shop she had always dreamed of owning. She decided to take a few more months before making that final decision about school and save up as much money as she could in the meanwhile. To help Quanisha save, Stephanie and her husband would give her the money to cover her frequent trips to see them in Virginia. She was like part of their family now.
Tony and Quanisha were doing okay. They still fought, just about every day, but Tony was now contributing to the bills and spending more time with his woman, which caused a very big weight to be lifted off of Quanisha’s shoulders. She definitely couldn’t complain about the fact that Tony was no longer giving her reasons to suspect that he was cheating.
Even Jenny had stopped coming by Tony’s grandmother’s house when Mrs. Jackson invited her in and sat her down for a long talk. She made it clear to Jenny that Tony didn’t live there anymore, and even if he did he was simply not interested. There was something about a third party, an older female, telling her those things to her face in a loving way that made her finally grasp that she was wasting her time and should move on to the next stalkee. Jenny surprised Mrs. Jackson when she revealed that she had lost the baby; Mrs. Jackson hadn’t even known that Jenny was pregnant.
Maybe that was why she was tripping so much
, Mrs. Jackson thought. In any case, she breathed a silent sigh of relief when Jenny left; no strings attached. She didn’t know if she got through to Jenny completely, as far as getting off whatever substance she was on and getting psychological help, but what she said was enough to make Jenny stay away from the house. The very next day, Jenny had turned off the phone Tony was holding. It was the final indication that Jenny was moving on.
Tony’s fears about being tracked down by Rock were squashed when he found out by word of mouth that Rock had been picked up for drugs, and as a suspect in Scoop’s murder. Word was, just based on the amount of drugs Rock had on him when he was caught, he was probably going to be going away for a very long time.
Scoop’s girlfriend Shaquita went through a mental breakdown after she found out that Scoop had been killed. She tried to kill herself by taking a bottle full of Percocets, but was found alive ironically by her jump-off Tim, a brother who she had been dealing with off and on during her entire relationship with Scoop. Tim had been the distraction she needed when she knew Scoop was out there doing his own thing, and one of the reasons why she didn’t always make a big deal about Scoop’s affairs. Tim came in the house that day and found Shaquita laid out on the couch passed out. He was just in time, because as the doctors said, just a few more hours and she would have been dead. Unfortunately, after taking some blood tests, they discovered that Shaquita was HIV positive also.
Tony had been nervous about approaching Terrance for weeks, but finally got up the courage to do what he needed to do to get his best friend back.
He showed up at Terrance’s house one Saturday with a basketball that had two $20 bills taped to it. It was his way of apologizing to Terrance, and admitting what he did wrong. Terrance understood immediately. He didn’t say anything about the money; he just went inside and got his keys so that they could go down the block to the park to shoot some hoops.
A small miracle happened a few weeks after Tony walked out of that bar and went on with his life. Someone had dropped Tony’s silver box off on Grandma Jackson’s porch. It was missing a lot of things of value, but it still had the picture of Tony’s mother and the baseball cards inside. On top of that, every page of Tony’s rhymes that he had written was stacked neatly underneath the other items. There was no good explanation for it, other than a thief who also had a heart. Either that, or someone close to the thief had returned it – it was a good thing that Tony had written his grandmother’s address on the bottom of the box. Seeing his mother’s picture gave Tony an added dose of encouragement and strength to go on.
As Tony looked in the distance and saw the brightly lit Philadelphia skyline against the darkness approaching, he thought about how far he had come in such a short time. He had made some hard decisions in his life, but none as hard as the one he had made to change his life around for the better. He still wasn’t perfect by any means, but he was trying. He was really genuinely trying.