Keisha's thoughts were lost somewhere between the terror of the attack and remembrances of Jamal. It wasn't that she couldn't speak. She just didn't know what to say.
Her father grabbed her shoulders and looked into her eyes.
“And what?” he said.
“They tried to rape me.”
“Who's
they
?”
“There were two of them. I don't know who they were. But one of them had a scar on his face.”
“You didn't see anything else?” her father said, reaching into the back of his closet.
“It was dark,” she said, allowing her pent-up tears to flow. “They grabbed me from behind.”
Reverend Anderson emerged from the back of the closet holding a bat. His eyes were red and swollen, and his tear-streaked face was filled with rage.
“Sarah, I want you to take Keisha home,” he said quickly.
“John, don't be foolish,” Sarah snapped. “She doesn't even know who it was.”
“She might not know who it was,” he said as he moved toward the door. “But I know who to start with.”
“You need to start with the Lord,” Sarah called after him.
“When I find the man I'm looking for,” the reverend said, pulling a pair of leather gloves onto his massive hands, “he'll need the Lord a whole lot more than I do.”
Â
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Thick cigar smoke wafted through the back room at Frank Nichols's bar, floating toward vents in the ceiling and disappearing as if it were never there.
Though the bar had always been the only profitable business on Fifteenth and Dauphin, it was nothing spectacular up front, where the regular patrons drank. But the back room, with its ventilation system and entertainment center, was where Frank ran his real businessâdrug dealing.
The back room, where murders had been planned and takeovers mapped out, was where Frank felt most comfortable. And so, whenever he was here, the mood was festive. Tonight was no different.
Frank and his lieutenants ate fried shrimp and coleslaw as scantily clad barmaids shuttled back and forth with glass upon glass of Jack Daniel's.
Frank sat facing the door, his high yellow skin and honey-colored eyes shining in the dim light. He was a small man, no more than five-eight. But beneath his pretty-boy looks and conservative suits, there was strong, wiry muscle, and the heart of a lion. At fifty-five, after nearly forty years in the game, his mind was sharper than ever.
His lieutenants were lined up around a flat-screen television, watching a rebroadcast of a heavyweight bout in which a too-prim Englishman beat a brash former champion from Brooklyn.
Frank had brought his men together this way at least once a month for the past four decades. He liked to study them away from the corners where they plied their trade. He wanted to see their habits, observe their desires, and note their weaknesses.
If voluptuous barmaids in thongs could distract them from the business at hand, their weakness was flesh, and they could betray him for a whore.
If they were eager to refill their glasses after more than two or three shots, their weakness was strong drink, and alcohol could loosen their tongues.
If they hoarded the food for themselves, they were gluttons, and their greed would eventually spill over into business.
Over the years, his formula for evaluating his men had proved valuable. So had keeping his ear to the street.
Frank pointed the remote control at the television screen and turned off the fight. When he did, everyone turned to him. Because at these gatherings, where security was minimal and business was almost never discussed, such an action meant something was wrong. The room went silent as they waited to hear what it was.
Frank sipped from his glass and lowered his eyes.
“Colorado Street was short a thousand dollars this month,” he said, staring at the man who ran the crack trade on the tiny block off Dauphin Street. “You replaced it outta your pocket, Raheem. But that don't solve the problem. I wanna know why it was missin' in the first place.”
Raheem was six-five, thirty years old, and built like a linebacker. But Frank's stare was enough to cause him to tremble. He sipped at his drink to calm his nerves before he spoke.
“Young boy told me he wanted a job,” Raheem said nervously. “I knew the family was strugglin', so I gave him a package. He decided he wanted to trick with the money. Took this young girl up New York on a shoppin' spree. When I heard about it, I went up there and found him.”
Raheem took another swig of his drink.
“He won't be workin' for us no more,” he said firmly. “I told his mama, âWhen they find him, I'll pay for the funeral.'”
Frank looked around the room, studying the faces of his lieutenants, until his gaze was once again fixed on Raheem.
“So why somebody tell me you took the money?”
“'Cause they lyin',” Raheem said evenly.
Frank stared at him for a moment longer. The tension in the air was palpable.
“I know they lyin',” Frank answered. “But it's still your fault. You never give a package to somebody that's hungry. You give it to somebody who already know how to hustle. And if they mess it up, you don't do 'em soon as you hear about it. You wait.”
As Frank spoke, there was a rumbling outside the door. The single guard who was posted there yelled at someone to stop. There was the sickening sound of wood against flesh, and a body tumbling to the floor. It sounded like it could've been the police, so no one fired. They simply placed their hands on their weapons and waited.
Seconds later, the door burst open and a man wielding a bat stepped through. The men in the room leveled their weapons, but Frank raised his hand before the bullets could fly.
Reverend Anderson stopped when he saw the guns pointed in his direction. He lowered the bat, stood in the middle of the floor, looked around him, and observed the faces of the men who ran the neighborhood crack corners.
None of them bore the scar he was looking for. But that didn't mean they were blameless.
“I came for the man who tried to rape my baby,” he said, his right hand tightly gripping the handle of the bat as his eyes bulged with rage.
Frank Nichols leaned back in his chair and smiled.
“See, that's what I was just talkin' about,” he said coolly. “You don't go out right after somethin' happens and try to settle it. You give yourself time to think about what you gon' do. Otherwise you end up bringin' a bat to a gunfight.”
“There won't be no gunfight, âcause y'all ain't trying to go to prison,” Anderson said, mocking them. “They make you check
your guns at the door of the prison. Guys like you can't survive without them.”
“Is that right, Pastor?” Frank said smoothly.
“Yeah, that's right,” Reverend Anderson said. “And so is this: if anything else happens to Keisha on these streets, Frank, I'm blaming you. And when I come, I'm coming correct.”
Nichols grinned knowingly. “Seems like every time somethin' happens to your family, you blame me,” he said.
Reverend Anderson dropped the bat and lunged at Nichols, but two of his lieutenants grabbed the pastor and dragged him back before he could swing.
Nichols took a sip of his drink and sat back. “John, I don't know what happened with your daughter, but I'll try to find out. And if I hear anything, I'll handle it.”
Reverend Anderson wrenched free from the men who were holding him. “I don't need you to handle mine, Frank. I can handle my own.”
Frank stood up and walked toward the pastor. When they were just inches from one another, he stopped and looked up at the taller man.
“We used to be like brothers, John,” he said solemnly. “What happened?”
“You
know
what happened,” said the pastor, looking around the room before settling his hate-filled gaze on Frank. “
This
happened. But I'ma shut this down, too. I promise you that.”
“Well, I hope we can settle our differences before one of us dies,” Frank said with a deadly calm. “'Cause you never know. That might be sooner than later.”
“You're right, Frank,” Anderson said, echoing the underlying threat. “It just might be.”
As Frank ambled back to his seat and the pastor turned to
leave, Frank's men put their weapons away in the belief that the altercation was over.
Only three people knew that it wasn't: Frank Nichols, John Anderson, and the young man with dreadlocks standing silently in the corner, watching as his father played God.
Sarah and
her daughter exchanged few words during the short walk from the church to their home. But that wasn't unusual.
Sarah was most often withdrawn from her daughter. And Keisha resented it. That was why Keisha sat in silence while Sarah dressed the wounds she'd sustained in the attack, and afterward she stalked into her room, hoping that Sarah would stay away.
Sarah felt her daughter's bitterness, and indeed she shared it. She resented Keisha because she still had youth and opportunity, two commodities that Sarah had long ago squandered.
But in spite of the tension between them, Sarah knew that her daughter needed her. now, because those men had attacked much more than Keisha's body. They'd attacked her very soul.
Tapping lightly on Keisha's door, Sarah twisted the doorknob and walked in.
Keisha, who was standing in front of the mirror, glanced at her mother and resumed staring at the bruises on her neck.
“Sit down, Keisha,” Sarah said casually. “I want to talk to you.”
Keisha hesitantly took a seat, though she didn't want to be bothered. Sarah sat next to her, wearing a look of uncertainty that Keisha wasn't used to seeing on her mother's face.
“A lot of things are different than they were when I was sixteen,” Sarah began. “You see things we only whispered about in the girls' bathroom. You hear things we never said out loud. I know that, so don't think I'm sitting here trying to preach about things I don't understand.”
“Mom, I've had a really long day. I just wantâ”
“I know what you want,” Sarah said. “You want me to leave you alone and let you see things for yourself. You want me to stop quoting the Bible, stop trying to make you into the kind of woman you need to be. You want to be like everybody else, right?”
Keisha lowered her eyes and didn't answer.
“See, that's the thing that hasn't changed, Keisha. When you're sixteen and your hips are round and your breasts are full, and men start looking at you like they want what's between your legs, you start to wonder. You start to think, âMaybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to try it.'
“You see your girlfriends riding around with drug dealers and wearing the finest clothes and going shopping every day. You learn that all you have to do is open your legs and the world is yours. And you start to think, âMaybe the streets aren't as bad as they tell me they are. Maybe they're trying to hide something from me.'”
“What does that have to do with what happened tonight?” Keisha said, sensing the accusation.
“I just want to know,” Sarah began, already regretting the question she was about to ask.
“What is it, Mom?”
“I want to know if things really happened the way you said they did. I want to know if there's anything else you need to tell me.”
Keisha thought of Jamal. She wanted badly to tell her mother that she was wrongâthat not every man wanted her simply for what he could take.
But Keisha couldn't break her promise to him. And even if she could, she was too hurt by her mother's suspicions to speak of anything else.
“Two men threw me down and tried to rape me,” Keisha said, a tear rolling down her cheek. “They choked me and punched me and put a knife to my throat. They told me they would kill me if I didn't do what they wanted. And you're sitting here saying that it might be my fault?”
“I'm saying that I know what it's like to wonder,” Sarah said defensively.
“Wonder what?”
“What life would be like if your father wasn't a pastor.”
“So you're saying I went out looking for this?”
“No, I'm saying
I
did!”
Keisha reared back, the shock of her mother's words hitting her like a sharp blow.
“I'm saying I did things when I was your age because I was tired of being a preacher's daughter,” Sarah said, her words tumbling out before she could stop them. “I see a lot of myself in you, Keisha. The only difference between us is this: you still have a chance to change your future. I don't.”
They sat in silence, each of them tasting the bitter truth of Sarah's words.
“I wish you'd known your grandfather,” Sarah said with a sad smile. “He was a good man. But he didn't leave me much breathing room, so I had to take it.”
“But that's not what I'm doing,” Keisha said defensively.
“That's what I told my parents, too,” Sarah said. “But I was just like you. Smart and pretty and mature. I had my own job and my own money and I didn't have time for boys my age. I wanted men. So I sneaked around and got just what I wanted. And then I got a little something extra.”
Keisha felt a chill run down her spine as her mother turned her face away in shame.
“This man I knew took me to dinner at some fancy restaurant downtown,” Sarah said. “And when he drove me home, he went right past the corner where he usually dropped me off, and he took me out to the park.”
Tears filled Sarah's eyes, and her voice broke.
“Then he raped me.”
Sarah broke down. Keisha wanted to hug her, but she couldn't. The gulf between them was too great.
It hadn't been bridged by the scripture they'd shared, or the sermons they'd heard. It wouldn't be bridged by their common experience.
When Sarah stopped crying, Keisha looked her mother in the eye. “I didn't ask for what happened, Mom. You have to believe that.”
Sarah searched her eyes. “I know you didn't. But I need you to promise me something.”
“What?”
“Promise me you won't let yourself get sucked in by these streets. Because once you do, getting out will be harder than you could ever imagine.”
“I promise, Mom,” Keisha said.
But as soon as she'd said it, Keisha knew it was a lie.
As Sarah exited the room, she knew it was, too.
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A half hour passed, and Keisha was still reeling from Sarah's accusations. The revelation that her mother had been raped was of no small consequence. But it wasn't enough to win back Keisha's respect.
Keisha had spent years watching her mother wither under the strain of being a pastor's wife. And listening to her tonight made Keisha even more determined to follow a different path.
It was with that thought in mind that she snatched the vibrating phone from beneath her pillow when the call she'd been expecting from Jamal came through.
“Hello?” she whispered into the receiver.
“Meet me outside,” Jamal said. “I'm at the end o' the alley, on Twentieth Street.”
The call disconnected, and Keisha felt the blood rush to her face. The secrecy of their meetings was as exciting as the taste of his lips. But tonight's rendezvous would be different from the ones they'd been having since he'd shown up in her life again. Tonight he would have to tell her why.
Lifting the thin sheet that covered her, Keisha took off her cotton nightgown, revealing the tight jeans she wore underneath. She slipped on a T-shirt and crept down the hallway, past Sarah's locked bedroom door. She could hear Sarah talking on the phoneâprobably to one of the sisters from church.
Taking a deep breath, Keisha descended the steps, walked to the front door, unlocked it, and went outside. She moved quickly down the block and rounded the corner.
Jamal stood in the shadows and watched as her eyes lit up at the sight of him. The look on her face made him think of the first
time they'd met, five years before, during one of his rare visits to North Philly.
He still remembered every detail.
He'd walked down Fifteenth Street and peered through the playground gate, where he spotted her playing double Dutch.
Her long, curly hair fell against her back each time she jumped, and her honey-brown eyes sparkled in the sun. Even then, when she was eleven and he was thirteen, he believed that she was beautiful.
He'd stared at her from a distance until he walked through the gate. And when he passed by her with a look in his eyes that conveyed a message beyond his years, she'd lost her balance and tripped between the ropes, falling to the ground in a heap.
Rushing to her side, he'd helped her up. And that simple act of kindness led to a first kiss, beautiful and sweet, between two children on the cusp of adolescence.
He never told her where he'd come from. And to Keisha, it made no difference. She defied her parents, who forbade her to date, and continued to meet with him secretly in the heat of Friday afternoons. That summer, she and Jamal shared the innocence of first love.
They stared into each other's eyes, whispering things that only they could hear, and talking of plans that only they could know. They held hands and shared laughter. And sometimes they just sat in comfortable silence, knowing that there was no need to fill it with words.
When the summer ended, Jamal's mother forced him to stay away from North Philly and, consequently, from Keisha. But, of all the girls Jamal had known in the five years since, Keisha was the only one to show up in his dreams.
But he wasn't prepared for what happened when she showed
up in the flesh, looking like a woman, though her parents treated her like a child.
It amazed him that she was willing to sneak away to be with him, when she knew that her parents would never approve of her spending time with a boy who was clearly from the streets.
“Come on,” Keisha said, breaking into his thoughts. “I don't have long.”
They rushed into his black Lexus, and once they were behind its tinted windows, their lips joined in a lingering kiss.
Jamal pulled away, and looked into her eyes. “Are you all right?” he said, genuinely concerned.
Keisha nodded. “I will be.”
“I'm still tryin' to find out who them dudes was,” Jamal said. “When I do, I'll take care of it.”
“My father said the same thing,” Keisha said worriedly. “I hope he doesn't do anything crazy.”
At the mention of her father, Jamal's facial expression turned hard, and at the same time terribly sad.
Keisha hated it when he looked that way. At times like these, his true feelings were obscured by the mask of anger that he'd learned to wear over the years.
She didn't want to deal with the truth beneath his scowl, so she quickly changed the subject.
“You know, Jamal,” she said with a smile, “these last few weeks have been wonderful. It's almost like it was when we were kids.”
“Yeah, but we ain't kids no more. It's a whole lotta stuff we gotta deal with now.”
Keisha glanced at him, confused. “What kind of stuff are you talking about?”
“Your father, for one thing,” he said, without returning her gaze.
“Jamal, it doesn't matter what my father thinks about us.”
“That ain't what you said three weeks ago.”
“Well, this isn't three weeks ago!” she said heatedly.
Jamal was surprised by her fire. She was, too.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to explain. “Jamal, I've spent my whole life in a little boxâworrying about what my father thinks, or what my mother thinks, or what the church folks think. All I want to do now is be free. Free to choose who I am, free to choose what I believe, free to love who I want to.”
She reached out her hand, gently touching his face. “And I love you.”
“You don't even know me,” he said, turning to face her.
“I knew you the first time I kissed you, Jamal,” she said, as a smile spread across her face. “I never forgot the way it felt. Maybe that's why, when I bumped into you when I started working at Strawbridge's, it was like nothing had changed. It was easy to sneak away with you, the same way we used to sneak away and watch the sun set when we were kids.”
Jamal shook his head. “You don't understand, Keisha.”
“You're right,” she said, searching his eyes. “I don't. I thought
I
was the one who had to run and hide.”
She reached for the handle and opened the door.
“My mother's not right about much,” she said. “But she's right about men. I guess I'm not giving it up fast enough for you.”
“It ain't about that, Keisha.”
“You're not ready for me, Jamal,” she said bitterly. “Hopefully, I'll still be around when you are.”
She was about to get out when Jamal grabbed her arm. “Wait, Keisha.”