How It Went Down (20 page)

He places several wrapped snack cakes on the counter. “And some cigarettes,” he says. “Maybe five packs?”

I frown. “I’m pretty sure you’re underage, am I wrong?”

Tyrell hesitates. “I really need them,” he says. I give him credit for that. Most guys would lie. They come in trying all the time, even ones I’ve known since they were little.

“You smoke now?”

“No, sir.” He looks properly disgusted at the thought. Hmm.

“Please,” he adds. “It’s important.”

I don’t break the law for anyone. But how can I not take pity on those sad eyes? “Well,” I tell him. “I can’t sell you cigarettes, but I can pay you a dollar to deliver some for me.” I pull five packs off the shelf. Lay them on the counter with a dollar.

“Deliver them where?” Tyrell asks.

“Well, I can’t rightly remember the address.” I put a pen and slip of paper on the counter. “Maybe you can help me out.”

Tyrell’s a smart kid. He takes my pen and writes down an address. I assume it’s his own.

“So, you leave me your money, and on the other end, you collect it back. So we’ll be square, and you don’t have to make two trips.”

“I understand. Thank you.” I bag up the cigs and cakes for him. And he skitters out of there like a scared rabbit.

JENNICA

Noodle calls and I let it go to voicemail. Time and time again. I hold the phone in my hand as it vibrates relentlessly.

Eventually I set it aside on the edge of my bed and lie there contemplating it. The main thoughts that flash through my mind have to do with the first time I ever saw Noodle. The memory still makes me flush warm.

It’s natural, in the end, to get nostalgic about the beginning. Isn’t it?

The diner was real busy that day, and it wasn’t too long after I started working there. I had the counter, plus a bunch of tables of two and one table of four. I know now, the four-top was Tariq and Brick, with their sisters. At the time they were just two guys I never laid eyes on before. I’d probably seen them around, I’m sure, but not to recognize or call by name.

I remember thinking they were real sweet, being all goofy with the girls, who were charming. I spent more time than I should have lingering by their table. I can’t remember anything about what they ate, but I’m sure that taking his order that day was the longest exchange of words I ever had with Tariq, direct. I almost sort of forgot about it until now.

A half hour after they’d left, Noodle breezed in, looking for Brick.

“Hey,” he said, his gaze running up and down me. “You’re looking good.” In that low, sexy drawl guys use when they’re flirting.

“Everyone looks good in a uniform,” I snapped. To be honest, I wasn’t in the mood. I had a lot of tables to cover.

“Naw,” he says. “That’s just what they want you to believe.”

He bent in close, so close it stole my breath. He was beautiful to me. Tall and lean and
interested
. I thought he was going to kiss me. “Coffee to go,” he said, his breath fanning my cheek. “I’ll be back for something else.”

And he did come back. And I liked him.

All of that was almost two years ago. Two years of his breath on my cheek. Two years of ‘something else.’

Noodle doesn’t stop calling. The phone shakes and buzzes on the edge of my mattress for an eternity. The square little picture of him blinks at me, and when it finally fades, I’m relieved.

REDEEMA

Them heavy fists at the door. I can barely pull myself to answer it, so wary and weary I’ve become. I barely crack it open, ’fore they push me out the way. Thunder past me like a blue streak. A dozen uniformed cops. “Ma’am, we have a warrant to search the premises for evidence of drugs or other illegal activity on the part of Tariq Johnson.”

Two of them pen us in the corner of the kitchen. Thrust thick sheafs of paper in my face. I snatch them, try to read it as if I understand the law-talk, which I might, if the print were big enough to make out. My reading glasses are on the coffee table, and ain’t none of these pigs willing to go fetch ’em for me.

Tina darts between them and runs to her room to hide. Under the bed, no doubt. They let her go. I don’t like her being alone back there, with so many strange men in the house, but they stop me trying to go to her.

Vernie can barely stand, for the outrage. “You’ve got no right!” Vernie screams. “My son is the victim here.”

They come out of Tariq’s room waving a bunch of cash in an evidence bag. “There’s more than a hundred dollars here. You give your son that kind of allowance?”

Cop looks around the apartment. Under a stranger’s eye, I know it won’t look so good. Walls in need of paint. Chipped tile. Linoleum all buckled and faded. A crack in the window, covered over with tape. We get by. We save our money for what matters. Cop sniffs rudely. “No, I reckon he couldn’t have come by this much cash honestly.”

They confiscate it. DRUG MONEY? gets written on the bag. I watch them scrawl it in thick black marker, right on our own kitchen counter. They open every cabinet. Sniff our flour, our sugar, each spice in the cabinet. Drag all the frozen food out of the freezer. We’ll have to replace damn near everything.

Vernie is incoherent, screaming. I hold her tight. Hold her back, so she don’t do nothing we’re all gonna regret.

I take Vernie’s cell phone out of her housecoat pocket. Open it up, dial the Reverend Sloan. “You best get over here. And bring some of them cameras.”

VERNESHA

“No, they didn’t find anything,” I tell the Reverend Sloan. “I don’t even know what they were looking for.”

My entire body is quaking. I don’t know how to loosen the knots of rage and pain. Will I have to live like this? I thought, after the funeral, that there could be no deeper low. I want to think it again now, but I have been stripped of all certainty.

“Probably some kind of evidence they could use to vilify Tariq,” Sloan says.

Mom serves us tea on her most delicate china. Not the everyday mugs. I wonder at that, but I can’t find the will to really care. Sloan has seen all the crappy corners of our life already; what does it matter?

“This will be small comfort,” Sloan adds, “but there was a camera crew on site when they arrived. Additional media arrived in time to catch footage of the police leaving the building. People will be outraged, on your behalf.”

Outraged?
My ears ring. They don’t begin to know.

TINA

Out my window, red and blue lights flash.

In my room, the policemen move my things.

The clothes I wear.

The fuzzy rabbit Tariq gave me.

The books we like to read.

I pick up the book called
Helpful People
.

I like this book, especially the pictures.

And how Tariq always does funny voices when he reads it out loud.

When I go outside, sometimes I look for helpful people.

Doctors and nurses and firemen and teachers,

Lawyers and mail carriers and mommies and daddies.

Page four says:

Policemen solve problems, and help keep you safe.

Policemen are always on your side.

I tear out page four and crumple it into a ball.

Page three comes with it, which is sad,

but there is nothing I can do.

TYRELL

It’s a long bus ride to the state prison. Three hours one way. I don’t know how people do this on the regular.

I checked the visiting hours online, and I know I should make it in plenty of time. It’s going to take the rest of the day, and it’s just as well. Out of school, can’t go home, can’t wander the neighborhood without running into someone I don’t want to see.

I do my math homework on the bus, but it doesn’t take three hours. So after that I just look out the window. Nothing to see, really. Outside of the city, there are houses for a while, but then it turns into wide flat land on either side of a road that goes into infinity.

JUNIOR

“Collins, you got a visitor.” Guard pounds on my bars, shaking me out of my nap.

“Me?” I try not to look too surprised.

“Said your name, didn’t I? Let’s go.”

“All right.” I roll up off the cot and follow him down the hallway.

I never get visitors. My moms doesn’t even come up here anymore. It got to be too much. She means well, but I could tell it was hurting her back to be on that long bus ride. Not to mention the cost. She came once a week for the first month. Then every other for two months. Then down to once a month for the next three, until finally I just told her, don’t worry about it. I’m not going anywhere. She says she’s coming up on my birthday, but that’s still a month away.

I can’t think of anybody else who’d want to see me.

The guard leads me through the maze of security doors to the visitation room. “Number four,” he says.

I move down the row to the fourth cubicle. Sitting on the other side of the glass is, well, just about the last person I would’ve expected to see.

I pick up the bright orange phone. “What are you doing here, Ty?”

“Hey, Junior,” he says. “I—I don’t know.”

I look at him. He looks thin. Scared. Guy like him, seeing a place like this? “Long way to travel for ‘I don’t know.’”

“Yeah.” His fingers squeeze the phone coil. He looks at me.

The folding chair creaks as I lean back, settle in. “You know they don’t give me all day up in here.”

“Right. Um, how are you?”

“I’m locked up. How you think I am?”

Ty licks his lips. “Sorry.”

It’s out of place to be mad at him. He’s come all this way. But it ain’t to see me. Can’t be. Ten months, not one friend been by. So-called friends. So-called brothers.

“You bring me anything?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Some cigarettes and some cakes from Rocky’s. I think I remember the ones. I didn’t know what—” He swallows. “Anyway, they took it when I got here.”

“I’ll get it back,” I tell him. “They think they gotta check it first. They don’t know what a do-gooding kinda punk you are.”

Ty smiles. There we go. Like old times.

I decide to give him a break. “That’s nice, man. Thanks.”

“You doing okay?” he says. “For real?”

“Look around,” I tell him. “What do you want me to say?”

He glances around kind of loosely. The walls, the glass, the guards. The fact that we can’t even slap skin after not seeing one another for better than a year, when we used to be so close we shared a sleeping bag.

“You heard about Tariq?” he asks.

Figures it would be something to do with that. “Yeah. Bad rap.”

“I thought maybe you wouldn’t find out.”

“You came all the way up here to tell me that? It’s been in the news.”

“I—”

“They’re saying he oathed in,” I say. “I thought you guys were sticking it together on the outside.”

“I thought so, too,” Ty says, so quiet the orange phone garbles his voice.

Ty touches the finger-stained glass. “I hate that you’re in here, man.” It comes from someplace deep in his throat. I feel the meaning of it. “I can’t believe…”

“You always was the softie,” I say. My own voice scratches. “You stay true, okay, bro?”

“I don’t know,” he says.

Now we’re getting to it. Like a light switching on, I know why he’s here.

I lean forward. “Listen to me, man.”

He’s listening.

“You be you. No matter what. Who’s dogging you—Brick?”

Ty clutches the phone.

“Look,” I tell him. “I’m supposed to say all kinds of things about what the Kings can do for you. What they did for me. And they still got my back in here, so I ain’t got a bad thing to say about them, okay?” I pull at my jumpsuit. “But this is what they did for me, you know?”

“Do you wish, I mean, if you had it to do over—”

“Don’t go there, man.” Thinking like that will drive you crazy on the inside. “I ain’t have any other choice. I did what I had to.” I glance around, though we’re in a soundproof booth.

“I’m in here because of Brick,” I whisper.

“I know that,” Ty says.

“Do you?” Maybe Tariq told him.

He nods. “I read your trial transcript. Things didn’t add up.”

That sounds like Ty. Always doing the math.

He looks like he’s going to cry. If I could reach through the glass, I would put my hand on his shoulder. Nothing to lose for me in it now. Ty was always Ty. Too soft for the street. Too soft for this life. We’d have to break him. Harden him. For the first time, for a moment, I’m grateful to be on the inside. If that’s what has to happen, watching it would be too much to bear.

“Stay strong, bro. You always was the strongest of us. Don’t let them get you. You hear me?”

“What can I do?” he says. “I don’t have any friends left.”

“Friends let you down, man. You gotta just do what you do.”

“Time,” the guard says. “Wrap it up.”

“T never let me down,” Tyrell says. Me either. He’s still got my knife, ain’t he? I wonder what’ll happen to it now.

The guard’s standing over me now. In a second, they’ll cut off the phone line. In the last breath before dead air, I tell Ty the truth. “T woulda said the same about you. Even if he went down, he wouldn’t want that for you.”

TYRELL

I thought we’d have more time. I meant to ask him what I should do about the Franklin situation. I laid eyes on him, cold and clear, in the back of Tom Arlen’s house.

Brick wants to go after him. I heard him talking about it with Noodle the other night. Information is power. I just don’t know how to use it.

I had to go see Junior. It helps to lay my eyes on the endgame. Join the Kings, break the law, end up behind bars. No question. Most of the Kings do some kind of time. Brick himself was inside for a year not that long ago.
It’s the life
, T would say.
That’s why we don’t want any part of it.

Junior was trying to tell me something in the end there, before they cut him off and took him back to lockup. I could see the intensity in his eyes; all I heard was “… he went down…” and then static.