The Donor: When Conception Meets Deception (4 page)

"Heck yeah,” Devantay pumps his fist.

Chase cups his hand around the boy's ear and whispers something. Devantay's face lights up. He leers a smug grin at his teen nemesis and strides onto the court. Devantay inbounds the ball to Chase. Exhausted, sweat drenched bodies of various hues, heights and stomach circumferences, scramble to various positions. T-shirts flap in the humid air as players attempt to keep up with Chase's ankle breaking crossovers, and his behind-the-back passes. Chase is a playground legend. His teammates fixate on him being the hero. The score is tied. The next basket wins but Chase has something more profound on his mind than shooting the game winner. He dribbles in place with his left hand and makes a motion for his teammates to clear out of the way. Two opposing players run up to double team him. He slices between both players. With no defender in front of him he stops to pop a mid-range shot from the foul line. The tall teen who had been harassing Devantay all afternoon breaks away from the boy in attempt to block Chase’s shot. As Chase jumps and releases he does not shoot the ball in the basket; he fires it across the court into Devantay's chest. The preteen catches it, cuts to the basket, and clanks the ball off the metal backboard and through the hoop for the game winner. Devantay's eyes burst. His arms fling. He springs to the sky like a kid on a trampoline.

"We won, we won, we won,” he shouts.

Chase sprints to the ecstatic child. The perspiration on his face is like sparkles on a father's brow. Chase goes to high five him but Devantay pounces into his arms and squeezes. It is the first time Devantay has ever hugged Chase. Teammates join in the celebration and give the youngster high fives and
atta boys
. Even the opposing team congratulates the child. All except for one of course. Devantay’s teen tormentor sulks under the playground’s sourgum trees, steaming like a forgotten teapot on a hot stove. Devantay smirks at the sore loser.

"Better luck next week gentlemen. We're done for the day," Chase says.

"Yeah...we out yo," Devantay says as he struts past the skinny teen. He stops, turns, and gives two quick,
dirt of my shoulder
brushes. Chase, noticing the unsportsmanlike gesture, opens his mouth to admonish Devantay but immediately decides to let the young boy have his moment.
That little snot deserves to eat some humble pie,
Chase says to himself.

They grab their basketball and towels and walk towards the bodega across the street. Chase puts his hand on Devantay's shoulder and starts to think about the bigger picture. He thinks about moments. Moments are to life what notes are in music. When strung together notes become songs, just as when moments come together they become memories. They stay with us. For Chase, Devantay’s reaction was a moment. Volunteering at the group home was supposed to be a way for him to add to his C.V. [Curriculum Vitae]. Dr. Ganges informed Chase that while his teaching and publishing was strong, he lacked in anything that was extracurricular. In particular, Chase’s C.V. did not show how he was giving back to the community, which is part of the mission of Brooklyn University. This was a hole that needed to be filled. Chase’s best friend, Tanaka Hirohito who is a DJ, suggested that Chase visit a group home where he conducted a hip-hop workshop last year. Chase took up the suggestion and signed up to be a group mentor for six weeks. That six weeks has turned into seven months. Chase has helped transform Devantay from a shy and reclusive child, into an outgoing and communicative young man. Chase recalls the conversation with the director of the group home, Mr. James:

“Well, Chase. Devantay’s father was a paranoid schizophrenic with five failed suicide attempts,” Mr. James said.

“
Five
, Mr. James?”

“Yes, but I guess the sixth time was a charm. The guy took a header off the George Washington Bridge three years ago.”

“What about Devantay’s mother?”

“Oh,
that
one? Well she was a meth, crack
and
heroin addict who fed her addiction through petty crimes and crackhouse prostitution. One day a dealer said he could get her,
three times
the amount of drugs he normally gave her, if she would bring Devantay to a house to meet a man there. One night last year she did. Well I guess one of the other junkies had some sort of angelic/hero moment or whatever and told the police about it a couple of days later. The mother got thrown in jail and Devantay got taken away and put in the system. He still won’t discuss what happened that night though.”

Chase and Devantay walk up the block to return to Chase’s brownstone. As they pass the entrance to a subway station Chase stops.

"Hey?" he says to Devantay.

"Yeah?" Devantay replies as he gulps a mouthful of the bottled water they brought with them.

"Yes, not yeah. Have you ever been to Times Square?" Chase asks.

"Times Square? Nope."

"Would you like to go?" Chase asks.

"Go? Like...You mean, like now?"

"Sure. Why not? Train station is right here.”

"Heck yeah. Let's do it," Devantay says.

"Let me just call Jenae and tell her where we're going. This way she's not waiting around for us to get back before her trip to D.C.”

Chase removes the phone from his shoulder bag and autodials her number. She picks up and Chase informs her of their new plans.

“Babe, I know… but look we're having a good time and he's never been," Chase says into the handset. He covers the mouthpiece with his palm and turns to Devantay.

"She thinks we should shower before hopping on the train.” Devantay sniffs his sweaty armpits and shrugs. Chase returns to Jenae.

“Well babe, I guess we’ll just have to be the funk brothers,” he says.

"She didn't find that funny,” he says to Devantay.

Devantay giggles.

“Oh come on babe. You don't mind my
funkiness
at other times,” he snickers.

“And you don’t mind mine either sexy man," she says.

"Mmmhmm," he replies.

"What you
Mmmhmming
about Chase? Y’all being nasty?” Devantay says, tugging on Chase's shorts.

“Hush. You'll find out in a few years,” he says to him.

Chase says his goodbyes to Jenae, who wishes the two of them well. He reaches back into his bag and pulls out a MetroCard for the subway.

"Okay young man. Let's head uptown baby, uptown, uptown baby, uptown,” Chase sings. Devantay screws his face at Chase.

“Eh, it’s an old song…let’s get a move on,” Chase says.

He barrels down the musty steps of the underground subway entrance, with an exuberant Devantay skipping by his side.



A soft breeze carries a maple leaf across the gritty playground. It darts and bounces with an unpredictable jubilance. The leaf mimics the actions of the bright-eyed five year old girl whose face it settles on. She scrunches the bridge of her nose and giggles.

"You chilrun better stop throwing rocks at them squirrels," a rickety voice shouts from a park bench.

"Mind yo bi'ness old man,” shouts a little boy with a handful of pebbles.

The elderly man’s eyes bulge as his cheeks shrivel like a raisin. He wriggles a decrepit finger at the child.

“Boy watch yo' mouth fo’ I run tell yo’ daddy,” he says through a mouth of gums.

“Ricky, you better behave before we get in trouble,” the little girl says.

“I’m in second grade now Kiyana. He a dumb ass old man. Daddy in jail. What he gonna do? Go run his stink butt to the jail?”

“Hahaha, Ricky you said stink butt,” little Kiyana says. Her tiny shoulders bounce and shake as she laughs.

“Come on. It’s getting too cold out here anyways. Let’s go back upstairs. Don’t forget your scarf,” Ricky says.

Ricky holds his sister Kiyana’s hand, and leads her across the playground to a sixteen story project tenement. Built in the 1940’s, these were to be low cost stepping stones on a river called
The American Dream
. That river is now a nose pinching pool of yellow piss, fermenting in the corner of the elevator the two children scurry into. Ricky reaches to press a button on the metal panel.

“No, it’s my turn. I want to,” Kiyana protests with clenched mismatched mittens.

Her brother shrugs and and backs away. His eager sibling jumps up, and just manages to smack button number eight. The elevator jolts into a slow ascent. As it reaches the eighth floor, the silver metal elevator door—haphazardly key scratched in tag style graffiti—
KA-JUNKS,
and slides open. The little people pitter-patter down the cinder block hallway. It’s plastered with spray painted genitalia, curse words and sloppy gibberish. Hip-Hop bass, and merengue treble, fill their ears from behind apartment doors. The pungent odor of slow-cooked collard greens and pig’s feet wriggle up their noses. They reach their destination at the end of the smelly corridor. Ricky raps his knuckles halfway up a drab, brown metal door.

“Quién?” a female voice calls out from the other side of the door.

“It’s us,” Kiyana echoes back.

Metallic clicks, clacks and the clink of a swinging chain is followed by the partial opening of the door. The two children push their way inside and bolt down a skinny hall. They bump past a bony young man in a gold tank top, black jeans and sombrero like New York Yankees baseball cap. The black textured handle of a nine millimeter Glock pistol, pokes from his waistband. Kiyana trips on his white sneakers as she scurries to the back.

“Hey, you stepped on my new Jordans goddamn it,” he yells.

“Sorry Hector,” Kiyana says. She and Ricky bounce into a small bedroom.

“Morena. Cierra the fucking door already. And I done told you about your sister’s clumsy, little snot-nose shits.”

“I’m sorry Hector,” the woman called Morena says.

She shuts the door with a thud, turns three locks, chains the top and slides an iron bar between two brackets in the middle. Like her name implies, Morena is a cinnamon brown, twenty-something Latina. She has a beauty you must search for; it is hidden under premature wrinkles caused by hard-hearted men and hot-tempered boys. Her shiny waves of auburn and sable drape below her naked bosom. Her sullen eyes cower in Hector’s menacing glare.

“Mira coño, what you still standing there for? Get your ass back in the kitchen and finish that count,” Hector demands.

Hector, arms folded, stands next to the open air entrance to the kitchen. Reggaeton blasts from the bluetooth speakers wirelessly tethered to his cellphone. He texts constantly, but he keeps a prison warden’s eye on two other raven haired women at the kitchen table. It is cluttered with small brown cubes, tiny wrappers, several neat stacks of bills next to loose piles of money, a currency counter, and two scales. All of the women are nude. Unless you consider a pair of black lace thongs, and nothing else, as clothing. Morena returns to a chair next to the two others.

A smoky haze fills the sunlit back room Ricky and Kiyana have run off to. The floor is littered with a small landfill of dirty clothes, candy wrappers, potato chip bits, and condom wrappers. The two of them join a pony-tailed girl wearing a stained Hello Kitty blouse, and a toddler who is crying by the open window. He has no shirt or pants. His putrid, saggy diaper is brown and lumpy. His constant wailing has been ignored for hours. It’s just background noise.

Discarded and neglected children build worlds of wonder out of discarded and neglected things. Everyday items are tempting dishes for children to sample and play with. And this is one such occasion. Kiyana spies a red and white box with the Michael Jordan trademark logo. She flips it open and tosses the cardboard lid aside. Inside are twisty ties of green bundles. The children’s imaginations turn those sacs into a
fire-breathing dragon's
confetti. Next to those bundles is the very real barrel of Hector’s Desert Eagle handgun he copped from the ghetto gun runner down the street. This becomes a
magic hammer
in their eyes. And finally, the small white powder bags become
fairy dust
. They grab these new found
toys
and do what children do. They play. They toss the confetti in the air and make
face paint
with the white pouches, by mixing it with vinegar that the pony-tailed girl swiped from the kitchen cupboard earlier.

"This will make us in-duh-viz-uh-ble,” Hello Kitty girl says.

“You mean
invisible
silly. Haha you can't see me, you can’t see me,” Kiyana says as she hides her eyes behind prickly fingers.

The children dance, pounce and scream with no concern shown from the adults down the hall. The plucks of guitar string merengue, emanating from the kitchen, drown out their playtime. That is until a piercing
POP,
followed by the shatter of glass, silences the noise. Seconds later the bedroom door bursts open. Hector rushes in, brandishing the handgun from his waistband. Behind him is Morena.

“Yo, what the hell was that noise?” Hector says. His eyes zig zag around the room.

The toddler, surrounded by broken glass, is screaming next to the shattered window. The two girls huddle each other, their bodies rattling like a pit bull’s chew toy. Little Ricky is petrified, save for his elf-sized fist trembling at his waist. It clutches the Desert Eagle handgun that their imaginations called, the
magic hammer.
The gun however is not clearly visible. It is obscured by a large, blue bath towel knotted around the boy’s neck; it drapes at his side. It is Ricky’s superhero cape.

“
WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH
”

“Ay Dios, shut that little snot up before I shoot him,” Hector says while gritting his teeth. Morena shuffles her feet and reaches for the screaming baby.

“Wait,” Hector says as he peers at Kiyana’s cheeks. “What the hell is on y’alls faces?”

Hector grabs Kiyana by the back of her hair and wipes his palm across her chubby cheek. He sniffs his fingers and tastes. His lips shrivel as if he just licked a lemon. As if by reflex he flares a glare towards the open shoebox.

“Hijo de puta [son of a bitch], y’all got in my stash? Get y’all asses over here,” he demands. The girls shake their heads no.

“Vengan aqui ahora [Come here now],” he yells and yanks Kiyana’s pencil thin shoulder with one hand.

"Hector no,” Morena pleads. Hector back slaps her in the jaw with the butt of his pistol. He yolks a terrified Kiyana by her throat and forces the little five-year old on her hands and knees. He shoves her face into the shoe box full of powder and spilled vinegar.

"You see this? Huh? Look at what you did. Smell it. Lick it. Look at it. Go ahead lick it you little whore,” he screams as Kiyana cries.

“Vinegar? Vinegar? You ruined it. I can't even fix this. And you know what? This is
your
fault puta,“ Hector says to Morena.

He paces back and forth pounding his temples with his fists.

"I told you I didn’t wanna even
know
that these little cabróns were here didn’t I?”

“Yes, Hector but they're just kids. They didn’t—“

SMACK
…
THUD
.
Hector sends Morena into the wall from a massive, back-knuckle slap, to her jaw. She drops the screaming toddler to the floor.

"Callaté la boca. Just shut up. Mierda [shit]. You know how much money this is right here? Do you puta?”

Hector lunges at Morena’s throat and wrings her neck in his palm. Her eyes pop and turn pink in his crazed grip. Hector wheels her around like a rag doll and forces her onto the bed. He climbs on top of her, pins her arms with his knees, and places the tip of his gun to her temple.

"Hector. I'm sorry. Please. Mira me voy a pagar, Me voy a pagar, Me promiso. Please. I promise I will pay for this.”

“Bitch, you ain't got that kind of money, and I don't have time to wait for your worn out cooch to earn it back."

He pauses. Out of the corner of his eye he stares at Kiyana who has stood back up, trembling.

"But wait. That one there? Yeah, I know someone who would pay large and fast for a night with that." He rolls from on top of Morena. She grasps his shirt and pulls.

“Hector, no. She’s my niece.”

He shrugs Morena off.

Hector inches toward Kiyana with a sinister smile.

”So you like to play games niña? I'm going to bring you to somebody who knows lots of games for little putalitas like you."

Morena screams and begs for him to stop. The other children are crying. Just as Hector reaches for Kiyana’s arm…

POP POP POP

Hector’s arms go limp. His pistol drops. His knees buckle; his head bounces off of Kiyana’s shin as he collapses to the floor. The room goes silent. Hector's temple starts to ooze a thick, deep red syrup. It pools at Kiyana’s toes. She scurries backward. The camera cuts to the furrowed eyebrows of little Ricky. His outstretched arms pointing to you, the viewer, as if you are a mirror looking back at him. The metal circle of a gun hole takes up the entire movie screen. The camera peels back and a plume of smoke, from little Ricky’s
magic hammer
, snakes toward the peeling paint above. And the soggy bottom baby screams.

FADE TO BLACK

The credits scroll up the screen to a Dominican soundtrack. The screen displays the following…

A Brooklyn Faded Pictures

presentation

Save The Children

A Dramatic Documentary

Directed by Kit Jude

Featured Performers:

Javier Ramirez as
Hector

Odalys Peña as
Morena

Mustafa Olean as
Ricky

Kiyana Bettenfield as
Kiyana

Selena Ortiz as
Hello Kitty Girl

Quentin Traylor as
the Toddler

Tiffany Brown as
Drug Money Girl 1

Demaris Lester-Van Sicklen as
Drug Money Girl 2

and

Abdul-Haqq Salaam as
The Old Man on the Bench

A crescendo of applause, hoots and whistles accompanies the raising of the lights. A sardined gathering of film buffs roar with approval. Leaning on the bar stool is a dapper Chase Archibald. He is dressed in chocolate tweed slacks, a purple and cream striped dress shirt, spearmint cardigan, polka dot green bow tie and snazzy two tone plum and beige suede shoes. Snaking her forearm into his, is Jenae. Her sleeveless, backless, deep purple evening dress hugs her soda bottle hips; it slaloms over her
thick ’n fit
thighs to shrink wrap at her calves. She is an elegant,
va-va-vavoom,
sexy. She reaches inside her vanilla leather Jimmy Choo clutch, removes a five dollar bill, and deposits it in the bartender’s giant glass tip jar. She raises a tall icy glass to her lips, slides the mint leaf at the rim to the side, and sips the spicy, sweet adult beverage. Chase waits for Jenae to swallow before swooping in with a surprise, slow and steady, open mouth kiss. He licks, slurps and savors her tongue, treating it like a refreshing popsicle on a steamy night. Her back arches.

“Mmmm, minty fresh,” Chase says.

Their eyes hug.

The applause subsides as a middle aged man in blue jeans, a plaid shirt, and a scruffy salt and pepper beard grabs the microphone.

“Don’t stop now. Come on now pick it back up,” he says.

The throngs of film watchers in the two story bar, clap and pump their fists. After a few moments the emcee grabs the mic again.

“Yes, thank you so much. That was incredible wasn't it?"

“Yeah," A voice yells from the iron overhang.

"You know we here at the
Dabka Lounge
are so proud to once again host this year's
County of Kings Indie Film Fest
.”