Ride or Die

by Solomon Jones

  “Of course, he had other things that helped tell time, too. Women and whatnot. But they was just somethin’ to do while he waited for his money to roll in off them corners.

  “Some o’ his women knew that, some of ’em didn’t.”

  “Did your mother know?” Keisha asked.

  “Like I told you before, my mom was a college girl,” Jamal said, flipping onto his back and putting his hands behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. “She wasn’t like them hoes he was used to. She was strong, smart, too good for his sorry ass.”

  Keisha could see that the memory had stirred something bitter inside him.

  “Jamal, if you don’t want to talk about it anymore, it’s okay,” she said, reaching over to caress his chest.

  “It ain’t like I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said. “I guess I just never had a reason to get too deep with it.”

  “Don’t let me be the reason for you talking about something that hurts you,” she said, running her fingers along his face.

  “You the best reason I got,” he said, touching her hand with his own.

  He took a deep breath before he continued.

  “My mom was goin’ to Temple law school when she met my pop,” Jamal said. “She wanted to practice international law, travel around the world, see things she ain’t never see before.

  “She ain’t care who Frank Nichols was, or what he could do for her. My mom was the type who could always do for herself. Frank liked that, at least he did at first.”

  Jamal smiled as he imagined his parents in their younger days.

  “My mom told me that when they met, Frank was talkin’ all this revolutionary shit about how black folks should work inside the system, get what they needed from it, then go back and use what they learned to do they own thing.”

  Jamal laughed. “He ain’t tell her ’bout the system he came through. And he ain’t tell her what business he was in, either. All she knew was, he gave her a ride home in a nice Benz, and asked if he could take her out the next day.

  “My mom was a year away from finishin’ law school when she had me, and she dropped out. She remind me o’ that every time she get a chance, like it’s my fault she ain’t finish when she wanted to.”

  “But you know it’s not your fault, right, Jamal?” Keisha asked earnestly. “You know you couldn’t have done anything to change what happened before you were born, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, with a grim look on his face. “I know ‘cause my mom spent years tellin’ me it was Frank’s fault. And for years, I believed her. Still do.”

  Jamal was silent for a moment, trying not to remember the things that had shaped the violence that raged in his heart. But he couldn’t deny the memories, even though he’d tried to suppress them. They were there. And he had to tell Keisha about them, because he didn’t want to be like his father.

  “My mom went back to Temple when I was little, and finished her last year o’ law school. My pop kept comin’ around and tryin’ to make it work with her. But she ain’t want no drug dealer, and after a while he hated her for bein’ too good for him.

  “The first time I saw him hit my mother, I was five. She was talkin’ ’bout takin’ me away somewhere like California—someplace where Frank could never see me. He smacked her in the mouth and told her she better not ever say nothin’ like that again. She got a restrainin’ order to keep him away for a year.”

  Jamal sighed and tried to keep the memories from consuming him.

  Keisha kissed him on his cheek. “It’s okay, Jamal,” she said in the hope that it would take his pain away. “It’s okay.”

  He turned and looked into her eyes, and knew that what she’d said to him was right. It was okay. At least, it was going to be. As long as the two of them could be together, it was all going to be okay.

  “Is that why I never saw you?” Keisha asked. “Because your parents couldn’t get along?”

  Jamal nodded. “My mom thought she was protectin’ me from him,” he said. “And maybe she was. But the only thing I saw was, I ain’t have no father. And I was mad about it.”

  He reached down and held her hand as he recalled the only piece of his childhood that really mattered. The piece that Keisha had given to him all those years before.

  “For years, she wouldn’t let me see him,” Jamal said. “She wouldn’t even let me talk to him on the phone. When I turned thirteen, I had to beg her to let me go down there, just that one time.

  “When I finally did come down to North Philly to spend the day with him, he ain’t have time for me. He was too busy makin’ money. When I asked him if he was gon’ take me out, he handed me fifty dollars, said, ‘Happy Birthday,’ and sent me on my way.

  “I walked around the corner to the playground on Fifteenth Street,” Jamal said. “Then I met this little girl who looked like she needed somebody.”

  Jamal touched Keisha’s face as she smiled and looked into his eyes.

  “That little girl made me forget about what was wrong,” he said. “And she made think about what was right. I told her I would come back and see her every Friday after that. And even though I had to sneak out the house to do it, I did.”

  “Is that why your mother sent you down South?” Keisha asked, searching his eyes.

  “Yeah, but it ain’t make no difference. I started gettin’ in trouble in school, and then I stopped goin’, ‘cause they wasn’t teachin’ me nothin’ anyway. I started doin’ what I wanted to do, ’cause, what difference did it make? I ain’t have no father.”

  Keisha looked at the pain in his face and knew that it was the source of his anger. And as he continued to tell her where he’d been, she couldn’t help wondering where he would go from here.

  “My mom brought me back up here two years ago,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “But by then it was too late. By the time I was sixteen, I had got locked up twice for hustlin’. It wasn’t even like I had to do it, ’cause my mom had enough money to get me whatever I wanted.

  “But I ain’t wanna get it like that. I wanted to get it myself. She finally gave up. She told me if I wanted to be like my pop, I could go down North Philly and see what it was like to be him.”

  Jamal turned away from Keisha and looked back up toward the ceiling.

  “That’s when she put me out,” he said gravely. “And my pop, he put me to work.”

  John Anderson had spent the past half-hour wandering through Lord & Taylor, trying to summon the courage to go to Nola’s office and ask her about Keisha.

  It was odd, he thought, that he could draw from the Bible to counsel others. But in recent years, he had seemingly lost the ability to apply it to his own life.

  In his mind, there was only one word that could explain his spiritual malaise: Nola.

  He hadn’t talked to her in months, and he wasn’t keen on doing so now. And so he walked to the sportswear section, pretending to browse through tank tops and shorts, sneakers and socks.

  Of course, John wasn’t really sorting through clothing. He was sorting through his memories of Nola.

  Their affair had been a whirlwind—one that had snatched him into its vortex and spun his life completely out of control.

  She’d shown him things he’d never seen before, and seduced him with more than just her stunning beauty. There were lunches at five-star restaurants on Rittenhouse Square, and afternoons filled with the shouts and whispers of their frantic lovemaking.

  They often rented suites in Center City’s finest hotels. But they made love in other places as well. Places that excited him in ways he’d never imagined. The Crystal Tea Room, located on the upper floors of the Wanamaker Building, was a vast, exquisitely appointed dining room that had hosted presidents and royalty alike. But on the days when Nola wanted him, it played host to their sin. So did her office, and her living room, and the executive washroom at Lord & Taylor.

  He tried not to think about the way she felt in his arms, or the scent of her perfume in his nos
trils, or the sensation of her lips against his. He tried to block out the incredible sense of guilt he felt every time he’d taken her. He attempted to forget the heartbreak she’d imposed on him by sleeping with his enemy.

  Instead, he willed himself to the escalators for the one-floor climb to her office. He dragged his feet as he stepped off the moving stairs and rounded the corner.

  He wondered if the sick feeling he had about Nola’s meeting Keisha was correct. Nola had, after all, betrayed him with Frank Nichols. Perhaps she had betrayed him with his daughter as well.

  What if she had told Keisha of their affair? What if she had taken her to the places where they had gone? What if she had shared the things that he had told her about his past?

  John didn’t really want the answers to those questions. He was about to go back to the escalator and leave the building when one of Nola’s coworkers—a manager in the evening wear section of the store—spotted him and called out his name.

  “Reverend Anderson,” she said, walking over to him, with her hand extended. “It’s been such a long time since we’ve seen you. How have you been?”

  “Fine,” he said, hiding behind a fake smile.

  He wondered if Nola’s colleagues still believed that he was just her pastor, or if they knew that he’d stepped over that line long ago.

  “I guess you’re looking for Nola,” said the blonde manager.

  “Yes, I am,” John said.

  “Well, she was here this morning,” she said. “But she only stayed for a minute.”

  “Do you know if she went home?”

  “I’m not sure. But I do know that she won’t be back here today. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “I actually just came to ask Nola a few questions about my daughter, Keisha. I understand the two of them worked together a few times this summer.”

  The woman’s smile brightened. “Oh, yes, Keisha’s a wonderful young lady. She and Nola hit it off very well. How’s she doing, by the way?”

  “She’s missing,” John said solemnly.

  The woman’s smile disappeared. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah,” John said. “Me, too.”

  He clutched the bag he was holding and half-turned to walk away. “If you hear anything from Nola, can you ask her to give me a call?”

  “That’s not a problem. I’m sure we’ll hear from her tomorrow.

  “Thanks,” John said with a weak grin.

  As he descended the escalator and walked toward the door, he asked himself the questions he hadn’t dared to think about until then.

  What if the secrets he’d told Nola had led to his daughter’s kidnapping? Would he be able to forgive himself if they had?

  16

  When Sarah Anderson returned home from police headquarters, she closed her front door and leaned back against it.

  Her head was still reeling from the things they’d told her about her daughter’s involvement with Jamal. And while she refused to believe most of it, she knew that there was only one way to see if any of it was true.

  Slowly, she walked to the steps, climbed them to the second floor, and stood outside her daughter’s closed bedroom door. It felt strange standing there, knowing that Keisha was gone. But Sarah had to know if Aunt Margaret was right about Keisha and Jamal, so she twisted the doorknob and walked in.

  Looking around the room, she saw that Keisha’s things were still in place, just as they had always been. Her Bible was on her nightstand, next to her bed. Her magazines—everything from Essence to Vogue—were on the opposite side.

  Sarah walked over to the bed, turned on one of Keisha’s bedside lamps, and looked down at her Bible. It was opened to the fifth chapter of Ephesians. Sarah’s face creased in a wry smile. She wondered if Keisha had learned more about family through Paul’s ancient letter to the church at Ephesus than she had from watching her parents.

  Did she know that husbands were to love their wives, that wives were to respect their husbands, and that children were to honor their parents, as the Bible commanded? Or did she believe what she saw—that husbands were to honor themselves, and wives were to despise their husbands for doing so? Was what she saw in her home the reason she’d chosen the opposite of everything she’d been taught?

  Sitting down on Keisha’s bed, Sarah picked up the Essence magazine. It was a bible of a different sort—the tome that black women used to measure the pulse of their own unique culture.

  Sarah could see that Keisha had gone through its pages with a fine-tooth comb, circling the images that depicted the style and grace of black women. They were images that reflected Keisha’s own aspirations and potential—images of the woman that she wanted to be.

  Sarah went through every drawer in Keisha’s nightstand, desperately searching for a clue that would give her some indication of Keisha’s state of mind. She found receipts from clothing Keisha had purchased, and notes she’d written to herself about everything from scripture lessons to homework assignments.

  She found a few fashion sketches her daughter had drawn, using herself as a model. The drawings were impressive, Sarah thought as she looked through them. She’d never seen them before. But then, there were many things she’d never seen about Keisha.

  Sarah went to her daughter’s closet and began rifling through her things. She checked inside pockets and shoes, in pocketbooks and book bags. She went through her makeup and toiletries, sniffing and prodding and poking and searching for something that would tell her what she needed to know.

  And after she’d ransacked Keisha’s room, searching every inch of every one of Keisha’s possessions, she found everything her daughter should have had, and nothing that she shouldn’t. There were no indications anywhere that Keisha had ever wanted a boyfriend, let alone had one. There were no phone numbers, no names, no love notes, no diaries. There was nothing.

  Sarah lay back on Keisha’s bed, allowed her head to sink down into the pillow, and inhaled the fruity scent of the body spray her daughter loved to wear. She thought that by lying there, she would somehow be closer to Keisha. She thought that she could put herself inside her daughter’s head.

  But Sarah was too tired to think. She’d spent too much time thinking over the past day and a half and was utterly exhausted, both mentally and emotionally. Now she just wanted to rest. And as she drifted off to sleep, the voice in the back of her mind grew louder with each passing second.

  Sarah felt her eyelids flutter as the voice continued to call out to her. And then, out of the clouds of her subconscious, she saw the voice take shape. It took on flesh and bone, and a face that was all too familiar.

  Keisha was on the other side of the room, standing in the mirror in an evening dress, putting the final touches on her makeup. She didn’t look like the girl Sarah had seen the night before. Now she looked like a woman.

  “Keisha, there’s something I need to know,” Sarah began, trying to find the best way to pose the question.

  “You want to know why I’m with Jamal?” Keisha asked, saving her the trouble. “I’m with him because he noticed me.”

  “Lots of people notice you, baby.”

  “You don’t,” Keisha snapped, staring daggers into her mother’s eyes. “You never have. You’re too busy feeling sorry for yourself to notice anybody.”

  Sarah was almost too stunned to respond. “That’s not true, Keisha.”

  “If you noticed me, you would’ve seen something different about me the day I met Jamal when I was little,” she said with a mocking laugh. “You would have seen how much I’d changed in the weeks since I’ve been seeing him again. But you didn’t. You couldn’t.”

  “Keisha, I was just under a lot of strain, honey. Your father—”

  “Don’t blame my father,” Keisha said. “At least I knew he cared about me.”

  “But he never cared about me!” Sarah shouted. “You think you know something about being a woman? Well, you don’t. You don’t know what it’s like when the man you
love stops looking at you the way he used to. You don’t know what it’s like to have him treat you like an employee instead of his woman. You don’t know what it’s like to beg for his attention, just to watch him give it to everybody else.”

  “Oh, but I do know what it feels like to be a woman,” Keisha said with a Cheshire cat grin. “Jamal showed me exactly what it feels like.”

  She got up and sashayed across the room with her hand on her hip.

  “It feels good,” she said, looking in the mirror and checking her hair. “Real good.”

  Sarah was dismayed as she looked at her daughter and saw herself. She knew the kind of girl she’d been at Keisha’s age, and so she accused her of doing what she would have done.

  “You’ve been sleeping with him all along, haven’t you?” Sarah asked rhetorically. “You probably were with him last night when you made up that story about being raped.”

  Keisha wheeled around to face her mother.

  “That’s how I know you don’t know me,” she said angrily. “Because if you did, you wouldn’t say anything like that.”

  Sarah regretted making the accusation. But she was about to regret it even more.

  “I’m not the way you were when you were my age,” Keisha said, walking to the bed and standing over her. “I don’t lie and sneak and plot and connive the way you did.”

  Sarah wanted to move, and struggled to run away from the truths she knew were coming. But her body wouldn’t budge from that spot, no matter how hard she tried.

  “You thought you were too pretty and too smart to waste away in church,” Keisha said mockingly. “And you thought you were too mature for boys your own age.”

  Keisha bent down until her face was only inches from Sarah’s.

  “You wanted men,” Keisha spat. “But you see what men did for you, don’t you?”

  Sarah wanted to scream, to lash out, to do anything but listen to her daughter speak such things.

  “I’m with Jamal because I love him,” Keisha said, standing up and walking toward the door. “Not because of what he can do for me, or what he can give to me.”