“What am I? Chopped liver?” Harper asks Nicky. Jon says nothing. His eyes are locked on me. I’m not sure if he’s even breathing right now because he damn sure hasn’t blinked.
“Go ahead, pumpkin,” Marla says. “Please be careful with him,” she tells the cabbie. “He’s all we’ve got.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jon’s eyes haven’t left me.
“See you at home,” I say to Nicky though my eyes are still on Jon.
“Okay!” Nicky says back.
I hear the cab doors shut as Jacob walks back over to the rest of us. I see Jon still looking at me but this isn’t anger I’m seeing here. This isn’t rage. This is hurt. Jon prides himself on being good at two things: computers and Nicky. If nothing else, he believes his one redeeming quality is his fatherhood. I have to admit, he’s not the type to throw money at his kid and send him on his way. He spends time with Nicky. He does. Honestly, when it comes to being a father, he’s blameless. I can’t spot a single fault. He pays his weight in child support—forty grand a year for Nicky’s private schooling. Nicky’s picked up by Marla every day after school. She feeds him, picks up Ralphie from Winnie, makes them do their homework, takes them to soccer practice and then brings them back home. Jon set that up. Marla is an extension of him, so that’s him doing his part. Twice a week, Nicky eats dinner in Jon and Marla’s condo. Once a week, they go out to a restaurant. Every weekend, Jon takes Nicky to basketball camp at the gym he’s a member of, in Roxbury. Jon’s a dickhead but he’s faultless with his son.
And he continues to stare at me.
“See you guys at home!” Marla says to Jacob, Nat and me as she begins to push Jon back across the street towards their truck. His eyes are still on me. He takes one step backwards. Then another. Marla whispers something. His eyes stay glued on me. This would be a perfect time for me talk shit but I won’t. This is the perfect moment to talk about that night in Pirahna. One mention of that night and the National Guard would be breaking us all up because, let’s just be honest, the mere mention of Danielle Rouge can cause a street fight on even given day. But now that Nicky’s in the mix, the atmosphere is completely different. With Red, it’s Jon’s pride that’s wounded. With Nicky, it’s Jon’s heart. And yes, Jon has a heart. It’s evident at this very moment when his blood is boiling to the point where he can’t even open his mouth. He doesn’t want Marla in the middle of the rampage that he feels coming on. He’s trying to keep his peace for her, which lets me know one thing: he loves her. He doesn’t want for her to be around yet another fight of his. He doesn’t want to upset her. He doesn’t want to scare her.
But Nicky.
He continues to look at me. He’s oblivious to the fact that I’ve already decided that since his woman is here and since his son is involved, I’ll be bowing out of this impending confrontation. One unspoken rule is that you don’t fuck around with a man’s family. No matter who that man is. Today’s not the day to fuck with Jon about what his son called me. Nicky’s off limits. So I take my eyes off of him and look at the window to see Marlon and Demetrius and…
They’re gone.
DEMETRIUS
Jon saw Marlon and me as we snuck out of Starbucks.
“My father didn’t do shit for me!” Jon now screams out over the noise of laughing women and Aretha Franklin on the sound system telling us to Call Me. He takes another shot of rum. He’s had three so far. He has six more lined up in front of him.
Marlon and I headed out of Starbucks while Malcolm, Jacob and Nat’s back were turned away from the front doors. They were staring at Jon. Marlon was the one who saw the scene on the street. He knew it could get ugly. He also knew he didn’t want Jacob seeing me yet.
Jon saw Marlon point to his car down the street. I’ll be right there if you need me. Jon’s girlfriend saw us too. That’s when she began pushing him across the street. No doubt, she was nervous that a fight would ensue. We had no idea until now what started the whole thing. Seems that Jon’s son called Malcolm Dad. Damn.
“Maybe he didn’t mean it like that,” Matt says. He ordered a Scotch and water that he’s been nursing since we got to this catfish dive in Roxbury, an hour ago. I won’t lie, I’m surprised to see Matt sober right now.
I met Jon and Matt before Gwen was divorced. Met them through Marlon and found out that we’re all in the same frat. They were around when I flew in and out of Boston to see Gwen that year she left Jacob. Marlon, Jon, Matt and I hung out, had drinks at this dive we’re at now and laughed over shots of rum. I noticed that Jon was a slow drinker, Marlon liked his drinks watered down and Matt could drink your ass under the table. That year that I flew in and out of Boston was fun but after Winnie remarried Jacob and I got serious with Sammie, I never came back.
But here we are again.
“Yeah,” Marlon says before he downs his Jack and Coke. “Chances are, Nicky hears Roman say it and it kinda just rubbed off on him.”
I sit back with my Jack and Coke and decide that while I know Jon, I may not know him well enough to offer moral support at this point.
“You know what my father’s advice was when I left LA for college?” Jon asks as he downs another shot.
“What?” Marlon asks, picking up a shot of his own.
“Make sure you have all your kids by one woman.” Jon squints his eyes and looks at Marlon while shaking his head. “Makes the paperwork easier. That’s what the muthafucka told me.’” Jon picks up another shot. “That’s the only thing that clown did right. Have all eight of his kids by one woman. Never mind staying with her to help her feed ‘em, clothe ‘em, train ‘em up. Just have ‘em all by her.” He takes another shot. He’s drunk.
“Slow down, Jon,” Matt says before taking a sip of his drink. Jon brings his phone out of his pocket and looks at it.
“Marla,” he says with a wince, as the liquor stings his throat. “Texting me every twenty minutes to check on me.” He takes another shot before slamming the glass down on the table. “She’s a good girl.”
“Don’t fall for it, Jon,” Marlon warns him while sipping on his second shot. “I fell for a good girl once and look at me.”
“Marla’s different,” Jon nods his head at no one in particular. “Treats me better than Danny ever did.” He shrugs.
“Danny’s not so bad,” Matt says.
“You were never married to her.” Jon takes a sip of his shot. “Or were you? There’s no telling these days with Danny.”
“Come on, Jon, lay off Danny.”
“I love that girl.”
Silence.
Matt and Marlon look at each other, glasses held in mid-air. They slowly drift their eyes over to Jon.
“Which one are you talking about?” Matt asks.
“What the fuck do you mean which one?” Jon says. Marlon and Matt laugh hysterically at the question.
“Just what I asked muthafucka! Which one do you love?” Marlon and Matt continue to laugh as Jon looks past them, his mind in a fog.
“Both,” he finally says before finishing his shot.
“I could’ve told you that,” Marlon says. He takes a sip of his shot.
“But Marla…she’s the one. No matter what I do, what I say, or what I don’t do or what I don’t say, she’s down for me. She’s there. She’s not looking for me to entertain her. Give her sparkling conversation.” He takes a sip of another shot. “All she wants is for me to be there…with her. That’s it. She takes me just like this.” He puts an arm in the air, showing us a shirt rolled up to his elbows and a loosened tie.
“Don’t trust her,” Marlon says.
“You’re paranoid for no reason,” Matt says to Marlon.
“I’m not,” Marlon takes a shot. “She’s fucking Jacob Blair. Probably right now at this very moment while our girls are asleep on their bunk beds.”
“You’re going overboard, Marlon.” Matt gives him a look of exasperation. “You’re not giving Jazz enough credit. And I’m not sure if you remember but J
acob has a wife and four kids.” He looks at me. “And he’s not trying to lose them.” Matt and I share a look before I take a sip of my drink. Something’s going on with this Matt character. I decided that a half hour ago when he was sipping on the same drink he had since we sat down, all while his heartbroken friends were getting hammered. I noticed that every time Marlon mentioned Jasmine and Jacob, Matt gave some excuse as to why Jacob wouldn’t want Jasmine.
He has a family.
He has a lot to lose.
He’s already been divorced once.
His wife is crazy…too risky.
The lawyer in me wonders one thing: Why, if Matt and his wife are Marlon and Jasmine’s friends, is he providing excuses for Jacob? I watch Matt take another sip of his drink, which surely tastes like a puddle of muddy water by know. The lawyer in me believes that Matt is nursing his drink for one reason: he wants to be in charge of all his faculties. That includes his speech. The lawyer in me wonders what Matt would say if he, like Marlon and Jon, were on his third or fourth shot by now.
“You know,” Jon continues, “recently I’ve actually been afraid that Marla will leave me.”
“You mean once she finds out that you’ve been clipped?” Matt asks.
“Yeah.”
“Good,” Marlon says as he takes a sip of his shot. “You don’t need her anyway. She’s not as good as you probably think she is.”
I kick Marlon under the table. He looks over at me in confusion at first. I give him a near imperceptible shake of my head. The last thing Jon needs to hear right now is that Marlon used to fuck the only woman he believes ever loved him. Marlon clears his throat and puts his shot glass down.
“Nah,” Jon says. “Marla’s a good girl. If I didn’t marry Danny, I’d be married to her right now.”
“I’m lost,” Matt says. “What does one have to do with the other?”
“After you’ve been divorced and get hit up for more child support in one year than most people bring home, your passion for marriage kinda fades.”
“Oh God, child support,” Marlon says. He takes another shot of his drink.
“I mean, just think about it. I give my son $150,000 a year in child support.” Damn!
“Oh, buddy,” Matt says before he shakes his head and takes a sip of his drink. Everyone knows that Jon makes money with that IT firm of his, but $150,000 a year? Shit!
“A hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year,” Jon reiterates.
“No, no more.” Marlon says as he shakes his head and puts his hand up for Jon to stop talking. “Because I have two kids. I can only imagine how much I’ll be giving.” He looks at me for reassurance.
“Well,” I say, “your trust fund was in the double digit millions-”
“Low double digits.”
“Shiiit,” Matt says. “A double digit is a double digit!” He and Jon laugh.
“Then you factor in investments, yearly salary-”
“Jesus!” Marlon screams out. Matt and Jon break out in uncontrollable laughter. “I’ll be living on the goddamn side of the road once she’s done with me.”
“You sure will,” I warn. “Because child support, my friend, is not all you’ll be paying.” I take a sip of my drink. Marlon looks at me confused.
“I don’t get it,” he says. “What else will I be paying?”
“ALIMONY, MUTHAFUCKA!” Jon and Matt scream out at the same time. This sends them into a round of applause and laughter so loud, most of the bar turns around to look at us. Even I can’t help but laugh.
“Aww shit,” Marlon says before downing a shot. “This is horrible!” That makes Jon and Matt laugh louder. Yeah, Marlon didn’t think about that. You marry a woman with no job, you support her, you have kids with her…you’re paying her when you’re ready to leave.
“And there you have it,” Jon says after he recovers. “That the reason why I won’t marry Marla.” He takes a sip of his drink. “No way in hell I’m paying for Nicky and Marla. I mean, just think about it. Nicky gets $150,000 from me a year. My son is a One Percenter! He’s fucking nine years old! He makes $150,000 a year. Tax free! Just for being born.” We all bend over the table, laughing at Jon’s ass. Jon takes another shot.
“So you’re not marrying Marla because she doesn’t have a job and you make too much money?” Matt asks after he finishes laughing.
“That’s exactly why.”
“Sign a pre-nup then.”
“Not good enough for me. Didn’t the news say Jacob had a pre-nup when Winnie divorced him? And she still got, what, forty million or some crazy shit like that?”
“Hey Marlon,” Matt says with a smile on his face, “what does your pre-nup say?”
“Fuck you,” Marlon says. Matt and Jon start laughing. Marlon never signed a pre-nup. He married for love, he told me. But besides that, did you notice how Matt glossed over the Jacob and Winnie question? Did you see how he redirected the conversation? You didn’t catch that, did you? The lawyer in me believes that he wants Jacob’s name off the table altogether. He doesn’t want to mention him at all. I watch Matt take a sip of his watered down drink before placing it back on the table.
“So, what’s the plan?” Jon says. “Because let’s face it, Jasmine’s fucking Jacob all over Boston.”
“Thanks, Jon,” Marlon says.
“He’s not fucking her,” Matt says.
Did you see that? The correct rebuttal would have been to keep the order of the nouns in the sentence. She’s not fucking him. Instead he put Jacob first: He’s not fucking her. I’ve argued cases in court martial for a while. I’ve seen this strategy: Matt’s not defending Jasmine, he’s defending Jacob.
I watch Matt take a sip of his water, avoiding all eye contact.
“I say we hit Jacob where it hurts,” Marlon says. “Right in the gut. Right in the fucking jugular.” He takes a long swallow of his drink before pounding the glass down on the table, splashing Scotch everywhere. “What can I touch that will crush his entire life.”
“His wife. His kid,” Jon says before downing a shot of Jack.
“Come on, Marlon,” Matt says. “You planning on destroying a man’s entire life over speculation?”
“Listen, I know for a fact that Jasmine’s sleeping with Jacob,” Marlon says.
“He’s. Not. Sleeping with her.” And Matt’s done it again. He’s changed the order. Now, he looks around the table at all of us. “You can’t destroy a man’s family over bullshit.”
“Oh no?” Jon says with a drunken smile. He glares at Matt. Matt says nothing. “So you think it’s fair that right now Malcolm’s in his condo with my wife and my son, playing house? Do you think it’s fair that Jacob’s been fucking Jasmine and Winnie and yet right now he’s at his place, with his wife, tucking his kids in, happy? And Marlon and I are sitting at a fucking bar keeping this muthafucka in business? You think that shit is fair?” Jon stares at Matt, waiting for an answer.
“I’m not saying that,” Matt says slowly. “What I’m saying is that we don’t know if Jasmine is having an affair.” Notice how he just placed guilt on Jasmine and not Jacob? According to Matt, if anyone’s guilty, it’s Marlon’s wife.
“She is,” Marlon says before downing his drink. “And now I’m about to do something about it.”
Matt looks at me.
“And you’ve come in to help?” he asks me.
“Nope,” I say with a smile before I take a sip of my drink. “I’ve come to have a drink.”
JACOB
“Attorney Blair?”
“Yes, Sandi.”
“There’s been an urgent message sent to you by messenger.” I look up from my case files and see my admin standing in the doorway with a letter in her hand. Sandi’s a pretty black woman in her early twenties. Right now she’s wearing a tight blue dress, her hair in one of these Dena buns that’s pinned up in the back, a pair of navy blue heels on, and bright red lips. Mac, Nat and my clients have unanimously voted my admin the best looking out of the bunch.
In fact, my clients sometimes come to the office just to loiter near her desk, before asking me a legal question. How serious are those red light tickets? Sandi smiles at them as she types up my schedule for the next day. She’s married to a captain in the Navy, and has no time for old ass white men who’ve been caught with their pants down and therefore need my services. She’s all about business.
My father vetted and hired her.
“The sender has told him to wait for a response,” Sandi says as she nods towards the messenger. I get up from my chair to look out into the hallway at the messenger—a young blond guy with a brown bag fixed across one shoulder, his bike leaning against the wall. His eyes keep darting back and forth over to my door. He’s trying not to get caught looking at Sandi.
“Thank you,” I say as I slide the letter out of Sandi’s hand. She turns and heads back to her own office. The messenger’s eyes are glued to her as she leaves. I turn back towards my desk and ease open the envelope that just has my name and address on it, not the sender:
Blair & Associates
Attorney Jacob Blair
Beacon Hill
888 Tremont Street
J,
I’m being watched now. I can feel it.
Demetrius Westlake is in town. He’s a hired gun. Word is you’ve been fucking another man’s wife. Yours is now fair game.
It can all happen in a matter of hours or days. I have no idea.
Just a warning. Destroy this.
M
I write a response:
Gold & Trust Financial
Matthew Beauvais
Financial District
121 State Street
War is coming. It’s imminent. Stay neutral, my friend.
I feel Marlon. His anger is justified. But I’ll spare you the details. He’s seeking retribution. He’s practicing the law of eye-for-an-eye. That happens to be the same law I live by. But Marlon has misinterpreted it. If he were practicing eye-for-an-eye, he would find my wife. Seduce her. Fuck her into obsession. He wouldn’t send another man in to do his dirty work.
War. Page 11
