I put on the coffee and sat at the kitchen table trying to think of what to do. What I knew, what I absolutely knew, was that there was nothing I could think of that Donald couldn’t screw up. He hadn’t always been that way. There had been a time when he was bubbling with promise and a joy just to be around. Family life had centered around him. Daddy had worked with him in Little League to teach him how to hit line drives and I helped him study to get into a good high school. Then he became a stranger, and I couldn’t lie across his bed and talk to him for hours about anything, like I used to. Then came the drugs. It was as if someone had come to our house and had removed the plug that held in that sense of togetherness and joy that made us a family.
With the drugs came a whole new way of talking. Words like “tracks” and “possession” found their way into the living room. Words like “warrant” and “bond” were on papers my parents were signing on the kitchen table. The family bankbooks, which once had been hidden away with so much pride, were now kept within reach.
I decided to go to Donald’s girlfriend’s house. I had nothing new to say, nothing new to argue, but I took my jacket from the back of the chair and headed toward the door.
Barbara lived on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, between 134th and 133rd, in a five-story building they hadn’t gotten around to rehabilitating yet. Two older men sat in the vestibule playing checkers on a board set up on a folding chair. There was a small baseball bat leaning against the wall and I knew they had appointed themselves protectors of the building, at least for the day.
“Hello, young lady.” The dark-skinned brother looked up from the board. “What can I do for you today?”
“I’m looking for …” I realized I didn’t know Barbara’s last name. “My brother has a girlfriend in this building. Barbara something.”
“Your brother a young man? Got a tattoo?”
“No, that ain’t her brother,” said the second man—he had once been big, but now his wide shoulders were betrayed by a thin, old-man neck and legs. “Her brother is that boy always got a starched shirt on. Go with that girl up there in thirty-one-G. Fifth floor. Name is Ronald— something like that.”
“Donald,” I said.
“Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know if he’s up there, but you can go on and take a look.”
The elevator was slow and predictably foul-smelling, as if to warn anyone coming into the building not to expect too much. I wondered how children felt coming downstairs in the morning on their way to school.
When the car stopped on the fifth floor the door only opened partway—I had to push it open. The hallway was bright, with naked lightbulbs glaring from the ceiling. Someone had put children’s drawings on the wall facing the elevator with masking tape. I liked that.
As I knocked on 31G I didn’t know what to say to Donald. Tell him that Mama was crying? Or that his father didn’t need any more problems?
Donald opened the door with the chain on it, peeping with one eye into the hallway. The door closed as he took off the chain, then opened.
“Yo, what’s up?”
My anger made me feel good. Who was he to come up with some hip-hop gesture of cool?
“Can I come in?”
He moved away from the door with a half shrug.
The place was a mess. I came into a narrow hallway strewn with old newspapers and a few articles of clothing. The kitchen was dirty. A row of empty jars next to the stained sink probably replaced their glassware. A small wisp of steam escaped from the teakettle on the stove.
“You want tea?” Donald asked.
“Sure.”
He took out two cups and placed them on the table. He put a teabag in each cup as the kettle began to whistle.
“You remember we used to have tea when we were living on Edgecombe?” he asked.
I nodded. In the summertime, when our parents went to work, we’d pretend we were grown-ups and make tea and imitate our parents’ conversations. Ages ago.
“Make believe I’ve already said all the things that you expect from me,” I said. “Make believe I’ve already screamed about you not showing up in court this morning. I can’t really get into it all again.”
“I got to take Barbara to the hospital,” he said. “She’s sick.”
“Glad you’re thinking of her,” I said.
He shot me a glance and I could see his jaw tighten and relax as he looked away. He drank his tea quickly, taking small sips, breathing deeply between each as if he were doing some sort of yoga exercise. When he had finished he stood and asked if I was going to wait until he got back.
“I’m taking her over to Harlem Hospital,” he said.
Donald went into the bedroom and I could hear him talking softly. He was calling her name from time to time, even in the middle of a sentence, as if she were not paying attention, or falling asleep. I got up and went into the room.
Seeing her on the bed, the sheet twisted around one dark leg, her head bent forward, shocked me. She was having a drug reaction. I went to her quickly and put my hand on her forehead. She was warm. I shook her gently and she moved one arm. “Let’s get her out of here!” I said.
Barbara was naked and I put panties on her as he dialed the emergency number. We tried to get some jeans on her, then settled for an old skirt and a blouse we found at the bottom of her closet. I asked him how long she had been like this and he said he didn’t know.
“I woke up and started talking to her and she didn’t answer. I just thought she was nodding out,” Donald said.
“Nodding?” I turned to look at my brother. “Are you guys … ?”
“Using?” He straightened up. “No, I’m not using drugs.”
Harlem Hospital was only a few blocks away. If you were stabbed, or shot, or going through an overdose, it was the place to go. They dealt with these emergencies 24-7.
The old men watched silently as Donald carried Barbara down the hall.
A light rain had started to fall as we hurried down the street. Donald was breathing heavily. Barbara didn’t weigh that much and I wondered if he was having trouble, too.
The guard at the hospital looked up from his newspaper and pointed to the admissions desk.
There was no sense of hurry, no sense of white-suited angels of mercy watching a clock on the wall or doctors barking orders the way you see on television. It was just another young black addict in trouble.
Routine.
They admitted Barbara with studied casualness.
“She’ll probably be okay.” A light-skinned nurse rubbed her nose with one finger. “If they’re stable when they come in they usually make it.”
“What are you going to do tonight?” I asked Donald as we crossed the street from the hospital.
“Maybe I’ll hang down here, in case she leaves the hospital tonight.”
“Donald …” The tears started again, tears that were once inside and now came rushing to the surface. “Donald, you’re killing us. I’m so torn up inside I don’t know what to do. There aren’t any answers, Donald. You got them damn drugs and they got you. They got Mama and your father and they got me. Don’t you see that? Don’t you see that?”
“Yo, Brenda, all that talk you’re laying down is the real deal,” Donald said. “But I ain’t got nothing to say. Sorry ain’t doing it. I know that. Promises ain’t doing it. I know that. But I’m not doing what I’m not doing. You can’t tell me nothing I don’t know, but you can’t tell me nothing that’s going to fix the situation.
“Yo, check it out. Daddy used to say to me I got to jump at the sun. You know, reach for that good life. Well, guess what, big sister? I’ve jumped, and I’m not getting nowhere.”
“Donald, you’re killing us along with yourself.”
“Brenda, what don’t I know?” Donald’s voice cracked. “What don’t I know?”
I had wanted to see him sorry, to see him feel the pain he was spreading around the family, but when I heard the hurt in his voice it shook me. It shook me because he was my fl
esh and blood. And because I had so few prayers for him that I thought God would answer.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Maybe cop a hamburger, get some sleep,” he said. “I don’t know. You talking about saying something to Mama, but what am I going to say? You got something I don’t know about?”
“Is Barbara helping you more than we are?”
“Naw, she don’t help,” he said. “But when I look at her face, I don’t see the disappointment I see in yours.”
The rain had just about stopped and I shivered. Donald asked me if my jacket was warm enough. I said yes, even though it wasn’t.
“You want me to make you a hamburger?” I asked. “I can go over to the market and buy a few things. At least I can tell Mama you’re eating. You want cheese? Sure, you always liked cheese.”
He seemed embarrassed, and then nodded. “Maybe some fries?”
“And fries,” I said.
He was talking and making sense. Everything he was saying was weighed down with feeling sorry for himself, but at least he was thinking.
There should have been anger. I should have been so mad I could have torn him apart. But I was past being mad. Past holding the fury in my heart. I told Donald what had happened in court. I asked him if he would turn himself in. He said he would think about it.
What I had to do, I thought as I crossed the street to the market, was to get him back to feeling that he was family again. He had to somehow understand that his feelings of frustration were what we all felt.
I bought hamburger, rolls, and onions. They didn’t have any decent cheese so I bought the packaged slices. On the checkout line I called Mr. Havens and was surprised to hear him answer the phone. I asked him what could be done, if there was a chance for Donald to avoid jail.
“If he turns himself in within the next day or so,” Mr. Havens said. “They’ve got so many cases on the calendar that they jump at a chance to clear one up. That’s his best hope.”
“And can my parents get their money back?”
“Something can probably be worked out,” he said. “They’ll be nasty about it, but something can be worked out. They’ll get some of it back if he turns himself in.”
So many cases, so many brothers. I found myself thinking like Donald. At first I tried to push the thoughts aside. Donald had been wrong in what he had done. That was his responsibility, not the rest of the world’s. But I knew, too, that in my heart there was a difference between the world and our family. I could bring my brain to know what Donald should have done, but I couldn’t change my heart and pretend that he was not family, my brother. I knew that somewhere, Barbara had family, too.
“They got you running tonight.” The old man was alone at the checkerboard in the lobby.
“Sometimes it be’s that way,” I answered.
“Yeah, it do.”
The apartment door was open.
“Donald?” I called. No answer.
I looked in the bedroom and he wasn’t there. A moment of panic, and then I heard the toilet flush.
Back in the kitchen I washed my hands. Donald came into the kitchen. I had thought of a joke and decided to tell it to him. He had always liked jokes when we were kids. He would laugh at them even after I told them over and over again.
When I turned I saw him leaning against the wall. He had shot up.
“Yo, so you going to make a cheeseburger, huh?” His speech was slurred, his eyes were already half shut.
I didn’t want to see him. I wanted to turn away and not recognize the slack-jawed figure, his body angled to one side, that slid along the wall.
“Why don’t you go lay down,” I said. “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
“ ’Member when we had that Christmas party and we had burgers?” he asked. He wiped at his cheek, as if he were trying to get something off it.
“Donald, go lay down,” I said. “I’ll call you.”
Donald stumbled into the room and I imagined him falling across the bed. I sat at the kitchen table and let the tears come. They came in waves and in floods.
Donald was right. There was nothing to say, no logic to make things right. The drugs were his only logic, that and the pain he was dealing with. What was there to say when a person looked into his own soul and found it empty? What was there to do in the sad cubicle of Barbara’s kitchen but to accept that the stained sink would never be white again, the scraped linoleum flooring would never look good, that there would never be fine glasses to replace the jars they drank from?
What I knew was that Donald had reached bottom. He was using again. It would be just a matter of time before he would be lying in a pool of blood on some street, or dead from the stuff he was buying to fill his veins.
The clock on the wall over the refrigerator said twelve past nine. It was later than I thought. At home Mama would be worried about me, and about Donald. Daddy would be asking himself for the millionth time whether or not he had been a good father.
I put the hamburger and cheese into the refrigerator. I looked in the bathroom. There were spots of blood on the toilet seat and, instinctively, I wiped them off. In the medicine cabinet were a hypodermic needle and two glassine envelopes. One was empty. I flushed the other one down the toilet.
I walked up to 135th and into the precinct. I gave the desk sergeant my name and told him that my brother was wanted by the police, and that he was at a friend’s house and was high.
“Why don’t you go get him and bring him down to the station?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
There were more questions as I stood in front of the desk, unsure of myself, my nose dripping, the tears still running down my face into the corners of my mouth. And then there were two officers, one white, one black, going with me down the street, and into the tiny elevator. I hadn’t realized how small it was.
They had me go in first. I sat on the bed at Donald’s feet. He was still asleep. The cops rolled him over and handcuffed him before they woke him. They pulled him to his feet and he began to thrash around. The black cop pinned him against the wall and they patted him down. They found the needle, but nothing else.
By the time they had taken Donald into the hallway he had realized what had happened. He was cursing me. The names were vile, evil, as if they were coming from someone possessed. The black cop told him to shut up and Donald started cursing him. As we went out into the street all of my brother’s demons were loosed upon the world.
“Do you need a lift?” one of the cops asked. I did, but I heard myself saying no.
I wanted to take my time getting home. What would I tell my parents? That Donald was back on drugs? Would that make his not showing up in court any easier? Would I tell them about how he had cared for Barbara? Would that make him any more human? Would I tell them that I turned him in? That they might get their bail money back? Would that make the pain any more tolerable?
When I got home they were sitting at the kitchen table.
“You okay?” Daddy asked.
“I’m okay” I said. “Just tired.”
“We haven’t heard from Donald,” Mama said.
I went to her, kissed her lightly on the forehead, and said good night. Tomorrow would be time enough for mourning.
law
and
order
“Gates!” John Carroll put down his newspaper. “Ain’t that Rudy just going past? Go bring him in!”
Gates got to the front door of the roti shop as soon as he could and called to Rudy. A moment later he was holding the door for the lanky dark-skinned youth.
“Hey what’s up?” Rudy touched his fist to his chest and held it up in a black power salute.
“Yo, man, I heard you got picked up by the police,” John said. “What happened?”
“I hate Arabs!” Rudy said. “They ain’t nothing but a bunch of—”
“Yo, Rudy, don’t bring no foul language in here over my food,” John said. “What Arabs you talking about?”
“You know down on the corner where they be selling Lucys?”
“Yeah, fifty cents for a loose cigarette ain’t correct,” Gates said. “You buying a Lucy they know you broke from jump street. They should give you a break.”
“Yeah, that’s the place I’m talking about,” Rudy said.
“So you were buying a loose cigarette and then what happened?” John asked.
“No, man, I wasn’t buying no cigarettes,” Rudy said, flopping down on a stool near the counter. “Let me have one of them meat pies.”
“I ain’t going to let you have none but you can buy one for a dollar,” John said.
Rudy sucked his teeth and fished through his pocket until he found a dollar. He unfolded it carefully and laid it on the counter.
John gave him a curried chicken pie and a napkin.
“So what happened?” Gates asked. “He accuse you of stealing something from that raggedy store?”
“No, man, it’s a long story,” Rudy said.
“I ain’t got no customers in here but you, so I got time to hear it,” John said.
“Okay, I threw a rock through his window,” Rudy said. He bit off one end of the pie and sniffed it before going on. “It didn’t break the whole thing, just cracked it in the corner. I wished it had broke the whole thing.”
“You must have been some kind of mad,” Gates said. “I bet he used the ‘N’ word. You know Arabs don’t consider themselves black.”
“Gates, will you let Rudy tell the story?” John said. “Why you throw the brick through his window?”
“I kind of had to,” Rudy said. “I had a problem.”
“What did the A-rab do?” Gates asked.
“He didn’t do nothing, but … okay, it’s a long story.”
“Rudy, you’re getting me mad, now,” John said.
“Okay, you know Angie White?” Rudy asked. “She lives in them houses near Marcus Garvey Park?” He set a dollar on the counter.
“Yeah, I know her,” John said, putting a paper plate on the counter with a meat pie and a napkin. “Got a little knotty-headed brother always blowing snot bubbles out his nose.”
What They Found Page 7
