by Brick
For the first time, my features hardened. One of the things I’d grown to hate more than anything was for someone to make reference to my race as an insult. Another thing that made my ass itch was to threaten my family.
I stepped closer to the man. The men flanking him drew their guns on me, but I didn’t give a damn. If he was going to kill me, then I’d go to hell dragging one of the men in front of me with me.
“Tell you what,” I said with a cold, distant voice I didn’t recognize. “You do what you have to do, me entiendes? But if you come near my family, I’ll come back for you in ways you won’t be able to comprehend. Don’t let this baby face and this calm demeanor fool you, old man. Fucking with anybody who I consider family is a sure way to expedite your journey to hell.”
I could feel my nostrils flare. I was so angry, heated breaths escaped when I exhaled. The old man didn’t seem fazed, though. He only smiled coolly. For as long as I lived, I would never forget the callous look that old man cast at me. If the prelude to death had a face, it would belong to that old man.
“I like you. It’s really too bad you decided to turn down my offer. A boy like you would rise through the ranks in no time. Would make a good right-hand for the one stepping in to take the throne,” he stated plainly, then clapped his big, rugged hands once. “Still, too bad you would rather your family starve and lose their livelihoods than swallow your pride and make a good business decision.”
I had nothing else to say on the matter. I watched in silent rage as he and his watchdogs did an about-face and left Colleen’s. I ran a hand through my hair, then down my face. Hate coursed through my veins. I tucked my gun back against my spine, then remembered Smiley was still in the bathroom. I rushed to the back, pushed the door to the women’s bathroom open, only to find she wasn’t there. The big square window in the bathroom was open.
I shook my head, annoyed. Her reaction to the old man told me that either she knew of him or she knew more than she was letting on. What in hell was going on with her and Code? It was Code who had picked her out for us to save. It had me wondering just what the hell was going on. For the first time in a long time, I felt lost. I experienced a feeling of panic and alarm that I hadn’t felt since that night at Mama Joyce’s when the police raided her house. I sent out a text calling a meeting at the auto shop tomorrow. I made it mandatory that everybody show up. It was time to get our house in order.
Chapter 17
Smiley
Long ago, I got away with murder. I traveled up to New York, sniffed out where the man who had created me laid his head. During this time, I stayed in the streets, living as a homeless person, being an invisible kid, just to watch the patterns of the man who was my father. Why? Because a well-laid plan could work only with perfect timing. So, I watched him. Followed him while he walked the streets to go to his VA meetings. Watched him buy his favorite drugs from some people in a populated area of Harlem that had people who looked like him. There was one house in particular that he would always visit. I’d watch him be greeted by people with light eyes. I’d observe the wicked yet alluring smirk he always had plastered on his face while he spoke in Spanish. Those people shared the same blank, cold darkness in their gaze that he had often had as he beat my mama and me.
I watched him. Picked up a little of the Spanish he spoke frequently now. Learned his movements and knew when he was carrying a lot of heat and when he wasn’t, such as when he was at his VA meetings. He kept only a knife hidden on him when going to his meetings.
In my short time up in NYC, there was one day in particular, the day before I assisted in killing my pops, that had me reflecting on some shit. I had broken into my father’s house and had waited in silence for him to come in. Hadn’t been hard to pick his lock and make sure that I did not move one single item. He had taught me how to hide in plain sight and how to work in strange environments.
As I’d waited, I’d checked out a picture he had near a stack of old magazines that were coated with weed and white powder. In it, I saw a huge family. Behind them were palm trees and a crystal-clear blue and green ocean. In the middle of that perfect scene was my pops in his military attire, with a huge lopsided grin. He had that crazy look in his young eyes, but he seemed happy. Seemed like he was ready to take over the world, and it was all for his familia.
As I studied each face in the picture, one drew my attention. An older man. I had never, ever heard my pop’s talk about his family except the final time he put his foot in my mom’s face.
“You’re still an African queen, bitch. Worthless and useless to me. Just like that twin of hers. I should have killed Nia right along with that ugly infant who wasn’t mine. You whore. Only a whore would be pregnant with two men’s babies at once, but you’re lucky. Nia had my blood, unlike that baby who looked like that Goose nigga you loved so much. There’s nothing you can do to stop me from taking her. She is mine, not yours. La familia will learn about her soon here. All you have to do is die first. Once you die, I can be free. I played by the rules by watching you and fucking the enemy. It’s now time to get back to mi familia, mamacita.”
The hatred in his voice put a fear in me. I could hear the bones crunching while he beat my mama. Saw the blood decorating our floor, a floor my mama and me used to clean with our own hands while we listened to her favorite Boyz II Men songs and other cuts. She now was part of that floor. Her bright red essence was seeping into the foundation of the house.
I hated him because of this. He always hurt her and always hurt me. I hated him. I didn’t want to be with my pop’s. Didn’t want to go with him. I didn’t like the words he was saying. Didn’t like this new information that was coming my way. I used to be immune to his crazy attacks. Thought it was his military stuff, but now this was something different. This was impending death, and with everything he spat out, confusion lit up my mind. I had a twin? Who was Goose? Why wasn’t this Goose nigga here to protect my mama from this devil?
All these thoughts ran through my mind when I rushed my father to protect my mama. I watched strength enter my mama the second she saw me. She shielded me. She kept her promise that she would always protect me. She turned into a warrior I had never seen before as she landed blows on my father. Fist to his jaw, to his perfect, handsome face. Hit his chest, stomach with a swift kick that had him stumbling backward from the force. She used whatever was around and slammed it into him, inflicting the same pain he had put on her.
In her sickness, she fought like she had superpowers, until he slammed his fist against her temple. I watched his foot come up and knew that if I didn’t block it, my mama would die that day. So that was what I did. I rushed forward again and threw my body over hers. I watched my pops look at me with disdain while he held his bleeding jaw. He staggered backward, smelling of liquor, then lunged forward to grab me by my long, thick hair.
I screamed with all of me, kicking out at him and pleading for him to let me go. By then, my mother was so tired, so weary that she was on her knees, emptying her stomach. By the time we both realized what was about to happen to me, it was too late.
“She’s mine and part of my family! They will know. They will all know!” A hot kettle began whistling. Next to it, I saw through my tears, was his tool kit. I thought he was going to grab something in it, but he didn’t.
Instead, as I struggled, he pulled out a glove and put it on. “Stop fighting, mija!”
But I didn’t, couldn’t. My mom screaming at him to stop was taking over my senses, but it didn’t matter, because my father was on a mission. He pulled out a small, hot, orange-red object. I realized that it was a ring. A ring he had had on the flame of the stovetop. I panicked and shouted for my mom. I moved so much that my shirt slid up, exposing the soft flesh of my stomach and back. He couldn’t get to my arms or neck like he wanted, so he went with the next best thing, the area between my hip and stomach. Pain tore through me. Burning, searing heat almost made me pass out. I hated that man, hated him with all of me, while I smelled
my own burning flesh. My mother found her strength again. She rushed to grab a cast-iron skillet from the counter, then swung as hard as she could and connected with my pop’s head.
He stumbled backward. The sounds of sirens blaring had him watching us with restrained fury. It also had him looking at the ring in his gloved hand and back at me. The insanity in his eyes blazed as he smirked. He pointed at me and called me his before he pulled open the back door to the kitchen, then disappeared through it.
I knew without a doubt that while he would forget what had just happened, because he was just that type of drunk and dope user, I would remember it forever.
Which was why I sat in his chair during my short trip to New York City and waited for him to come home. When he got home and noticed me, I gave him a smile that matched the malice he had shown us so many years ago.
I remembered our long conversation. His being shocked that I was there. He told me he was proud that I’d found him, and all the while he downed glass after glass of beer that I had laced. Lacing it hadn’t been hard to do, because he kept his product all around him. Drugs, his pills, and even needles. So while I listened to him tell me about people I should meet, la familia, I tricked him into using. Dazed, he pointed at that picture I’d checked out, while he mentioned la familia and said the old man in the photo would make me a reina.
Didn’t know what a reina was, but I also didn’t care. I was on a mission, and pumping him with drugs meant it was about to be accomplished. I watched him die during our long conversation, in which I learned that this familia didn’t know a thing about me, because he had once thought me so insignificant that my existence wasn’t worth talking about.
The stuff I’d thought would be history after I killed him was resurrected when I met Code. I had always thought I looked like my mama, but Code had let me know that it was my smile, the way my eyes turned into pits of blackness when I was killing niggas, and the way I got pleasure from my illegal activities that gave me away. She had said that I had a devil in me, and that this made us familia.
Nerves had me shaking now as I clutched my heavy backpack.
Yeah, what I was holding on to was important to me. See, in my backpack was a component for a 3-D printer. Which was why I held my backpack tightly. In addition to the printer component, I had a bundle of cash I had taken from my pop’s old savings account. My mom had never closed the account or taken money from it, because she was afraid of it being traced back to us. I didn’t know why she was afraid then, but I knew now. Still, since I figured I couldn’t be traced and I needed some dough, I emptied the account.
In my backpack was also my small notebook that had the design for a biodegradable gun. I didn’t know how to make this shit, just had the idea to create a throwaway gun for when we had to protect ourselves. Since biodegradable bullets also existed—they were made of resin, had a mineral- or petroleum-based center, and were coated in non-biodegradable plastics—I knew Boots would be able to use my notes on that and create something sick with the gun. All of this was important to me, and I wanted no one but Boots to know. Which was why I had texted him and told him that I wanted to go in on a partnership with his crew.
Yeah, so I hadn’t been lying to Auto back there in the diner when I said I wasn’t talking to Code at that moment. I was talking to her, but I was also talking to Boots too. Auto was on that other type of illegal shit, and I was too. But with how everything was going down, it was time to link up with people who could protect us the right way. I really wasn’t trusting anyone. But in this gun game, I knew that by linking up with a man whom everyone wanted to do business with because of his mind and weaponry, I could set us up nicely and protect us from any more attacks. At least I had hoped so until I saw that old man when I was back at the restaurant.
Shit!
The sound of my phone going off had me turning right and finding a spot to hide for the time being. This was good because I could use this time to catch my breath and read my text messages. Code had been blowing me up from a number I didn’t know. Only way I knew it was her was that she had told me who she was in the first message. Now she was talking about crap I just wasn’t understanding.
I glanced at the words before me, frowning in the process.
Code: Midas touch used to reach into many lands. His fingers would itch when what was touched by his hands disappeared from his hold.
Confusion made my brows crest while I read those words over and over. The hell was she talking about?
What? I texted back.
Blazing car horns had me whipping my head up. My eyes darted back and forth as I watched the cars, which couldn’t see me, from the alleyway in which I hid. Checking my surroundings, I saw that this was a huge shopping plaza. People moved around the place with their minds on their own business. Still, I felt exposed in this alleyway and knew I needed to go somewhere where I could blend in. My mental clock started ticking as I decided what to do and where to go so that I would not be noticed.
Glancing around again, I saw that there was a tech school across the way, and a smile appeared on my face. Blending in with the students at the tech school would be easy, and it would get me close to computers. So guess where I headed. Right. To the tech school.
I pulled off my top to expose the white Nike sports top under it, the tats on my arms, and the Egyptian winged tat that peeked slightly out from under my breasts, and then I wrapped the top around my waist. My fingers gathered up my hair, twisted it, and arranged it on top of my head, and then I dropped down to dig in my backpack. I had a pair of geek glasses, so I popped them on. I then quickly headed to the school while looking down at my cell and reading another one of Code’s confusing messages, which always took me a while to get.
Code: Midas knowledge is fucking power. It reaches out!
My mind ached as I tried to decipher her message. Guessed this meant that her old man was sniffing around what I had done. I didn’t know the method to her madness. Had never understood it, not even back when I met her, before ever meeting Auto and having him bust me out of jail.
See, a couple of days after taking out my father back in NYC, I had been hiding again and had watched the town house my father had been visiting. Blocks were blocks, and even though I had been in the Spanish Harlem barrio, I knew that people would be clocking a new face that wasn’t a tourist. So I had had to make myself blend in, which meant I had to look like a tourist or continue to look homeless. I chose the latter. I just wanted to hear the whispers of the streets, and being homeless worked better for this. See, if I could find out who the people were in that town house, then I could know more about my father. Which was what led me to chill in what was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, at least on the outside, but it also had cool seating for people to eat Cuban food.
Spicy, comforting scents played with my senses, making my stomach flip, dip, and twist, as I was really hungry. My bitch of a stomach got so disrespectful that it shouted out loud, drawing the attention of a girl who looked a smidge older than me. Her height was the same as mine, and she had long legs, like those of a dancer, and a curving, toned body. She had a bounce in the back that I was used to hearing niggas stroke their dicks off too while talking mad disrespect about how they would love to play with her pink slit. Her hair was actually the same length as mine, stopping at the small of her back. Hers had a thickness that revealed the African in her, but it was loose and silky, which showed the Latina in her.
Unlike mine. My hair was thick and coiled up, revealing the African in me, which I was proud of and which came from my mama. But my hair was also slightly wavy, an indication of what I now understood was my Latin and black blood, inherited from my father. This chick and I were almost the same color: I was a light brown sugar to her toffee tone. Our similar copper-brown eyes locked for a moment, which made me nervous. I wasn’t trying to draw attention to myself, but I had, anyway. The chick came my way, dropped an ice-cold pop bottle with something yellowish in it in my hand. She disappeared, then came back
with a plate with aluminum foil on it. Unsure about taking it, I shifted back in my chair. The girl dropped down low so that I could hear only her while the Cuban music blared.
“Go chill in the alley over there,” she said, with a subtle jerk of her chin. “Mi familia don’t like ratty dogs and diseased animals near their food or their restaurant, so move out quickly,” I heard her add in a calm, light voice.
The edge to her voice took me back for a moment, because it was rude as hell but had a layer of kindness to it. Chatter in the front of the restaurant had me getting up to quickly grab what had been offered. I had to play the role, and I already had this chick’s attention, which I didn’t want.
“I got money, see . . . ? I’m just a little hungry.” I threw down change, pieces of crumpled paper, and a crinkled dollar.
An amused laugh came from the girl. “That’s why I gave you more than you can afford.” She then mumbled something in Spanish that I understood only a little of and flashed a smile like my father’s. “Girl, you’re trippin’. Leave before trouble follows.”
Her words made me feel some type of way. People walked by, waving at the chick, and others began to come out of the restaurant. This chick had to be related to the people in the town house. She had to be. I just knew it. But because I did not want to draw too much attention to myself, I had to keep to my game. If I didn’t move out now, then, like she’d said, trouble would follow. How she had laughed at me made me feel ashamed, and I quickly left and went to a different alley to eat and watch the restaurant.
The food was mad good. Plantains. Grilled chicken and shrimp. Rice with some onions and peas mixed in, and so much more. Everything was flavored in a way that reminded me of what my father would cook us from time to time when he wasn’t being an asshole. Which had me thinking, Who is my father for real? He wasn’t just some vet. Nor was he just some abuser or another black man from the hood.
