Donnie nodded. “Okay I guess I can accept that. I mean it does seem a bit suspicious how out of the clear blue you want me to meet your family when we’ve been…I don’t know. Whatever it is we call ourselves doing, at a time when your ex-wife is flaunting her new man in your face. But if you say that it’s not like that, and you really want me there, then I believe you and yes I will come.”
“Then it’s settled. I’ll pick you up from work on Friday.” Tommy said then came over and kissed her on top of her head as he massaged her shoulders while slipping his hands into her shirt and fondling her breasts.
“Tommy?”
“Yeah baby?”
“What are we doing?”
“Well, if you gotta ask, then I must be doing something wrong,” He smiled.
Donnie pushed his hands away. “No that’s not what I meant! What are we doing, with each other?”
Tommy slumped back into his chair. “Aw geez, I don’t know Donnie, having fun,”
“But all we do is have fun. I mean yeah we have great sex and all but something’s missing.”
“And what might that be?”
“Romance. Tommy you never plan any activities for us. Whenever we have gone out it was always my suggestion. I wonder if I should cut my losses and move on. Sometimes I feel like all I do is take the good with the bad-”
“You take em’ both and there you have, the facts of life,” Tommy sang jokingly as he tried to put light on the matter then sighed. Going from ambivalent, to elated to crushed in one minute was too much to deal with and he wanted to go back to bed. “Donnie you know what I do for a living.” He said.
“What’s your point?”
“My point? C’mon baby, the world I live in is insane, complex and gritty. And although you seem okay with it now eventually you’re going to ask me to change my life and everything just like-” Tommy realized he was talking too much and paused.
“Go on and say it. Just like Nicky. That is what you were going to say right?” Donnie accused. Tommy shrugged contemplating on having a shot of Bacardi with his breakfast. “So Tommy, do you still love her?” she asked.
“Aw dammit Donnie! I never ask you about your past relationships now do I? So why the hell are you sweating me about mines?” There was a loud silence and as soon as Tommy saw the hurt in Donnie’s eyes he wished he had put what he said in a thought balloon.
Donnie was not as concerned with him getting loud as she was with what was said. “Tommy you can ask me anything you want, I don’t have anything to hide.”
“And neither do I baby.” Mayhem jumped up and came over. She placed her head in her master’s lap. Tommy patted her then sent her away. “I’m just a private person is all.”
“Okay fine I can respect that but this is not just about you.”
“Where’s all this coming from any way? Pumpkin put you up to this didn’t she?”
“Pumpkin doesn’t have anything to do with this. I feel I have a right to know if you are still in love with Nicky and make a decision to continue seeing you or not. So again I am asking you, are you still in love with your ex-wife?”
Tommy walked over to the window and looked across the water at the illuminated skyline lost in his own private thoughts. The little voice in his head said, ‘Whatever you say do not tell her the truth! She may say she wants to know, but she really doesn’t!’ But that wasn’t his style. He may have been a lot of things, but he was no liar. Not a malicious one anyway.
Tommy shook his head. “I dunno. Maybe.” he turned around and admitted.
“Oh-I see.” Donnie said. She calmly got up and gathered her clothes and went into the bathroom. Not even five minutes later she came back out dressed with red eyes. “Call me a cab.”
“Aw c’mon Donnie let’s talk about this.” He pressed but she said nothing. “Ok then let me drive you back to-”
“No. We’ve said enough.”
“You know most men would have lied, minced words, but not me! I told you the truth and for that I am being punished. Damn Donnie, what else do you want?”
Donnie didn’t even have to think about an answer. This was something she thought about a lot. “Someone to brush my teeth with in the morning. Someone to ask me how my day was when I walk through the door. Someone to hold me in the middle of the night. Someone that when the phone rings I already know it’s him. Tommy I’m tired of casual relationships and casual sex. I’m ready to move past the condom stage!” Tommy shot Donnie a baffled stare and she knew what that look was about. “Yeah I know when we began this we agreed this would only be a sex thing and nothing more. But forget all that! I’m allowed to change my mind when it comes to my feelings! I’m getting older and to the point where I want something that has a little meaning to it. Although we never really discussed it, you know about the shit I endured with my ex. It’s time I had something that will withstand the test of time. Yes, you’re right, I asked you for the truth. And I thank you for your honesty, because you’re right, most men would have lied. But face the facts, you’re not like most men. And that’s why I feel the way I do about you. But just because I admire you for telling the truth doesn’t mean I have to accept it. And I am not punishing you, but if I stayed, I would be punishing myself.” Donnie said and wiped a tear.
Tommy felt bad. He knew this discussion was a long time coming and did everything in his power to avoid it. He dialed a cab, spoke for a second and hung up. “They said to come downstairs in five,”
“I’ll go down and wait.” Donnie said then came over and kissed Tommy on the cheek. “Love you…Hate you.” she said then left.
The door shut behind her and Tommy could hear sobbing. He went over to the window and watched Donnie for five minutes until the cab pulled up and pulled off. She never even looked back. What bugged him out was until this very moment he never really gave their arrangement that much thought. But now that it was over he felt like part of him had walked out the door and drove off with her. His Nana once told him that you only get one chance at love, twice if you’re lucky. But that’s it. Tommy plopped down on the edge of his waterbed worried that he might have just thrown away his only other chance.
“This is exactly why I didn’t want to get serious-dammit! I ain’t got time for this shit!” He based at the four walls. He reached over and checked his messages on both machines. One was about a consulting job scheduled for later on that night. There was another one from his mother anxious to continue their conversation from last night but he was not in the mood for that. And an incoherent message from Laquita asking him to call her back once he received this message. He dialed Bug-Out’s crib.
“Wa’sup little man this is cousin Tommy. Lemme speak to your moms…Hey Laquita, calm down and tell me what he did now… WHAT!?…Where’s he at?…Aight I’m on the way over now. Keep him there!”
Tommy slammed his phone down livid. He couldn’t believe that Bug-Out could stoop as low as to take his five-year-old son to the park and get high. If it wasn’t for a neighbor from the building that spotted AJ walking around by himself crying that, ‘His daddy was on the ground shaking with spit-up in his mouth,’ who knows what could have happened. Tommy’s Jeep Cherokee dug skid marks into the street outside of the Marcy Projects. He jumped out and glared at each and every face he passed daring them to mess with his ride. Mashing Bug-Out’s doorbell like he was running from the cops, he stormed inside when Laquita opened the door. She was petite with a mushroom hairstyle that accentuated her light skinned gaunt face.
Tommy looked around his cousin’s crib and shook his head. The place was practically barren except for a tattered couch and shaky looking card table surrounded with scratched up folding chairs that was used as a dinette set. There wasn’t a television set or stereo because Bug-Out had sold them for drugs.
“Excuse the apartment.” Laquita said embarrassed.
“How’s AJ doing.” Tommy asked staring at the traumatized looking little boy sitting on the couch.
Laquita shook her head sadly. “He’s Okay, thank God. But Tommy what if someone reports this to BCW? They could take my baby away from me.” She began crying and collapsed in his arms. Tommy consoled her and felt a tug at his Eight Ball jacket. He looked down at his little cousin and patted his head affectionately.
AJ was a handsome little boy. The spitting image of his father. Although he sported a golden grin Tommy could see the faint marks of ghetto pain tattooed on his five-year-old face. When Tommy looked back up Bug-Out was standing in the hallway looking pitiful. Tommy glared at his cousin then stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets for fear that if he didn’t, he would shake hands with his voice box. “Get your coat. We’re going for a ride!”
Chapter 10
Tommy smacked loaded magazines into his weapons then fingered through a stack of newsprint targets deciding on one that detailed a thug in a ski mask holding an Uzi in one hand and a female hostage in the other. He then clipped the 20 by 24-inch paper target onto its hanger and sent it out about 30 yards into range, twisted his head all the way to the left then all the way to the right until he heard his neck crack, closed his left eye and then, BLAM, BLAM, BLAM! he fired in short bursts of three. Off to the side with his hands pressed firmly over his ears, Bug-Out flinched from each loud shot.
Ambidextrous when it came to shooting, Tommy switched from right to left until the magazine ran out then reeled in his target. Back in the day he used to drag Nicky here. At first she hated coming because it was noisy and the gunpowder smelled, but eventually she allowed Tommy to show her how to shoot and got pretty good at it to the point she was hitting the bullseye with almost every shot.
“Yo Tee?” Bug-Out said.
Tommy ignored his cousin and studied his handiwork. From the right side of the ski-masked terrorist’s chin all the way to the top of the head was perfectly perforated by bullet holes while the woman wasn’t touched. Were it an actual man the wad would enter his spine and he’d feel his legs go dead even as his heart exploded. He smiled with an elated chuckle. It felt great to master shooting from a sportsman perspective but he hoped he would never have to use his shooting skills to settle differences.
He turned to Bug-Out with a disgusted look and said, “We’re out.”
Tommy scratched the stocking cap covering his dome as he careened his Jeep Cherokee through his old stomping ground with Bug-Out sitting uncomfortably beside him. Tommy had not said a word to him since he picked him up three hours ago and all this silence was starting to get to the slim man. Bug-Out turned to his cousin who was still wearing an ice-grill.
“Yo man I know I fucked up royally! I had no business taking A.J. with me. He didn’t need to see me doing that.”
Tommy cut his eyes over at him while at a yellow light. “You looked me dead in the eye and told me that you were not on that shit!”
“I know.”
“Put me on a guilt trip for thinking what I knew in my heart was the truth!”
Bug-Out looked down at his sneakers and shook his head pitifully. “I know man. Sorry I lied. But you were the only one who still believed in me. Well you and my son. Now even he’s calling me a nasty junkie.”
“Well isn’t that what you are?” Tommy asked coldly and his cousin drop his head ashamed. “But you’re not entirely to blame. This is partly my fault as well,”
“How, is that possible?” Bug-Out meekly asked.
Tommy faced his cousin with no emotion. “I should’ve known you were lying. Cause your lips were moving!” he said unsympathetically. Or at least he did but pretended to be. “I don’t understand what the hell made you get hooked on that garbage in the first place!”
“Man, a whole bunch of shit.”
“Like?”
“No job. No money. Laquita cheating on me. It just happened.”
“Laquita cheated on you? With who?”
“This one-eyed fool from my projects named Johnny.”
“Johnny Hop, the one who heads up the Black Top crew?”
“So you know him?”
“Yeah I know his crippled drug dealing ass. That punk’s as soft as Church music.”
“Yeah well Church Music boned my wife!” Bug-Out hissed bitterly.
Tommy searched his face for the truth and came up short. He slammed on the brakes so hard that Bug-Out’s head hit the dashboard. Tommy spun to him pissed off. “Don’t play me, play Lotto, you’ll win quicker! Now that don’t hardly sound like Laquita. She’s put up with way too much of your shit in the past to start messing around now! What aren’t you telling me?”
Bug-Out clamed up and looked over at his cousin waiting for an answer. “Okay, I owed Johnny Hop some money. Serious money. And I couldn’t pay him back. He said maybe we could work something out that benefited all of us. Then he said he always liked Quita and that…the only way I could settle my debt was if-if…he slept with her.”
“So, you pimped out your wife? Why in the hell didn’t you come to me for help?” Tommy demanded. “You never had a problem taking money from me in the past.”
“Like I said this was serious loot. I’m talking gee’s. I couldn’t ask you for that kind’a money. And besides, I didn’t want you to know.”
“And just how did you come to be in his debt in the first place?”
There was more silence then Bug-Out whispered, “He was letting me cop drugs on credit. Before I knew it, I was in way over my head.” Tommy closed his eyes and shook his head. “But you don’t understand cousin. That bastard knew I was weak. He took advantage. I was the victim.”
“When I hear the word victim it makes me think about the innocent people who hire me to protect them-from people like you. How can you call yourself a victim when you are running around with these drug dealers, getting high and involving your family? You’re no victim, you’re a volunteer. The only victim is Laquita for having to degrade herself.” Tommy said then turned to his cousin. “Now get out before I do something we both regret!”
Bug-Out checked out his surroundings and noticed the large red and white sign that read, ‘Brooklyn Hospital’. “Yo Tee man why are we here?” He asked confused. Tommy angrily blew through swelled cheeks and cracked his knuckles. Bug-Out jumped out with the swiftness.
The two entered the Hospital’s automatic doors and Tommy went over and briefly spoke with the woman seated behind the information booth. She nodded and made a phone call. Minutes later a tall, thin Hippy looking white man with wire-rimmed glasses and salt and pepper hair tied in a short ponytail came over to the booth and the woman pointed him in the direction of Tommy and Bug-Out.
“Tommy Strong?” He asked them both in an uncertain voice.
Tommy stood up with his hand extended. “Hey man, how you doing?”
“Fine, fine and this must be your cousin Alonzo? Pleased to meet you.” He said offering his hand.
Bug-Out looked at the stranger’s hand like it was infected then turned to his cousin. “Tee, who is this Doctor Snuggles looking cat?”
“Chill-out,” Tommy warned his cousin.
The white man smiled unbothered by Bug-Out’s defensiveness like he was used to discourtesy. “Sorry. I’m Andrew Carmichael and I run the detoxification and outpatient programs here at the hospital where our moto is, ‘There’s no hope in dope.”
Bug-Out frowned and looked at Tommy peculiar. “What is this some kind of joke?”
“Nah this ain’t no joke! You heard the man. He runs a detox program. The same detox program that you are about to admit yourself in.”
“Yo man I don’t know about this.” Bug-Out said nervously.
Tommy looked at Bug-Out like his head was spinning. “You’re acting like you have options, when you don’t!”
Andrew cleared his throat. “Um Mister Strong we do not want to make your cousin feel uncomfortable about all of this. Keep in mind he needs our help not anger.”
“I got this,” Tommy grunted at Andrew then spun back to B
ug-Out. “Now Bug-Out don’t get me wrong, I love you like a brother…Hell, we are brothers. So I’m asking you, begging you, please admit yourself into detox and get some help.”
Bug-Out looked deep into his cousin’s eyes and could see the pain his addiction was causing him. It was the same look of anguish he saw in his mother’s eyes, his uncle’s eyes, his son’s and everyone else who loved him. He had to do something, if not for himself then for them. He twitched his lips and sized Andrew up and down then nodded his consent.
“Right this way Alonzo,” Andrew said.
“Yo call me Bug-Out.”
“Whatever makes you comfortable, Mister Bug-Out.” Andrew smiled.
“No just Bug-forget it man.” Bug-Out said agitated. “Aight man I’ll do it, but what about Laquita and A.J.?”
“Don’t sweat it. I’ll tell them.” Tommy said.
Bug-Out blew out his frustration and hugged his cousin then spun on his heels and walked away confident he would defeat his demons.
“Represent kid!” Tommy called out as his cousin and Andrew disappeared through the swinging doors at the end of the hall.
Havoc and Mayhem Page 15
