“So to answer my first question,” Julia said. “If you could choose to marry either of the twins exactly as they are now—Cobi being gay, and Eric being poor—oh yeah, but with one change: Cobi is straight. Which would—”
“No. You can’t just change Cobi to straight.”
“I just did, now answer the question. Cobi’s a rich, straight man, and Eric is a poor guy. Who would you marry?”
Austen smiled a little at the thought of the two men. “And I know them the way I know them now. They have the same personalities as they do now?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it’s not even close,” Austen said. “It would be Eric.”
“Girl, you let that man’s piece drive you crazy. Even if Cobi were rich and straight?”
“I know Eric’s had a hard past and has done some things he’s not proud of, but he’s trying to make those things right. I like who he is. I think he’s a good man,” Austen said, blushing a little.
“Ugh, you sicken me. It’s a good thing you don’t have to choose.”
“Ladies,” the saleswoman said, appearing back before Julia and Austen. “Have we made a decision? I know it’s incredibly hard, because—”
Austen covered her eyes with one hand, pointed a finger toward the rings, and began with “Eenie, meenie, minie, moe . . .” When she finished reciting the children’s rhyme, she uncovered her eyes to see that she had picked the solitaire. “Okay,” Austen said. “Wrap it up.”
91
It was 7:57 p.m., and Blac sat watching Eric sitting nervously behind the wheel of the Audi. Blac had never seen him look so frazzled.
He had his Cobi costume on—suit and tie—and would meet the blackmailer in his car, give him the briefcase of money that was sitting in the backseat, get the pictures and memory card in exchange, and that was to be it. Obviously, the money wouldn’t actually be given to the man. Eric would threaten him into giving over the pictures because he would be afraid of what Eric would do to him. If that didn’t work, then Eric would simply beat him until he handed the stuff over. At least that’s the way Eric explained it to Blac. It was a brutal plan, but in cases like this, sometimes brutality was the only answer.
But for some reason, Eric didn’t seem like he was up to the task, Blac thought, as he watched the clock on the dash hit 7:58.
The meeting was to take place in the rear parking lot of an abandoned grocery store. Eric and Blac were parked in front and down the street a half block from that store.
Eric told Blac the man would be in a dark blue Ford Fusion. The man wanted Cobi to come alone and bring the money. Eric was to park next to the man’s car and climb into the passenger seat to make the exchange.
“You all right, Eric?” Blac said. “It’s almost that time for you to be doin’ this.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Eric said, wiping a palm full of sweat from his brow. “I guess you gonna have to get out the car now, so I can drive around.”
Blac looked at Eric. If he didn’t want to admit it to himself that was okay, but Blac couldn’t ignore what was obvious. “You can’t do this, man.”
“What you talkin’ about?” Eric asked, offended.
“Dude, you look scared as shit. You can’t do it.”
Eric reached up, wrenched the rearview mirror around to take a look at himself. “Yeah, I don’t know what’s happenin’, man, but I need to get it under control,” Eric said, reaching to the backseat for the briefcase.
Blac reached back, grabbed the handle of the briefcase before Eric. “Let me do it.”
“What? I can’t—”
“Afford to let somethin’ go wrong, because now you got somethin’ to lose.”
“I don’t know what you talking about.”
“You got a reason to stay out of prison now, dude. You got a brother, you got money, a job, you got a future. I ain’t saying somethin’ gonna go wrong, but if it does, you don’t want to have your ass back behind bars.”
“And you do?”
“No. But I ain’t givin’ up as much as you if I go back. I told her I love her last night, but Theresa ain’t goin’ nowhere. And I ain’t planning on fucking this up,” Blac said, giving the briefcase a tug. “Just let me go, get it over with, and we can talk more about it later.”
Eric barely resisted as Blac pulled the case from his hand.
“Don’t worry about drivin’ around,” Blac said, pushing open his door. “I’ll just walk.”
A fearful look on his face, Eric said, “You know the car to look for? You gonna be okay doing this, right?”
“I’m cool,” Blac said, already outside of the car, slamming the door.
Eric watched Blac trot off, carrying the briefcase down the street and around the building.
After he was out of sight, Eric slumped back in the seat of the car. He slapped a hand to his forehead. “What the fuck did I just do?” he said. He grabbed the car door handle, pulled it, opened the door slightly, thought of getting out and stopping Blac, then hesitated. He closed the door and fell back into the seat.
Blac was already out of sight. He fucked up. Plain and simple.
When Cobi needed help, Eric played the hardened criminal, took on the obligation, like doing deals like this was what he did every day before lunch. But what did he ultimately do? He punked out and had to hand the job over to Blac.
Eric thought about what Blac had said, and he realized he was right. Eric did have something to lose now. A brother, a place to stay, a gig he liked, and a woman that he was really starting to feel something for. Eric didn’t think there was a lot of danger in what he had planned to do for Cobi. There surely wasn’t as much danger as some of the things he’d done in the past for himself, but for some reason, he wasn’t able to go through with it.
Eric leaned up in his seat, looked out the window in the direction Blac went. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and thought of texting Blac to see how things were going, but how stupid was that, he thought. Eric had turned his phone off in preparation for the encounter with the man, so when he looked down at the screen, he was surprised to see that he had more than half a dozen missed calls from Cobi.
Eric thought about retrieving one of the voicemails but decided against it. Whatever Cobi had to tell him, it was too late now. Eric had to deal with what was happening that moment, so he stuffed the phone back in his pocket.
Settling back into the seat again, Eric closed his eyes and knew all he could do now was pray that everything turned out all right.
Moments later, the car door opened and slammed shut. When Eric opened his eyes, Blac was sitting in the passenger seat, laughing, breathing heavily, a huge grin on his face.
“Come on. Let’s get the fuck out of here.” The briefcase was on his lap, and he was pulling out a small envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and passing it to Eric.
“What happened?”
“It went down like it was supposed to. Met the motherfucker, told him I wasn’t givin’ him the money, and told him to hand over the pictures. He said no, so I whupped his ass till he coughed them up, then I broke the fuck out.”
Eric glanced at what was in the envelope, then closed it when he saw bare brown flesh and the tiny memory card. “How you know this all of them? He could have copies, and now he’s probably more pissed and—”
“And he ain’t gonna do shit,” Blac said, fishing something else out of his front pocket and handing it to Eric.
It was the man’s driver’s license. A tubby, middle-aged, eyeglass-wearing man named Steven Ballard stared back at Eric from the ID card.
“Motherfucker was wearing a wedding ring. I told that fool if Mr. Winslow is ever threatened by him, or anybody else with some damn pictures, I was going to come to his house one night when he was out of town and have a slumber party with his wife, and if he had kids, I was gonna include them, too.”
Eric didn’t like the thought of that, didn’t like the thought that Blac was capable of thinking that. That must’ve
shown on his face, because Blac said, “I was just joking, man. But he don’t know that, so we got the pictures, and your brother keeps his money. Now start the car so we can get the fuck out of here.”
92
When they pulled up in front of Theresa’s house, Blac immediately noticed the SUV with the tinted windows parked across the street.
Eric shifted the car into park, turned to Blac, and held out his hand.
Blac gave Eric some dap.
“Dude, can’t thank you enough for what you did back there.”
“Ain’t nothin’. That’s what boys are for, right?”
After Eric’s car rolled down the street and disappeared around the corner, the big SUV’s doors opened. Two men stepped out, walked across the street and up to Blac. It was Bones and Rondo.
Blac quickly looked over his shoulder at the house. There was a light on in the living room window, but it was always on. He just hoped Theresa wasn’t in the front room, watching.
“What you want, man?” Blac said. “I told you I’m gonna have your money. I still got four days. Why the fuck you here?”
“Four days?” Bones said. He turned to Rondo, chuckled then said, “You hear that? Man think he got four days.” Bones turned back to Blac. “Fool, that money due tomorrow. You looking at last year’s calendar or something?”
“Hold it. Hold it! Cutty said I had ten days after the day I got out to get the—”
“That’s where you wrong right there, playa,” Bones said, holding up a hand. “Cutty said you had six days, not ten.”
“What!” Blac said. “You’re lying. You were right there. He said ten. How the fuck am I supposed to come up with that money four whole days earlier than—”
“Hold on, son,” Rondo said, stepping in front of Bones. He lifted the front of his jersey to reveal the revolver he had stuffed in the waist of his jeans. “You need to access yo’ uncrazy side before somebody wind up dead out here.”
“I’d do what the man says,” Bones said. He slapped a hand on Blac’s shoulder. “You’re gonna get that money just like you planned on gettin’ it before, just have it by tomorrow. And then, Rondo and myself gonna be back tomorrow night, just like we here now, to pick that shit up. Got it?”
“You gotta call Cutty and tell him—”
“Ain’t no callin’ Cutty,” Bones said. “Either it’s gonna be you givin’ me and Rondo the money, or you not givin’ it to us, and some nasty shit happening to you that’s gonna most likely leave you dead, or wishing you was. You got it?”
“I ain’t gonna have that money,” Blac said, knowing he hadn’t invested enough time with Cobi to expect him to give up that amount of cash.
Bones squeezed Blac’s shoulder, gave him a phony smile, then said, “Well, then, I’d advise you start saying good-bye to family and shit.”
Blac watched as the two men walked back to the truck, speaking low to each other and chuckling.
Blac let himself in the house, walked back to the bedroom, stepped in, and took off his clothes. He crawled into bed, rolled on his side away from Theresa, folded his hands under his head, and tried to think of a way to get that money tomorrow. His life depended on it.
A moment later, he felt Theresa’s arms around him.
His body tightened.
“You all right, baby?” Theresa asked. Her voice was soft and concerned.
“Just stuff on my mind,” Blac said.
93
I sat in my father’s study for two and half hours believing I had sent my brother back to prison.
I paced, stared at the clock, prayed, yelled, and almost cried.
I had called Eric several times telling him to abort the plan, that we would just pay the man the money and avoid having something go wrong—someone getting hurt, the police getting involved, and my brother finding himself back behind bars.
I would never forgive myself, I kept thinking. With each minute that passed, I told myself that would be what happened. It was the reason Eric didn’t pick up his phone. He had gotten arrested and soon would be calling from the police station.
I should have listened to my sister, I thought, standing from behind my father’s desk, walking over to the wall where an antique clock hung. I looked up at it. Eric was already half an hour late.
I closed my eyes and prayed.
“Lord, I’m sorry for putting my brother in this position. It was wrong of me to think that my freedom and my life are more valuable than his, and to put him at risk to suffer again, as he’s done for so much of his life. Jesus, if you find it in your will to bring my brother back to me just once more, I swear, I will never so easily send him away, and I will do everything in my power to keep him out of the jails that have so long imprisoned him. In your name, I pray, amen.”
“That was touching, bro,” I heard someone say from behind me.
I opened my eyes and spun around to see Eric standing just inside my father’s study, a smile on his face.
I ran over to him and hugged him tight. “You made it back!”
“Course I did,” Eric said, clapping me on the back a few times. He held out my briefcase to me. “It’s all there. And . . .” he said, pulling out an envelope from his suit jacket pocket, “the pictures.”
I gave them a self-conscious look.
“I didn’t look through them,” Eric said. “Just checked real quick to make sure it was what he said.”
“I appreciate this, Eric, but even with the pictures, how do we know—”
“That he ain’t keep others?” Eric finished for me. He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out the man’s driver’s license and handed it to me. “I scared him pretty bad. Told him if he ever thought of doin’ what he said, I was gonna pay him a visit.”
“And he believed you?”
Eric balled up his face into an angry scowl. “This is the face of a hardened criminal. Wouldn’t you believe me if I threatened you?”
“It looks more like the face of a gay state’s attorney, so I don’t know how scared I’d really be.” I laughed.
“Well, you don’t have nothing to worry about no more, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, staring at my brother. “You heard my prayer, right?”
“Yeah, kind of sappy.”
“I meant every word of it.”
“I appreciate that, for real.”
“It’s just how I feel.”
Eric smiled bashfully. His cell phone rang. He dug in his pocket, pulled it out, and looked at the screen. “It’s Jess,” he said, surprise on his face, looking uncertain as to whether he would take the call.
“Well, answer it.”
“Hello,” Eric said. And after a moment, “Yeah. Yeah. I can do that.”
I stood in front of him, hoping she was giving my brother some kind of good news.
“Okay, bye,” Eric said. He slipped the phone back into his pocket and stared blank-faced at me.
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What did she say?”
“She wants to meet tomorrow.”
94
The next day, Eric pulled the Audi into the parking spot facing the public park. He shut off the car and looked out on the grassy area. There were kids running around, playing on the swing sets, chasing their dogs as their parents sat on nearby benches watching them.
He stepped out the car, just as Jess pulled up beside him in a black Infiniti sedan with tinted windows.
The driver’s side door opened, and Jess stepped out, wearing a denim jacket, jeans, and heels. “Morning, Eric,” Jess said, walking around the car, toward the back door.
“What’s going on, Jess? Why’d you ask to meet me here?”
Jess ignored the question, continued around the car, and opened the back door.
From the other side of the car, Eric said, “You ain’t going to answer my question? You call the police on me. Now this. Why you ask me to come out here?”
Jess looked up at Eric from over the roof of the car. “Have a little patience and
you’ll find out,” Jess said, lowering her head into the car.
From his side, Eric couldn’t see into the dark windows, so he slowly walked around the car to see what Jess was up to.
He got a glimpse inside the backseat. First he saw a pair of little legs, a portion of a child’s car seat, then as Jess hoisted her from it, Eric looked into his daughter’s face for the first time in two years.
The child was bright-eyed and more beautiful than Eric remembered. She had big, black pupils, a button nose, and a dimple in her cheek, just like her mother’s. Her hair was shiny and brushed back into one long, thick, braided ponytail.
She wore a pink outfit that matched the ribbons around her braid.
Jess set Maya down in front of her father.
Eric stared down at the little girl, wanting to cry at how beautiful she was.
“Do you know who that is?” Jess asked Maya.
Maya looked up at Eric with her big eyes and scooted a little closer to her mother, grabbing her leg. She shook her head, shyly stuck a finger in her mouth, and in a soft voice said, “No.”
Eric laughed.
“That’s your father. Can you give your daddy a hug?” Jess said, kneeling down to Maya. “Give your daddy a hug, then we’ll let you go play on the swings.”
Maya looked over her shoulder at the swings and all the kids playing on them, then turned to Eric, extending her arms.
Eric laughed again, quickly kneeled down, and took his little girl in an embrace. He squeezed her as tight as he dared, and as much as he fought it, he could not stop a tear from falling from his eye.
Ten minutes later, Jess had told Eric everything. They sat on a bench just outside the playground, and watched Maya play with the other children.
“So you’re admitting it,” Eric said, a hurtful expression on his face. “You and everyone else who testified against me lied. Why the fuck you telling me now, Jess?” Eric said, his voice low.
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