by RM Johnson
“How about I answer that question a little later, because right now, we should go inside,” Nate said, pulling his key from the ignition.
“Okay, Daddy.”
Nate pushed opened the door, stood, closed it, and reached out for the handle on the back door when he heard the flapping sound of quickly moving rubber-soled shoes racing toward him.
Nate spun around to catch the blurred glimpse of a fist flying at him.
He was struck across the jaw. Pain erupted in his head, stars exploding behind his eyes, as he fell to one knee.
Nate tried to recover, attempted to rise, but was kicked in the gut.
He flipped over onto his back, his head cracking against the concrete.
Nate thought he would vomit, or black out, but he fought not to lose consciousness.
His son was in the car, and there was a man, maybe two, on top of him now, beating him. Nate had no idea why, but he turned over on his stomach and tried to pull himself to his hands and knees, tried to fight back.
Thoughts started to run wild through Nate’s head. He was worth millions. Maybe the thugs beating him were trying to take his son, hold the child for ransom.
Nate managed to lift himself to his knees, his forehead pressed against the ground, the taste of blood in his mouth, spilling over his lips.
He raised his head, opened his eyes to see a man standing over him wearing a black ski mask.
“My s—” Nate attempted to say, to tell the man that his son was in the car. But the man jumped, kicking Nate in the face.
Nate whirled on his knees in a half circle, blood spraying from his mouth, his arms flying out before him. He crashed on his belly again.
“Ain’t you gonna get some of this?” Nate heard the man say to his accomplice.
Then Nate thought he heard the sound of his son crying. Nate began crawling toward the car, worried that Nathaniel would be heard, yanked out, taken from him. He was thankful for the dark tint on the glass, hoping they would not see the boy.
Nate crawled some more, his mouth full of blood now. He spit and slowly opened one of his swelling eyes.
He saw another man wearing a mask, standing hesitant some ten feet away from him.
Nate reached out a hand to him, as if feeling that the man wanted this no more than Nate did. Feeling as though this man could save him.
But his hand was stomped on by the first assailant.
Nate screamed out in agony, feeling a bone snap under the pressure. His cry was cut short as he was kicked in the stomach again, in the ribs over and over. Finally he was dealt an overwhelming blow to his head by the man’s boot.
This time the world went silent, except for the sound of his rapidly beating heart. He no longer heard the man yelling, nor his son screaming. Everything was threatening to go dark, but Nate fought again to stay conscious. He could not black out, knowing that his son could be gone when he awakened.
Nate stared out of his ballooning eyes. He saw a pair of legs in front of him, and then farther away, the pair of legs belonging to the other man.
The man closest to Nate came nearer, stooped down so that he could be almost face to face with Nate—eye to eye.
“I told you not to fuck with her no more, but you didn’t listen,” the man said through the black mask. “You think things are the same, but they’re not.” The man peeled the black mask up from under his chin to fully expose his identity. It was Lewis.
He said, “Don’t make me come back here,” and then he spat in Nate’s face.
Nate watched the man stand and walk away.
The other man remained a moment longer, shook his head, then obediently followed when he was called.
Suddenly, Nate heard his son crying again.
He turned, his head spinning, trying to locate the car.
Nate winced in extreme pain, turning himself toward the sound. He could not lift himself, so he desperately reached out for the door handle, his mind filling with anger and frustration, because he knew he would not reach it.
The beating was too much. The pain was too much, and the world was fading out around him again. He continued to extend his trembling hand toward the car, a puddle of blood flowing freely from his mouth and accumulating on the ground beneath his chin.
He could make it, Nate kept telling himself, but he knew better. He felt his senses leaving him, his eyes closing, and as he lost consciousness, his body falling limp in the driveway, Nate prayed that his son would be okay.
39
When Monica stepped into her house from work some time after nine o’clock, she found Lewis in the living room, his feet kicked up on the coffee table, watching BET music videos, smoking a joint.
“Dammit, Lewis,” Monica said, closing the door and walking into the room. “I told you I didn’t want you doing that stuff in this house.”
“What are you talking about?” Lewis said after blowing smoke from his nose and putting out the joint. “You weren’t saying that when we were doing it together.”
“That was once,” Monica said. She grabbed the remote from beside him on the sofa and changed the channel to MSNBC. The wisecracking Keith Olbermann was talking about the 2008 presidential elections.
“I was watching videos.”
“That’s all you ever watch,” Monica said, sitting.
“Well I don’t want to hear about no damn presidential elections. That ain’t got nothing to do with me.”
“It would if you voted.”
“Well I don’t, so can we watch something else?”
Monica clicked the TV off. “What was up with you this morning?”
“Nothing.”
“No. It was something. You didn’t say a word to me at breakfast.”
“Everything was cool.”
“No it wasn’t,” Monica said. “Why can’t you ever just tell me what’s on your mind?”
“Because there was nothing on my mind.”
“Fine,” Monica said, standing. “I’m getting a bottle of water. Do you want anything from the kitchen?”
“No.”
When she returned, Monica sat back down next to Lewis, took a swallow from her water, and said, “So how’s school going?”
“It’s good.”
“You doing okay in your classes?”
“Yeah,” Lewis said, sounding the slightest bit irritated.
“Do you not want to talk about this?”
“There are a thousand other things we could talk about.”
“Suggest something.”
“I don’t know. I’m just sayin’.”
“How about what you plan on doing once you finish school.”
Lewis turned to Monica, gave her an incredulous look. “You serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious. Have you thought about what your plans are?”
“I don’t know. Freddy and I are thinking about starting a real-estate company, or maybe I might open up my own barber shop. I haven’t given it much thought.”
“You think you might want to start?”
Lewis pulled himself from the sofa, stood in front of Monica. “What the hell is this? Are you my counselor now? Is this career day or some shit?”
“No. Nothing like that. I just think the future is important, and I thought we’d talk about it, considering we’re going to get married.”
“Well, I’m fine, alright. Just let me worry about my own future, okay?” Lewis said.
“Okay,” Monica said. “I won’t ever ask you about it again.”
40
Nate sat on an emergency room bed, behind the door of a small exam room, wearing a blue hospital gown.
He had been given a shot of some sort of painkiller, but he was still in agony.
Nate had been sent through a battery of tests after arriving at the hospital. X-rays of his skull, his arms, hands, and ribs had been taken. Nothing was broken. His ribs were bruised, which was the pain he felt when he breathed. A CAT scan had been taken of his head, which revealed a concussion.
His bottom lip had been cut open, needing several stitches. His left eye was bruised so badly it required a patch, while the right had just enough swelling that he could only partially open it.
The rest of his face was covered in blue and black bruising.
“You got roughed up pretty badly, Mr. Kenny,” the petite Asian physician told Nate. “The swelling will go down after a few days, the bruising in about a week, and then you should be back to normal.”
“And the pain?” Nate said, looking and sounding as though his mouth were packed with gauze, even though it wasn’t.
“I’ll get you a prescription for that, and then we can let you go. Okay?” the doctor said, patting Nate on the shoulder.
“Okay,” Nate said, watching the doctor step out of the room and close the door.
Nate had been waiting, rocking himself, trying to endure the pain silently, wondering how long it would be till he could see his son.
He looked up when he saw the doorknob turn.
Tim walked in, worry on his face. “What the hell happened?”
“Where’s my son?”
“Nathaniel’s fine. He’s in the waiting room with Mrs. Weatherly.”
“I want to see him.”
“He can’t come back here.”
“I want to see him!”
“The doctor said she’ll be right back with your prescription, then we’ll go and you can see Nathaniel then, okay?” Tim stepped closer to Nate. “What happened?”
“I thought he was going to kill me, Tim,” Nate said, glassy eyed, his voice low. “He just kept on kicking me, and I thought he was going to kill me, right there in front of my son. That bastard!”
“Do you know who it was?”
“It was Lewis,” Nate said, wincing.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. It was broad daylight, and he came to my house, beat the hell out of me, and left me there. If it wasn’t for Mrs. Weatherly coming out and finding me…” Nate lowered his head.
Tim placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Nate, everything is going to be fine.”
“No,” Nate said, looking up. “Not for him it’s not. He’s going to pay for this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to make sure that Monica leaves him. Then I’m going to take everything he has. I’m going to make him wish he were dead.”
41
Freddy sat at the kitchen table after washing the dishes from the frozen pizza that he and Kia had finished eating not long ago. Before him sat an envelope he was anguishing over. He had gotten it from the mailbox when he walked in this evening.
It was his scores from the real-estate licensing board test. This would determine whether or not he had passed, whether he had his license and would be one step closer to fulfilling his dream or would continue to be the do-nothing nigga that Kia’s father had called him.
That was how Freddy felt that moment, how he felt all day after watching Lewis beat up that Mr. Kenny guy.
Lewis was trying to urge Freddy on, but Freddy didn’t want any part of that. He was scared that he would get in there, throw one blow, deliver one kick, have it start getting good to him, and then find out that the guy was dead.
So Freddy stayed on the sidelines, watched. And he was glad he did. He reminded himself he didn’t need any more violent contact with anyone else for a long time.
What he needed to be doing was concentrating on his future, which was why he was so worried about what was in the envelope. Freddy picked it up and thought of not opening it, because something was telling him that he had failed. He had never really accomplished anything, so why would this be any different?
But then again, Freddy told himself, that was maybe because he had never tried anything, never put forth an effort to achieve anything. This time was different. He had taken the course, studied for his test, and finished as one of the top five students in the class.
Remembering that gave Freddy the confidence to tear open the envelope and look at his scores, whatever they might be.
He held the page in his hand, scanned it nervously, finally locating the score.
He had received an 83 percent. Passing was 75 percent.
Freddy held the sheet in both fists, smiling, a tear almost coming to his eyes. He just couldn’t believe it.
All of a sudden, he shot up from the chair and practically ran through the house, down the stairs, and into the basement, where Kia lay in bed, watching television. Freddy jumped into bed with his girlfriend.
“What are you running around here like a five-year-old for?” Kia asked.
Freddy thumbed down the TV’s volume with the remote, turned to Kia, and said, “I told you I was gonna make something of myself.”
“Yeah, and I believe you.”
“Well, I want to give you a little proof,” Freddy said, handing Kia the letter.
“What’s this?”
“For the past few months, I’ve been taking real-estate classes. I didn’t tell anybody until I was sure I passed the test.”
Kia looked up from the sheet of paper, a smile spreading across her face. “So since you’re telling me, that means…”
“That’s right, baby,” Freddy said. “That means I passed.”
“Woohoo, baby!” Kia said, throwing her arms around him, squeezing him. “Prove my daddy wrong, sweetheart. Show him what you got!”
Freddy leaned out of the embrace so he could look into Kia’s eyes. “Are you proud of me, baby?”
“Prouder than you can ever know.”
42
As Monica walked the path through the park after the third morning in a row of not seeing Nate, she told herself this would be the last time. This had become her before-work detour, parking the car at the exact time she had before, getting out, strolling along, and acting as though she was not looking for Nate and his son.
Monica waved at the graying senior couple in matching sweatsuits she had seen for the last three mornings. She moved in the direction of the swings and monkey bars where she had seen Nate before. Children had played there as they had the other mornings, parents standing along the outskirts, lovingly watching them. From that distance, she could not see Nate.
Monica looked nice today, wore her hair pinned up, a curl hanging in her face. It was the way Nate used to like it, but as she looked in the mirror this morning, she had tried to convince herself that it had nothing to do with her choice. She stopped when she saw a man she thought was Nate sitting at a bench on the other side of the play lot. She walked over to him. He was looking away, intent on the kids running around in the play area before him. Monica sat down without him knowing, then said, “This was going to be the last time.”
Nate turned, and immediately Monica noticed the bruises on his face, the blackness around both of his eyes.
She gasped. “What happened to you?”
Nate smiled, hesitated for a moment, then said, “I was out with Tim and his wife the other night and a man said some obscene things to her. Tim was in the bathroom, and I couldn’t let it slide. I punched the guy, he punched me back. Before I knew it, Tim comes out, joins in, along with the rest of the bar.”
Monica reached out, touched the side of his face. “How does it feel?”
“Better now.”
Monica quickly pulled her hand away.
“What’s in the bag?” Nate asked, nodding at the Toys “R” Us bag she was holding.
“It’s a little something I picked up for Nathaniel. Did you bring him?”
“Mommy!” Monica turned to see Nathaniel running across the grass toward her. She stood up, walked a few steps toward the boy, and then stooped down. Nathaniel ran into her arms, hugging her around the neck.
“Mommy!” he yelled again.
“I bought you something,” Moni
ca said, sitting back down and handing Nathaniel the gift-wrapped box out of the bag.
“Can I open it?” Nathaniel asked Monica.
Monica looked to Nate. He nodded his head.
“Sure,” Monica said, smiling. “Open it.”
Nathaniel tore the wrapper open as Monica watched happily.
He lifted the top off the box, dug through the tissue paper, and said, “Wow!” after pulling out the red fire truck. “Can I play?” he asked.
“What do you say?” Nate said.
“Thank you.”
Nathaniel kissed Monica on the cheek and ran back over to the other children playing, the fire engine in his arms. Monica sat back on the bench beside Nate quietly, and they watched Nathaniel, as if they were the proud parents.
“He still calls me mommy. Why haven’t you stopped him from doing that?”
“You don’t seem to mind.”
“But it’s not true. And I’m not coming here anymore. The only reason I came today was to tell you that.”
“You could have called,” Nate said.
“I had the gift for your son.”
“That was very sweet of you.”
Monica moved as though she was getting up to leave. “I really need to be getting to work.”
“No, you don’t,” Nate said, looking out at the children. “You’re the boss, right? You go in when you want, just like me. How’s that going, anyway?”
“I own three stores. Employees, merchandise, insurance, complaints. Sometimes it can be a complete pain in the ass.”
Nate turned to her. “But you love it, don’t you?”
Monica smiled. “Wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
Nate smiled with her. “I know.”
Monica had not seen that smile in more than a year, had forgotten how warm it could be. She felt herself trying to recall the last time she felt like this with Nate, but then forced herself to stop. She turned away from him abruptly, saying, “But all that might change today. I get my quarterly reports, and who knows, tomorrow the whole thing might be shut down.”
“I don’t think that’s the case. But if you ever need any advice, or just want to talk about your next move, you know you can bring that to me.”
