Smoke and Mirrors

by Tiana Laveen

  “So anyway.” He pulled casually at his sleeve. “My money is contingent upon all of that. Therefore, the hair is done, the nails, and they are working out, too, as well as going to the doctor on a regular. I get their teeth fixed if I need to as well and I even paid for one lady’s tummy tuck. We got it taken care of, and she was good to go. That investment worked well for me. Guerilla tactics are for the fucking lazy pimps, the ones that can’t use their minds to keep their hos in check, plus, they like that shit. What your uncle did was sloppy, fucked up, and went against all the pimp codes and laws.”

  Oh no…he brought the conversation back full circle…

  “He was a wannabe pimp, deranged and desperate. I suspect he may have been on some shit, but regardless, I’m sorry this happened to you, baby.” He turned her face to his. “You deserved so much better. But you know what? Look at what you’ve done? You got away from him obviously, and took your ass to school and became one of the baddest and youngest Madams in the game. You earned your damn dues. My father was a drug addict, too, just like your mother. I can relate to you, baby. You loved your mother more than this whole fucked up world; I loved my father, too. The drugs stole him away from me, just like they stole your mother, but our parents left us with the survival skills we needed to make it through.”

  “…That’s how he died, Smoke?”

  He looked confused for a moment, as though just realizing he’d never told her what happened to his dad. No one knew what happened to Brent Sr.; it was hush-hush on the streets. His legacy was kept intact.

  “Yeah baby, that’s what happened…” He looked away, staying quiet for a while. “I hate that for you. I hate that you still hurt, after all this time. You were just a baby, but you’re my baby now, and it’s going to be okay.”

  Pulling her face closer, he placed a delicate kiss along her forehead. She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around his waist and rested, needing him close, needing him like she never had before. And despite what he had to do, his crazy, busy schedule, he simply let her stay as long as she wished. He didn’t move one muscle until she got up on her own accord, stood on her own two feet, feeling better, refreshed and most importantly, loved…

  *

  SMOKE MADE HIS way home, his brain swelling with information he wished he had never known. The emotionally draining visit with his Pussycat left him feeling a sort of anger he thought he’d divorced himself from, years ago. He didn’t expect that reaction within. In his mind, he’d planned everything so much differently. He’d hand her the coffee, and then they’d undress and go relax somewhere in the house for an hour or two, kiss and cuddle, maybe watch television, just chill and talk about the trip he wanted to take with her…just the two of them. He had a lot of shit to do that day, and he was behind schedule, but he missed her so fucking bad, he needed to see her.

  He knew she’d taken a much needed, overdue day off, and he attempted to exploit that precious time for himself, get in on the action. Instead, the only thing that was exploited was his exquisite Pussycat, and a new fury and sadness fermented within him.

  She’d gone there…

  Her admission took him down a mental pathway covered in gore and agonizing reminiscences—awakened the hurt, scratched violently at the crusted scabs, made them bleed all over themselves and sting to the touch. Every time he opened himself up to her, or she to him, they both ended up a damn mess. But it was cathartic… And now, he knew how to handle it, for he expected it from her, and she from him, but that didn’t make it any less excruciating. She was healing him from the inside out, and though timing is unpredictable, he wished that someone had shown him the path to healing many years ago, especially when his best friend, his favorite person in the entire world, had died. His father, the revered Brent J. Patterson the II, had left him all alone… He never wanted to feel that way again, so vulnerable. Thus, Brent was careful to not hand himself over to anyone. No one would receive his love, and they were lucky if they received his like. He kept his heart sealed off, closed forever. Helplessness and defenselessness were emotions he’d never bow down to again…until he met Paris…

  Gaining momentum on the highway, he hastened to his house. After that, he’d go right back over to the apartments. He had business to attend to, things to do! But the memory had been awakened, and it kept returning, demanding to be heard, forcing him to look it in the worn eye and re-live it, just one last time…

  “No! Nooooo!”

  Brent tried to no avail to burst past the yellow tapelines wrapped around the condo entrance that he and his father shared. It was their hideaway, their humble abode. Their parallel universe, the place where they had their pow-wows over a bottle of beer and a joint or two. They’d pass like ships in the night, gathering in the evenings on occasion to eat, converse and have man-to-man discussions that changed his whole damn life. His bond with his father had grown incredibly strong, solid. His father was his best friend in the whole fucking world. Their relationship was impenetrable. He understood the man down to his heart and soul. After some time, he knew his father so well, he couldn’t help but love him, and even try to forgive him for the past. He’d managed that, too. But…this, well this simply couldn’t be…

  “A! I live there!” he hollered over the crowd, waving his arm frantically in the air. “Can you let me through please?!” he screamed at one of the police officers on the scene. In his mind and soul, he knew something was terribly awry. His spirit had already told him that life as he knew it would soon be stomped on, shot and abandoned into a dumpster of soiled memories.

  “What’s your name?” the police officers asked.

  “Brent Patterson Jr. My father’s name is Brent Patterson, too.”

  “Okay, do you mind stepping over here, please?”

  Suddenly, he felt as if he weighed five hundred pounds. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to hear, and didn’t want to breathe.

  ‘If I just stay right here, everything is still fine. If I don’t say anything else, just shut everything off inside, then my life will still be okay…’

  But it was too late.

  The cop gently pulled his arm, bringing him closer, and said in a whisper, “Your father is at UCLA Medical Center.”

  “What happened? What happened to him?! Is he gonna be alright? Tell me!” His heart grew spastic as his eyes burned with unfallen tears while he glared into the cop’s dark brown eyes.

  “Someone will drive you over, okay? I can’t give any more information.”

  Everything after that point seemed rather dreamlike. He sat in the police car, his head on the passenger’s side window. He remained silent, loath to utter a word, whisper or even form a thought to in his head. Twisting his hands over and over, he tried to calm his nerves to no avail. Once they arrived, the car had barely stopped when he jumped out and raced inside.

  “I need the room number for Brent Patterson, please! Brent Patterson!” he repeated as he slapped the information counter. He glared at the slow moving receptionist, a head full of short, wavy salt and pepper hair, thick jowls and sad, glossy, russet eyes. She rolled closer in her chair, her fat feet shoved in black old lady shoes skidding to and fro as she chewed on what appeared to be a wad of gum. Looking up at him with those eyes, she typed sluggishly into her computer.

  “What’s the name again?”

  “Jesus fucking Christ! Why the hell do you even work here? I said Brent Patterson!”

  He caught the eye of a security guard who began to wander closer by.

  The woman seemed to deliberate on scolding him, tell him a thing or two for the way he’d behaved, but decided against it as she peered over her glasses then looked back down at the screen.

  “He could be dead or dying at this very moment. Can you please hurry up?!!!” A fresh tear fell down his face. He hadn’t cried in a long ass time; it felt somewhat foreign, taking him by surprise.

  “He’s in room 446C.” She gave her gum a couple more dedicated chews, turned away, and pointed behind her.
“Go down this hall and get on the elevator. Take it to the fourth floor, then make a sharp right.”

  He dashed off, his feet not carrying him fast enough. Once he got to the elevator, he pounded the button with his index finger and deliberated on going up the steps. He turned his back to race up them, but then the elevator opened. He pushed through the small crowd getting off and slapped the fourth floor button hard and repeatedly. It stung.

  Two days prior, he’d graduated high school… Two days ago, his mother and father were cheering for him in the stands… Two weeks ago, he’d finished another flying class just for the hell of it. Two hours ago, he decided he might go to school to try to be a pilot, and wanted to tell his father the great news… Two days ago, he felt like he was living the life. Two days ago, the world was gravy with more gravy on top. Two days ago, he saw his parents hug, and seem to care about one another for the sake of the life they’d created—him. Two days ago, he admitted to the man that he was dating a young lady, and his father offered no judgment, only support. Two days ago, no one could’ve told him that he wasn’t a prince and his father a king.

  Two minutes ago, the rug was pulled out from underneath him, and now he’d landed on the damn floor, wrestling with a heart wrenching, mind-bending, emotional concussion, and he just wished he’d lose fucking consciousness!

  He entered the hospital room and held his father’s hand. It was cool to the touch. The man lay still, attached to a number of noisy machines he couldn’t recognize, and once the sallow-faced drug counselor had arrived, a sullen look in her mopey eyes, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that his father hadn’t kicked his habit; his habit kicked him. It began with the increased drinking and marijuana. He didn’t mind too much, that’s just the way Dad was. The man still took care of him and apparently his business, and proved, more times than not, a blast to be around.

  So Brent sat there, in that sterile environment, and he simply couldn’t take it anymore. He drifted away into a daydream, anything to ease the pain… He thought about his bedroom in the condo, about his model planes, about how he wished he could climb inside of one and fly away…

  His old man had paid a mint for some of his model planes, collectible and rare. He even let him go to expensive flight classes without questioning it at all. Regardless, his father still wouldn’t get him hip to the game, share secrets of the life, so he decided to remember what Dad said a couple of years prior…

  “Do what you love…”

  He recalled looking at his model airplanes in the curio cabinet in his bedroom, and envisioned himself inside of them, flying around, jet setting, taking celebrities out to their private venues. He’d then pretend to fly a Boeing and there would be turbulence, so much so, he’d have to do an emergency landing and end up saving everyone’s lives…

  Those damn silly daydreams…

  He came back into the here and now and focused on his father, lying there, half dead…tubes and ugly wound up mechanical things wrapped around his pale, bruised body. Daydreams wouldn’t save Brent this time. Daydreams couldn’t and wouldn’t let him escape this nightmare…

  “Dad, I don’t know if you can hear me or not,” he said, and sniffed. “But I want to tell you that I love you, and that I’ve had the best years ever with you. Thank you for taking me in.” He looked down at his lap, hating that his jeans were now splotched with his falling tears. He reached for a Kleenex behind him, and dabbed at his eyes. “I know you and Mom aren’t friends or anything like that, but it was nice to see you two being civil to one another while we were out the other day. She even laughed at your inappropriate jokes during my graduation dinner.” He smiled, now ignoring his wet lips, saturated with the proof of his broken heart. “I respect you, Dad. And you were wrong; you’re not an asshole. You’re a good person. I even appreciate the occasional arguments we’ve had, because you still treated me like an equal, like my opinion counted for somethin’.” He rubbed his thumb into the palm of his hand, nervously toiling over his pain.

  “Dad, I wish…” He slumped low, for grief was

  Breaking.

  Him.

  D

  o

  w

  n…

  After a few choked up seconds, he rested his elbow on his thigh, and buried his head between his knees. He shook like a damn leaf, and his sobbing echoed over and over in his skull. Reached for his father’s hand once more, he caressed it with his fingertips, trying to pull himself together to no avail.

  “I wish, you hadn’t gone and done this!” He sobbed a bit louder now as his sorrow morphed into outright, unadulterated anger. “What was so bad that you’d start using cocaine again, huh? What was so fuckin’ bad that you couldn’t come talk to me?” He looked up and stabbed his chest with his finger. “I thought we were best friends! All my boys look up to you! Everybody always asked how you were doing. They wanted a dad like you!” He sat up, got to his feet, ready to hand the man his ass on a platter. He hit his chest as he made his points, his face burning hot with rage and mourning.

  “You had it all! You were living the American dream. I can’t wrap my head around this shit, Dad!” Grabbing his hair with both hands, he pulled hard and winced in pain. When he released, his scalp burned, but he didn’t care. “You seemed so proud of me at my graduation. You bought me my new ride, sat up with me the other night after Mama went back home, and we just talked about every damn thing! I even told you about Cheryl, my girlfriend! I introduced you to her at the graduation dinner and everything! I explained to you why I didn’t want to mess around with any of your employees anymore. It was because I didn’t want to cheat on her, Dad… hurt her the way you hurt Mama!

  “You asked me how the sex was and I told you the damn truth, knowing you might make fun of me or something. But I didn’t care, because she’s important to me! I told you she’s not ready to have sex, so I’m waiting on ’er.” He shrugged, secretly hoping that the conversation would interest his father enough for him to open his damn eyes. “What I didn’t tell you is that I think I love her, Dad…that’s why I’m waiting! I’ve never been in love before and quite honestly, it scares the shit out of me ’cause I see what love did to you and Mama!

  “I only got one friend whose parents are still married and seem happy…and that’s Carl’s silly ass.” He grinned, then blew his nose. “Everybody else’s parents are either some damn divorced cougars tryna fuck their sons’ friends… fuckin’ milfs! Or some horny guy going through a midlife crisis… You know, the ones that leave their wife for their secretary or some shit like that. You and Mama aren’t married anymore but I got what I needed, okay? You’ve made mistakes, Mama’s made mistakes, I’ve made mistakes, too…but we are family. Dad! We’re all we got!” His voice trembled as he stared down at his father, hoping the man heard at least half of what he was saying.

  “Dad, I love you, man! You gotta pull out of this! You gotta breathe on your own!” He looked at the monitors; the heart rate was dropping… “Do you hear me?!” Brent screamed. “You gotta come outta this! You owe me!” He was certain he was losing his mind now. “No!” He pointed to the monitor. “Don’t you do this! Don’t you do this to me! You already walked out on me once before!” The tears kept pouring, and his lips kept moving; in the distance, he could hear hurried footsteps and announcements on a PA system.

  “You didn’t check on me, nothing! Mama struggled; she cracked or something! You left me with a woman that was bat shit crazy! And you knew she was fuckin’ crazy, you bastard!!! You left me with HER!” He sobbed so hard and loud, he could barely catch his breath. “You didn’t send any money, and I know you fell on hard times, but why in the fuck did I have to call you, huh?! You shoulda fought harder for me! I was dyin’ in that house!” He pointed his finger at him as his anger grew to a fever pitch. “I didn’t ask you to love Mama, Dad. I didn’t even ask you to like her, but for me, man… for me, you coulda come through! You’re selfish! Just like the fuck you said! If you leave me, you’ll be selfish all over aga
in! You already left me once! Abandoned me! DON’T YOU FUCKING LEAVE ME AGAIN! Wake up, you son of a bitch!!!” he screamed at the top of his lungs as he lunged at his father, grabbing the man by the hospital robe and shaking him hard and fast. “WAKE UP! DON’T YOU LEAVE ME!!! DON’T YOU FUCKIN’ LEAVE ME!!!”

  Suddenly, he felt arms wrapped around him, pulling his flailing body away. He screamed out, wailing, feeling the strain in his neck as more hands tugged at him. Uncontrollable, he tossed about, causing people to scream out that they needed help to restrain him. He was fighting for his life, and his father’s, too…

  He stomped and kicked in the air until everything seemed to fade away. Several minutes later, the hospital Chaplin arrived. The man placed his hand on his knee as he sat in the family waiting area…feeling numb, feeling brain dead.

  “I understand you’re having a hard time.” He spoke softly, his light yellow thin sweater the color of the spring sun after a long, hard rain.

  Brent simply nodded, unable to offer anything else.

  “I understand you and your father were very close. And I understand this is quite difficult. I assure you, regardless of the prognosis, the hospital is doing everything they can. He had a very serious heart attack, and his heart stopped beating after his overdose. It has stopped once again, but don’t lose hope. They believe his overdose was accidental, if that gives you any peace of mind.”

  Brent gave the man a blank look, then turned back away. The guy had rattled off his information with a slight smile. He appreciated him for trying. Regardless, the sting in his heart continued to grow, burning his insides to a crisp.

  “I don’t believe in accidental overdoses.” Brent sat up, his voice unwavering as he pulled from some underground reserve deep in his soul, and gathered his wits. He sucked his teeth for a moment or two, clasping his hands together. “Some people want to die, and they choose all sorts of lay-low suicide methods.”