by Tiana Laveen
She took off, driving like some maniac with a cigarette dangling out the side of her mouth. She put her foot on and off the gas and brake, making Saint feel like a bobble head doll. The woman looked in her rear-view mirror at one point and said, “Why are the X-Men in my damn car, too? Didn’t nobody invite Thor, Wolverine, and the Village People Y.M.C.A. Indian! I thought you was just comin’ alone, Saint? I ain’t make enough food to feed all you big tribal mothafuckas, either! Why are all of your friends so damn huge? Even Raphael on swole! They’re gonna fuck up my struts and shocks! My muffler ’bout to be draggin’ and sparkin’ on the ground like the 4th of July.”
Saint rolled his eyes at the woman and hung on to his seatbelt.
“Pam, I figured we’d kill two birds with one stone. I can visit Ira and they can see how the L.A. Branch is doing. I haven’t been to the office in a while.”
“Fine, I’ll try to scrape together some more food and call Porsche right quick to pull the cots out, make room for three more.”
“Thank you. We really appreciate it,” Cruz stated politely, but Pam ignored him and went into a tirade.
“Saint, you betta get ’im!” She huffed. “You gone see my ass on the evening news! I called Xenia about what happened, but he seems to really respect you, so she thought you could help. Porsche said he was actin’ better after the last time you two spoke, but things have gone downhill fast.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“That mothafucka tried to jump bad, that’s what happened. I told him he needed to not be hangin’ around Antwan and all of them, and he turned to me and told me to mind my own damn business! I told that boy he was gonna ride a one-way train to the grave if he eva spoke to me like that again! He’ll have some business all right, picking out the flowers for his funeral! I’ll knock his mothafuckin’ lips off and tell ’em to kiss his own ass! I ain’t the one to play wit’!”
“All right, let’s try to calm down. I’ll have a talk with him.” Saint stretched his legs, thankful for the extra legroom in the car that his airline seat didn’t quite provide. Since the flight was made last minute, all of the first class seats had been sold out.
“Fuck a damn talk! I need you to do some of that voodoo, hoodoo, ribbon in the sky Angel Child style shit! I need all the bells and whistles. If I gotta pay for it, fine. You take PayPal on layaway?”
“Pam, I don’t do that. That’s not how this works.” She tossed him a glance, then looked back at the road. “If I was able to just snap my fingers and make people behave properly, then I wouldn’t have heard any more jabs from you about my ethnicity years ago.” He chortled, trying to lighten the mood. The woman pursed her lips and drew quiet.
“Ms. Donnellson, Ira is probably dealing with all sorts of psychological issues since he left Iraq. He’s been through a lot. I know it was hurtful what he said, but it may not have been really directed towards you. Sometimes people take out their frustrations on the people who are closest to them,” Lawrence offered.
“Well I’m ’bout to take out my frustrations on his ass! How ’bout that? Ol’ watermelon-headed bastard! He ’bout tore me from the roota to the toota givin’ birth to him. After all I’ve done for that boy! It’s bad enough he sittin’ there lookin’ like his father. I moved Heaven and Earth for him and this is the thanks I get. Bailin’ his ass out of jail for some unpaid speedin’ tickets that one time before he left for the army, sending him care packages while he was in basic training so nice that I ended up in a bind for my mortgage.” She slapped her steering wheel in anger and blew out a puff of cigarette smoke. “I even sent his friend some money in prison ’cause he asked me to. Ain’t nobody put anything on that man’s commissary. And then he gonna turn around and talk crazy to me? You ain’t gonna talk to me like that! No, sir! I don’t care how old he is or what the hell happened over there in sand dune raghead land! He done brought his black ass back home, and we don’t work that way … tryna show out! He really been lettin’ loose on me, gotta mouth full of diarrhea. He full of shit and I’m a half a step away from knockin’ it clean out of him. Call me Imodium A-mothafuckin’-D!”
Saint placed his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle his laughter. Pam was simply too much, especially when she was angry.
She called her daughter and let Porsche know she needed her to make arrangements for three more guests. After being trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic, they soon arrived at her house. They all piled out, grabbed their bags from the trunk, and headed inside. As soon as he entered, he found his sister-in-law sitting at the small dining room table.
“Hello, Porsche!” Saint hugged her tight, placing a kiss upon her cheek. “I didn’t know you’d be over here right now. That was fast. I haven’t spoken with you in so long. It’s great to see you.” She kissed him back.
“Yeah, it’s good to see you too, Saint. I’m so glad you’re here. Mama cooked and—” Her eyes rested on Lawrence and a lustful smirk creased her face.
“Uh, that’s Lawrence. He’s married.” He saw the excitement leave her eyes in an instant.
“Geronimo, He-Man, and David Bowie, help me move this couch, please.” Lawrence, Jagger, and Cruz followed Pam into the living room.
“Damn, Saint, you have some fine ass friends. Lawrence’s wife is a lucky woman. Okay, anyway.” She clasped her hands together. “Ira is going to be by later on tonight for dinner. His behind don’t have nothin’ to say to anyone half the time, out here racing around in the streets but he is always ready to eat.” She rolled her eyes like Pam and crossed her arms over her breasts. “Mama said you are going to do an intervention,” she said. “I hope it works, and this time it sticks. My daughter is sleeping at a friend’s house tonight. I didn’t want her here in case something jumps off. Ira’s temper has been off the chain.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about Ira.” He winked at her as he removed his jacket. “We’ll take care of it. I was wondering where Gwendolyn was. Xenia sent her a birthday gift. I hope she liked it.”
“The guitar? I want to personally thank the both of you for keeping me up all night.” At that, they both chuckled. “She thinks she is Jimi Hendrix or somebody now. Yeah, she loves it, thank you. Saint, back to Ira though … he really has me worried. He just bought a gun, too. I think that’s the last thing he needs.”
Saint’s chest tightened at her words.
“Hmmm, all right. I’m not doing an intervention per se; well, not in the traditional sense. I’m just going to talk to him, man to man, brother to brother. I really wish he would have stayed longer in New York so he and I could have spent some more time together, but that’s behind us now and we have to deal with what’s going on right this moment.”
“Yes, we do,” she agreed. “Xenia is as bad as Mama when it comes to Ira and would just cuss him out. It’s probably best she isn’t here.”
“Unfortunately, you may be right. All right, we won’t be staying long. Is the guest room ready?”
“Yeah.” She wrapped her arm around his and led the way. “Come on back. Mama had me put two cots in here, too, and she has the fold-out couch all ready for whoever. They were in the shed out back, but were wrapped up well so you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
“Sounds perfect.” Saint took a few minutes to freshen up in the small bathroom, then lay back on the little bed in the guestroom with his arm propped under his head. Every now and again, he’d hear a burst of laughter coming from the kitchen. The guys, Pam and Porsche were drinking and playing spades. He looked up at the ceiling, his thoughts racing. Memories of Xenia and his sons huddled in that room many years ago rushed to the forefront of his mind. He swallowed the bad mojo with a hard gulp.
She’d left me… took my children away with her… thought I’d cheated on her with Payton. That was one of the worst times of my life. That big house we had was so empty, it was no longer a home, just walls and a ceiling. The depression I fell into was so intense, I had actually contemplated ending it all if I couldn’t get her back
…
At times, memories of the sexual assault he’d experienced still left him shaken up from time to time—the nightmares that followed, the consequences, the act itself… Payton was still in prison for her role in aiding Sinclair in his scam and financial blackmail. He hadn’t heard from her in a long time, but he was told she was doing well, had supposedly been baptized, and was helping women in the prison with legal advice for their cases. He’d sent her a clear warning, the final one, and this time he believed she’d finally got the picture.
The scars were everlasting. But some good had come out of this ordeal, for there could be no doubt that anyone who tried to come between him and his wife eventually made their marriage stronger.
Just then, there was a knock at the door.
“Yes?” He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“Saint, dinner is ready, and Ira just pulled up,” Porsche whispered.
“Okay. I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.”
“All right. I’ll let Mama know.” He heard Porsche walk away and a feeling of dread suddenly washed over him. A certain heaviness burdened the air. He snatched his phone off the nightstand and texted Lawrence.
Saint: Do you feel that?
Lawrence: Yes. He’s coming in the door right now. And it doesn’t look good…
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Ira rested his olive jacket along the back of a chair in the crammed kitchen. Charlie Wilson’s, “Charlie, Last Name, Wilson” played on the radio. The smell of fried chicken, collard greens, and beans and rice called his name. Mama had really made an excellent spread. He couldn’t quite concentrate on filling his belly, though. A sense of urgency and anger birthed within him, but he couldn’t quite figure out why. He’d seen these motherfuckers previously, and before he could ask what the deal was, his brother-in-law materialized before him like a slow-moving fog. Saint was looking all cool with his smirk, a jacket slung over one shoulder, and a toothpick twiddling out of his mouth.
“What’s up, man?” Saint approached him and stuck out his fist, waiting for a dap. Ira looked him up and down for a spell.
“’Sup. Xenia here, too?”
“No, she’s back in New York with the kids.”
“Then what are you doing here? Who invited you?”
“What did you just say?” Mama spun around from the stove like a tornado and faced him. “That’s how you talk to your sister’s husband? The man who paid the deposit for your apartment?” Pam chastised. “It was all right when he was sending you money, huh? You wanna live all high and fancy instead of having just a normal spot to lay your head on. But now you don’t want to see him. Boy, I oughtta—”
“Pam, it’s all right,” Saint said calmly, grinning from ear to ear as he placed a hand on Ira’s shoulder.
Ira looked at the man’s big hand, the way his long, golden fingers wrapped against him, distributing a bit of pressure. It wasn’t a friendly touch, and it wasn’t aggressive … it lay somewhere in between. He shot a glance back at Saint, and chewed on his lip.
“Ira, I’m not going to bullshit you, all right? I wanted to stop by and see you … look you in the eye. I heard you’re still adjusting.”
“Oh, so now I need a babysitter? I fought for this country, man! I didn’t need you to come all this way to give me some silly pep talk. You don’t know what I’ve been through or the life I’ve lived.”
“You’re right. I don’t, Ira, but that doesn’t mean—”
“And you can have your money back if you think that’s an excuse to do this.”
“I don’t think it’s an excuse, Ira, but let’s be real, okay? You’ve been fucking up. You’ve been saying terrible things to your mother, things she doesn’t deserve. You are hanging out with known drug dealers. Doesn’t matter that they were your friends when you all were kids; they’re bad news. You’ve been threatening to kill your father. You want to end up in prison?”
“Saint, stay out of this. I can’t believe you flew out here to try and lecture me like some after-school special. Get the hell outta my face, man.” He waved him off.
“No, I’m not going to get the hell outta your face. I care about you. Now, as I was saying, I don’t care for your father, either. I’ve seen the aftermath of his actions but that won’t change what he has done or the pain he has caused you, Pam, and your sisters. Now, I hear you are strapped. An angry man who just came out of a situation where babies were getting their heads blown off, friends were being killed, and so much more. That man has lost his mind, and he is you.”
“Man, stick to writing about white dicks, new age medicine, and all of that other shit you be talkin’ about. I’m not tryna hear all of this.”
“But you’re going to hear it, Ira, whether you like it or not. You’re turning to people who really don’t care about you, and it’s not a good look; in fact, it’s dangerous. Pam, Xenia, and Porsche love you, man. That’s why I’m here. Not to babysit you, but because you’re loved and you are forgetting that. You’re a good guy. You are above this type of behavior, Ira.”
“What?” Cold energy ran through him, as if someone were waving a fan inside his heart, muscles, and bones. “You have the audacity to stand here and try and tell me what to do, how to run my life? You don’t even know me, man! You met me one damn time; we’ve had a handful of conversations. Mothafuckas think they can give you some money and then they can talk down to you. I don’t want to owe anybody shit. Saint, you best not say anything else to me.”
The man looked over his shoulder at his pals.
“My dream was right, fellas. We have a situation.”
“Dream? Situation?” Porsche repeated, looking as confused as Ira. It was probably all a front.
“Porsche, this was your idea, wasn’t it? I’m leaving!”
“SIT YO’ RAGGEDY ASS DOWN FO’ I BEAT YOU DOWN!” Mama yelled.
Ira snatched himself away from Saint’s grip, then grabbed a chair from the kitchen table and plopped down into it.
“Jagger,” his brother-in-law stated calmly, “lock and block the door, please.”
Jagger got up and did as told.
“What the hell is this?!” Ira felt his heart pounding in his chest, feeling a sense of urgency to vacate the premises at once. “Mama, I won’t ever forgive you for this shit.” He stood to his feet and marched towards Jagger, pulling on the man’s arm.
“MOVE!” Ira yelled at the big man. But he didn’t speak … didn’t blink … didn’t budge… Ira dug in his jacket pocket, his fear escalating.
“Looking for this?” Jagger grinned as he held up his gun.
Ira rubbed his eyes, feeling a burning sensation.
“Pam and Porsche, please go into Pam’s bedroom and lock the door,” Cruz stated, getting to his feet, his gaze on Ira. For some odd reason, Cruz felt familiar, as if he’d seen him a thousand lifetimes before. What the hell was going on? Mama stood there, stunned, while Porsche raced out of the kitchen.
“His eyes!” Mama pointed at him with a shaky finger, her voice full of fear. “Something is wrong wit’ my baby’s eyes!”
“Pam, go!” Saint yelled. Ira raced towards the woman, but Cruz grabbed him in the nick of time. The muscles in his arms burned from the blond man’s rough touch. Ira felt compelled to hurt his mother, hit her, punch her. A rage like he’d never known burst free within him. Fuck…
“I hate you, you old, fat bitch! You’re always in my business. Now look what you’ve done!” he yelled out.
Cruz pushed him down to the ground. He watched out the corner of his eye as Saint walked Mama out of the room, and he didn’t miss the tears that streamed down her face. It made him happy to see her cry and suffer. Suddenly, Lawrence began to recite strange words as he stood before him. Words he hated, but couldn’t understand why…
“He’s possessed by Wrath!” Saint exclaimed when he returned to the kitchen.
Lawrence paused. “Shit…” the Indian muttered.
“It must’ve happened when he was in New York, whe
n it whispered in his ear. It has been with him this entire time, moving slow but steady,” Saint stated. “Lawrence, what’s wrong?” Saint fell to his knees beside Cruz and held his legs secure. Something in Saint’s touch made him afraid. The man’s strength was overwhelming; he somehow knew that Saint could break his bones in the blink of an eye.
“GET OFF ME!”
The men kept talking, ignoring him. “Your brother-in-law’s name is Ira…”
“Yeah, so?”
“Saint, Ira means Wrath in Italian and Latin.”
The color drained from Saint’s face. This pleased him, too … and yet, he still didn’t understand why their fears and pain felt so good!
“Ira is the name for the Demon of Wrath. This is not good. No wonder the possession has moved so slowly, gradually getting worse. The demon is trying to occupy Ira’s body for permanent residency, and that takes time versus just a temporary possession, a mere body hop, if you will.”
“What the fuck are you all talking about?! You’re all crazy!” Ira roared.
Saint stood abruptly, grabbed the silver metal pot cover from the stove, and jammed it in front of Ira’s face.
“Look at your eyes, Ira!” Ira looked at his reflection, and his blood ran cold…
Staring back at him were solid black eyes, the whites completely gone. He felt a sudden pain in his chest, as if he were having a heart attack.
“Ahhhh!” He gritted his teeth.
“Pry his mouth open and shove this towel in there! He’s going to bite his damn tongue off!” Cruz demanded.
“We can’t, Cruz! He has to be able to communicate,” Lawrence warned, just keep his head locked in place and watch his teeth.
“Ira, now that the demon knows you’ve been made aware of what it’s trying to do, this is going to get … uncomfortable. You have to fight it! Just like when you are in war, you have to fight, Ira. Remember that,” Cruz said.
