Courtship: A 'Snowflake' Novel

by Nia Forrester

  Raj smiles at Ibrahim’s skeptical look.

  “It’s true,” he says. “You know that when I left Stanford I went to MIT. And then Vidhya got into Harvard, and we were only a few miles apart so my social circle, which wasn’t that big to begin with … contracted. I don’t even know that I tried very hard to make it otherwise. I mean, I was spending all my time wooing my future wife, even though the outcome was a foregone conclusion. And in my graduate program …” He pauses to laugh. “We were mostly a bunch of cerebral, social misfits to be honest. I didn’t have a single conversation that wasn’t superficial the entire time I was there. Other than about the work. It was all about competition. That, and intense, unrelenting … pressure.”

  “You expected something different than competition and pressure? At MIT?”

  Shrugging, Raj looks out toward the softly sloping hills of Palo Alto.

  “I guess not. But it was way more intense than I expected. Everyone walked around like we were spies or something, guarding the code we’d written … as if it was the answer to the secrets of the universe. I sold my first bit of source code for five-thousand dollars. And I thought I had it made.” He laughed. “And then the boom happened, and everyone was dropping out of school and rushing back West, going in on startups.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “No. I was raised to finish things. I stayed. Also, Vidhya was there, and …” Raj smiles a little. “And by then I was in love with her. So, I wanted to stay. When we moved back, I had an easier time than some of my counterparts getting investors because of my MIT credentials. But anyway, there was enough money to go around. So much money. Everyone wanted to get in on the tech boom, like it was the new Gold Rush.”

  Pausing to look over at Ibrahim, Raj seems to have a thought.

  “Where were you then? Around the time I graduated from MIT.”

  “When was that? Like maybe three, four years after we met? I was a newlywed. About two years married. With a pregnant wife, scared as hell.” Ibrahim smiles himself at the memory.

  “But happy,” Raj says.

  Ibrahim nods thoughtfully.

  Happy. But scared. Stressed. Frantic with worry about how he was going to support his new family, since his income hadn’t increased much.

  He wondered what he had been thinking, taking Jada out of her nice middle-class life and asking her to take a chance on him. He had had some fantasy that though they had nothing, they would build something together. After she was done with school, he would go to school, get a trade or a two-year degree. He would reduce his hours at his menial job, and she would have a real job with benefits and carry most of the expenses until he was accredited in something, a profession.

  But life happens. Unplanned pregnancies happen.

  Around then, his daily five-mile runs had almost doubled in distance as he tried to outrun his fears.

  He would get home, dripping in sweat, his body still humming from the exertion and Jada would be waiting for him. Kaleem would be in her arms, and she would be at her wits’ end because the baby wouldn’t stop crying, or because she couldn’t stop crying. The most valuable thing he had to give her back then had been his love and commitment and that didn’t seem like enough. Not nearly enough.

  So, he ran.

  And God forgive him, there had been one or two weak moments—mere seconds probably—when he wondered what it would be like to just keep running. Just as far as he could away from the crushing weight of his failure. He could never leave his wife, never leave his son, but the failure … if he could have run away from that, so help him, he would have.

  The memory gave him pause.

  Was that what he was doing now? Distancing himself from Jada because he wanted to run away from his failure? Did she have a point that his absences when she woke up each morning, his long walks, were just plain ol’ abandonment?

  “What?”

  “Huh?” Ibrahim looks up.

  “You had a thought. I saw it pass over your face.”

  “What’re you? My shrink?”

  It was easier to laugh it off for now. He would think about it later. He would think about it when he was alone.

  “You were telling me about when you started making crazy money after MIT.”

  “That’s right,” Raj says. “I was explaining how, after I started making money, I stopped making real connections. Real friendships.”

  “There had to have been people as rich as you. Richer.”

  “Yes, but many of us are locked in our own private prisons, Ibrahim. It’s a strange world. One in which everyone outside the prison is a suspect. You don’t trust them, or their motives. Even the woman you ask to marry you after you divorce the wife who knew you when you had nothing? That one, the second one you ask to sign a contract, saying she won’t take you to the cleaners if something in your marriage should go wrong. Can you imagine that?”

  “No,” Ibrahim admits. “But I can imagine wondering whether your wife should leave you. Because you have nothing. And you think maybe she’d be better off.”

  “Let me put it this way. You’re providing for your wife. Providing well beyond your, or her wildest dreams. But she asks you for a divorce anyway. Because she’s that unhappy.”

  Ibrahim says nothing. He can’t imagine that. And yet it is precisely what had happened with Raj and Vidhya.

  “Then imagine having little, or nothing,” Raj continues.

  “That, I don’t have to imagine,” Ibrahim says.

  “But she doesn’t leave. Don’t you see? She has the choice, but she doesn’t leave. I think, my friend, that what you fail realize is, you don’t actually have nothing. You have everything.”

  38

  Then

  The energy on the block had changed. He had only been gone for a little over two hours—to Jada’s school and then to see her—but now there was a taut, tense hum in the air. People were hanging around by their gates, talking to friends and neighbors, and many of them were looking in the direction of Ibrahim’s house where he guessed his father and brothers were still inside waiting for the shoe to drop.

  He parked his car and kept his eyes on the pavement as he went in, not wanting anyone to stop him and ask questions.

  The house where Breonna had been was several streets over, but news moved at the speed of lightning around here. Especially news of a death.

  By now, everyone would know about his and Breonna’s shared personal histories. They would be whispering that she had once been his girl. Hood gossip always got some of the finer points wrong, but the crux of the thing was generally communicated with accuracy. They knew enough, after all, to be staking out his house waiting for some action.

  Heading inside, he braced himself for the look in Brittany’s haunted eyes, but she was nowhere in sight. Only Manny and Zac were in the living room.

  When he walked in, they both looked up with expectation in their eyes, disappointment, and then relief.

  “Where’s Brittany?” he asked. “And Pops.”

  “He got the call,” Zac said. “Asked him to come down and answer some questions.”

  “That quick?”

  They had all been expecting it, that the police would find out who owned the property and either show up at the house or ask their father to come in. But Ibrahim had been expecting that to take a day or more. With the city’s murder rate being what it was, he wouldn’t have thought that the mere discovery of a body in a house would have them moving as fast as they apparently had.

  That was what Bree had been reduced to.

  A body.

  He would never see her again. Never. Never.

  He used to experiment with her name. Come up with nicknames for her when he was flirting with the idea of her being his girl.

  Bree-Bree. But that one felt too obvious, so he had ditched it almost right away.

  Cool Breeze. She liked that one, and smiled whenever he said it.

  Breezy.

  And then later, because he no lon
ger wanted to make her his girl, nor cared enough to call her something no one else did, he just called her the laziest nickname of all, the one that everyone called her. Bree.

  He thought about the time she came over the morning after the party where he’d first met Jada. He called, and Bree came. Probably had to beg for the ride, but she came, hours after he first called her.

  Then he’d basically called her easy but still, she lay down next to him and let him put his arms around her, and they fell asleep like that. That was Bree. She found comfort in even throwaway gestures of kindness.

  “Sent a car to pick him up and everything,” Zac said, shaking his head.

  That explained the gawkers outside.

  When law enforcement did that, it meant they really wanted to talk to you, and didn’t want to leave the timing of the conversation to your discretion. A friendly suggestion that they send over a car was never really that friendly.

  “Prophet.”

  He looked up and Manny was staring him in the eyes. Always reading him, and almost always on point.

  “What you got on your mind, little bro?”

  Kwame.

  “Nothin’,” he said, his eyes never leaving Manny’s. “I’ma dip in a minute though.”

  “By yourself?” Manny asked, pointedly.

  Ibrahim shrugged. “Better that way.”

  They were having two conversations. The one with words, and the sub-conversation. Manny stared at him for a few moments more, then sniffed.

  “I know it might feel like that, but you ain’ gotta go alone. Ain’t no rush. Wait till Pops get home, then lemme roll wit’ you.”

  Ibrahim nodded. A nod so slight one might even think they imagined it. Later, he would want to be able to tell Manny that he had.

  “I’ma get somethin’ to eat, then,” he said. “You want anything? From the carryout?”

  “Nah.” Zac answered first.

  “I’m good,” Manny said, still watching him closely.

  Ibrahim felt his head pounding as he went to the back of the house and toward Manny’s bedroom. He looked under the mattress and found what he was looking for, tucking it in his waistband.

  He wasn’t angry. No, that wasn’t true. He was angry. But it was cold, purposeful anger. Not the kind that had people getting busted just minutes after the deed.

  Standing upright again, he took two deep breaths then walked down the hall and through the living room, not meeting his brothers’ eyes as he left, mumbling something about being right back.

  He felt the piece, weighty and cold in the back of his jeans, the muzzle slipping a little lower as he walked. His heart was beating harder, his breaths growing shallower with each step he took.

  Ibrahim had only ever seen one person get shot. It happened when he was fifteen. A skinny kid everybody called Peanut. He was like the equivalent of the class clown around the way, except the stuff he messed with was far from fun-and-games. When Peanut got shot, everybody was sad to see him go, because he wasn’t a bad dude, but they also said he had it coming to him.

  Peanut like to roll through other neighborhoods and stick up street soldiers. Word was, he even did it to dudes wearing the same colors. In fact, he preferred it if they did. He would disarm them with a joke or by acting a fool and then whip out his strap, catching them off guard. And because he never took more than a dove—and pretty much smoked it himself—he thought it was funny, like the equivalent of playing a prank.

  But stealing weed off some other crew, no matter its value was no prank. And it finally caught up with him.

  One hot afternoon, a black Impala slowed down on the block, a hand came out and the next thing everyone knew, Peanut’s head exploded like a watermelon. When he went down, the car cruised on down the block, turned the corner and left. It didn’t even break the speed limit.

  All Ibrahim remembered was that the gun looked enormous, and the sound it made seemed to fill the universe. And then Peanut’s entire face was gone, the back and top of his head coming apart like a water balloon that had been smashed against a wall. There was blood, teeth and grey matter everywhere.

  Everybody who had taken a dive once the gun was visible stood up to survey the scene. And someone, Ibrahim didn’t remember who, moaned, fuuuuuck!

  And that was it. No more Peanut. A life, over in an instant.

  But watching it happen was one thing.

  “Hey, cuz, where you goin’?”

  Ibrahim looked around. Nasim was leaning against his parked car, wearing his uniform—a white beater, grey pants and Fila slides with white gym socks.

  “Carryout,” Ibrahim said, not meeting his eyes.

  “Come roll wit’ me right quick. Gotta drop off some pies over by my grand-momma’s house.”

  “Pies?”

  “Yeah, man. Pies. C’mon.” And when he hesitated, Nasim gave him a long, hard look. “As many times as I let your broke, sorry ass hold my ride, nigga?”

  Relenting, Ibrahim headed toward him when Nasim held up a hand.

  “You walkin’ heavy?”

  Ibrahim said nothing.

  “I told you we goin’ to my grand-momma’s house, right?”

  “Gimme a second, then.”

  Getting into his own car, Ibrahim deftly removed the piece from his pants and slid it under the seat. He locked it inside then headed back toward Nasim’s.

  ~~~

  Nasim and he drove in silence for a few minutes. Ibrahim wanted to ask him where they were going but didn’t want to betray his impatience since as he’d pointed out, Nasim had been nothing but patient with him, letting him use his car all those times. And he had gotten him his job. There was that, too.

  He shoved the thought of work to the back of his mind. If he did what he planned to do, he might not make it to work tonight. He might not make it to work ever again.

  But he couldn’t think that way. Oakland had been like the Wild, Wild West this year, and the “closure rate” was down. That’s how they said it on the news. There were dozens of “incidents” for which no responsible party was identified.

  “You ever bust a shot before?”

  Nasim’s voice startled him.

  “What?”

  “You ever fire a gun?” This time Nasim enunciated each word.

  “Nah,” Ibrahim admitted.

  Now, he thought, Nasim would ask him why he was carrying then.

  “You know the first time I did, my dick got hard?” Nasim laughed at the memory, leaning further back in his seat and shaking his head. “Thought I’d skeet all over myself it felt so good. Shit, it felt better than pussy, and that’s my word.”

  Ibrahim said nothing.

  “And that was just some bullshit practice range with some soup cans. Then came time I had to step up to the big leagues. Point at another man, and pull that trigger …”

  Remaining very still, Ibrahim wondered whether Nasim knew.

  “I was high as shit,” he said. “Had to be. ‘Cause it wasn’t no personal grudgery. Just … you know, business. But it had to be done. Sometimes you gotta get ‘em or get got.”

  Nasim sighed and didn’t speak for a long time. Then he sighed again.

  “Anyone who tell you that shit is easy, is a damn liar. Except for some of these crazy young ‘uns out here these days, with no impulse control. It’s like videogames for some of ‘em, nah mean? Just rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat … and five niggas is down.

  “But you know what I think. That shit they do? That’s easier than lookin’ a nigga straight in the eye, holding up your gatt and boom!’

  Ibrahim jumped a little when Nasim raised his voice.

  “That’s it. And then walking away with his brains on your shirt, in your face … pieces of bone … all that shit.” He looked at Ibrahim. “You hear what I’m sayin’?”

  Giving no indication either way, Ibrahim turned away from Nasim and looked out the window at their neighborhood flashing by. He would have given anything right then to be a million miles away. Somewhere with Jada
, just the two of them sitting quietly. Maybe in grass somewhere, or near water. Just sitting and talking about the kinds of stuff they always talked about—books, places, politics, even. Ideas. Not just shallow, small, petty and meaningless stuff.

  Marrakesh, Jada told him once. That’s where I’d like to go. If I ever traveled. And Paris.

  Paris, I get, Ibrahim laughed. Every girl wants to go to Paris, I guess. But why Marrakesh?

  Because I like the way the name rolls off my tongue.

  And just the mention of her tongue made him kiss her.

  “I know she was your girl,” Nasim said, breaking through his thoughts.

  This time Ibrahim didn’t bother with the now meaningless clarification. He waited for Nasim to tell him that no matter what she had been to him, she was gone now, and that Breonna would not have wanted him to sacrifice his life over this.

  He waited for Nasim to remind him that he was on a different path now, and that this kind of thing, where they were from? It happened all the time and would keep happening.

  And he waited for him to say that Ibrahim had to decide whether he was going to give in to it and become part of it. Or whether he was going to choose something else.

  But Nasim said none of that. The words he had already spoken were maybe the most he had ever spoken to Ibrahim in a single interaction. And it appeared he was done talking.

  They went to a house on the west side of the city and picked up some pies. Looked like they were sweet potato. Nasim cracked one open and he and Ibrahim ate it with their hands as they headed back east. It was sweet potato, and the pie was smooth and the crust flaky, buttery and melted in Ibrahim’s mouth. He hadn’t eaten anything sweet in a long time, so it tasted extra sweet, but still, good. He was surprised he was able to enjoy eating anything on a day like this and felt a little guilty about it. How easily life went on.

  By the time the pie was done, they were pulling up in front of Nasim’s grandmother’s house, where Nasim ordered Ibrahim to come in. He did it with a mildly suspicious look, like Ibrahim was a hostage trying to get away.