Bronxwood

by Coe Booth

  And that’s another reason why I ain’t even thinking ’bout getting my room together and moving back in here with them. ’Cause I know it ain’t gonna last. And when shit fall apart, it’s gonna be worse then, ’cause we gonna be losing a apartment that’s real nice this time, and that shit’s gonna hurt. Not me. It’s my moms and Troy that ain’t gonna get over it easy.

  I put the last box in Troy room, a whole box of cars and fire trucks and Pokémon cards. I ain’t even sure if he still into that shit or not, but I know I want all his toys here when he get back. Troy got the smallest room, but it’s cool ’cause when he look out this window he gonna see the playground they got down there, and he gonna know if his friends is out there playing before he go out.

  A few minutes later, I’m back in the living room fixing this little drawer on the coffee table when my moms come in. I don’t know what up with her today, but I can tell she ain’t really feeling this new apartment, not as much as my pops think she is. ’Cause when he ’round, she smiling and shit, but now that he working in they bedroom, she stand here, looking ’round and shaking her head. “I don’t know, Ty. This place. Why we gotta be in the apartment where the terrace don’t even face the street? Who gonna wanna look at a parking lot all day?”

  I put down the screwdriver. “What, you don’t like the whole apartment ’cause of where the terrace is at?”

  “Not only that,” she go. “I just don’t understand why your pops is putting me in a place that’s only just a little better than the last apartment me and him lived in, you know, before. He put me through a lot of shit this year, had me worrying ’bout him being in that prison. When he got out, he should of at least found us a bigger—”

  “Just be happy your man is back.”

  “I am,” she say. “I’m not saying I don’t like this apartment. It’s better than where you had me living all this time, damn straight. That’s one thing about your father, Tyrell. He just got out, and look how fast he got us a new apartment. Just like that.” She snap her fingers. “That’s how he do. He ain’t perfect, but he know how to take care of his family.”

  I know what she trying to do, but I ain’t gonna let it work on me. “Regg the one that got this apartment for y’all,” I tell her. “So he the one that took care of your family, and not just now neither. He the one that helped me get some of them parties to DJ at, he the one that brung me down to Atlanta to make money. How you think I was paying your bills all this time? Answer is Regg.”

  “And Regg work for your father.”

  “No, he don’t. He just help him out ’cause they friends. You think Regg need that little chump change he get from them parties?” I laugh. “You should see the house he getting built for him down in Atlanta. We could put ten of these apartments in that joint and still have room left over. He got a pool and a basketball court and inside he got a jacuzzi and shit. It ain’t no joke.”

  Now my moms look real interested. “What Regg do to make that kinda money?”

  I shrug, not only ’cause I don’t know but ’cause the look on her face tell me if she knew what Regg was up to, she would probably figure out a way to get my pops into it too. She look like she could already see herself swimming ’round in a pool like Regg got, spending his kinda money.

  She go into the kitchen and I hear her complaining half under her breath ’bout the stove and how it ain’t electric like we had before, and how the refrigerator ain’t got no automatic ice maker. “I don’t know how long I gotta wait, what I gotta do to get me a dishwasher,” she say. “I don’t know why your father left it up to Regg to pick out a apartment for us when he coulda asked me to find the kinda place I’m gonna wanna live in. Don’t make no kinda sense to me.”

  A few minutes later, my pops come down the hall and my moms cut that noise fast. He sit down at the kitchen table and, without him even saying a word, she get him a beer outta a bag of food she musta got somewhere. Then she take out the bread and cold cuts and make him a sandwich. She give it to him and give him a kiss, then ask him if he need anything else.

  “I’m good,” he say, and start eating. My moms take some dishes outta one of them boxes and start washing them, smiling like she happy all of a sudden.

  I go back to the coffee table, but it ain’t easy watching the two of them sometimes. I mean, yeah, I know they love each other, but I don’t get how my moms can just take him back like he wasn’t gone for a year. And not only that, how she just act like what her and Dante did never happened? What, she forget?

  Even though I don’t wanna think ’bout Novisha, my mind go there. The whole time we was together it was like she forgot ’bout all the shit she did in the past, and when everything came out, it was like she expected me to forget too and get back with her, just like everything was okay. I ain’t never gonna be that kinda guy.

  At the same time, I would be lying if I ain’t say watching my moms take care of my pops, the whole thing remind me of the way it used to be between me and Novisha. She was always feeding me when I was at her apartment, she used to braid my hair, and when her moms wasn’t ’round, she always knew how to get me off. I don’t miss Novisha, but I gotta say, I miss the way she treated me ’cause she did know how to take care of her man. I don’t know if I’m ever gonna find somebody that’s gonna make me feel as good as she did.

  I mean, Adonna is a cool girl, but I don’t know. I ain’t sure she the kinda girl that’s gonna wanna take care of no man. From what I know ’bout her, she more ’bout what a man can do for her. But I don’t know her that good yet. What I do know is she fine enough to keep me interested for a while. Just to find out for myself.

  FOURTEEN

  When the table is fixed, I come into the kitchen to get myself something to eat and drink. My moms don’t make nothing for me. She too busy talking to my pops, or actually listening to him. He through eating now, and he sitting there drinking another beer and going on and on ’bout his problems, number one being money.

  Then, like, outta nowhere, he tell my moms, “Right now, while I’m thinking about it, call that fuckin’ caseworker and tell her you ready for them parenting classes, and you wanna start soon as you can.”

  My moms look surprised. “What? Why I gotta call today when — look at all the work we gotta do around here. Why you want me to—?”

  “Where your cell at?” he ask her.

  She pick it up off the counter and hand it to him like a little kid who in trouble with her pops. “What that bitch caseworker name?”

  My moms fold her arms in front of her. “Ms. Thomas,” she say, and suck her teeth.

  He click ’round on her phone for a couple seconds and hand it back to her. “It’s ringing.”

  Damn, he really know how to handle her.

  While she stand there talking to the caseworker, I just sit at the table with a double ham and cheese sandwich and a Pepsi. It’s the first thing I’m eating all day, and it’s good.

  Crazy thing is, sitting right ’cross from my pops, it’s weird that we not talking. I mean, the whole day. Nothing.

  “Tonight?” my moms say to Ms. Thomas. “I told you, I’m moving today and … hold on.” She cover the phone with her hand and say to my pops, “They starting a class tonight, but I ain’t ready. And it’s for three times a week. I don’t know. That’s a lot of time and — what I’m supposed to tell her? I don’t think—”

  “I’m back home now,” my pops say, not even looking up from his beer. “You don’t gotta think no more.”

  Damn.

  “Now get back on that phone,” he say, and don’t even raise his voice none, “and tell that bitch you gonna be there tonight.”

  My moms sigh real loud, but then she do what she was told to do. She tell the caseworker to sign her up for them classes. When she hang up, she say to my pops, “Why you make me do that, sign up for them classes now when you see how much work we gotta do around here? I need to go the store and buy some food for this apartment, and—”

  “We can buy
food tomorrow.”

  “What if I’m not ready to start them classes?”

  “You ready,” my pops say. “What I tell you when you came to see me at Rikers? I told you I wanna get things back to the way they was before I got locked up, right? That mean Troy need to be back home. And that mean you gotta take them classes, and you ain’t missing none of them.”

  My moms don’t say nothing back. She mad, but she know better than to talk back too much and get him mad. She turn her back to us and keep washing the dishes.

  It’s good my pops doing what he gotta do to get Troy back, but half of me, nah, not even half, is waiting to see what he gonna say ’bout me. I mean, Troy wasn’t the only one that was living with them before my pops got locked up. My pops don’t say shit and I try to keep my mind on the fact that Troy the one we need to think ’bout. Not me. All of us want the same thing.

  Only thing, if Troy living here with them and I’m still over at Cal place, me and Troy still ain’t gonna be together. Nothing really gonna change, not for me.

  I finish my sandwich and make another one. That’s when my pops try to explain to my moms how she gotta dress and talk and act at them parenting classes. “You gotta take this shit serious now,” he tell her. “They looking for a reason to keep Troy ’cause that’s how them foster care agencies make money. They charge the state a whole lot of fuckin’ money for every kid they snatch. If you give them any reason to keep him there making money for them, they gonna use it against us.”

  Then he turn to me and tell me that he want all us to go to the agency on Wednesday ’cause that’s when we s’posed to have our time to visit with Troy.

  “I don’t need to go to the agency.” First thing I said to him all day. “I see Troy all the time, and he call me on my cell when he wanna talk to me.”

  “That don’t matter,” he say. “The agency make a report to the judge when it come time for us to try and get him back. We need to start doing everything right.”

  I can’t stand going to that agency and having to deal with Ms. Thomas. Back when ACS took Troy, that caseworker found me and tried to get me to go live in some kinda group home or something. She was like, “Your mother can’t take care of you. You’re not safe with her.” Meanwhile, the only shit my moms did was leave Troy alone at the shelter. But he was only seven. She could leave me alone all she want and nothing gonna happen to me. I don’t need her looking after me.

  So I told the caseworker that if she tried to put me in a group home, I was gonna go AWOL like two minutes after she left me there. So she checked with the judge, then told me it was alright if I stood with my moms, but only if I went to school and all that. And she had to come and check up on me every couple weeks.

  Both us know I wasn’t never really living with my moms ’cause first of all, the place my moms was living at was too small for me and her. I mean, she only had one fold-out couch/bed. But for the past seven months me and Ms. Thomas and my moms been going through the motions just so Ms. Thomas could leave me alone and cover her ass at work. She would tell me when she was coming by my moms place so I could be there. Then she come over and make sure the place wasn’t too dirty and that my moms had food for me, and she would ask me a couple questions ’bout how me and my moms getting along and if she treating me good. All that kinda shit. Like she care ’bout me.

  I would lie, she write it down, and then she tell me the next time she coming by. Then Ms. Thomas was gone, and I was gone outta my moms place right behind her. Whole thing was a waste of everybody time, ’specially mines, but least it got the agency off my back all this time.

  But I tell my pops I’ma be there at the agency visit just so he can stop talking ’bout what we gotta do and how we all gotta work together to get Troy back and all that shit. My mind ain’t on that right now. I’m trying to solve my other problem.

  So while they still talking, I get up from the table and go into the living room and pocket the key for the storage room. I don’t got no other choice. I’m broke as a joke. I’ma hafta use my pops equipment next Saturday for Jasmine party.

  Anyway, it ain’t like the man gonna miss that key. He too busy thinking ’bout Troy to worry ’bout the storage room or the equipment. Or me for that matter.

  Since I ain’t too far from Jasmine apartment, I walk over there when I leave my moms and pops new place, just to see what Emiliano want from me and get this shit over with already. Jasmine live on Grand Concourse and it don’t take me more than fifteen minutes to get to her building. I stand in between the two front doors and press the intercom, then some female voice come through, but it ain’t Jasmine. Emil girlfriend probably. I ain’t never met her before, but I’m glad Emil getting it from somebody and don’t gotta try nothing with Jasmine.

  I take the elevator upstairs and the second Jasmine open the door, she smile big and throw her arms ’round me. “Tyrell!”

  I put my arms ’round her waist but only for, like, a second ’cause I can see into the apartment, and Emiliano is sitting on the couch, and I don’t want him thinking I’m into Jasmine or something. I don’t need no crazy Dominican bodybuilder after me.

  I’m not even in the apartment yet and the smell of whatever cooking hit me. “It smell good in here,” I say to Jasmine. “I know you not cooking nothing that good.”

  She slap me on the shoulder. “Yes, I am. Ana’s teaching me. Come in.”

  I step inside. In the living room, Emiliano sitting there drinking a beer, watching the Yankee game on the big-screen TV on the wall. He don’t look up and say nothing to me, he too into the game, so I follow Jasmine into the kitchen. Ana standing at the stove, stirring something that look like tomato sauce. She alright-looking for somebody that’s probably in her thirties or something. Least Emiliano ain’t only into teenage girls.

  Jasmine introduce me and Ana and we say hi. She seem okay. Nice.

  “Sit down,” Jasmine tell me. “You want anything to drink?” She open the refrigerator. “We got Pepsi, but it’s flat, Sunny D, Malta, water, and that’s it.”

  “I’ll take the flat Pepsi,” I say. Them choices is bad.

  I sit there looking ’round, waiting. The thing ’bout Emiliano apartment is, dude got it hooked up. Not only do he got the big-screen TV, he got all the new sound equipment and a weight-lifting bench in the corner. I could see myself living like this one day.

  Jasmine don’t only bring me the soda, she bring me a whole plate of chocolate chip cookies. Emiliano drive a truck that deliver some Spanish bread and all kinds of donuts and cookies to stores, and he always bring home extra shit. “Tell me, what did you do today?” Jasmine ask me, all up in my business as usual.

  The first thing I think is, what, do I stink or something? I mean I was doing a lot of heavy lifting and shit today. Probably shoulda went home and took a shower before coming over here.

  But she sit down next to me so I must not be too funky. I tell her ’bout the move and the new place and all that. But it’s like she only paying half attention to me ’cause every couple minutes Ana call her back to the stove so she can show her something. Ana got Jasmine putting more spices and shit in the sauce and tasting everything. Then she got her cutting up some Italian bread and putting it in the oven.

  Watching this whole scene make me mad, like, what Emiliano got going on in this apartment? Dude got two women cooking for him, making sure everything taste good, and all he doing is sitting on his ass.

  But that ain’t the real problem, the way I see it. The thing that really piss me off is that it look like Ana teaching Jasmine how to be a wife or something. Why Jasmine gotta know how to cook like this at her age?

  Jasmine come back over to the table and sit down next to me again. “I’m so excited about this party,” she say, giggling like a little girl. “I’m thinking about it, like, nonstop. I found a dress already and, ay dios mio, I can’t wait for you to see it. They’re altering it so it fits perfect and tight!” She laugh. “But let me tell you about it. It’s kinda purple but,
like, between purple and lavender with little white lacy edges. I mean, off-white. Whatever. It looks so good next to my skin, Tyrell. It costs a ton of money, but it’s the only time I’m gonna turn sixteen so it’s worth it, right? And—”

  “God,” I say. “Take a breath.”

  She laugh. “I can’t!”

  “You making me tired.”

  “You don’t understand, Tyrell. This is a big deal for a girl. You boys don’t understand nothing.”

  Yeah, she talking my head off, but it’s good to see her happy like this, ’specially after what happened to Joanny. I thought she wasn’t never gonna get over that shit.

  Finally, at a commercial, Emiliano get up off the couch and come over to the table to sit down ’cross from me. Without him even saying nothing, Jasmine take the empty beer bottle from his hand, and get up to get him a new one. Ana don’t do that. Jasmine do. Why she the one taking care of his old ass?

  “Tyrell,” Emil go. He don’t hardly speak no English, but he try. “I want Jasmine to tell you to visit here because the party, it is—” He stop talking ’cause he trying to find the right word or something. Face look like he all confused and shit.

  “He’s trying to say,” Jasmine tell me, sitting back down next to me, “that he wanted you to come over because the party is coming up real fast and he wants to make sure you know what to do and what to play.” Then she translate what she just said to Emil and he say something back. “He says he wants this party to be special because I’m special.”

  I nod and look over at Ana real fast out the corner of my eye, just to see if she got a reaction to that, but she don’t. She just busy wiping off the counter. Probably, only reason Emiliano with Ana is ’cause Jasmine too young and he don’t wanna end up in jail. The same reason he got with Jasmine sister, Reyna. He was just using her while he waited for Jasmine to grow up.