Bronxwood

by Coe Booth

  My pops go, “A hour. That’s all I need.” And we walk down the block to his van.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Setting up Troy room ain’t all that hard and don’t take that long. All I’m thinking ’bout is that I’m doing this for Troy. The foster mother he with now is fucking crazy and I can’t take him being with her no more. If this apartment pass the inspection and the visits go good between Troy and my moms and pops, then maybe they could let him come home faster than we thought.

  The room come out looking real nice when we through. I know he gonna like it.

  I’m thinking we done and I can bounce, when my pops go, “We gotta make your room look like you live here.”

  “My room?”

  My pops stare at me like I’m dumb. “The room with your shit in it.”

  “A’ight,” I say. Might as well get this over with so I can get the fuck outta here already.

  Fixing up that room ain’t too hard neither. All we do is move all the furniture ’round, put the bed together, and fix the knobs on the dresser that got broke when the marshals moved everything. Weird thing is, me and my pops ain’t hardly talking, except when we hafta, like when he tell me to give him the screwdriver, or when I ask him where they put the pillows. I wanna make the room look like I really stay here, so Ms. Thomas could believe it and tell the judge the family together. That the only one missing is Troy.

  After I put the sheets and blanket on the bed and everything look alright, I go in the living room where my pops is, sitting on the couch smoking weed. Chillin’. “We done?” I ask him. “’Cause I’ma go now.”

  “I ordered a pizza,” he go, not even looking at me. “You ain’t hungry?”

  I stand there for a second, not knowing what he want. He trying to get me to stay or something? “I could eat,” I say. “I could always eat.”

  I don’t know how it happen, but a hour later both me and him is fucked up, eating the pizza and watching the Yankees, who getting beat 4–1 in the third inning. And we actually talking ’bout shit and laughing. To me, this the way it used to be with him. He always used to be the kinda pops I could chill with and tell stuff to. I’m just trying to figure out if that pops is back for good or what?

  “How you and Novisha?” my pops ask, cracking open another can of beer. He on his third can already. I’m still on my first. “Y’all still together?”

  “Nah,” I say. “We broke up, like, in January.”

  “Damn. The way you was talking about her, I thought you was gonna be with her forever like me and your moms.”

  “Yeah, I know. I thought that too, but, I don’t know.” I think the weed starting to take over more.

  “Why y’all split up?” he ask.

  I shake my head. “She was lying to me, telling me what I wanted to hear.”

  “She cheated on you?”

  I nod. “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Shit.” My pops take another bite outta his pizza. “You did the right thing, cutting her loose, then. You can’t be with a girl like that, that you can’t trust.”

  I lean back against the couch and try to get my high to settle down, but talking ’bout Novisha ain’t helping. It just remind me that we through, that she moved on and got another man, and I still don’t got nobody. Matter of fact, I still ain’t heard from Jasmine, so I don’t know what’s going on with her neither. Damn, why I get high? Only thing it’s doing is making me feel depressed.

  My pops light up a cigarette. “You know, Ty, the whole time I was away, your moms came to visit me every week or every other week, but you, you ain’t come to see your pops one time in the whole year.”

  He ain’t really asking no question. All he doing is stating a fact. So I don’t say nothing.

  “How you think that make me feel?” he ask. “My own kid don’t make the time to come and see me.”

  “How you think it make me feel that my own father can’t stay home where he s’posed to be? You ever think ’bout that?”

  My pops just shake his head.

  But I ain’t through yet. “You ever think ’bout what it’s like for us when you sitting in that jail? Us, living in a motel that got crazy roaches and shit. Us, not having no money ’cause all the money we had went to trying to keep you outta jail. You think ’bout us when you was locked up?”

  “Every day,” he say. “I thought about y’all every day.”

  “Truth is, you thinking ’bout us, that ain’t help us eat.”

  Me and him don’t say nothing for a while. I wanna up and go, but the weed really messing with me now. I close my eyes for a minute. Then my pops go, “You think I don’t know what y’all was going through? You think I wanted to be there?”

  I open my eyes and look at him, but he looking down. “I know you ain’t wanna be there, but every time you get out, you keep doing the same shit, what got you locked up in the first place. So how that s’posed to look to us, to me? Why you can’t just stop?”

  “Stop and do what?”

  “Something else. I don’t know. You figure it out.”

  He turn to look at me and I stare at him back. “When you get to be a man, you gonna see that sometimes you gotta do shit you don’t wanna do just to provide for—”

  “I am a man,” I say, and think ’bout standing up, but my head so fucked up I don’t know if I can right now. I just need him to know that I’m serious.

  “Like I was sayin’,” he go, “a man gotta do things he don’t always wanna do, if he got good reasons. I ain’t saying I never made no mistakes. I did. But I made them mistakes for your moms. For you and Troy.”

  I hear him and I know he believe that shit, but it don’t make me feel no better. He act like he don’t got no other choice ’cept to do what he doing, but he could just do something different. “If you ain’t keep making them mistakes, me and Troy would be home with you. But Troy living with this fucking bitch that don’t even want me to see him, and I’m living with a bunch of dealers that ain’t even watching each other back. ’Cause of you, ’cause I don’t got no father helping me, you know what I had to do? I had to get in they business. I had to risk my own freedom.”

  I don’t know why I’m telling him this, but I’m pissed off now. He ain’t the only one that made mistakes, but all of mines was ’cause of him. At the same time, I know what he gonna do now. He gonna say I gotta come home, that staying with Cal and them is too dangerous or something.

  “The difference between me and you, Ty,” he say, “is I don’t complain about my situation. I handle it.”

  Damn, where that come from? I jump up off the couch. “What I’m complaining ’bout?”

  He stand up too and we facing each other eye to eye. “Every time I see you, you telling me about how bad it is at Cal place. Sound to me like you wanna come home.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Good, ’cause you told me you don’t need no father no more. Ain’t that what you told me the other day? Or was you just running your mouth?”

  “I don’t need you. How long I been on my own now? You see me needing you?”

  He get a little smile on his face, like he laughing at me or something. “I’m saying, if you don’t like it at Cal place no more, you got a room right here. It’s all set up for you. You could be laying in that bed tonight. But you ain’t moving back in here ’less you ask me if you could. That way, both of us is gonna know the reason you back living with me is ’cause you wasn’t man enough to make it on your own.”

  I don’t get this guy. He losing it for real.

  “There’s only gonna be one man in this house, Ty. And that man ain’t you.”

  “It’s like that,” I say, shaking my head. I must be the stupidest nigga out here. How I ain’t seen what he was doing all this time? He testing me. He all ’bout trying to make me a child again when both us know I ain’t. I’m my own man, and he need to recognize that.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I get back to Bronxwood kinda late and, straight up, Cal looking mad
scared outside by hisself. He leaning up against the building trying to look hard, but I been knowing Cal too long. Something ’bout the way he standing all stiff, with his eyes all wide and shit, give it away. Dude look like he ’bout to piss hisself.

  This the first night since he went back to work that I wasn’t out here with him the whole time, keeping a eye on him. I don’t know if he could do it by hisself no more, not if this the way he gonna look.

  Without saying nothing, I drop my backpack on the ground and lean against the building on the other side of the door. Cal look over at me. “You a’ight?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “You look fucked up.”

  “I am.”

  “You gonna stay out here?”

  “Yeah.” I hafta. Anybody walking by could tell Cal can’t handle hisself.

  For a while I stand there watching him work and try and act like I’m just chillin’, not trying to protect him or nothing. I can tell he happy I’m out there ’cause he ain’t looking like no damn statue no more. Even still, I’m hoping nothing go down tonight ’cause this high don’t seem to be wearing off no time soon.

  Keith moms make him come home by midnight, so after he leave, Cal on his own and gotta keep his own stash. He still don’t actually hold no drugs on him though. He keep most of it in a plastic bag that he stuff in a drainpipe on the side of the building ’bout two feet from where he standing. Then he keep a little in the grass right next to him. So now I’m not only watching out for Cal, but I’m trying to help him keep a eye on his weed too.

  And trying to keep my eyes from crossing.

  I ain’t been this high for a while.

  “You talk to Greg?” I ask him.

  He shake his head. “Got nothing to say to him. He doing his thing, I’m doing mines.”

  “Brothers, man,” I say. “Y’all s’posed to be tight.”

  “S’posed to be.”

  “Only one doing what they s’posed to do is you.”

  He shrug. This conversation look like it’s starting to get to him. So I start telling him ’bout my pops and what he told me. “He think I’ma get on my knees and beg him to come home, but he don’t know me. I don’t even wanna live with them no more.”

  “You don’t gotta go nowhere,” Cal say. “Fuck your father.”

  I laugh ’cause he right. Why my pops think I wanna leave outta Bronxwood for? How I’ma go from being on my own to being with them again. For what?

  Anyway, I can tell Cal don’t want me to leave. If I was him, I wouldn’t want me to go neither. I’m the only friend he got. Even his own brothers don’t look out for him the way I do.

  I hang out with him as long as I can, but that musta been the craziest weed I ever smoked ’cause I’m getting higher and more tired every minute that go by. Really, what I need is to get in my bed, but this weed making me dumb hungry too. “What time the Chinese place close?”

  “I don’t know,” Cal say.

  “I’ma go see.” I start walking and turn ’round and see that look on Cal face again. Damn, I’m just going ’round the corner and he already scared. I don’t know how he gonna do this job no more, not this way.

  When I get back with my food, I tell Cal I’ma go upstairs to eat and go to sleep. I can’t hardly stand up no more.

  “You know what,” he say, “my ribs is starting to hurt. I’ma go up with you.”

  I wait for him while he get all the weed together. I know it ain’t been easy for him, standing out here all night with two broke ribs and shit, but me and him know it’s way too early for him to be going upstairs. This the time he usually start getting most his business. Late.

  Every night this week he been going upstairs earlier than he s’posed to, saying he in pain or something. But now it’s just past midnight. I don’t know, but something tell me Andre gonna have a problem with this.

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 21

  THIRTY-SIX

  I’m hardly awake when I hear Andre banging on Cal door and telling him to get his ass up. Fuck. We need to change the locks up in here. For real.

  Not only is Andre knocking and making all that noise but Bin Laden is barking his brains out too. It’s after ten in the morning, but after me and Cal came upstairs last night, we stood up late watching a karate movie on cable and eating them chicken wings and pork fried rice. Shit had me blasting all night, lighting this room up. Still funky in here.

  I need to go to the bathroom, but I try to hold it ’til Andre leave. Fucking asshole. After the shit he put me through in Brooklyn, I ain’t trying to run into him and hear him tell me how I should work for him again and how I ain’t doing nothing to help them out. I’m trying to stay outta his way for a little while more.

  Andre must go in Cal room ’cause I don’t hear him knocking no more. So I open my door and see that Cal door is closed. I can hear talking but no yelling or nothing, so I go to the bathroom and, no lie, I’m in there a long time. Real long. Fucking Chinese food.

  I barely get out the bathroom when I hear Andre voice all loud and shit. What the fuck is his problem? The door to Cal room is open now and Andre standing there, half in and half out. “I don’t wanna hear none of this shit no more,” he tell Cal. “How long you gonna say you in pain? Two months? A year?”

  Damn. Andre acting like he ain’t even human no more. I mean, Cal ain’t just some guy that work for him. Cal his brother. What, he forgot that?

  “This is a business,” Andre say. “You can’t decide to come upstairs when you feel like it. Why you don’t get that?”

  That’s all he think ’bout. Money.

  “I’m getting word that folks around here is starting to get they shit from dudes over by Baychester. Why? ’Cause my brother don’t like working long hours no more. ’Cause my brother thinking more about his ribs than the family business. ’Cause my brother think he the only one that ever been in pain before.” I hear Cal start to say something, but Andre still talking, or rather screaming, “I got shot, motherfucker. Shot! And did you see me pussying out like you doing?”

  I come down the hallway and stand close to Cal bedroom door. Cal standing there, looking down like he got something to be ashamed ’bout. “Andre,” I say. “Cal still hurt, man. He working as hard as he could.”

  The way Andre look at me, it’s like he wanna kill me right here and now. “Ty, you the one who telling him he can do what he want? You the one telling him he don’t gotta think about the rest of his family?”

  “It ain’t ’bout the family, Andre. It’s ’bout Cal.”

  “It’s always about the family!” He full out screaming now. “With us, it’s always about family. Cal my little brother, Ty. I’m trying to teach him how to be a man, a man that know how to take care of his responsibilities. He need to learn how to work hard because that’s what a man do.”

  “The dude got broken ribs, man,” I say, raising my voice my own self. “How you ’spect him to—”

  “I expect him to be a working part of this family!” Andre yell.

  “You don’t even know what the fuck going on in your family right in fronta your face,” I say, looking him dead in the eye. “You need to talk to Greg ’bout—”

  Cal grab my arm. “Ty, c’mon, man. Don’t do this.”

  “Yeah,” Andre say to me. “You always going, ‘I ain’t in this. I ain’t in this.’ If you ain’t in it, then stay your punk ass the fuck outta it, then.”

  “A’ight,” I say ’cause now it’s like both of them is ganging up on me and I’m the one here trying to help, trying to calm the situation down.

  I walk past them to my bedroom and that’s when Andre say it. “Ty, you gotta get up outta here. Before you got here, Cal knew his priorities and knew who to listen to. Now he got you filling his head with shit and I can’t be having this no more.”

  I turn ’round. “Andre, I ain’t—”

  “You through here, Ty. Get the fuck out. Next time I stop by, you better not be here.”

  Now it’s Cal turn t
o try and talk to him. “Ty don’t got nothing to do with this. It’s my ribs, not Ty, making me leave work early.”

  Andre ain’t hearing it. “Tell your friend to pack his shit and leave. I ain’t saying it again. He better not be here when I come back around.”

  “When you coming back?” Cal ask. “Least give him time to find another place to stay.”

  “I’m coming back when I get here,” Andre say. “That’s all you need to know.”

  I go in my room and sit on the bed listening to them two arguing for a while. Andre just being Andre, but it piss me off that Cal ain’t even trying to get him to change his mind. Yeah, he asking for more time, but that ain’t the point. Andre throwing me out and I don’t got no place to go.

  After Andre leave and after I’m dressed, I go in my room, close the door, and call the only person I know I can call when I need something.

  Regg pick up on the third ring. “Ty?” He sound kinda busy or something. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m … I mean, I’m a’ight.”

  “I’m in the middle of something. Let me call you back later.”

  Damn, he rushing me off the phone, not even letting me get a word out. “A’ight, but, Regg. Can I ask you something?” I don’t know why, but I can’t stand having to ask nobody for anything. Make me look weak when I ain’t.

  “What you need?” he ask.

  “Um, a place to stay for a couple days or a couple weeks, I don’t know. I gotta get up outta here and—”

  “Ty, look, you know I would help you if I could, but I don’t want your pops thinking I’m trying to step in where he don’t want me to be. He your pops, you know.”

  “I know, but—”

  “He my friend, Ty, and the other day me and him got into it. He outright told me to back up off you, that you his son. And I gotta respect that. He trying to get his family back together and—”