Soul Dancing

by Arlene Brathwaite

  Wayne climbed into his truck and sighed when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID to see if it was his father. It was Taz. “What up,” Wayne answered.

  “It’s going down like a motherfucker, son.”

  “What’s going down?”

  “The Feds caught up with Dexter in Texas, and that motherfucker is dropping dimes like a slot machine.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Oh hell motherfucking, yeah. You better call wifey up and tell her to get her ass back up here to Albany.”

  “I already told you once. Stop calling Liana my wifey.”

  “Call her what you want, but call her now.”

  “Why?”

  “Elizabeth’s in jail.”

  ***

  Liana jumped out of her sleep when her phone rang, causing Rasheem to wake up as well. On his way to Marissa’s last night, he felt guilty for the way he left Liana’s. He stopped at his house, grabbed a bottle of Dom Perignon, and headed back to her place. Liana was more than happy to see him, because she was about to call Wayne’s house again and make a fool of herself. They each drank a glass and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  “Hello?” Liana answered, still feeling the Don.

  “I got some bad news for you,” Wayne said.

  Liana was so happy to hear his voice that she felt herself starting to smile. Her smile quickly turned to an oh-shit face when he told her about Elizabeth. “I’m on my way,” she said, staring a hole in the back of Rasheem’s head.

  When she slammed the phone down, Rasheem turned to face her. “Everything okay?”

  “No, you lying son of a bitch.” Liana picked up the whole phone and threw it at him.

  Rasheem dodged it and leaped out of the bed. “Whoa, what the fuck is going on?”

  “What the fuck is going on? You want to know what the fuck is going on? My friend is in jail, because of you and your snake-ass cousin.”

  “What?”

  “Get out of my fucking house!” Liana shoved him out of the room.

  “Liana you need to calm down, and tell me what’s going on; tell me what happened?”

  “I trusted you that’s what happened. Elizabeth trusted Indio that’s what happened. The police arrested her last night. They got a tip that she was transporting drugs from Queens to Albany. They found two kilos of coke in the trunk of her car rental.”

  Rasheem was stunned. So stunned that Liana actually started to believe he had no idea what she was talking about.

  “That motherfucker.” He brushed past her and grabbed his cell phone. “I can’t believe this motherfucker.” He dialed Indio’s home number. When he didn’t get an answer, he dialed Indio’s cell. When he didn’t get an answer he started putting on his shoes.

  “Where are you going?” Liana asked.

  Rasheem grabbed his jacket and headed for the front door.

  “Where are you going?” Liana asked again, snatching him by the arm.

  “He better pray that the police arrested his ass, because if they didn’t, I’m going to kill him.”

  ***

  Liana pulled up to Nana’s at seven-thirty that night. Wayne’s truck was parked outside. Jenna and Reese met her at the front door with red eyes and hugs.

  “I knew that bastard was no good,” Reese said, wiping her runny nose with tissue.

  “What’s going on with Elizabeth?” Liana asked.

  “They’re not telling us much of anything, right now,” Jenna said. “You know Nana went down there and turned the precinct out, but they’re not giving up a lot of information.”

  Liana followed them into the living room. She immediately spotted Wayne sitting on the sofa with Taz. When he nodded at her, she almost ran into his arms. Nana was sitting in the loveseat, looking a wreck. When she saw Liana, she stood up and walked toward her. Liana met her half way and hugged her.

  “We’re going to get through this,” Nana said, as she held her tight.

  “Nobody knows exactly what happened?” Liana asked everyone in the room.

  “Dexter’s talking like a motherfucker, I mean…” Taz winced, forgetting he was in Nana’s house. “He got caught in Texas, trying to sell a key of coke to an undercover, so now he’s trying to shave some time off his sentence by telling on every and anything.”

  “I can’t believe this.” Liana sat down, holding her head.

  “I told y’all that nig… I mean Indio was still in the game, but y’all didn’t want to believe me,” Taz said animated.

  “All of that is irrelevant, right now,” Wayne said, rubbing his temples. He turned his gaze to Liana. “What’s up with his cousin? You going out with him, right?”

  “No! I’m not going out with him.” Liana gave him a sour look.

  “Is he still around?” Wayne asked.

  “I don’t know! And I don’t care,” Liana said, getting defensive.

  “What you getting all upset for?” Wayne said accusingly.

  “Fuck you, Wayne.”

  “That’s enough,” Nana said. “If this is telling, like Jamal’s saying, then the police will know that Elizabeth was just a pawn in this thing and let her go.”

  “It’s not that simple, Nana,” Wayne said. “How do you prove to the police that she didn’t know that stuff was in her trunk?”

  “Dang,” Nana said, shaking her head.

  “What is it?” Liana asked.

  “Preston retired just last year.”

  “Who’s that?” Liana asked.

  “Y’all don’t remember Officer Preston?” Nana said to all of them.

  Everyone in the room shook their head.

  “If he was still on the Force, I could’ve talked to him. I know he could’ve pulled some strings and called in some favors. All you got to do is get one of them on your side, and the rest will do whatever he says.”

  Taz’s jaw dropped as he looked at Wayne.

  “Hell… no,” Wayne said, reading Taz’s mind.

  “What.” Liana saw the exchange between them.

  “Wayne knows somebody on the Force,” Taz shouted.

  “Who?” Reese and Jenna asked at the same time.

  “Harris,” Taz blurted out.

  “Thee Harris?” Reese said in shock. “The soon-to-be chief of police, Harris?”

  “I don’t know him,” Wayne said, trying to hold his composure.

  “You knew him well enough to get me out of jail.”

  “You need to talk to him, Wayne,” Jenna said, grabbing him by the arm. “Anything is better than what we have now.”

  “I don’t know the man like that. Besides, he’s homicide, so he’s not going to be interested in a drug case.”

  “Make him interested,” Nana said, walking over to Wayne and pointing her finger in his face.

  “Y’all are bugging,” Wayne said. “We should be trying to get her a lawyer.”

  “And we are, but let’s first work on convincing Harris that Elizabeth didn’t have anything to do with these drugs,” Reese said.

  “You acting like me and this dude go way back.”

  “Y’all do,” Taz said, snickering, “If you want to count all the years you’ve been cutting his mother’s grass.”

  “You know his moms?” Reese asked surprised.

  “She loves Wayne,” Taz said communicating his double meaning to Wayne with a crooked smile.

  “You got a lot of shit with you,” Wayne said, clenching his fist at Taz.

  “All I’m saying is it won’t hurt for you to talk to him, and see if he can convince his boys that Elizabeth is insignificant in the whole scheme of things,” Taz said.

  Wayne just shook his head.

  “If it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll go with you,” Liana said.

  “I don’t need you going with me.” Wayne stood up. “I’m out of here.”

  Liana jumped up and stood in front of him. “So, are you going to talk to him or not?”

  “Yeah… I’m going to see what I can do.”

&
nbsp; ***

  When Wayne entered the precinct, he tried walking straight toward Harris’s office, but the desk officer stopped him.

  “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To see Detective Harris.”

  “You just don’t waltz in here and look for someone without coming through me.” The officer stared at him for a moment, recognizing Wayne from the last time he was there. “Have a seat,” he said pointing to the chairs, “I’ll check and see if he’s in.”

  Wayne walked over by the seats, but didn’t sit.

  The officer picked up the phone and dialed Harris’s extension. “I got one of yours out here to see you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Wayne said, walking toward the desk. He wasn’t going to let the pudgy officer disrespect him today with that confidential informant bullshit.

  It looked like it took the entire officer’s strength just to stand up out of his chair and point his finger. “Hey! Cool it before it gets real ugly in here.”

  “I ain’t nobody's snitch, rat, informant, or whatever other nicknames y’all got for them.”

  “Boy—”

  “Boy? What, we back in the slavery days now?” Wayne said, refusing to back down.

  “That’s it,” the officer said, sounding out of breath. “I’m arresting your ass.”

  “For what?”

  “I’ll make something up later. Put your hands against the wall.”

  “What? Hell no,” Wayne said, going into a semi-fight stance.

  The officer’s face turned beet red at Wayne’s defiance. “Why… you little—”

  “Ed!” Detective Harris called the pudgy officer’s name. Harris was sticking his head out of his office. He waved for Wayne to come down.

  Wayne walked past the pudgy officer, not bothering to return the lethal stare pudgy was shooting at him.

  “You’re starting to make these visits a habit,” Harris said, as Wayne walked in and closed the door. “I didn’t know Nevel was your father.”

  The statement threw Wayne off. Before he could get a chance to say anything, Harris continued.

  “We go way back, your father and me.”

  “Best friends, huh?” Wayne said sarcastically.

  “Oh yeah, we’re real close. Like Cowboys and Indians. Is that why you’re here? He got himself into some trouble, again?”

  “No, actually he’s doing fine. Been crime-free a whole year now.”

  “Humph, so you can teach an old dog new tricks.”

  “I’m here for a serious matter, though.” Wayne got back to the reason why he came, because he could feel himself getting upset. His father had a bad track record, but bad or not, he wasn’t going to let anyone disrespect him.

  “So, what’s up? And keep in mind, I was on my way out.”

  “A friend of mine was arrested; I believe for drug trafficking.”

  Harris shrugged.

  “She’s innocent. She didn’t even know the drugs were in the trunk of her car.”

  “Last summer, your ex’s fiancé was murdered at a stoplight. Who did it?”

  Wayne scrunched up his face. “What does that have to do with what I’m talking about?”

  Harris ignored him. “A few months later, there was a shooting outside a club. A man used a defenseless woman as a shield. Who did that?”

  Wayne shook his head.

  “In Arbor Hill, also last summer, a fifteen year old was shot in the head, twice. Tell me Wayne, who was behind that?”

  “You got the wrong guy,” Wayne said.

  “That’s my point. You got the wrong guy. I don’t care about drugs and who gets arrested for them. Homicide, Wayne. Murder. Attempted murder. That’s what I do. Those three cases I just mentioned are still open, and I have no suspects.”

  “So what you’re saying is if I can get you some leads on those cases, you’ll see what you can do for my friend?”

  Harris nodded.

  “How am I supposed to find out that kind of information?”

  “I’m sure between Taz and your father’s ties to the streets you can make all these open cases sitting on my desk disappear, but I’m only asking for these three.”

  Wayne wanted to reach over the desk and smack the smug smile right off of Harris’s face. Instead, he took the safer route and stood up to leave.

  “If you change your mind, let me know,” Harris said, as Wayne reached for the knob. “Your friend wouldn’t happen to be Elizabeth Romain would it?” He knew the answer when Wayne’s whole body stiffened. “Oooo, weee,” Harris belted out. “She’s the talk of the station. The Queens-to-Albany coke shuttle. That was an eight-month investigation headed by the District Attorney herself. You may as well put a fork in her, ‘cause she’s done.”

  Wayne turned the knob, not bothering to respond to Harris’s bait.

  “And, Wayne, I no longer need your landscaping services.”

  Wayne’s face turned redder than the pudgy cop’s did earlier.

  “And my mother won’t be needing your services, either.”

  Oh, hell no. Wayne turned to face him. “She has to tell me that herself.”

  “Oh, she will, when she finds out that you have a convicted felon working for you.”

  Wayne turned back around and opened the door to leave.

  “You know how to reach me if you come across any info.”

  So this is how they turned people into confidential informants? I don’t know who’s worst, the cops or the criminals. Wayne walked to his truck and hopped in. The heat rising from his body told Liana that things didn’t go too well.

  “So, what did he say?” she asked.

  Wayne started his truck and pulled off.

  “So, you’re not going to tell me what happened?”

  “That’s why I didn’t want you to come with me.” Wayne felt a tension headache coming on. “Just don’t say anything. I’m taking you back to Nana’s, and then I’m going home.” He took a deep breath. “Just tell Nana and the rest of the gang that nothing’s happening with Harris.”

  Liana crossed her legs and put her hands on her lap. “Thank you for trying.”

  Her voice was so low and pained that Wayne decided not to tell her about the eight-month investigation, or that Elizabeth was the talk of the precinct.

  Wayne pulled up to Nana’s and Liana got out without looking at him.

  “Hey,” he called out to her, as she was about to close the door. “I’m sorry about snapping at you.”

  She looked at him for a moment and then closed the door.

  Wayne pulled off as fast as he could. He had to put distance between him and Liana’s pain.

  ***

  Wayne pulled up to his house a little after dusk. Nevel was sitting on Wayne’s porch reading the paper. Wayne flashed back to the marks on his mother’s face and around Alisa’s neck. “Something wrong with your porch?”

  “You want to fuck with me, too?” His father looked up from the paper.

  “What were you thinking when you put your hands on Mom and Alisa? You talk all that Muslim stuff, about the importance of family and patience and gratitude then you turn around and do that?”

  “And now you want to judge me?” Nevel closed the paper.

  “We’re judged every day.”

  “No, we’re only judged when we do something wrong. Nobody’s congratulating me for being home for more than a year, nobody’s noticing how I’m not moving weight or puffing trees—”

  “Welcome to the real world, Dad. No one’s going to praise you for doing what you’re supposed to be doing.”

  “Yeah? Well, if that’s the case, it should work both ways. People shouldn’t be coming down on me when I fuck up.”

  “Not for nothing, Dad, Alisa isn’t a little girl anymore, and I don’t know if you realize it or not, but she has a lot of resentment toward you.”

  “Yeah, I know she does; but that doesn’t give her the right to disrespect me.”

  “Look beyond the d
isrespect and you’ll see why she rebels against you every chance she gets.”

  “Rebels?”

  “I bet you if you complimented her instead of ‘judging’ her, she would start to respect what you have to say.”

  “I’m her father. I shouldn’t have to compliment her in order for her to respect me.”

  “Dad, just listen, please. Just because you took part in the baby making process doesn’t make you a father. A child needs more than just a sperm donor.”

  Nevel flipped his hand, dismissing him. “I’m not trying to hear that bullshit.”

  “Dad, you haven’t been here for her or for me. You watched us grow up through pictures and prison visits. You come home, swearing to us that you’ll never leave us again, and two months later, mom’s telling us that you won’t be coming home for awhile.” Wayne saw the lines in his father’s face soften. “I recognize the change in you, and I know that you’re trying your best to do the right thing. I know it’s not easy knowing that you can make a phone call and make more money in one minute than you do mowing lawns with me in a week.”

  His father nodded.

  “And you were the last person on earth I thought would become Muslim.”

  “That’s the same thing people said about Malcolm X.”

  There was a moment of silence between them.

  “Did you talk to mom, yet?”

  “Nah, your mother and I need some space between us, right now.”

  “Some space?”

  “Yeah, some space. You know, time away from each other like you and Liana do from time to time.”

  “Liana and I are history.”

  “Again?”

  “It’s for real, this time.”

  Nevel unfolded his paper, and turned to the sports section. “You know what song you two remind me of?”

  “Here we go,” Wayne said, putting his head down.

  “It’s before your time, but it’s a classic so you probably heard it before. It’s by the Stylistics.” Nevel cleared his throat and started singing. “Break up to make up, that’s all… we do… first you love me, then you hate me, that’s a game for fools. Break up to make up…”

  “I’m out.” Wayne left his father to finish reading his paper and singing his song.

  ***

  Liana sat at Nana’s kitchen table eating her chocolate ice cream straight out the box when her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and debated on whether or not to answer it. When Rasheem hung up and called right back, she answered.