Tyrell

by Coe Booth

  Jasmine and Troy is in the lobby when I get there. Jasmine is on the pay phone just like she was when I left her yesterday, and just like yesterday, she talking all that Spanish shit. And she look real upset.

  Troy is off the hook, running ‘round like he lost his mind or something. But least he got other kids to play with now. He chasing two other boys ‘round with a long cardboard tube, and they all laughing real loud. The guy at the front desk look like he wanna kill all of them, but I’m like this: If my brother can have some fun while we in this situation, I’ma let him. He don’t deserve to be at Bennett. He should be outside with a good coat and boots playing in the snow, so why I’ma stop him from having a good time? So I just sit down on one of the couches and wait for Jasmine to get off the phone so I can thank her for watching him.

  But when Jasmine hang up the phone, she look mad as hell.

  “You okay?” I ask her.

  “Not really,” she say, sitting next to me, real close. “Reyna—oh, forget it. I don’t wanna talk about her.”

  Man, this girl is so close to me, our legs is all pressed together and shit. “Tell me. What’s up with your sister? She still ain’t come back yet?”

  Jasmine shake her head.

  “Where she at?”

  “I don’t know. She said she wanted to hang out with her friends Friday and Saturday night, but she was supposed to be back yesterday. And now I’m by myself and I only have a dollar left.”

  “She be leaving you alone like this?”

  “No, she never did this. But her boyfriend never let her do nothing. When Emiliano threw us out, Reyna told me she just wanted to have some freedom for a few days, before he lets us move back in with him.”

  “How you know he gonna let y’all move back in?”

  “He will. He’s just trying to teach Reyna a lesson, that she needs him.”

  “You like him?” I ask her.

  “Yeah. He’s like my father, only better than my real father was. Emiliano is strict, but that’s why I like him. He’s a real good father, but it’s hard for Reyna.”

  “She love him?”

  “No. But he loves her, and he loves me, and he takes care of us. Before I met Emiliano, we didn’t have nothing.”

  “You met him?”

  Jasmine look like she ain’t even know what she said. Then she go, “Yeah. I met him first. We were living with this other guy that Reyna was dating, but I couldn’t stand that guy. Then I met Emiliano on my way to school. He got a bread route, and he tried to talk to me while he was unloading his truck. He didn’t know I was only fourteen then. So I told him my age and he got all embarrassed, but every time I seen him after that, he would say hi. One morning I was with Reyna, and he started talking to her, and I could tell he thought she was real pretty too. They went out that night, and the next day we moved out of her boyfriend’s apartment and in with Emiliano.” She stop talking for a while and I don’t know if she done or not. Then she say, “He’s a great guy. He changed my life.”

  I can tell she getting sad, so I try to change the subject. “Reyna pro’ly on her way back now,” I tell her. “She ain’t gonna up and leave you here, right?”

  “Right.” Jasmine try to smile.

  “Who was you on the phone with?” I know it ain’t none of my business, but I ask her anyway ‘cause she in the mood to talk.

  “Emil. I thought she went back there to make up with him, but she’s not there. I didn’t tell him she’s been gone since Friday because he’s not gonna like that.”

  “You still think he gonna take y’all back?”

  “Yeah. He told me he wants to work things out with her so we can move back home. He wants her to call him when she gets back. But if she don’t come back today, he’s gonna know she stood out all night. And he’s gonna know she’s with other guys.” Then she get them tears going again. “I shouldn’t of called him.”

  I put my arm ‘round her shoulders. “Relax. She gonna be back. And they gonna get back together, and y’all gonna go back home soon.”

  She rest her head on my shoulder. “If Reyna doesn’t come back, can you stay with me tonight? I can’t stand being alone. I’m scared.”

  Damn. “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know if I can trust my moms no more. She gonna mess ‘round and get my brother put in foster care again.”

  “Think about it,” Jasmine say. She wipe her face and get up. “I mean, I know you got Novisha. We don’t have to do nothing.”

  “Thanks for watching Troy and making sure he okay. I owe you.”

  “Okay, then I’ll collect tonight,” she say, smiling real sexy. This girl know what she doing, and I gotta tell the truth, saying no to her ain’t easy. If Novisha ain’t hit me off this morning, I don’t know if I woulda been this strong.

  “Ty!” Troy finally see me. He leave his two new friends and run over to me, dropping the cardboard tube and jumping on me. Hard.

  So I do what a big brother s’posed to do. I stand up and drop him to the floor. Then I get on the floor with him and we play-fight for a while. I be playing real rough with him sometimes ‘cause I don’t want him growing up all soft and shit. He need to be strong and tough to make it in this world, ‘specially here in the Bronx.

  Jasmine is still standing there, and she start cheering for Troy. “Get him, Troy. Show me what you can do!”

  That get Troy all worked up, and he start fighting back harder. He get on top of me, breathing all heavy and shit.

  Jasmine start laughing. “That’s it, Troy. Yeah!”

  “Don’t even try it,” I tell him when he throw his arms in the air like he the champ.

  I slip out from under him, then we just go at it. Fighting like we on the street. He elbow me in the face, and I punch him in the ribs. I can’t believe this little dude is getting my blood pumping this way.

  This the way it used to be with me and my pops. Man, when we used to wrestle, we ain’t stop ‘til both of us was bloody. He used to kick my ass, laughing the whole time. My moms would be yelling at us, that we was gonna get hurt, but that just made us wanna fight harder. She ain’t understand that guys gotta act stronger and tougher when females is watching them.

  I’m getting tired now, and my wet sneakers is making it hard to move fast, so I just flip Troy over and pin him down on the floor. Then, when Troy can’t move no more, I let him get free. I’m thinking we done now, but the next thing I know he on top of me again, trying to pin me this time.

  Jasmine is still laughing. “That’s it, Troy,” she say. “Get him!”

  “A’ight. A’ight,” I tell Troy, and act like he hurting me. I’m tired as hell, but I like how he don’t stop fighting. It’s good to know he can take care of hisself if he need to. “You win,” I tell him. “You got me, man.”

  Troy jump up like he fuckin’ Muhammad Ali. “I win! I win!” He hug Jasmine. “See, I told you,” he say. He got his arms wrapped ‘round her waist, and one of his hands is on her ass, I swear. Damn. They got him in special ed, but Troy know what he doing.

  “Wow. You’re a great fighter!” Jasmine tell him.

  I lay there on the floor for a second before getting up. “I’ma get you next time, man,” I tell Troy. “Watch your back.”

  He smile, all proud of hisself.

  I kinda wanna smile too, but I don’t want him to see that ‘cause he gonna know I let him win. Shit, life is so fucked up for Troy right now. Someone need to let him win sometime.

  FOURTEEN

  By the time my moms get back, me and Troy is upstairs in our room, and he eating the last leftover pancake that I brung back from Novisha house. My moms come through the door carrying three plastic grocery bags like ain’t nothing wrong. She even got the nerve to give me a cold look, like she too through with me. “Oh, you couldn’t bring your Black ass home last night,” she say. “Not even with your little brother starving to death.”

  I look behind me where Troy is jumping on the bed, trying to touch the ceiling. “He look like he s
tarving to you?”

  “You know what I mean,” she say, and set the bags down on the dresser.

  I can’t believe this woman. “Don’t try to get outta this,” I tell her. “How you gonna leave Troy here by hisself?”

  “He was ‘sleep.”

  “You left outta here ‘fore nine o’clock,” I say. “It’s after one now. You think he gonna sleep through the whole day? What you think he was gonna do when he got up and you wasn’t here?”

  “I thought you was gonna be back by the time he got up.”

  If Troy wasn’t here, I would probably curse her out or something ‘cause her attitude is making me so fuckin’ mad. She dead wrong and she know it, but she trying to blame me. She do this all the time, and it frustrate the hell outta me. She always acting like she ain’t responsible for nothing. Like it’s always somebody else fault.

  She used to try this shit with my pops too, but he wasn’t having it. Matter of fact, even though my pops ain’t really no violent guy, I seen him beat the shit outta her twice when she tried to play him like this. Now, I ain’t like seeing my moms get a beatdown like that, but at the same time, she the kinda woman that could drive any man to do some fucked-up shit.

  The first time my pops beat her was after he got outta prison the first time. He ain’t like how much she changed while he was away. The apartment was nasty, and she acted like she forgot how to cook. That’s ‘cause my grandmother was living with us the whole time he was locked up and my moms ain’t had to lift a finger. But my grandmother went back down South a couple weeks before my pops got out, and he kept telling my moms she needed to go back to being the woman he married, but she acted like she ain’t know how to do nothing no more.

  One night he came home from a party, woke her up, and dragged her ass outta bed. I woke up too, ‘cause they was making mad noise and shit. My pops was cursing and screaming, and my moms was crying. He had her in a headlock and he was just dragging her from the kitchen to the living room to the bathroom, showing her everything he thought wasn’t clean enough. She tried to talk back to him, but he would just tighten his hold on her and tell her to shut up.

  Finally he told her that when he woke up in the morning, everything had to be clean, but she was still talking back. She said she was tired and couldn’t stay up all night cleaning. Man, I thought that man was gonna lose his fuckin’ mind. He backhanded her ‘cross the face so hard, she fell up against the bathroom door, crying. And I was standing there the whole time with my mouth open, but I couldn’t say nothing. What I wanted to tell her was to just shut up and start cleaning before he killed her.

  My pops ain’t say another word that night. He went in the kitchen, drank a beer at the table, then went to bed. And when he woke up, the apartment was as clean as a apartment in the projects could get. I ain’t never gonna forget that. While we was eating breakfast, man, that’s when I saw just how jacked-up my moms face was. The whole right side was swole up and her eye was bloodshot red. I couldn’t believe my pops actually did something like that to her. Crazy thing is, no one ever said nothing ‘bout it. We all just went ‘bout our business like nothing ever happened.

  The second time was, like, two years ago, right after we moved out the projects. My pops was making some good money, and he was taking care of us. Matter of fact, I was real fuckin’ happy ‘cause me and him was hanging out all the time. I was at most of his parties, and I would help him DJ sometimes and just chill sometimes. Then me and him used to come back to our new apartment on Pelham Parkway at, like, four or five in the morning, sit on them white plastic chairs on the terrace and just get high and talk ‘bout nothing ‘til the sun came up.

  One morning my moms got up and saw us out there, and she got all mad and shit. She started screaming at him, telling him that he lied to her ‘bout the new apartment. She said she thought she was gonna be living in some real nice place, but the new apartment wasn’t hardly no better than the projects was. She said he been outta jail for almost a year, and he shoulda been able to set her up in a better place.

  Man, she hardly got them last words out her mouth before he stood up and punched her dead in her face like she was a dude. A second later he was back on the terrace like nothing happened. He ain’t say nothing to her. He ain’t even look back at what he did. That was it. My moms was on the floor looking like she ain’t know what happened to her. Her nose and teeth was bleeding, but she couldn’t even cry. Me and her was both in shock.

  I helped her up and took her into the kitchen, and she ain’t cry ‘til I started cleaning the blood off her face. Then she cried real hard. I ain’t know what to do, so I just kept telling her that he ain’t mean to do that to her, and that he was gonna feel sorry for what he did. But we both knew he did exactly what he wanted to do.

  My pops don’t play. Seeing that shit go down messed with me, but at first I ain’t wanna talk to him ‘bout it. Then a couple days later, we was on the terrace again, chillin’, and I finally asked him why he had to do her like that. He told me that when you a man, you spend all day handling your shit on the streets, and when you get home, you don’t need to put up with nothing. And when a man find hisself in a situation that need correcting, he gotta find the easiest way to get the job done.

  “Let me school you, Ty,” my pops told me that night. “My whole thing is respect. I don’t got no respect for a man that be beating his wife all the time for no reason. But I don’t got no respect for a man that never beat his wife neither, ‘cause every now and then a man gotta show a woman who running things. He need to get her respect. And if she don’t give it to him, he got to demand it.”

  My pops face was dead serious, and he was talking like what he was saying was real fuckin’ important. I ain’t say nothing. I just sat and listened. But I gotta be honest. That shit he told me that night was mad deep. And I would be lying if I said it ain’t made me think ‘bout shit different.

  Standing here looking at my moms now, all I can think ‘bout is how fast my pops could get control of her. ‘Cause no matter what I say to her, she just gonna keep arguing with me and blaming me for whatever she do. And she gonna keep messing up. “Where was you?” I ask her. “Where you get that food from?” But even before she could open her mouth, I know what she gonna say.

  “Dante.” She put her hands on her hips. “When you ain’t wanna come home last night, I called Dante. And you know what? He actually helped us. He came by this morning, even with all that snow out there, and he took me shopping ‘cause my own son couldn’t be bothered.”

  “Dante don’t do nothing ‘less he gonna get something outta of it,” I tell her.

  She don’t say nothing. She just take her coat off and throw it over the chair. But I can tell by the look on her face that she not saying something.

  Then I get it. I know exactly what she did, and it’s my fault for trusting her ass. “I hope you ain’t do what I think you did,” I say.

  My moms sit on the bed and start untying her sneakers. “Yeah, I took the storage room key and lent Dante all your pops equipment.”

  Damn. Why I had to go and tell her where I hid that key? “You gave him all that for what, three bags of food?”

  “I ain’t stupid, you know? I’m tired of you actin’ like you know more than me.”

  “Then how much he give you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “I need that equipment back,” I tell her. “You ain’t had no right to even go in that storage room. I’m the one that’s gonna be paying the bill every month, not you.”

  “Well, Dante paid it for February. So you don’t gotta worry about that. And he said he trying to find us a place to live. He know this woman that’s moving, and he gonna try to get her place for us.” She take off her sneakers and throw them in the corner of the room. “I don’t know what you got against that man when he only trying to help us.”

  “He ain’t being nice for nothing. Remember a couple years ago, when he wanted to help us by trying to get with you.”r />
  She shake her head like she don’t wanna hear what I’m saying. “Why you keep bringing that up? I ain’t ‘bout to do nothing with no Dante. The only man I want is your father. He the only man I ever had and the only man I ever wanna have.”

  “Then what was all that crap you was saying the other night when you got home from that club? You was saying you tired of being alone, and there’s too many guys out there you could be with.”

  “I ain’t mean it like that.”

  “That’s what you was saying.”

  “I’m married to your father, Ty. I ain’t gonna do nothing with Dante or nobody else, so stay out my business.”

  “I still need that equipment back,” I say again. “And we ain’t gonna move nowhere Dante say. You let him find us a place, he gonna want something, and you know it.”

  She open her mouth like she ‘bout to say something, but I don’t let her.

  “We don’t need Dante. I’ma get us outta here.”

  “I hear you talking, but I don’t see you doing nothing. You telling me to feed your brother candy out the machine. That ain’t taking care of him. Now, Dante, he bought your brother all kind of good food. He got Troy bread, peanut butter and jelly, cookies, soda, and he even got all of us ham and cheese heroes for dinner tonight. He looking out for us.”

  Troy jump off the bed and go right for them bags. He pull out the pack of Oreos and start opening it. “Gimme some,” I say, ‘cause I can tell he ‘bout to go to town on them bad boys.

  “Here.” By the way he hand me the pack, I can tell he ain’t all that into giving up any of them cookies. He acting like I’m asking for one of his kidneys or something. “Don’t eat them all,” he say.

  I grab a couple cookies out the pack. I’m ‘bout to sit on the bed, but I gotta knock two roaches off the blanket first. We still got roaches on the bed, walls, and floors, but Troy ain’t even crying ‘bout them no more. He probably too used to them by now.

  “I’ma call Dante to get that equipment back,” I say.

  “Why you need it all of a sudden? It been sitting there collecting dust for three, four months.”