Bonnie & Shine: An Epic Love Tale

by Nicety

  "Right here in my back pocket."

  "Good. You're all set then. Call me if you need anything, hun."

  "Bridgette, You're such an awesome lady and even more incredible friend.

  "Eh. Yep that's me. Always stuck in the friend zone." She beat her hands up against the steering wheel a few times playfully.

  "I didn't mean it like that, though."

  "Naw, it's cool. You'd better get out there and talk to your peeps." Bridgette didn't try to hide the irritation in her voice.

  "Aye, I'm going to call you when I'm done. Okay, beautiful?" I watched, as she bashfully shook her head.

  Bridgette's face began to frown, as she frantically dug through her purse. She was looking for dear life for something, like she knew it was there but it was lost. One eye on the young gangsters, she continued to search through her bag. I took a deep breath, preparing myself to be the bearer of bad news to the grandparents, placing my hand on the door lever.

  “Wait. Here, take this. I know that you need some money to catch a cab or if you want to get a room for a night…” Her dismay at how crumby the neighborhood looked, didn’t surprise me one bit. “I mean, that’s if you need it.”

  “Uh, well, I don’t need it. I’ll be just fine here—“

  “Don’t be proud. Everybody needs help sometimes. Just take it, Shine. You'll insult my good doing if you don't.” Bridgette practically shoved $200 in my face like it was meaningless to her.

  It was like she was reading me my mind, though. I was too proud to take her money, even though I knew I needed it. The grandparents were both on fixed incomes, so asking them for dough would've been a stretch. My nerves shuttered at the very thought of walking down the street with no money, begging up on change to make enough to catch the bus somewhere. The lump resting inconspicuously at the back of my throat, felt like the size of a boulder as I forcefully swallowed it down. Gradually, my hand pulled the crisp hundred dollar bills from her hand. I folded them, shoving them down in my jeans pocket.

  "I don't know how to thank you," I muttered, clearing the frog from my throat.

  "Just call me."

  I shot her a sly wink and short smile, before tugging on the lever and pushing the door open. My body rocked on the way out the car, pulling at the loose fitting dark navy jogging suit Bridgette let me borrow. It was two sizes too big for me, letting me know that she was once a heavier set woman. I couldn't complain, since everything I owned was torched to a crisp. Sighing deeply, I made my way up the concrete stairs of the brownstone and pushed the doorbell.

  “Hey Shine. What brings you here?” Big momma asked, whisking the door open and holding it for me, as I glided inside.

  “Where’s Pa Pa?” I asked, evading her question.

  “He’s asleep in the den. What’s wrong? You seem rather fidgety.” She shut the door and skated her swollen ankles on over to the den’s sliding doors, tapping on them lightly. “Pa Pa, you awake in there?”

  “Com’ on in here woman. Sixty years we’ve been married and you still knockin’ on the damn do’,” Pa Pa grunted as we entered the library type office.

  Pa Pa was an overweight, salt shaded haired, wrinkly white man in his late sixties. His face was chubby and saggy resembling the dog Droopy. It seemed that the only thing he had in his closet were old blue jean overalls from the 1980’s. He wore them every day religiously and without fail, coupled with a fresh white pair of orthopedic gym shoes. You never had to guess what he was wearing that day. He kept the hair on his face shaved clean, just how big momma liked it. I thought it was cute that he after all these years, he still found it necessary to look good for her.

  She, on the other hand, was in impeccable shape. For years, she watched what she ate and exercised six days a week. Big momma was even lifting weights somebody like me could lift without much effort. But six years ago, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, from her years of waiting tables. It had gotten so bad that she would be bed ridden for months at a time before she got strong enough to walk around again. So now her feet were swollen regularly beyond measure, causing her to drag her feet when she walked. Big momma was fair skinned and never liked for anyone to see her real thinning hair, keeping it locked away under an auburn short curled wig. Her favorite outfits of choice were cardigans in any color with matching stretch jogging pants. Today her color of choice was pink.

  "You guys should sit down. I have something to tell you both." I paced the floor gradually. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

  "Whatever you have to say, son, just gon' and spit it out," Pa Pa grumbled, adjusting his weight in his brand new black leather recliner.

  "Well what is it, Shine? Is it our daughter? Has she finally OD'd?" The panic in Big Mommy's voice made me a little nervous to finish.

  I sighed heavily. "Y'all should know that I tried everything I could to save her. I swear I tried. But..."

  My throat grew scratchy. I struggled to clear it. To keep from fidgeting, I stuffed both of my hands down in my pockets, discreetly wiping the sweat from my palms. It was times like this that I wished I hadn't quit cigarettes six years ago, but a White Owl with some green sounded real good right about now. Moving slowly towards the long office window, I gazed out at the grass becoming pissed that my innocent little girl didn't even have a proper burial.

  "Well, spit it out, my boy," Pa Pa suggested.

  "It's about your granddaughter. Sunshine, she's... she's dead." Breathing deeply to remain strong, I fought back my clenched fists full of tears.

  "What?" Big Momma asked, seemingly confused.

  "I know it's hard for you to be—"

  "Who?" Pa Pa asked, staggering up from his seat and sliding his feet towards the wooden floor to ceiling bookcase. "Who is that?"

  "You know who she is Pa Pa." My eyebrows slanted in different directions. "She was just here last week."

  "Honey, we've never had a granddaughter named Sunshine. Are you talking about Vegas, our drug addicted daughter?" Big Momma asked staring blankly out the window.

  Pa Pa shook his head a bit in agreement with her. Both of their faces resembled that of a deer in headlights. It was almost as if they were dumbfounded as to who I was talking about. They had just spoken with Sunshine no less than a few days ago. I begged them to give me one more week with her. She giggled on the phone, when they told her to make sure she brushed her teeth and remained a good little girl. How the fuck could they sit there and pretend not to know her?

  "Are you guys sick or something? What's wrong with you?" I fumed. “You’ve got her birth certificates. Don’t you remember your damn daughter having a baby and leaving it on your doorstep?”

  They remained as silent as mice. My breathing slowed, feeling as though I had just had the wind knocked out of me. Cutting my vision back and forth between the two poker faces, I waited for them to jump up and yell they were joking. Minutes passed and when that never happened, I panicked even further. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out if they were suffering from Alzheimer's or Dementia. There was no way they could forget that precious little girl's face on purpose. No one could deny their own flesh and blood like that. I refused to believe anything else was going on.

  "Why are you yelling, Shine? You're upsetting Big Ma. Now I suggest you get on now." Pa Pa frowned, turning his attention to the wooden well-polished floor.

  "If you remember me then you have to remember your own flesh." My hands waved hysterically, as my eyes scanned the room. "Where are her pictures? You had a ton of pictures with her. All of those trips to the zoo and circus with her were on your mantle. There were pictures of her on the wall from her park play dates. Why are you erasing her from your life?"

  "Now you listen here, boy. We done told you we ain't never had no young girl here. So I suggest you get on before I reach behind this case. I'm telling you, son, I'm about to put some heat on you." Pa Pa reached his hand slightly in between two bookcases, as if to threaten what he would pull out.

  I saw the handle of a
sawed off shotgun, brown and wide. After the weekend I had been through, none of that scared me the least bit. Big Momma sat as stiff as a board but her fingers could not stop fidgeting. She knew something but wasn't saying. She also knew I would never let go. I couldn't. Her room. As the thought popped into my mind, I raced through the house and up the stairs skipping two at a time. Down the hall across from the bathroom, her room door stood slightly up.

  Cautiously, I headed over focusing on the bright sunlight shining through the crack. I reached, pushing the white wooden door open as it creaked on its way back. My eyes widened while my knees damn near buckled from under me. It was all becoming too real for me. None of this shit made sense. I walked into the room praying for the strength to keep going on. Mine was waning. The carpet was no longer pink. The walls were a bland drab white tone. Her Hello Kitty adorned twin sized bed was gone, along with everything else about her. I moved towards the closet ripping open the sliding mirror doors, only to find that her clothes had been removed as well. She was gone, erased like a bad inkblot.

  "See, I told you. Ain't no girl ever been here. This is Big Ma's exercise room." Pa Pa limped quickly into the room.

  "Where did you get the money to pay for all of this equipment?" My lips quivered.

  "Excuse me?"

  "You don't have the funds to get all of this expensive shit in that short of time. So where'd you get it? Huh?" Before I had time to control it, my hands grabbed him by his collar hemming him up against the wall. "Where'd you get?"

  "Un-ass me boy, before I call the police," He coughed.

  “Shine, we don’t want any trouble. Please, just get out of here and leave us alone. Never come back,” Big Momma asserted, sliding her feet in the room. “We don’t want no trouble.”

  “You two live off of disability checks and retirement. You don’t have that kind of money, only pulling in $1500 a month for mortgage and bills. So where did you get the gotdamn dough?” My lips curled, growling like a mad dog.

  “We don’t owe you shit, boy. Not one gotdang explanation. What we do in our household is our business. Now get on out of our house!” The old man was nearly out of breath, screaming at the top of his lungs at me. "Before I call the cops."

  "This shit is wack. You're full of shit and you know it. How could you turn your back on your blood like that?" I fought back my sorrow. "She was innocent, ain't never done nothing to nobody. But you betray her for a couple of measly ass dollars?"

  "I said get on now." His finger trembled as he pointed in the direction of the front door.

  I side eyed their greedy expressions, as I pierced through them heading down the stairs and out the door. Rain had begun to pour down, slapping my forehead gently in consistent increments. My head turned left, then right, checking out the eyes watching before I dipped down the stairs and darted through the gangway. The alley was a good place to get rid of something you no longer wanted. I could only hope that everything was still there, hoping that garbage day hadn’t arrived yet. I pushed through the small waist high flimsy silver gate and turned the corner behind the garage. The garbage cans sat there seemingly empty. I noticed that most of the ones along the alley were. It was too late. There was no trace of her.

  A knife could have stabbed the cat of my curiosity, when my hand felt compelled to open one of the large black rolling garbage cans anyway. I needed to check the two sitting in front of their garage. Something inside of me needed proof with my very own eyes that they were completely empty. Not even perception was believable anymore to me. I lifted one of the garbage cans and looked inside, turning my nose up at the daunting smell emanating from it. Just as I suspected, it was dirt empty. The droplets of rain beat against the other one sitting right next to it, as my attention sent me to lift up its top. Despite the smell of decaying feces inside, I stuck my head down deep to make sure I wasn’t missing something in its darkness. Nothing.

  Coming up empty, my head hung low, and my body began to shiver from the wetness soaking my clothes. What those old motherfuckas did was unforgivable. They deserved to rot in hell for erasing the one good thing they had in their lives. As I leaned against the garage door figuring out my next move, I stared down at the ground finding something attached to the bottom of my right shoe. It was so damp and sticky that it almost didn’t come off when I pulled it. Normally I would have thrown it away, but there was something about this small folded white piece of paper that I had to investigate. The paper tore, crumbling into tiny balls of gray gunk. The shit was so nasty but as I continued to peel it apart, it began to show the top half of a face. The most beautiful face in the entire world. It was Sunshine. What was left of her memory was torn and wet beyond recognition. But I knew her delicate tiny forehead from anywhere.

  The rain continued destroying what was left of the picture, as I stared down on it reluctant to let go. My fingers gradually released their grip from the paper, allowing it to blow vicariously in the wind. I looked away as it flew on and my anger boiled over. Someone fucked up my little girl’s life and was trying to cover the shit up heavily. The only thing I didn’t know was, why? Getting back at me for the thousands of dollars I stole was one thing, but fucking with my seed was something different all together. I needed to sort some shit out. Thoughts ran through my mind like a running faucet, even the thought of burning those old folks’ house to the ground for going along with the crazy shit. But my vendetta wasn’t with them at this point. Naw. Their punishment was living every day of their lives with the guilt of what they did. Yeah, spending money helps put a cushion on forgetting for a while. But that memory will always find a way to resurface and when it does, I hoped it ate their asses alive.

  The money Bridgette had given me would only last for so long. I took out the burner cell she had paid for and dialed the one number I had memorized. "Mr. Aries Squad, my nig. What's the business, fool?"

  "Shit, I can't call it," Aries replied groggy.

  Aries was my best friend. There was no other person in the world that I could say that about. We were thick as thieves, thicker than blood, and stronger than metal. Growing up in the same foster care family made us brothers, damn near. I was eight when I made it to the foster home and he had already been there for five years. He showed me the ropes and taught me how to stay on the older white woman who raised us, Millie’s, good side. But he went one way, going to trade school and making something of himself, becoming a construction worker. While I went to work at whatever job would hire me. He was six years older than me at thirty years old, but he always looked out for me, like a brother, not a father. Millie brought enough fake trifling ones around for us never to want one. All they did was drink and smoke green. We didn't mind, though. It made the old woman happy enough to take care of us with no problems. But it taught me to be the kind of father that little girls like my Sunshine deserved. He knew about my daughter. He would never deny her.

  "Bro, I need a spot to crash for a few days. Man, I need your help." My teeth chattered slightly. “Sunshine is…they got her man. They got her.”

  “Who’s got what?”

  “I don’t know. Some motherfuckas raided me Saturday night and dumped us. She’s gone, I know it, Aries.”

  “Okay calm down. Don’t say another word. We’ll talk.” He hurriedly hushed me.

  “Alright. So, can I come stay with you for a while?” I hated the fact that it sounded like I was begging. "Just until I sort some things out."

  "Man, Shine, you know I gots to check with the wife on that one. I'm always at work, so if she don't feel comfortable with that then it's not happening."

  "Come on, Aries. Really? I'm hurting right now dude."

  "Yeah, your shit is all over the news. The fuck happened?" His voice whispered into the phone.

  "I know, but they're only talking about my house burning down and shit. They aren't even mentioning anyone who might've lived there and gone missing. But anyway, like you said, we’ll talk when I get there. So is that cool or not, bro? I've always had your
back, man." I sucked my teeth.

  "Ugh, alright nigga. But only for a few days and you gon' have to carry your weight around here." He sounded annoyed, but I could care less.

  "Not a problem. You still over there by the Plaza, Aries?”

  “Nigga, you know I still stay right behind the mall.”

  “Right, right. Aye, thanks." I hung up stuffing the small phone down in my pocket, before running down the alley towards the bus stop.

  I knew exactly what that meant. I was going to need to come up with some money to throw at his wife, so she would shut the fuck up about my presence. Eva was a money hungry bitch, who locked Aries down by getting pregnant. Now they had three kids; two little girls aged six and ten and a boy. Her eldest, a thirteen-year-old son, was found not to be Aries’ early on after a previous infidelity. She was a booger-wolf, the type of bitch that everything about her was flawless but her face and her attitude. Aries was in love, though; ready to kill the next nigga for even looking at his wife. He was the only one around him that didn't realize he was being a fool for her. But you couldn't tell grown niggas shit. With the little money I had on me, it just wouldn’t be enough for her cash-guzzling ass. I would definitely need more of it fast.