Smokey looked at her like she was crazy but she hardly noticed as she jumped up and down.
“Yeah, baby,” said Smokey, uneasily putting his teeth together and parting his lips, simulating a smile.
Then Dream really hit the wall. She yelled like Mariah Carey and started talking about wedding dresses and cakes. People who would get invitations and people who wouldn’t. People who would be mad because they said it would never happen, and people who would be jealous because they thought they’d get married before she did.
“Wait,” said Smokey.
Dream was still blabbering to herself about a wedding.
“Wait,” said Smokey, a little louder this time. He put his teeth together again and opened his mouth, just in case his growing impatience came across as mean.
She stopped. “What, you don’t want to marry me or something?” She looked at him like he was telling her he was going to kill her.
“Naw, it ain’t that. Just sit down and chill for a second. We got some things to take care of first. We can’t just snap our fingers and get married. That shit takes time, and planning and shit.”
“I’m sorry, Smokey,” said Dream, and she took in a deep breath. Smokey figured her fit of joy was probably the most exercise she’d had in quite a while. “They always told me I was ugly…. I never thought it would happen to me.”
Smokey jumped up and grabbed her the way a fiancé would. He guided her back down to the couch. “I’m here for you. I’ll always be here,” said Smokey, disgusted with himself for lying, but then remembering: A gladiator has to choose himself every time.
“I need you to do something for me. For us. Something we have to do before we can get married.”
“Anything, Smokey. I love you. I’m yours.”
“You know the drill, right?”
“No. What?”
“The drill. With the trumpet.”
“Yeah,” said Dream skeptically, as if she were bracing herself for her mother being right.
“That shit is going down today.”
Dream gasped.
Smokey fumbled for the words to say what he wanted to say.
“I have to…you have to…I…we…we need that money.”
“Fashad’s money?” whispered Dream as if someone could be eavesdropping.
“Our money,” said Smokey.
“Baby, I can’t steal from Fashad. He done too much for me and my family. I can’t just take his money from him.”
“You ain’t takin’ nothin’ from Fashad, baby. Baby, trust me, Fashad is going to be going away for a very long time.”
She began to shake her head in disbelief.
“Trust me,” he repeated and grabbed her arm in an attempt to get her to relax.
Smokey looked into her eyes and saw confusion. There couldn’t be any confusion.
“Baby, I need a woman—a wife—that’s going to be down for me. Baby, we ain’t stealin’ nothin’ from Fashad. We takin’ the money that me and Fashad made, money that should be my money.”
“But what about Momma? What she sposed to live off of?”
“Your momma got plenty to live off of. She still got the record company, the auto shop. She still got the legit money and shit. She ain’t gonna be broke. Me and you need that money to start a life together. And when Fashad gone, she ain’t ’bout to be down for you and me. You see how she is now. She don’t want you to be happy, baby. She don’t want you and me to be together. She jealous, and when Fashad gone, she gonna be even more jealous, ’cause she ain’t gonna have nobody.”
“True,” said Dream, biting her bottom lip and looking off into the distance in contemplation.
“You said you was mine. You said you was down for me.”
“I don’t know, Smokey.”
“You said you would belong to me,” Smokey reminded her.
“What you want me to do?” asked Dream like a soldier reporting for duty.
“It’s simple, baby. All you got to do is go home, go in the room with the money, and switch that suitcase with the one that has the money.” He pointed to a suitcase sitting by the door.
“Once you get the suitcases switched and the money’s in your trunk, you call me—on my new cell phone.” Smokey caressed her hand gently, and rhythmically, as if he could hypnotize her with his touch.
“When the time is right, I’ll call your momma. Cameisha will blow the trumpet and y’all can bury the suitcase I just gave you instead of the real money.”
“What if I get caught?”
“You can’t.”
“How I’m sposed to get rid of Momma in order to switch the suitcases?”
“You got to figure that out on your own.”
“What if—”
“Baby, trust me. Once you get the suitcase in your car, meet me at the BP out on Sixty-fifth by the highway.”
“Then we gonna leave together?” asked Dream.
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to take me to Hollywood so I can be a celebrity stylist? You know that’s what I always wanted.”
“Yeah, baby. It’s gonna be beautiful.” He kissed her again. “Now you go on home.”
“But I thought you was gonna fuck me.”
“I’ll do it later when we get to L.A.”
“Why can’t we fuck now?” said Dream, moving closer to him than he ever wanted her to be. Ever. Ever. Ever.
“’Cause there ain’t no time. Besides, I want it to be special.” He handed her the suitcase, then showed her the door.
THE AFTERNOON BEFORE THE TRUMPET SOUNDS
CAMEISHA
I adjusted my blond wig and turned up the television. The credits ran, the music played, and Susan Lucci’s smile was dazzling, it was so regal. With every strand of her hair in its designated place, and with pouty lips, she gazed over her right shoulder toward one of what had to have been many cameras. Flinging her hair, she walked suggestively and panted seductively as she made her way toward the young man she was sure to seduce by next Friday. Immediately, I paused the TiVo.
I stood on top of the sofa so I could see myself in the mirror above the fireplace. I glanced at the television, then back toward my reflection in the mirror, struggling to get the look just right. Once I was satisfied, I rewound and began walking. Just as I was about to practice Lucci’s exaggerated pant, my phone rang. It was my best friend.
“Too bad you can’t come over because I am ready to party. I’m through with him. I just had enough of his bullshit.
“Damn, you seem more happy than I am.
“What you mean—divorce? Hell no! I’m not going nowhere. I told you, I’m not giving up any of this. I put eight years of my life into him. I earned this. No, I’m not going nowhere…. It’s too bad Fashad can’t say the same.
“Ain’t you gonna ask me what I did? I went down the street to talk to the workers that ain’t really workers.
“I know! Ain’t it crazy? Ain’t it just like Erica Kane? I told them I would help them get the evidence they need against Fashad.
“Damn, calm down! What you gettin’ all worked up about? Fashad ain’t got to know. You ain’t gonna tell, and I for damn sure ain’t gonna say nothin’.
“What you mean ‘why’? That nigga ain’t done shit for me! Yeah, I know he bought me a lot of shit, but that ain’t all it takes to be a husband. I deserve a real man. I deserve somebody that’s gonna be home in my bed at night, and no one else’s. I need a nigga that ain’t gonna hide some of his money at her house. I need a nigga that ain’t got nothin’ to hide.
“What I get out of it? Shit, I get a lot out of it. I have to live. I told them they can come up in here and get this shit he got laying around my house, polluting my kids. As long as they come today. Right after Fashad drops off the last bit of money.
“He normally comes around four. I told them to wait for me to tell them to come. Soon as he drops off that money and heads over to see her, I’m going straight to that phone and calling them.
“Matter of
fact…what time is it now, about three o’clock? Well, damn, in about thirty minutes I’m gonna be a rich bitch. Cheers!
“What you say? Speak up, boy. Can’t nobody hear you mumblin’. Hold up, I think I heard somebody walk in.
“Oh, it’s just Dream. Her big ass walked past here and ain’t say nothin’. She mad at me ’cause I had to tell her the truth about this nigga she call herself fuckin’ with. Why everybody in this goddamn house think they gotta hide who they fucking. Like I don’t already know. Whatever. I don’t care no more. I’m through with these kids, and I’m through with they daddies. If folks don’t want this house to be a home, then it ain’t got to be. And it ain’t on me. I tried harder than most would. It ain’t on me.
“Where am I going? Where ain’t I goin’? I’m going to Paris, and I’m going to France. And what’s that other place called? Melon. Yeah. I’m going to Melon, Italy. I’ll give Dream some money and she can take care of the boys. If she doesn’t, oh well. They have to learn to fend for themselves sooner or later anyway. Lord knows I had to learn early.
“What drill? Oh, you mean the deal with the trumpet. I don’t even know if that shit is going to work. Fashad say he know somebody that’s gonna tell him when the police is comin’ and he gonna tell Smokey, then Smokey sposed to call me, then I’m sposed to blow the trumpet, then the kids sposed to do what they sposed to do. That’s a lot of niggas that never do what they sposed to that’s sposed to be doing something.
“I don’t know when Smokey plan on calling me, but as soon as Fashad leave, I’m gonna blow the trumpet. We gonna do everything the same way, but I ain’t gonna flush all the yayo. I told the cops I was gonna leave the yayo in one of the flour packets in the cabinet. Once the money is safe, I’ll call them. They said they should have enough to convict his ass. They said he’ll never get out.
“Why you rushing off the phone, Xander?” No he didn’t just hang up on me.
XANDER: A CONFESSION
Fashad saved my life, and when that trumpet sounds I’m going to return the favor.
I knew Fashad had a wife. Everybody did. I made a point of letting everybody around the way know she and Fashad were together. I guess I don’t blame her. Winning scrambled eggs is no fun unless everyone knows you won.
About two years ago Fashad got drunk and told me about her. How she was so sweet. How she was so beautiful. How she would do anything for him. How she was a legend in Detroit. How men just fell under her spell. How good she made him look when he paraded her around. How he didn’t deserve her.
As much as I hated her, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by her. She had everything I wanted. Fashad didn’t like to talk about her, said that his family was none of my business, said I was a stranger, and his momma taught him not to tell his family business to strangers. I tried to mind my own business, but couldn’t. I needed to know what she looked like, what she smelled like, what her favorite foods were, who her favorite designers were, what she cooked for dinner, how well she cooked it. It’s weird hating, respecting, and envying someone all at the same time—it was an itch I couldn’t scratch. I needed to know her just so I could compare and contrast, and I needed to do so without Fashad finding out about it.
Working at a beauty shop for ten years makes you an expert on women. If anyone could analyze, manipulate, and destroy the competition, it was me. As far as analyzing her went, the only useful thing Fashad let slip about her was that she had no friends. I knew uppity bitches like that never do. They figure people are just jealous. They might be right. She could be the sweetest girl in the world, and to some she’d still just be the bitch who won the game of scrambled eggs. People would find some other reason to hate her, uppity or not.
I knew her type: too girlie to hang with the men and too envied (and/or stuck-up) to have girlfriends. I knew she had to be lonely. She spent her day inside doing chores and fixing meals for a husband who had affairs with men, and for children who had grown too old to pay any attention to her anymore. My being gay would allow her to open up. Since I wasn’t a woman, she wouldn’t perceive me as a threat, and since I’m not a straight man, she wasn’t going to have to worry about me trying to get into her panties. I knew we would click as soon as we met—I just had to figure out a way for that to happen without Fashad knowing.
Fashad went to Atlantic City with Smokey and a few others. Fashad rarely ever left Detroit, because he had so much business there. So I knew it was then or never. I parked outside their house and waited for her to leave, then followed her, two cars behind. The first stop was the bank, but I couldn’t get up the nerve to go in; besides, people don’t want to chat in the bank, especially when they’re there to drop off nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine dollars in untaxed drug money. The next stop was the grocery store, which was perfect.
I “accidentally” bumped my cart into hers.
“Excuse you,” said Cameisha, flipping her hair and glaring at me, wondering how I could dare upset the queen of Detroit.
I snapped my fingers to let her know I was gay and trigger her to let down her defenses. “Excuse me is right. You look fabulous,” I said, looking at her from head to toe in awe. I wasn’t lying. She did look fabulous, and I knew flattery would get me everywhere with her.
She smiled. “I know.” She was trying to pretend like she was just kidding, but I knew she wasn’t.
We did all the small talk black folks do in Detroit when they first meet. Who are you? Where are you from? Do we know any of the same people? and so on. She talked my ear off for a good two hours. You know you have no friends when you talk to strangers in grocery stores for two hours. We got on the subject of All My Children. It turned out it’s both of our favorite soap opera. She told me to come over and watch it at her house.
“Will your husband mind?” I asked, trying not to sound too excited, and pretending not to know he was out of town.
“No. You’re harmless. Besides, he went to Atlantic City. Please come,” she begged. “It will be fun,” she said, supervising the bag boy placing a single bag of groceries into her pink Mercedes.
“Well, all right, but don’t tell him about me, okay? No matter what, don’t tell him about me.”
“You ain’t got to worry about that. My husband is a jealous God.”
She’s kept her word. It’s like taking candy from a baby. I’ve been going over her house to “watch the stories” during my lunch break and calling her after work to catch up on her life for two years now. It wasn’t supposed to last this long. I was only supposed to learn what I was up against—to know my enemy so I could destroy it. I don’t know why I still go. Maybe it’s the thrill of being in his house. Maybe it’s the pleasure I get from knowing something she doesn’t. That’s not my home, and it never will be, so it’s not like the first time my heart was broken—my heart’s not in her home, but Fashad’s is. Or so he says. Maybe that’s why I go. Maybe I go because I’m on an undercover FBI—Faggots Bureau of Investigation—mission to capture his heart.
It’s a good thing I have been going over there, because Cameisha’s starting to talk crazy. She talking ’bout how bad a husband Fashad is—I don’t blame her for that. Fashad loves people in his own way. That’s a down-low thing. Fashad can’t love her with every ounce of his being, because he keeps a large chunk of himself locked up in a closet. He has no other choice. Since Fashad and I are soul mates, I can understand that. Poor Cameisha has no idea why her relationship doesn’t look like the ones on her television screen. I feel sorry for her. She’s really not so bad once you get to know her. I may be the only person who’s ever gotten that chance. I told her to move on, not just for my sake but for her own. She’s been going without sex for years, and now he’s got her cooped up in that house so she can protect him from the feds. What kind of a life is that?
Be careful what you wish for. I been telling her to get rid of him, and I guess she took my advice. Not only is she moving on, but she’s trying to set my man up! That I can’t understand. Afte
r everything Fashad’s done for her, how can she act like she don’t give a fuck whether the nigga gets locked up or not? How she gonna do him like that? Fashad ain’t perfect, but nobody deserves to be sent up by family.
SMOKEY
Smokey walked into the empty diner, his smile kissing the diamonds in both his ears. He saw Bill behind the counter motioning for him to enter a back room behind the kitchen, a room Smokey figured none of the other patrons of the diner were supposed to know about. He took a moment to appreciate the irony of the cops having a diner that’s not really a diner in the same neighborhood as Fashad’s record company that doesn’t sell records and car garage that doesn’t fix cars. As soon as he entered the room, he could tell this meeting was different from the others. There weren’t just two people, there were six, and one of them was black. All of them stared at him intently, like scientists staring at a petri dish.
Smokey stopped smiling. Bill was the cop Smokey found in his car the night he got caught, but Smokey almost didn’t recognize him. His blue Yankees cap was nowhere in sight; his painter’s jeans and torn suede jacket had been replaced by a cheap black suit and an ugly zebra-striped tie with a distracting ketchup stain in the center.
“Have a seat,” commanded Bill with a tone of voice that echoed the serious scowls of his colleagues. Smokey sized up the others in the room. There were three white men, one young and two old—backup. There was a black man—moral support. And there was a white woman—why the fuck is she here? Smokey could feel something in the air. His sixth sense told him this was the beginning of the worst experience of his life. If he had a choice he’d have run, but he didn’t. Reluctantly, he sat, barely letting his ass touch the chair, wanting every inch of his body wide awake, and ready to fight or flee.
“Smokey Cloud,” said the black man with a familiarity in his voice that implied he knew everything there was to know about Smokey. He grinned widely as he extended his hand for Smokey to shake.
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