Righteous

by Joe Ide

  “Cherise Johnson. I don’t think I’ve seen you in church before.”

  “I haven’t been in here since I was eleven years old.”

  “Maybe that’s why you fell from grace and ended up in Vacaville.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Deronda is a friend of mine.”

  “Well, that’s unfortunate,” Dodson said. “Perhaps if we spent some time together I could introduce you to a better class of people.”

  “Deronda has enough class for me and it’s you that’s got the problem.”

  “Problem? What problem?”

  “You were in Vacaville. Did you go there voluntarily?”

  “I was incarcerated on a technicality.”

  “A technicality? Is that what you call writing bad checks, running a Ponzi scheme, and selling counterfeit Gucci bags out the trunk of your car?”

  “Yes, I’ve had some legal difficulties but I’m a free man now and I intend to resume my career as legitimate businessman.”

  “How can you resume a legitimate career when you’ve never had one?”

  “I know my past is checkered but that’s all behind me now.”

  “Yeah, well, you better keep moving,” she said, getting into her car. “At the rate you’re going it might catch up.” She drove away, hitting the gas hard enough for the tires to squeal. For some reason, Dodson was drawn to her even more, and he wasn’t discouraged in the least. She could have said nothing or told him to get lost instead of talking to him. She liked him, he was sure of it.

  The following Sunday, he waited for her again and followed her to her car. She walked so fast he had to lengthen his stride.

  “Could you slow down, please?” Dodson said.

  “Why would I want to do that?” she said.

  “It’s hard to have a conversation when you’re breathing so hard.”

  “Don’t you have anything better to do, like cleaning your assault rifle or meeting somebody at the crack house?”

  “I left the drug business a long time ago and I think it’s very insensitive to bring that up now.”

  “You’re going to tell me about insensitivity while you’re following me to my car? What is it you want from me?”

  “What I want is to have a conversation. I have qualities that might surprise you.”

  “Is that what you told your parole officer?” she said. “And what makes you think I have any interest in your qualities?” She reached her car, got in, and rolled the window down. “Leave me alone, do you understand?”

  Dodson got her number and email address from Suki and he called or emailed Cherise every day.

  I’m sorry to distract you from your busy life but your failure to respond to my messages is very disappointing. I don’t recall doing anything that would call for this kind of treatment. I believe you owe me an explanation.

  Owe you an explanation for what? Rejecting your advances that I never asked for and certainly don’t desire? All you’re doing is getting on my nerves and filling up my spam folder. You might have been in prison when they passed the law so perhaps you weren’t aware that your behavior is called stalking.

  I’m not stalking you. I’m merely persistent, which most people would consider a virtue. I believe we have a connection that transcends the ordinary. I felt it when I first saw you singing in the choir.

  Maybe what you felt was my general hostility toward crime and criminals. Now will you please leave me alone? Don’t make me get my brother Jerome involved. He plays arena football and his bicep is bigger than you.

  Dodson kept calling and emailing. Cherise’s brother Jerome came by the house, his bicep as she’d described it. Dodson sent Auntie May out to deal with him. An elderly churchgoing black woman can back down anybody. She hit Jerome with a broom and told him to scat before she really got mad and got her pistol.

  Another Sunday. Cherise had slowed her pace some so they were walking side by side. “For your information,” she said, “I am not like Suki, Loretta, Laeesha, or any of those other tramps you’ve dated. Perhaps you’d have more success finding somebody suitable on Long Beach Boulevard where the prostitutes congregate, and you can socialize with every other jobless scalawag around here.”

  “Nobody said you were like those other girls, and I have never paid for sex in my entire life,” Dodson said, almost telling her that there were girls he knew who would pay him to have sex. “All I’m asking for is a conversation; an opportunity to reveal my true character and gain some understanding of yours. Is that too much for you?”

  “You will never in your life be too much for me.”

  “Well, then. Have a cup of coffee with me. What harm could that do? And despite the fact I’m a jobless scalawag I’ll even pay for it.”

  She got in her car, rolled the window down, and looked at him like he was trying to sell her a mountain-view lot in Arizona. “One cup or ten minutes,” she said. “Whichever comes first.”

  They met at the Coffee Cup later that day. She told him she worked as a paralegal, ate healthy food, drank sparingly, and only went to clubs on somebody’s birthday. She gave money to her parents, tutored her younger sister, went to night school, had been to Europe, wore clear polish on her nails, calling all that sparkly nonsense a waste of money. She’d only had two boyfriends, one of whom turned into a fiancé whom she broke up with when he asked her for a loan.

  “And you?” she said. “What are you doing with yourself?”

  “I am presently evaluating my career options.”

  “And in the meantime you’re sponging off your Auntie May even though you know she’s on Social Security and wouldn’t be getting by at all if it weren’t for her children, who are responsible adults and live productive lives.”

  “This is one of the worst conversations I have ever had in my entire life,” Dodson said. “Usually on social occasions, people don’t go out of their way to denigrate and disrespect you. I’d say you need to learn some manners and maybe take a class in civility while you’re at it.”

  “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you,” she said, not looking sorry at all. “But how do you expect to be treated with respect when there’s nothing I can see to respect you for?” She got up and slipped her handbag over her shoulder. “Are you sure you can pay for the coffee?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Dodson said.

  Despite the fact that she made him feel like a bum, he kept asking her to go to coffee and she kept saying yes. Dodson told her about his father, a marine sergeant, who gave orders instead of love. He was deployed overseas six months at a time. He’d missed all of Dodson’s birthdays except the fourth and the sixth. When he retired he stayed by himself a lot, drank all the time, and had a temper like a landmine. Dodson told her about selling crack and being homeless and living in Keenya’s car and meeting Isaiah and their run as the Battering Ram Bandits and the gang war and the kid named Flaco who got shot in the head. He told her about hustling and going to the joint and how he always knew he was meant for something better but survival always came first.

  What struck him about Cherise, aside from her looks, was that she listened. Really listened. Like she was taking each word and turning it over in her mind, checking it for truth before she went on to the next. As their conversations continued, he felt like she saw something in him: his potential, who he could be. A disturbing thing to be measured against yourself, and it made him curious. Who, in fact, could he be?

  “I know I should have something going by now,” Dodson said. “But an opportunity will come along. It always does.”

  “See, that’s your problem, Dodson.”

  “You mean I’ve got another one?”

  “Oh, I have a list, believe me.”

  “You were saying?”

  “I was saying that one of your problems is that you have no initiative. Nothing’s gonna happen for you.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Dodson said, irritated now. “I gotta go make something happen. Shit. That ain’t nothing but a damn cl
iché. I dropped out of high school and just got out the joint. I ain’t got nothing to make something with.”

  “And that ain’t nothing but a damn excuse,” she replied. “Let me ask you something.”

  “What? Do I know I’m a lazy bum, I have a criminal nature, and I lack initiative? I believe you answered that yourself.”

  “What are you good at?”

  “Good at?”

  “Yes, good at. Don’t make me repeat myself. You must have some kind of skill set besides selling stolen goods and illegal drugs.” Dodson thought a moment. And then another.

  “You mean you have none?” Cherise said. “There is nothing legitimate you know how to do? And talking doesn’t count.”

  Dodson’s entire life fast-forwarded through his head but he couldn’t think of a single thing. It was humiliating. He leaned back in his chair. Maybe it was time to cut this off. This girl was never gonna come around, and he was tired of getting his ego hacked to pieces. Now she was looking at him over her coffee cup. “What,” he said, expecting more abuse.

  “I know you don’t like Deronda, but she’s having a birthday party for her niece. She’s turning six. Would you like to go?”

  “Go? You mean with you?”

  “Yes, with me. There won’t be any liquor, weed, or hoochie dancing, but Deronda’s grandmother is cooking and you haven’t tasted anything until you’ve had her fried chicken.”

  “That’s ’cause you ain’t tasted mine.”

  Deronda couldn’t believe Dodson was Cherise’s date and neither could any of the other people there, including the girls Dodson had gone out with.

  “All of the men that want to take you out and that’s who you bring?” Deronda said. “Girl, you need to raise your standards.”

  “What do you know about standards?” Dodson said. “Your last boyfriend couldn’t even read.”

  “He had dislex—dismex—he had that thing Tom Cruise had.”

  “Tom Cruise? That boy ain’t got nothin’ in common with Tom Cruise except hands and feet.”

  “Maybe, but he don’t have a criminal record.”

  “That’s ’cause he’s too busy learning the alphabet.” Dodson looked around. Cherise had disappeared. “Where’d she go?”

  “Away from you,” Deronda said.

  Dodson found her helping Deronda’s grandmother put food on the table. “Why’d you leave?” he said.

  “So I could do something besides listen to you and Deronda run your mouths.” She stopped what she was doing and looked at him. “Dodson, there’s something you need to understand. If we’re together, I am the center of your attention, and if something ever happens between us? I promise you, you’ll be the center of mine.”

  They sat on the stoop and ate Deronda’s grandmother’s fried chicken off paper plates.

  “What do you think?” Cherise said.

  “Best I ever had,” Dodson said.

  She wouldn’t go out with him on a one-on-one date until he got a job. After filling out twenty application forms and getting no callbacks, he finally got a position driving a delivery truck for a meat-packing plant. When she opened the door to her apartment, he was, for the second time in his life, speechless; the first time was when he walked in on Auntie May having sex with Carter Samuels, a police officer who patrolled the neighborhood and was twenty years her junior. Cherise was wearing a nice black dress, the hem two inches above the knee, heels, and a thin gold chain with a cross around her neck and some kind of perfume that was sexy and sensible at the same time. They went out to dinner, an Italian place in El Segundo, Dodson thinking she’d appreciate it, having been to Europe and all. As the hostess led them to their table, he felt something else he’d never felt before; proud of his date. He wished he could introduce her to his parents, see their faces when they saw she wasn’t another ho.

  Dodson thought he’d had sex before but that was patty-cake compared to Cherise. Making love to a beautiful woman was one thing. Making love to a beautiful woman who wasn’t high and didn’t scream at you like a personal trainer who wanted one more push-up and whose eyes were like the sun and you were ice cream melting all over the pillow; who moaned like the moment was too good to let pass without an acknowledgment and who made it clear with every wet kiss and warm caress that she cared about you and wanted good things for you—was the closest thing to the Holy Spirit he’d ever felt.

  About two months into the relationship, he delivered some boxes of steaks to a supermarket and discovered there was one box left over and it wasn’t on the invoice. He took a couple of T-bones over to Cherise’s, looking forward to cooking her dinner.

  “No, I don’t want them,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you stole them.”

  “They don’t even know they’re gone and even if they do there’s no way to trace it back to me.”

  She looked at him like he was cooking the steaks in the microwave. “Dodson,” she said simply. “A real man does the right thing.”

  He took the steaks back but kept one for himself and ate it without pleasure. At some point, he realized he was being trained, like the tomato vines that grew on trellises in Auntie May’s backyard. Every time his hooligan tendencies led him astray, Cherise wouldn’t have it, and in their absence, Dodson discovered another side of himself and felt the pleasures of being a real man. Bit by bit, he became a person she could fall in love with.

  Isaiah was on the bed at the Travel Inn, staring up at an ancient map of water stains on the popcorn ceiling. Losing Benny to the Red Poles was a major setback, and he had no idea what to do about Sarita’s father. Okay, he’d saved Janine, but he wanted to ace this, slam-dunk it, come back the all-conquering hero. If he didn’t, what else could he offer her? What he was, how he lived, and where he was going surely weren’t enough.

  Dodson was walking in circles, talking on the phone with Cherise. “I said I’ll be there. How many times do you want me to say it? What? I better be? See, this is what I was trying to tell you. The baby ain’t even here yet and got us squabblin’. By the time that li’l nigga’s in the house we might be broke up already—what? Don’t call him nigga? What do you think he’s gonna be, Polynesian? Okay, okay, I’ll call him something else.” Dodson turned his back to Isaiah and lowered his voice. “You okay? Course I love you, I been loving you. You know you my boo.” Isaiah could hear a grin in Dodson’s voice. “Say something nasty for me, Cherise—yes, now. Ain’t nobody here but me. Come on, just for me?” Dodson listened and chuckled. “Damn,” he said. “I can’t wait for that baby to vacate the premises. Aight, I’ll see you in the morning. Y’all take care now.”

  Isaiah was envious. Dodson had someone who needed him, someone who wanted him to come home. There was no one waiting for Isaiah except Ruffin, who might or might not be missing him.

  “You’re leaving?” Isaiah said.

  “Baby’s dropping early and I ain’t missing Lil’ Tupac’s coming-out party for nothing,” Dodson said.

  “Okay,” Isaiah said with an indifferent shrug.

  “Okay? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re leaving in the middle of the case.”

  “I guess you didn’t hear me about the baby,” Dodson said.

  “I heard you,” Isaiah said, with another shrug. He knew he was being childish but couldn’t help himself.

  “The fuck’s wrong with you, Isaiah?” Dodson said. “If you think a damn per diem means more to me than Cherise, then you have lost your tiny little mind.”

  Dodson went to take a shower. Isaiah sulked. And felt ridiculous. Was he really going to give Dodson a hard time for going home to his pregnant wife? He dozed, waking up when Dodson came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. He put on his clothes in silence.

  “I’m glad about the baby,” Isaiah said at last.

  “Thanks,” Dodson said.

  “When you get back, will you check on Janine?”

  “Yeah, I’ll check on
her,” Dodson said. “I’m surprised she ain’t called you already and said get me the fuck outta here.”

  Janine wondered if loving Benny was worth the trouble. Just thinking about it felt like a betrayal, but here she was, hiding three hundred miles from home and in danger for her life, the adrenaline and fear a lot different than putting your last money on the pass line. She had to get out of here, go back to Vegas. Maybe she couldn’t do anything but at least she’d be close to Benny. Deronda was talking again. The girl had an opinion about everything, even stuff nobody ever thought about.

  “This ain’t no racism, okay?” Deronda said. “But black people done a whole lot more than the Chinese ever have.”

  “That’s crazy,” Janine said, wiping the gravy off her mouth with a napkin. “Black people are cool but achievement-wise they’re not even in the same ballpark.”

  “Achievement-wise or any other kinda wise, we got y’all beat by a country damn mile.” They were sitting at the breakfast table in Deronda’s kitchen, everything a mess from making side dishes for the truck. “Where you think rap music came from?” Deronda said. “Not from you people. Your music sound like a broke-down banjo and a church bell.”

  “Yeah, and what do you play that rap music on? An iPod made in Compton? Half the stuff in your house comes from China.”

  “You people didn’t invent the damn iPod. They just make it over there ’cause y’all work for ten cents an hour—and what about food? Fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, biscuits and gravy, all that stuff.”

  “You know who invented macaroni? The Chinese. And we were frying chicken while you guys were still in Africa. I’ll give you the biscuits and gravy. Can I have some more?”

  “Is your leg broke? Go on and get it yourself,” Deronda said.

  Janine got up, got another biscuit off the tray and gravy out of the pot. “Tell me something,” she said. “What’s up with black people and conspiracy theories? I mean, you guys come up with some crazy shit.”

  “Why? I’ll tell you why. We know more than you. Did you know that before 9/11, George Bush hung out with Bin Laden? They did some business together, had him up to the ranch and everything. Barbara gave Osama a horse for a birthday present.”