by S. W. Frank
The Latina’s hefty cleavage jiggled when she sat upright and put down her cell as the trio neared. Bold eyes traveled from Alfonzo to Tony bringing up the rear. To a woman who wasn’t accustomed to men wearing suits and shoes, the well-dressed were prey. They were caviar in clothes, which was very rare in the ‘hood. Drug-dealers or rappers were the stars on the street, but she zeroed in on Alfonzo when Domingo stopped at the desk to look over messages.
She smiled. Something about the guy with blue eyes screamed, boss man and good lay. She leaned over the scratched desk. Peep these tits, was what she wanted and his eyes went there. The dark brow going up was as sexy as the curve of his kissable mouth. “Hola,” she said.
“What’s up?” Alfonzo replied.
“Bien, you looking good papi.”
Tony’s eyes squinted. Women regularly tossed themselves at Alfonzo. Tony hoped the shameless exhibitionist didn’t step over the line. When women did, Alfonzo’s comebacks weren’t pretty.
“Gracias chica y tu, tambien.”
Domingo waved a finger at Alfonzo. “This is my cousin Alfonzo, Linda. He’s married.”
“I don’t see a wife, where is she, home watching novellas?”
“I’ll bring her around one day,” Alfonzo answered, not taking her seriously.
“If she’s as sexy as you guapo, I’m down for a threesome.”
“Nah mami, trés is a crowd.”
“Um-hum, she can watch.”
“It’ll be the other way around if that ever happened.” Alfonzo scoffed. “She isn’t a voyeur and doesn’t share, but neither do I.”
“You’d change your tune after you sampled my food.”
Domingo found the entire conversation funny. He signed a work order and slid it across the desk to Linda and then headed toward his office. He stopped with his hand on the handle wondering who’d score at the conclusion of the tete-a-tete. Tony on the other-hand gave a subtle frown at the woman’s disrespectful remarks. Of course Alfonzo had wit and quipped, “Lo siento mami but I don’t sample everybody’s cooking; there’s a lot of food poisoning going around.”
Linda shrugged and Alfonzo kept it moving. The bold chica’s always went there and he closed the door the second any thought their twat would lead him astray like a dog. Linda’s actually typical of the brash women slipping their digits to his bodyguards. The vicious women cut eyes at his wife like she’d done them harm, when in fact they were thirsty, groupies or wannabe side-chicks going hard for a married dude although he politely declined.
What irked him were the scathing remarks whispered about his wife. Selange wasn’t a jump-off, backstreet stripper or money grubbing trick. The woman was a good mom, intelligent and operated a business, only a jealous, insecure chica would take issue with Selange, simply because she possessed qualities they lacked. Yeah, haters were everywhere that’s why they do shit behind a person’s back.
Alfonzo didn’t believe in the old adage, nice girls finish last. To hell with the nonsense, a genuinely sweet chica in his book is preferable to a sour and spiteful one any day. Trash talkers only brought drama to a relationship and he craved serenity. Instead of fighting over petty things on the regular, he preferred to make hard love to his woman and celebrate living another day!
Nah, he wasn’t on the market for piranhas with vaginas. He’d gone through too much with Selange to trade realness for delusions. Only unseasoned fishermen plunge their rods in stagnant waters and appear shocked when rotted fish emerge. To hell with that mess, let shallow motherfuckers swim in cesspools; he didn’t want the stench!
Tony’s mouth was tight when he glanced down at the crass woman as he passed. She winked and Tony’s lip curled in disgust. Don’t even try me, was his thought, your ass don’t have nothing on my Tiffany!
“Sorry primo.” Domingo chuckled as he took a seat behind a messy desk, eyeing Tony who decided to shut the door and take up post.
“De nada.” Alfonzo dismissed that crap. “I’m pissed at you D; why the fuck didn’t you tell me you’re making moves again?”
Domingo shrugged. “The hustler blood doesn't leave.”
“Still, why do I hear this from Jessica and not you?” Alfonzo asked. He took a seat and swiveled around to ask Tony to give them a minute. The bodyguard departed and Alfonzo went in on his cousin. “You got a beef with me primo?”
“You tell me bro; you haven’t treated me like family in years.”
Alfonzo rubbed his chin, stroking the new growth which filled out his goatee. “I’m family to the end, but that crap out your mouth sounded like a doubtful friend!”
“What am I supposed to think, huh?” Domingo inhaled. “You haven’t been around the ‘hood ‘cause you’re caught up in all that mafia shit with your brother. I guess the Diaz’ are too common for those wealthy Italians. Motherfuckers when they make it get amnesia about where the hell they come from and you’re not any different.”
Alfonzo’s eyes narrowed. If Domingo were anybody else he’d clock his ass. “That’s how you feel?”
“Fucking A!”
“Then you don’t know me Domingo and I’m beginning to think you’re on some shit. Nobody has to remind me where the fuck I come from. I have the wounds tattooed on my skin.”
“Yeah, well you aint around anymore to get harassed my cops or witness our hombres get busted or shot by police. Aint shit changed except the day, but I’m still here primo while you’re hanging out with Italians.”
Alfonzo begged to differ. A lot had changed. The residency requirement for law enforcement is one. The other mess Domingo was popping sounded like he wanted a problem solver for matters of the head. “Have you voted or got active in the community instead of complaining?”
“Nah, what for. We’ve been dealing with an extermination from inside and out, aint shit I do gonna’ change a thing!”
“That self-defeatist rhetoric is the infestation effecting too many in our ‘hood.”
“At least I’m still here, primo.”
“You wouldn’t be satisfied until I caught a bullet in the damn head, because staying in the ‘hood to prove something to you would only have me dead!”
“But before you were some big Don you were Alfonzo and survived fine without the guards and whatnot.”
Alfonzo didn’t bother to correct Domingo’s asinine statement. The dumb prick didn’t know Nico was the reason his ass wasn’t lying in the morgue back in the day. Alfonzo pressed his spine to the chair. “You know what… fuck it. Are you seriously going backwards at this juncture?”
“That’s not how I see what I’m doing.”
Alfonzo flexed forward. “I’m advising you to stay legit.”
“That would matter if I asked for your opinion.”
Alfonzo tilt his head to the side when he detected the change from cordial to adversarial. He didn’t like it. “You don’t need to take that route. You need money primo, name the amount and I got you.”
“I don’t need a hand-out; I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”
Alfonzo recognized the futility of trying to talk sense into Domingo. He suspected he’d graduated from weed to a stronger substance. For the sake of his family he tried to reason with the asshole. It’s hard when you love somebody to stand by and do nothing when they’re heading straight for destruction. “Are you in trouble; is anybody on your back?”
“Nah. I’m doing me.”
“By selling,” Alfonzo sighed. “Damn, you’re letting pride and money become the great divide between family.”
“You’ve been up in the stratosphere too long. Money divides the world; how it’s made is where we disagree.”
Domingo’s animosity toward him must’ve been simmering for a while. “Every dollar you make from that poison will have somebody’s blood attached.”
“And what you do isn’t tainted, primo?” Domingo challenged.
“You have a choice not to get dirty instead you’re throwing away legitimacy for delusions of grandeur
simply to have people bowing to your ass.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t get high off respect.”
“Respect?” Domingo’s naïveté nearly caused Alfonzo to laugh. The man was a child in thinking. “False respect primo bought with money and intimidation isn’t the kind I want. I’m naturally high every day when I wake and later make it home to my family. There’s nothing glorious about violence. Those riches I’ve amassed are my family and that material shit you’re coveting is what’s going to get your ass killed one day.”
“All I know is I’m not happy messing with oils and bolts. Uncle Al loved this shit but I don’t!”
Alfonzo’s eyebrow cut upward. On the wall were pictures in frames, gathering dust on the edges of his namesake in various poses with customers. There were ‘hood rappers, business people and everything in between. But it’s the genuine smile and the beam of a contented man that Alfonzo respected. Domingo the ungrateful bastard had the audacity to sit there snubbing his nose at their Uncle when days of sweat, oils and bolts were what helped feed their asses when they were kids. Coño!
The play button to Alfonzo’s mouth was pressed and the pause ended. “Then take your ass back to school, learn another craft. There’s value in an honest living, but you’re the whiney motherfucker who don’t want to get his hands dirty and takes shortcuts. If you’re not happy start looking inside and fix the problem. I offered you many opportunities to come work with me and you spit on the offer. You want to be a low-down drug dealer because you want easy instead of the success derived from hard-work!”
Domingo snickered. “See primo…that’s what I mean, you’re sitting your ass so high you forgot leaders aren’t happy followers and I’m not about to keep doing shit for anyone other than myself.”
The gem colored eyes narrowed at the comment. Who’d thought it’d be Domingo who’d blindside his ass?
Alfonzo stood and looked his cousin square in the face. After everything they’d been through as kids…covering each other’s backs on the streets…capping motherfuckers if they flexed too hard…damn…fist to heart type love they had…up down…tussling on the courtyards…family.
Domingo’s aspirations weren’t motivated out of necessity. They weren’t kids grinding for cars, girls or any of that stuff anymore. They were men with families and surpassed the street level hustlers because most of them were doing time or dust.
But, here they were in the ‘hood, boys again in Uncle Al’s shop. The blood stains from the past dripped on a troubled man’s brain. The cousin who was once considered a brother had changed. The knowledge became cerebral and potent.
Uncle Al’s mutilated face is the image unlocked from death’s box. He didn’t want the vision in his mind because happier times are what he chose. You know death visions never listen, though and an image of Domingo claimed that place. He didn’t want to be a pallbearer at the funeral unless he’d done everything to let Domingo know how he felt. Yet, the problem with loving family is treachery hurts the most.
Alfonzo’s tone became harsh. Wash his hands is what he decided if Domingo brought more death to the ‘hood. “You’re about to put family in a precarious position, I hope you understand that. A skirmish for a temporary title of Drug Lord isn’t a conflict I choose to enter. There’s a reason there isn’t a King sitting on that red seat, they die before any can enjoy the tainted glory.”
Domingo shrugged. “I don’t plan on getting dethroned.”
Alfonzo shook his head in dismay. “I love you primo…I really do but if you’re opening the blood-gates for an imaginary crown then whatever happens you’re on your own!”
During the drive down Brooklyn streets, past familiar bodegas Alfonzo frequented on days spent at Uncle Al’s shop, he found himself frowning. The scenery was the same. Years had gone by, but the street stayed alive. Young faces had become old; they leaned on walls with expressions of the downtrodden. They hid in liquor, drugs, senseless media entertainment and allowed their senses to become dulled. Addiction and desensitization is how some coped. Not everyone is socially responsible hell some don’t possess a conscience. Oppression has negative effects; political apathy is one of them. There’s power when citizens take positive action to push for reform. Levántate hermanos y hermanas, he thought, demonstrate the clout of multitudes with raised voices, and vote the suckers out of office who perpetuate discriminatory laws such as the ones instituted in many states which bar felons from voting. New York restored an inmate’s voting rights after incarceration and parole. But, felony disenfranchisement prevented millions of people who served time and were rehabilitated from exercising their rights and permanently revoking their ability to partake in the electoral process.
Of course arguments abound why that is so, but considering this law affected a disparately large number of Latinos and blacks, Alfonzo deemed it yet another form of racial injustice. The 8th Amendment succinctly prohibits excessive sanctions and demands that punishment for a crime should be graduated and proportioned to the offense. The expatriation of felons also conflicts with the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
The ACLU, lobbyists and other advocates were working to repeal such laws in states where they were enforced. The politicians and lawyers on his payroll had their asses in the trenches earning their bucks as well.
The racial profiling shit taking place in communities of color, Stand Your Ground law and similar others giving license to justify killing unarmed brothers were on his radar. Domingo suggests he forgot where he came from, which was bullshit. He was a Latino, a goddamn Nuyorican who experienced prejudice and negative stereotypes like many others. Forget…who the fuck can forget being stopped and frisked simply because of his ethnicity, clothes or the car he drove in America?
Alfonzo did a mental shift. He was licensed to carry a weapon as well as everyone he employed, even fucking Tony, a felon. This ensured the field was leveled, a gun against a gun, like in the Wild West where the outcome depended on the quickest to draw and fire.
Domingo didn’t see change because he wasn’t looking. Right where he lived, the New York residency requirement for police recruits had been revised. There was also a Latino Senator of New York, finally. These were subtle reformations, but changes nonetheless. Domingo wasn’t privy to Alfonzo’s actions, not many were. But, there’s only so much a man can achieve in his lifetime when faced with centuries of discrimination against peoples reinforced by racists coming up with new laws and antiquated ones to stifle change.
The car rolled over a pothole and jarred Alfonzo from reflection. “Tony.”
“Yeah.” The stocky man beside him answered.
“Check on my cousin occasionally. I want to know what he’s doing.”
“Sure.”
“I’m going to need an answer before Christmas on what we talked about. I know that’s a short time to make an important decision but time is of the essence, comprende?”
The bodyguard nodded. “Yes, I’ll give my answer soon.”
“Bien.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Giuseppe circled the car. Candy apple red was Shanda’s favorite color. A million or so for a machine wasn’t much to win his family back. The woman’s stubbornness caused a grumble. He had to admit, he was rather proud of her success in business. He’d always enjoyed her cooking, it came as no surprise others would, too.
He opened the door and sat in the plush custom designed seat. Red and black were the interior palettes, red for Shanda’s fiery spirit and black because of his mood. He’d never tell her that, though. The only thing he wanted was a chance to reconcile. Be nice to her Allie advised. “Give her a present and if she doesn’t like it Uncle Geo, then I’ll have to talk to her because that’s being rude!”
Giuseppe had to chuckle. Ah, that Allie was a great soldier. She was more considerate of his feel
ings than his own mother at times. She’d encouraged Shanda, which was nice but what about her son?
He started the engine.
Bellisimo!
Beauty is the Bugatti.
Christmas Eve was fast approaching. That is when he’d present the car. In the meantime he’d take the expensive automobile for a spin on the streets of Palermo. With guards following in their vehicles, Giuseppe sped out the gates with the wheels gripping asphalt as they melt the light snow beneath the treads.
***
Giuseppe read the lettering on the delivery truck at the foot of the drive as he walked past; S & S…yada…yada…yada!
So, Shanda had begun delivery services of her pastries, how nice. Too bad his mother hadn’t convinced her to return home. This separation had gone on far too long. Eh, he grumbled and waved at the vehicle as he continued on. His feet moved swifter when he saw his woman exiting with a uniformed driver loaded down with boxes. As he neared the sound of laughter registered causing him to speed walk. Shanda had taken a box to assist the man when she spotted Giuseppe. Her smile faded which stabbed at his heart.
“Buongiorno Signore Dichenzo,” the driver said nervously when Giuseppe’s feet stopped in their path.
Giuseppe didn’t respond. His eyes were on his bella clad in clothes best suited for summer. The woman had no business flirting with illness when she carried his bambino. Civility wasn’t his moniker, to hell with playing nice when his mood was sour. “Where is our son?”
Shanda rolled her eyes and shoved the box in his hands. “Carry this to the truck please.”
He let the box fall to the sloshy ground –on purpose.
“You…oh…” Shanda freaked and bent down but the driver beat her to it and placed it atop the stack before hurrying away. Shanda glared at Giuseppe. “That was fucking mean!”
He shrugged and continued in the house. Over his shoulder he grumbled. “I am not the delivery boy, capisce?”
