Part 16 (1/2)

Basketball was my form of meditation. I got a chance to clear my mind and focus strictly on the game. I didn't have the energy or time to think about the bad things that were going on in my life. I didn't think about school, stupid high school boys, or my home life. I didn't have to think about being scared to get a drink of water in the middle of the night because my dad might be in his paranoid state and try to stab me, his own daughter, because he thought I was trying to get him. I didn't have to think about my mom taking back the lunch money she gave me because they spent the rest of hers. I didn't have to think about my little brothers and sister who might not be safe.

After practice Erin got picked up, while April, Keyona, and I caught the bus. I knew I didn't want to go home this early.

”April, can I go to your house?”

”I don't care,” she replied.

At April's house I would be able to eat real home-cooked food instead of Top Ramen. When I got there, I had to wait for her to eat before I did. I couldn't just raid the fridge like I wanted to. We ate baked chicken, fried okra, and rice. I always waited until the last possible moment to go home, sometimes missing the last bus and spending the night over there. I didn't want to go home, not tonight.

”April, your friend can't spend the night again,” I heard her mother whisper to her through the paper-thin walls. I made sure I made the bus that night. I guess I wore out my welcome. Instead of saying Welcome, Welcome, it says it says Well Well . . . I guess you can . . . I guess you can come come.

It was piercing cold high in the mountains where April lived.

The always gloomy and foggy city didn't help either. April, fortunately for her, was immune to the cold. The bus was fifteen minutes late, and I didn't get home until 1:30 a.m.

My mom seemed like she hadn't moved since morning. Still trying to pick up rocks. My dad, on the other hand, was in motion.

Slow motion. He had his favorite knife in his hand, creeping around the house like a scared zombie. There was no use in talking to either of them. I had a little money so I would be able to survive another day. I took a shower and tried to hide the money somewhere no one would look. I had to find a good hiding place through trial and error.

This time I simply kept it in my pocket and buried my pants deep in my dirty clothes bin. I went to sleep without even thinking about homework. I had more important things to worry about. It was 2:15 a.m. and I went to sleep as soon as my body touched the bed.

There was a knock at the door. Then a jingle and she was in. I gotta fix that door! I looked at the clock and it was 4:58. She turned on the light and began searching. Why did my mom have to come in tonight? I knew she wouldn't be afraid of a teenage girl's dirty clothes bin.

”You got some money?” she asked while searching me, the bed, and the mattress.

”NO! Ronnie took my lunch money yesterday.”

”He did?”

”I didn't even get to eat,” I whined, trying to make her feel bad. After ten minutes of searching, she gave up, only glancing at my dirty clothes. With her brain in this state, she wouldn't be able to remember what I had on today. She turned off the light, as if I would be going to sleep anytime soon, and closed the door.

I would survive another day.

part iv

gangsters & monsters

Bob Buck

EMORY HOLMES II EMORY HOLMES II is a Los Angeles based writer who has published works as a novelist, playwright, poet, children's story writer, and journalist. His news stories have appeared in many publications, including the is a Los Angeles based writer who has published works as a novelist, playwright, poet, children's story writer, and journalist. His news stories have appeared in many publications, including the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, the the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune, the the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, the the New York Times New York Times Wire Service, Wire Service, Los Angeles Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, and and Essence Essence.

a.k.a., moises rockafella

by emory holmes 11

You said I could have water. I want some water,” Fat Tommy said again.

”You can have water, Moises, after you tell us how it went down. That's our deal,” Vargas reminded him.

Fat Tommy didn't understand. He wanted some water. Why these other questions? Why this Moises s.h.i.+t? He wasn't G.o.dd.a.m.n Moises anymore. That s.h.i.+t was dead; done. Why didn't these pigs believe him? He felt so sorry for himself. None of it was his fault. It was the Colombians and that G.o.dd.a.m.n Pemberton. He was the bad guy. If they want their devil, there he is. But don't expect Fat Tommy to commit suicide and snitch. That s.h.i.+t was dead.

Fat Tommy was having a really bad day. His big shoulders slumped. His money was gone. His business was gone. His high was gone. He laid his arms tenderly across his knees. He narrowed his eyes in the harsh light and squinted down at his arms. Still, he had to admit . . . he certainly was well dressed.

”Don't give those white folks no excuses, Tommy,” his wife Bea had advised. ”We ain't gonna get kilt over this a.s.shole.”

Bea had borrowed her mother's credit card and bought him two brand-new, white, long-sleeve business s.h.i.+rts from Sears for his interrogations and, regrettably, for the trial. That was such a sweet thing for Bea to do. Buy him new s.h.i.+rts that the cops would like. He loved his Queen Bea-she had been his sweetheart since grade school, way back when he was skinny and pretty. Bea was s.e.xy, street-smart, and loyal to him. After he'd knocked her up, twice, he had started to hang with her, help her with his sons, and had grown to love her.

Gradually, she had encouraged him to develop his unique sartorial style: his dazzling jheri curl (forty bucks a pop at h.e.l.lacious Cuts on Crenshaw); his multiple ropes of gold, bedecked with dangling golden razors, crucifixes, naked chicks, powerfists, and c.o.ke spoons; his rainbow collection of jogging suits and fourteen pairs of top-of-the-line Air Jordans (and a pair of vintage Connies for layin' around the pad). He had restricted himself to only five or six affairs after they got married. The affairs were mostly ”strawber-ries”- amateur ho's who turned tricks for dope.

Getting your johnson swabbed by a 'hood rat for a couple of crumbs of low-grade rock-not even a nickel's worth-wasn't like being unfaithful, he figured. It was medicinal; therapeutic; a salutary necessity-more like a business expense. Like buying aspirin or getting a ma.s.sage on a high-stress job. But that was all past-the wh.o.r.es, the dealing, the violence, the stress. He had resolutely turned his back on ”thug life” six months ago, when he realized that a brother, even an old-time G like him, was vulnerable to jail time or a hit-after he had experienced the deadly grotesqueries in which Pemberton was capable of entangling him.

So, hours after that G.o.dd.a.m.n murder, months before he knew the cops were on to him, he'd flushed the bulk of his street stash down the toilet-1,800 bindles-and thrown away most of his thug-life paraphernalia, even his j.a.c.k.-.o.f.f. books, Player Players and Hustler Hustlers mostly, and his cherished Big Black t.i.tty Big Black t.i.tty magazines, and faithfully (except when the Lakers were on TV, or magazines, and faithfully (except when the Lakers were on TV, or Fear Factor Fear Factor, or The Sopranos The Sopranos) got down on his knees and read the Bible with Bea and promised to her on his daddy's life, and on his granddaddy's granddaddy's soul even, he wasn't going to disappoint her anymore. No more druggin', no more wh.o.r.es, no more hangin' out. No more street. soul even, he wasn't going to disappoint her anymore. No more druggin', no more wh.o.r.es, no more hangin' out. No more street.

Swear to Jesus . . .

”White folks like white stuff,” Bea had explained that morning before he surrendered himself. They were in the bedroom of their new Woodland Hills bungalow, and Bea was standing behind him on her tiptoes and pressing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his back as they faced the dresser mirror. ”They like white houses, white picket fences, white bread, and white s.h.i.+rts,” she added grimly, peeking over his shoulder to admire her husband and herself in the mirror.

They both looked so sad, so pitiful and wronged, Bea thought. And all because of that s.h.i.+t-for-brains Pemberton. Fat Tommy thought so, too. Recalling those poignant scenes on that morning, he remembered that they'd both cried a little bit, standing there perusing their innocent, sad, s.e.xy selves in the mirror. Little Bea had slipped from view for a moment as she helped Tommy struggle out of his nights.h.i.+rt and unfastened for the final time the nine golden ropes of braid that festooned his ma.s.sive neck, and then his diamond earring. Bea tearfully placed them in a shopping bag of things they would have to hock. She slid the voluminous dress-s.h.i.+rtsleeves over his backswept arms. Then her beautiful, manicured hands appeared, fluttering along his shoulders, smoothing out the wrinkles in his new s.h.i.+rt.

When Bea was satisfied with her effort, she slipped around in front of him and unloosed his lucky nose ring, letting him view her voluptuous little self in the lace teddy he'd bought her for Mother's Day, but which she had seldom worn. Then, while he was ogling her melons, she seized his right pinky finger, whose stylish claw he had allowed to flourish there as a scoop for sampling virgin powder on the fly and which he had rakishly polished jet black, and before he could stop her, she deftly clipped it off. Fat Tommy shrieked like a waif.

”It's better this way, Tommy,” Bea a.s.sured him. She carefully placed the shorn talon in a plastic baggie. It resembled a s.h.i.+ny black roach; but for Fat Tommy, it was like witnessing the burial of a child.

”I'm keeping this for good luck,” she told him, and stowed it in the change purse of her Gucci bag. She patted his lumpy belly, which protruded out of the break in the s.h.i.+rt like a fifty-pound sack of m.u.f.fins. Then Bea b.u.t.toned the s.h.i.+rt and put on the new hand-painted tie with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s image on it that she'd had a Cuban chick make specially for him, the girl she'd met in rehab. She cupped his big pumpkin head in her hands. She had paid her little sister Karesha fifteen bucks to touch up his jheri curl.

The handsome thick mane of oily black locks cascaded sensuously, if greasily, down his forehead and neck.

”Try to stay where it's cool, so the jheri curl juice don't drip on your brand-new s.h.i.+rt, baby,” Bea said in a sweetly admonis.h.i.+ng tone.

”This new ProSoft Sport Curl Gel don't drip like that cheap s.h.i.+t, baby,” Fat Tommy explained. ”It's deluxe. I gave your sister two more dollars so she would use the top-drawer s.h.i.+t. I want to make a good impression.”

”I know you do, baby. But you're gonna have a hard time keeping it up in the joint . . . I don't think you-”

Her husband had stopped listening and Bea stared once more into Fat Tommy's eyes. He was such a big baby. Standing there he reminded her of a favorite holy card she'd cherished those two years she went to St. Sebastian's Catholic school before she met him.

St. Sebastian, sad and pitiful, mortally wounded, innocent and wronged, pierced with arrows. She kissed him lightly on his s.h.i.+rt front and pushed him backward onto the edge of the bed.

”Pull yourself together, Tommy. I've got to go drop off the kids,” she said.

Fat Tommy was still crying, sitting dejectedly on the side of the bed, long after she had dressed and gone out to drop their boys at her sister's new hide-out in Topanga Canyon. The boys woke up during the forty-minute drive to Karesha's as Bea vainly scanned the radio for news of Pemberton's arrest. She couldn't stop looking at her boys, couldn't stop cursing Pemberton under her breath and sadly reflecting on how that a.s.shole had put them all up to their eyeb.a.l.l.s in s.h.i.+t.