A Good Dude (10 page)

Amid the chaos, Candace pulled in right behind the unmarked SUV and got out like she had important business there. She ignored orders to
remain in her vehicle
and
get on the ground
. She stepped towards Rilla’s car in a daze. The sight reminded her of the D-Day scene in
Saving Private Ryan
. To her left a skinny Crip had his arm wrenched so far behind him she thought his shoulder would pop. He yelped like a frightened puppy. To her right another ruffian was putting up a good fight against three billy-club-swinging officers.

By the time someone grabbed her arm, Candace had reached the stairway. Eight people were on the ground being roughed up and cuffed. Candace scanned them and found the face she was looking for. Rilla lay flat on his stomach. He struggled profusely, but the deal was done; he was already shackled. A chunky officer squatted on him with a chubby knee on the back of his neck.

Candace tried to run towards him, but the guy holding her jerked her arm roughly.

“Do you hear me?” he screamed into her ear.

Candace turned and saw that she was being restrained by a large man with a long handlebar moustache. He wore a long-sleeved button-down with jeans rather than the black uniform of the Overbrook Meadows Police Department. He did have a badge clipped on his belt, though. He had a gun holstered there, too.

“
What the hell is wrong with you? Do you hear me?”

He had his face close to hers now. They were nose to nose. Candace thought his breath smelled like peanut butter.

“Do you want to go to jail?” he bellowed, and the words startled Candace from her trance. She regarded him queerly, as if noticing him for the first time.

“Get the hell out of here!”
he ordered. “
Get back in your vehicle and leave!”

He turned her around and shoved her in the direction of her Sentra—shoved her a little hard, considering she was seven months pregnant. Candace stumbled but didn’t lose her footing. She turned back towards Rilla, but the detective stood before her with his hands on his hips.

“
You got ten seconds to get the hell away from here!
” he barked. “
One!
 . . . .
”

* * *

Candace got into her car and drove away.

She didn’t know how she made it home, but Trisha found her in the parking lot thirty minutes later. Candace was sobbing uncontrollably, mumbling something about Rilla, the police, and a terrible place called the Evergreen Apartments.

* * *

After a day like this, you’re apt to call your mama, no matter who you are. Candace got ten dollars in quarters from a Laundromat and made her call from a pay phone close to her apartment. Her mother answered after three rings.

“Hello?”

“Mama?”

“
Hello
?”

“Mama, it’s me.”

“
Candace
?”

“Yeah, Mama.”

“Oh, my God,
baby
. Oh, my God. I can’t beli—oh, baby. It’s really you? Candace, we’ve miss—are you all
right? We’ve missed you so much.
I can’t believe it!”

“
I’m all right, Mama.”

“Girl, you’ve given us such a fright. I haven’t slept in a year. You should see me. I’ve got gray hairs everywhere! Where are you, baby? Are you ready to come home? Please tell me you’re through with this nonsense.”

Despite everything that was wrong in Candace’s life, her mother’s voice put a smile on her face. “Yeah,” she said. “I want to come home.”

“Oh, my God, did you say
yes
? Baby, did you say you want to come home?”

“Yes, Mama. I want to come back home.”

“
Oh, Candace!
You don’t know how happy I am to hear that. You should see me, I’m bouncing like a schoolgirl. Are you okay? Where are you? Everything’s all right?”

“I’m fine, Mama. It’s just . . . .”

There was a rustling on the other end of the phone. Candace heard her mother speaking excitedly to someone else: “It’s Candace! She’s on the phone. She says she wants to come back!”

There was more rustling, and then a man’s voice came to the line. Candace dreaded this moment more than anything.

“Hello? Candace?”

“Hey, Dad. It’s me.”

“Where are you? Are you still in Texas?” He seemed a lot less enthused than her mother.

“Yeah,” Candace said.

“So you’re
finally
ready to come home?” he asked skeptically.

“Yes,” she said. “If you’re willing to take me back, I want to come home.”

“You’re always welcome,” Gerald Hendricks said. Then, “What happened? Your boyfriend finally end up getting shot?”

“No,” Candace said, a wave of uneasiness washing over her.

“Well, what happened then?” her step-father asked. “He’s in jail.”

“Oh,” he said. “So he gets locked up and now you wanna come home?”

In the background Candace heard her mother pleading, “Don’t do that, Gerald.”

“I was already thinking about going home,” Candace said. “I didn’t know how to tell him.”

“But now he’s in jail?” her father asked.

“Yes,” Candace said.

“You missed a whole semester of school,” he said. “You could have been halfway through your freshman year by now. It didn’t do you a bit of good to graduate early if you were going to skip a year of college.”

Candace didn’t like the way this conversation was going at all. “I’ve been going to school,” she said. “I took five classes at the community college.”

“
Community college?
” Her father said it like it was a naughty word. In the background, Candace heard her mom again.

“Gerald, stop that.”

“I’m pregnant,” Candace blurted.

“She says he’s in jail,” her father said off line, then, “What?”

“I’m pregnant,” she said again. “Seven months.”

“I knew it!” There was more commotion on the other end. Candace heard her father speaking to her mother: “She’s
pregnant
! And
he’s
in jail! That’s the only reason she wants to come back.”

When he got back on the phone, Candace already had her finger poised to disconnect the line.

“So you’re pregnant?” he asked. “You ran all the way over there and messed up your life—just like I said you would! Now everything’s shot to hell and you wanna come back and be a burden to me and your mother? We stopped changing diapers a long time ago, Candace. Don’t think you’re gonna come back and stick us with your baby!”

In the background her mother begged for leniency, but Gerald ignored her.

“You had it all,” he ranted. “You could have gone to whatever school you wanted to! You could have had anything you wanted!”

“Daddy, please
 . . . .
”

“
Please?
Please what, Candace? You wanna call me for help, but you don’t want to hear what I’ve got to say about it? We’re disappointed in you, girl. You’ve
disgraced
this family. We’ve been lying to the neighbors. Your mother’s been in counseling—”

There was more rustling. Candace knew her mother was trying to take the phone, but her father wouldn’t give it up.

“Hold on, woman! She’s going to hear what I have to say!”

But when he got back on the line this time, Candace had already hung up.

She sat in the phone booth and cried for an unprecedented
fourth
time in one day.

There would be no one to dry her tears on this night.

THE FAME GAME

They say they know my name

They say they know my game

They say I’m guilty

Now they got my ass locked in these chains

Rilla

C Block

Candace slumped on Trisha’s couch watching
The Simpsons
with the kids. It was ten p.m. Most families were getting ready for bed at that hour, but Trisha’s apartment was still humming. In addition to the television, a radio blasted in one of the bedrooms. The apartment was filled with pleasant aromas from whatever Trisha was making in the kitchen. None of her children were in school yet, so they stayed up as late as 2 a.m. most nights.

Trisha emerged from the kitchen after a while looking like a Waffle House waitress. She toted two plates in one hand and had a third plate and a bottle in the other. She placed them on her dining table and called her children over for a late meal.

“You gonna eat over here or in front of the TV?” she asked Candace.

“I didn’t know you were making anything for me.”

“I didn’t make this for you. I just had some left over. Do you want it or not?”

“What is it?” Candace asked.

“Hamburger Helper.”’

“What kind?”

“What you mean what kind? They all the same, girl; noodles, meat, and seasoning. I don’t know what kind it is.” Candace said she’d try it.

Trisha got her kids settled at the table and brought Candace’s plate to the couch. She took Willie Jr. and sat down with him on the love seat. She bottle-fed him rather than pop out her boob this time, much to Candace’s delight.

“Did they let you talk to him before they carried him off?” Trisha asked.

Candace munched on a mouthful of noodles before responding. It was pretty good stuff. “They wouldn’t let me talk to him. I don’t think he even saw me.”

“You a bad bitch,” Trisha said, “running up on them cops like that.”

“I don’t think it was
me
who did that,” Candace said. “I was, like, in a daze. I never felt like that before.”

“Cops don’t care if you in a daze,” Trisha informed. “They’ll still crack yo head with they flashlight.”

“They didn’t give me any special treatment,” Candace informed. “Look at my arm.” She lifted her sleeve to show a purple, thumb-sized bruise on her bicep.