Double Dippin' (27 page)

Brick looked confusedly from Shane to Misty as if unable to determine whose orders to take.

“Yo, help me get her outta here, man—she gon’ get us all locked up!” Shane barked at Brick.

Motivated by the words
locked up
, Brick took control of the situation and
grabbed Misty’s kicking feet. Together, Shane and Brick, both tall and strong, wrestled with the cussing and spitting ninety-nine-pound hothead and carried her out of the bar.

After being deposited on the pavement outside the bar, Misty started swinging on Shane, pummeling him with a rain of blows. He ducked the punches from her tiny fists and then grabbed Misty and restrained her with a tight hug.

“Why the fuck you make me go off like that Shane?” Misty demanded after Shane released her. She stood on her tiptoes, fists balled, veins popping out of the sides of her neck.

“I ain’t make you do shit. Now back the fuck off,” Shane advised, but Misty took another step forward.

“How you gon’ be all up in some other bitch’s face when I ain’t seen your ass in damn near a week?” Misty said hotly.

“Yo, Brick,” he said, looking at Brick for support. “Handle your business, man.”

“Don’t be draggin’ Brick in this. This is between me and you!”

“Yo, Brick!” Shane’s voice grew louder, more determined.

“Brick ain’t stupid; he knows whassup with you and me.”

Shocked, Shane glanced anxiously at Brick.

Wearing a blank expression, Brick didn’t say a word.

“You wasn’t playin’ him,” she shouted. “Brick knew what we were doing the whole time,” Misty said with a sneer.

Shane gulped and blinked rapidly.

“That’s right, nigga…blink! You the one who got played.” Misty was still on her toes, trying to get in Shane’s face. “You thought you was creepin’ behind your best friend’s back—well, you wasn’t. Brick knew about everything. Ha ha ha!” Misty scoffed. “I guess the joke’s on you, Shane.” She shook her head and smiled sardonically. “And that’s fucked up. You don’t care about nobody but your damn self,” she continued.

“Yo, Misty, back the fuck off. Don’t be comin’ at my neck like that. I wasn’t tryin’ to play nobody.” Shane gestured threateningly. “What happened between me and you just happened. You know I wasn’t trying to hurt Brick.”

“So what! You didn’t care if Brick got hurt. Brick knew you’d probably try to hit on me…that’s why he was willing to share me.”

“Hit on you!” Shane frowned in disgust. “Man, you came at me!”

“Whatever,” Misty muttered. “The point is, Brick’s heart was in the right place. He had your back.” Misty placed a palm across her heart and began patting. “Out of the kindness of his heart, he let you fuck me. And look at how you treat him; he damn sure don’t get the same type of loyalty from you. You ain’t shit, Shane,” Misty spat maliciously.

“Yo, Brick. I’m sorry, man. I wasn’t never tryin’ to play you. It’s just…”

“It’s cool, dawg,” Brick said. “Real rap—it’s cool,” he insisted. “You know how we do.”

Shane shook his head regretfully and gave Brick a hug.

Misty glared at the pair. “Why don’t y’all tell
me
how we do, because I’m confused,” Misty said and petulantly folded her arms across her chest. “I thought the three of us had a commitment, but it looks like this muthafucker can vanish at the drop of a hat and he don’t think he owes nobody no kind of explanation.”

“I had personal issues with my brother,” Shane explained. “Y’all can’t understand me and Tariq—so don’t try.” His expression quickly changed from apologetic to dark and brooding.

Misty and Brick both knew better than to argue with Shane when it came to his brother. An uncomfortable silence ensued.

“Come on, y’all; fuck this shit. Let’s go get high,” Brick recommended. “Y’all can kiss and make up later.”

“He can kiss my ass later,” Misty said, rushing ahead of the two men.

“Me and Misty got a room while you was gone.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah, man. We was sick of having to follow her mother’s rules. Our crib’s right around the corner, on Washington Avenue. It’s costing us a bean a week. So, you know that money from Paula is coming in handy. The landlady tried to hook us up with a queen-sized bed, but knowing how much room your lanky ass takes up, we told her we needed a king-size.”

Later, in the tidy rented room, a blunt was passed from Misty to Shane and then to Brick. The tobacco leaf-covered marijuana served as a peace pipe. With each puff all the tension washed away and Misty was soon perched
contentedly on Shane’s lap, kissing him and laughing at everything he and Brick said.

Then she got serious. With one hand she stroked the side of Shane’s face. The other hand rubbed Brick’s crotch. “Shane, we’re family, right?”

“Right,” he said inhaling the pungent smoke.

“I mean, I know you don’t think of us as family like Tariq and all. But me and Brick love you, man. We both really love you.”

“I dig the hell out of y’all, too.” Shane blew out a cloud of smoke. “Y’all my niggas—real rap.” He passed the blunt to Brick.

“Well, stop treating us like we don’t count for shit,” Misty said, sulkily.

“I feel you,” Shane said. “The next time I go spend some time with my bro, I’ll let y’all know how long I’ll be gone. Aiight?”

Choking from inhaling too much smoke, Brick could only nod.

Misty gave a reluctant nod, and then she smiled devilishly. “So how you feel?”

Shane shrugged. “About what?”

“You know…how you feel knowing Brick knew about us all this time?”

Shane shifted uncomfortably. “Cut that shit, Misty. You fuckin’ with the vibe.”

“Now that everything’s out in the open, it’s time to get real.”

“What’s on your mind?” he asked her, skeptically. He really didn’t want to know.

“I want both of y’all to do me.”

Shane looked at her like she was crazy.

“Brick already said it was okay, didn’t you, baby?”

“It’s up to Shane,” Brick mumbled and looked away in embarrassment.

“That ain’t how you put it when I brought up the subject,” Misty said, her nostrils flared in anger. “Don’t be frontin’ for Shane. You know you said you wanted to get into something with all three of us.”

“I ain’t feeling that shit, but ya’ll go ’head. Knock yourselves out. I’m not into no three-way action.” Shane puffed hard on the blunt, annoyed that Misty’s proposition had totally blown his high. Feeling disgusted, he suddenly wanted to go home. He took another puff, passed it to Brick, and stood up. It was one thing to get with Misty on the low, but having Brick join in…well, Brick was his man and everything but that bullshit they were talking was real
fucked up. What the hell was up with Brick? Letting Misty run the show was cute sometimes, but Brick was letting his girl take it to a whole other level. Oh well, Shane decided, live and let live.

“I’m out,” Shane announced. He gathered his lighter and an unopened Dutch. “I’ll get with y’all tomorrow.”

“Why you leavin’?” Misty screeched.

“I gotta see my brother. Is that aiight with you?” Shane gave her a flaming look, daring her to make one sarcastic remark about his relationship with his twin.

Misty fidgeted in agitation but didn’t open her mouth. She puffed and passed to Shane. Satisfied, Shane puffed on the blunt. He knew how to shut Misty up.

He passed the blunt to Brick and then walked toward the door. “Hollah back,” Shane announced with a hint of defiance in his tone.

H
opping in a cab, Shane was anxious to get home. He felt edgy. Misty and Brick were trying to draw him into some freak shit. He needed a break from his two friends; it was time to handle his hustle solo for a while. He’d hollah at them in a month or so—or however long it took for them to come back to their senses. Shane preferred creepin’ with Misty. Brick had to be out of his mind to even think Shane would participate in a three-some with another man. Shane and Misty could pick things up where they left off when Brick decided to once again look the other way and pretend that Misty and Shane weren’t knockin’ boots right under his nose. Shane would be ghost until then.

“Mom!” Shane yelled when he walked into the quiet apartment. Surprisingly, the TV wasn’t blaring. He figured she was probably in bed reading the Bible. He felt depressed and dispirited. He felt bad enough to let her read him a few Bible passages before he went to sleep.
Yeah, she’d like that
, Shane mused.

“Mom!” Still no answer. He stopped in the hallway and peeked in the bedroom. She was sound asleep. He stood outside the bedroom door trying to decide if he should wake her up so she could comfort him or just get in bed and try to fall asleep on his own.

He’d let her sleep, he decided, and went to the bathroom to take a shower.

After his shower, Shane made it as far as the doorway of the bedroom when he noticed the room was frigid and ominously quiet. With baited breath, Shane slid a glance at Dolores Holmes’s chest, waiting to see the rise and fall of her breathing. She was still. A wave of panic thrust him inside the room.
Trembling, he knelt at the side of the bed. “Mom!” he yelled, his voice filled with terror. “Mom!”

Dolores Holmes’s open eyes stared at nothing. Engulfed by fear, Shane called her again. He shook her urgently. “Please, Mom, wake up!” But Dolores Holmes didn’t move. She lay stock-still.

“Wake up,” he continued to plead, shaking his foster mother’s lifeless body. “Please,” he begged. “Wake up!” Crying bitterly, Shane collapsed upon the dead woman’s chest. After nearly twenty minutes of sobbing, he finally pulled himself together enough to pick up the phone and call for an ambulance.

“No point in taking your mother to the hospital, sir,” said the emergency technician after examining Ms. Holmes. “We’re going to take her straight to the city morgue. After you make funeral arrangements, the mortuary can pick her up from there.”

Shane openly shed tears as the attendants lifted Dolores Holmes onto a stretcher. Shane touched her face tenderly before the men carried his foster mother’s body to the waiting ambulance.

For over an hour, he wept bitterly. Shane saw flashing images of his birth mother as well as his foster mother as he cried out, “
Mommy
” in child-like repetition. In his mind’s eye, the images of his biological mother were faded, but he recalled sharp, clearly focused images of his foster mother.

It wasn’t fair. No one should lose two mothers in their lifetime. Filled with fury, Shane smashed an ashtray, flipped over the coffee table, and kicked the wide-screen TV. Drained, he picked up the phone and called Tariq.

“Put my brother on the phone,” he said to Janelle in a choked voice.

“He’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

“Tariq’s working for that moving company now. He’s out of town until tomorrow.”

Shane realized Janelle could hear the tears in his voice and was being uncharacteristically helpful.

“He should be calling me later on tonight. Do you want him to give you a call?”

“Yeah, tell him I need to talk to him,” Shane said, his voice breaking like a child’s. Shane didn’t have any knowledge of how to handle funeral arrange-ments; he needed Tariq. He’d tell his brother as much of the truth as he felt Tariq could handle.

After a couple hours had elapsed without hearing from Tariq, Shane gave up and called Felicia Bradley’s cell phone. Being a preacher’s wife, he figured she’d have plenty of experience with death and funerals.

He got a recorded message; apparently Felicia’s cell was turned off. Taking a chance, Shane called her home phone. Felicia answered sleepily, but became alert when Shane, still pretending that Ms. Holmes was his mother, told her what had happened.

“Who has the body?” she asked him.

“What?”

“Which mortuary?”

“I don’t know; they took her to the morgue.”

“Does she have an insurance policy? Did she make any burial arrangements?”

“I don’t know, I doubt it,” he said, frustration in his tone.

“Was she collecting social security?”

“Yeah, I think so. She got a little something from the government once a month.”

“Social security will pay a portion of her funeral costs, but not much. If your mother doesn’t have insurance and doesn’t belong to any church that would help with the expenses, your best bet is to have her cremated. It’s cheaper.”

“How much is cheaper?”

“Different prices; it depends on what you want.”

“My mother wouldn’t like that; she’d want a decent burial and a preacher to say some words over her,” Shane lamented, imagining Ms. Holmes’s displeasure at her body being burned to ashes without being sanctioned by a minister.

“I can hold a small memorial service for your mother in our church,” Felicia offered. “I could also get the reverend to speak at the service. Would you like me to make the arrangements for the cremation?”

“Yeah, would you, please?”

Shane hung up feeling a little better, but when he walked around the empty apartment, grief sent him out into the night. Out on the prowl.