Endangered (10 page)

She wiped at her tears with the sleeve of her jacket. “No. My boss said I could work a half-day. The bus stop is on the corner. I'm fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

 

“JANAE WILLIAMS.”

She immediately looked up at the unexpected call of her name. Calvin was walking toward her. He wore a long camel-hair coat over a suit. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, which he removed before he sat down beside her on the bench in the partially enclosed glass bus-stop booth.

She shook her head slightly. “You just missed Roger.”

“So you do remember me?”

“What are you—stalking Roger?” Janae said, wiping at the last traces of tears.

Calvin chuckled, revealing perfect white teeth. Money for a dentist was hard to come by in Janae's world. “Some might say that. But, I actually wanted to talk to you.”

Janae's brow furrowed.

“I was at the press conference.” He pointed over his shoulder toward the building.

“I didn't see you,
Mr. Good Dental Coverage
,” she said with a little sting to it.

He completely ignored her slight. “You were too busy acting the fool to notice me.” His right eyebrow arched severely.

Janae shook her head. “God, was it that bad?”

“Yes,” he said definitively. “Under no circumstances can you afford to lose your cool like that. You end up hurting your son. Remember, anything stupid you do they will use against you.”

Janae's eyes swelled with tears as she felt the sting of his words.

Calvin and Janae sat in silence for a moment, watching the cars pass by. He shifted in his seat to face her. “Janae, where is Malik's father?”

Janae flung her head back in nervous laughter. “He doesn't have one.”

“You forget, I went to college. I know he at least
had
a father.” Calvin smiled, revealing those teeth again.

Janae returned the smile, feeling a calm come over her. She pulled David's business card from her coat pocket. “He's right here.”

Calvin read the card. “David Mitchell. Music Magician.”

“He's an entertainer,” explained Janae, adding air quotes for “entertainer.”

“You should call him. Your son needs his father. Especially now.”

Janae pressed her eyes closed and shook her head. “Shouldn't a father already know that his son needs him? I'm not even sure if that number is any good.”

Calvin didn't respond.

With her eyes diverted she spoke just above a whisper. “I can count on one hand how many times the
music magician
has seen his son. I was a teenager when I had Malik. When I told David I was pregnant, he made it crystal clear that he didn't want to be a father—and he wasn't going to be one. He's never changed his mind. He has never called me about Malik. He has never paid child support. He has never
anything
.” A tear dropped from Janae's eye, staining the business card. “When he gave me this,” she flicked the card, “he didn't say ‘call me so I can know how my son is doing.' He wanted to show me what he was accomplishing with his music. So no, I won't be calling him.”

“Is there someone else, Janae?”

She shook her head. “It's me and Malik. It's always been just the two of us.”

Calvin sat, pensive.

After a while, she turned toward him. “I bet you're the kind of father who's always there for your child—best schools, attends every game and teacher conference. You've already been to my child's hearing and press conference, and you don't even know him.” She chuckled. “You have children, right?”

Calvin shook his head. “No children.”

“What are you waiting for?”

He inhaled deeply and then rested his back on the glass. “I want to do it right. I wouldn't want to miss anything.”

“Yeah, well, I understand that. I guess I already screwed up the whole father thing for Malik.”

Instinctively, Calvin put his hand on Janae's upper arm and squeezed lightly. “Don't say that. You're not to blame for a man's actions. And it's not too late. Just because his biological father doesn't care to be around, doesn't mean that another man wouldn't want to.”

“There aren't exactly many father figures where I'm from.”

Calvin smiled. “Maybe you need to broaden your horizons a bit.”

Despite the chilly weather, Janae felt a heat rise up in her chest. She pressed her lips together and nodded slowly. “
Okay
, okay. I, I'll, um, keep that in mind.” She could see the bus a few blocks away. She stood. “Thanks. You've helped me calm down. But I have to go to work. If I lose my job . . . I don't even know.”

Chapter Fourteen

VIDEO FOOTAGE OF JANAE, WIDEMOUTHED, ANGRY, AND ACCUSING A REPORTER of being a racist, played on every local news channel. She was a target for attack.

Channel 10 ran a segment featuring the annoying reporter at the press conference. A still image of Janae was fixed in the upper-righthand corner of the screen. It hovered angrily over the reporter as though she might pounce on him at any moment.

“I was simply working the story,” the reporter professed. “The next thing I know, this woman comes totally unglued and accuses me of things I find quite offensive.”

The newscaster nodded. “So what are your thoughts on how the local officials are responding to the violence that has gripped the city?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “If the mayor wants to get reelected, he must prove he can keep his constituents safe, and the DA has no choice but to address the violence. Really”—he paused, tapping his lips with his index finger—“I think the parents, like the woman today, need to stop pointing the finger at everyone else. Their kids are the alleged criminals, and they are the ones who raised them.”

Janae turned off the TV. Her eyes darted to the phone. It had been ringing off the hook since the interview aired. Her best friend, Tameka, left seven messages on her voice mail, each one demanding, with increasing urgency, a return call.

Janae and Tameka met in high school. While their classmates were into the sports scene, they bonded over Student Council. In their sophomore year, Janae helped Tameka in her presidential campaign. Tameka ended up winning with her “More Rights for Students” platform. From the first day Janae met Tameka, her friend was always standing up for what she believed in. That's what Janae loved most about her. Now, Tameka was absolutely her closest friend. The one person she could always rely on for the truth.

“Hey girl,” Janae said, her friend picking up on the first ring.

“Well, it's about damn time you called me back. Where the hell have you been? I called your mother; she didn't know where you were. Have you lost your mind?” Tameka said.

“I just didn't want to deal with all the noise about Malik. I know everybody is talking and stuff. I'm not trying to hear any mess. I can't deal, not right now.”

“Here's what you're not going to do—you're not going to sit there in that apartment all by yourself, hiding, as though you are alone in this. Malik is my godson!” Tameka reassured her. “I am all in this with you. Girl, you know I love you.”

Janae sighed, “I know.”

“Are you sure?” Tameka questioned.

“
Tameka
—I know. I know.”

“Good! Now listen, there's something I need to tell you. I heard a few things that could be helpful,
but
”—Tameka paused—“I'm not sure it's even worth repeating.”

“Why not?”

Tameka took a while to answer. “I heard it from Kim.”

Kim was Tameka's older sister. She was also their relentless glimpse into the world of drug addiction. They knew she lied, begged, and stole—whatever it took to get her next fix. After Kim was barred from her mother's home, she sold her body to get the money she needed in order to buy the drugs she craved. And when she became pregnant, it was Tameka who gave up a full academic scholarship to college in order to raise Kim's son, Keith, while Kim was out using drugs.

“Tell me!”

Tameka sighed. “Kim claims she was there on the corner of Thirty-ninth Street the morning of Troy's murder. She had bought drugs from a guy named Shaun G. And Troy was there. She said Malik was there, too. Apparently, Malik and Troy got into a fistfight. But when they parted ways, Troy was very much alive. He left with Shaun G.”

“Shaun G? What kind of name is that?” Janae questioned.

“He's probably a wannabe rapper. Anyways, it seems Kim has bought drugs from him before, but she doesn't know much else about him. She is sure, though, that he is not from around the immediate area. You know Kim. She's familiar with the streets, since that's where she gets what matters most to her.”

“Why would Malik even hang with such a loser?” Janae wondered aloud. “Tameka, I just don't get it. I need my baby out of jail. I get sick to my stomach every time I think about him behind bars, which is all the time.”

“I know. When I think of Malik, how sweet and silly he is, it's just insane that we're actually going through this.”

“I'm scared, Tameka. If I'm really honest, from the moment I held Malik in my arms and I knew he was a boy I was terrified. I kept thinking over and over how was I going to teach him how to be a man? How I was going to protect him from the streets? I just wanted him to have a chance to get out of here. To have more than what I could give him,” Janae cried.

“I know you did. But it's not too late. It's not,” Tameka said.

“I feel like I've lived the past fifteen years holding my breath—and the day he was arrested, that's when I started choking to death. I think I've always known deep down that something like this would happen, or even him dying,” she sobbed. “Maybe, maybe I jinxed him. I don't know.”

“You didn't jinx him. Don't even say that. How could you not be afraid? I worry about Keith's safety every single day. Boys are either dying or going to jail around here. That's real. And the violence is just getting worse. Janae, you are the best mother I know. This is definitely a setback. It's horrible. I'm not going to lie to you. But we will make it right.”

Janae sighed heavily. “Why are you just telling me this?”

“Do you really even have to ask why? I got this info from Kim, and you, more than anybody, know how little I trust in whatever she has to say. Her mind is fogged up from years of smoking. She was probably coming off a high or fiending for her next one when everything went down. With Kim, all she sees is her next hit,” Tameka said nonchalantly, as though she was talking about something insignificant and not her sister.

“But! But!” she said. “There's a rumor going around that it was one of Troy's friends—and I use the term loosely—who called the cops, anonymously of course, to report the murder, and they say he mentioned Malik by name.”

“Is it the same person? Was it this Shaun G who said Malik killed Troy?” Janae sputtered. She could feel her pulse quicken.

“Maybe it was Shaun G. I don't know,” Tameka said. “But it does seem like too much of a coincidence if you ask me.”

Janae nodded in agreement as if her friend could see her. “Um, this Shaun G,” she said as she tried to gather her thoughts. “I gotta talk to Kim. I gotta find out who this guy is and—”

“Janae, girl, turn on the TV. Turn it on,” Tameka cut her off. “You're on TV.”

Tameka had turned up the volume. In the background, Janae could make out the voice of a female newscaster.

“I know. I already saw it,” she said somberly. “And I do
not
want to deal with that again.”

“Turn the damn TV on,” her friend insisted.

“I was there, remember? I don't need to see it. I already know I made an ass out of myself.”

“No, seriously, Janae, you gotta turn it on. It's not bad. Really. And, by the way, you are rockin' that purple dress. Is it the same one from Malik's kindergarten graduation?” she teased.

“Tameka, I don't give a damn how I look.”

“I know, I know. I'm just saying. Can't a sistah save her son
and
look good doing it?”

There was a brief, awkward silence, and then they both laughed nervously.

“Only you, Tameka, would notice something as stupid as my dress, considering everything. God, that conference was horrible,” she moaned. “Right afterwards I just wanted to crawl up under a rock. I still do.”

“I don't know, Janae. It couldn't have been that bad. This lady reporter just said you made a passionate plea for Malik to be spared a trial as an adult.”

“Really! You mean they're not showing me talking crazy, with spit spraying out of my mouth?” Janae searched for her remote control and found it between the cushions of the sofa. Still wary, she pressed the on button.

The woman on the screen was Assistant District Attorney Dembe. She maintained that same strained look she had in the courthouse, a look that said she wanted to be anywhere but where she was. She sighed impatiently into the microphone. “The CPHR's attorney has offered a moral argument for why we should turn a blind eye to children who commit crimes, but there is no legal basis for it to be taken seriously. The bottom line is that in this country we prosecute and punish those people who violate our laws. It doesn't matter if they are fifteen or sixty-five, white or black. That is how we maintain a lawful society.”

“Could you address specifically the correlation that Mr. Whitford was making between endangered animals and black boys?” the reporter followed up.

ADA Dembe snorted, revealing deep wrinkles in her brow and along the corners of her eyes.
“
Actually, I was quite shocked that an attorney of his caliber would make such a statement. The law he is using does not apply. It never has and it never will. I personally think comparing humans to animals is appalling, and I will not even begin to consider his rationale for doing such a thing.”

Janae rolled her eyes.

“What a stupid bitch!” Tameka spit out. “Don't worry about her, Janae. She's just like the cops—all they want to do is lock people up. That's their answer for everything.”

As Janae positioned her finger to turn off the TV, the reporter invited viewers to call in or tweet their opinions. “Are black boys endangered? Should they be given leniency when they commit crimes?”

There was an unusual silence between the girlfriends. Typically, their phone conversations—or, what Malik liked to call them,
chatfests
—could go on for hours without Janae and Tameka circling back even once on a topic. Over the years, they have laughed, cried, and soul-searched over the phone, always supporting each other.

“Why are you so quiet?” Tameka asked.

“I don't know. What do you think about the reporter's question? Do you think I'm wrong for allowing Malik's attorney to call him and other black boys an ‘endangered species'?”

“
Are you for real?
” Tameka chided her. “Because I know you not worrying about political correctness when my godson Malik is behind bars. If it works, if it gets Malik out of jail, then it's the right argument. It's that simple.”

“Yeah. The only thing that matters is if it works. It's just a strategy,” she agreed. “So I definitely shouldn't worry that my white attorney is making the argument?”

“I wouldn't care if he was neon green,” Tameka said. “As long as the argument works. Besides, blacks being called endangered species is nothing new. A while ago, there was a huge controversy in Atlanta over a major anti-abortion ad campaign referring to black babies as endangered species. I read it in the
New York Times
. There was a quote that went with the claim. Something like—
The most dangerous place for African-Americans is the womb
. Of course the media jumped right on it. They're in the business of making money, so, whatever sells. Anyway, there have been books, articles, debates, and symposiums on whether black males are an endangered species. Even Tupac had a few words to say about that.”

“For real?”

“Yeah. So I wouldn't give that another thought. I just wish black folks in general would stop worrying about what other people think of us and focus on what we are
doing
to each other. If we could just figure
that
out—we'd be straight.”