Midnight (56 page)

“We come from a country where Islam is the law. How can we remain Islamic in a country where almost no one believes as we do?” I asked.

“What is making you ask this question?” she said, looking intensely concerned.

“Islam gives women rules to be modest, to cover, to marry, to be faithful, to pray. I’m surrounded by females who don’t do any of that and they keep coming at me all day, all night long,” I confessed.

“They are all a test of your faith,” she said.

“Many of them will come, but they are not what is best for you, me, your sister, our family, your children to come,
inshallah
. You have chosen a wife, never trade her for a lesser thing,” Umma said with a certainty.

“I wouldn’t think of trading Akemi,” I assured Umma. “But why would anyone want to give a young man such a difficult test of faith?” I asked sincerely.

“Allah is above comprehension,” she answered. “Allah is the best knower of all things.”

In my room, I sorted out my thoughts and feelings.

I decided I owed it to Bangs to do something special for her. She really looked out for me on the night that the cops were head-hunting. For two days she held on to my gun, and as far as I can see, she didn’t fuck with it. Her waiting for me by her window when she heard the police sirens saved me from what could have been a completely different outcome. I couldn’t front on any of those facts. Still I couldn’t give her what she really wanted either, without frontin’ on my beliefs, my family, and my wife.

But I
could
give her something that I
thought
she needed.

Afterwards, I would break it off with her. I already knew from the way I acted at the party that night, and what I saw and felt in her bedroom, that the temptation towards her was too great. The pussy was too easy. The pussy was probably so good, but good pussy is not enough and her pussy is not mine.

•   •   •

For Naja, I used my charm on Ms. Marcy. It wasn’t difficult to convince her to agree to keep the kitten at her place, since I agreed to pay for the cat food, supplies, and maintenance. Ms. Marcy had no one else living in her apartment, which is the only reason we allowed and paid her to care for Naja. Aside from the money, she was very attached to Naja, and Naja was very attached to the kitten. So it worked out.

Around 9:00
A.M.
, I showed up at Bangs’ house knowing that she would be in school. I rang the bell. I saw Granny push back her curtain and see who was standing there. Seconds later, she appeared at her front door, still sleepy and sluggish.

“Good morning, Ms. Kelly,” I said.

“It sure is a good morning, you coming here and saying ‘good morning.’ I haven’t heard that kind of talk from a youth in a long time,” she said, still complaining.

“I have an idea about a surprise for your granddaughter,” I told her. She brightened up and listened. She smiled and nodded the entire way through my speaking to her.

Afterwards, she gave me the key to their home. “Take this, just in case I’m asleep when you get back.” I took the key.

“Oh, and what’s Bangs’ favorite color?” I asked.

“Tiffany’s favorite color is red.”

“Pick something else, her next favorite,” I asked.

“Purple,” she answered.

At their local hardware store, I picked lilac. I figured Bangs was already too amped up for the color red. It would just excite her more than she already was. And purple seemed too dark. I thought it might sadden her. Lilac was more of a peaceful, girly color. Maybe it would help her to calm down a bit, and mellow.

In Bangs’ room, I pushed all of her old furniture to the center. I threw the drop cloth down to protect it. I lined the
perimeter of her walls, floors, doors, and doorknobs with masking tape.

I wasn’t about to do no dope-ass mural. I am not a painter. But I
was
about to paint her room to make her feel good. I was about to cover up her walls that seemed neglected for at least Bangs’ entire lifetime. From what I knew about females, they don’t like to live a life without beauty and beautiful colors and surroundings, at least the females who I know and love do not.

Before placing the roller on the first wall, I had to remove the old clippings, pictures, and magazine articles she had taped up. I figured if she was anything similar to me, she probably wouldn’t like no one fucking with her stuff, so I tried to take them down easy without ripping them. I placed the clippings into a neat pile on her dresser underneath the plastic drop cloth.

The article on top caught my eye, through the transparent plastic. The title of the article was “CUT SHORT.” It read: “The life of Brooklyn teen Darren Sparks was cut short at age 17 yesterday. He was killed by a drunk driver on the evening of . . .”

Right away, I knew this was the baby’s father, who Bangs had confided in me was killed by a drunk driver. I thought it was sad. At the same time, it pumped up my determination to do a good job to bring Bangs a little bit of happiness.

The roller made it easy. I was finished by 1:00 in the afternoon. Still, the paint had to dry, and I wanted to be out before Bangs got home, probably around 4:00
P.M.

I knocked at Granny’s door, not knowing if either she or the baby were asleep.

“Ya finished?” she asked.

“I finished painting, but it has to dry before I can remove the tape and put the furniture back. I don’t know how long that will take.”

“Well, take your time. You have the key. The van is gonna come around soon and pick us up, me and the baby,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Where are you two going?” I asked. She smiled.

“Well I’m going to take advantage of some of my old lady perks,” she said. “The nice people over at the Senior Center have a van that picks us up and takes us on local errands, shopping, and whatnot. Afterwards, they gotta drop me off over at the clinic. Tiffany is gonna meet me over there at 4:00
P.M.
The baby gotta get her three-month checkup. I’ll be there already waiting on line. You know they give you an appointment but then they still take a hundred hours before they call ya in to see a doctor. They figure if you poor enough to be in the clinic, you shouldn’t have nowhere else to go or nothing to do. So they let us just sit and wait.”

“Are you expecting anybody to come by your house while you’re away?” I asked her, thinking about the situation with Bangs’ uncle.

“No, if somebody comes along looking for me, just let ’em ring and knock. They’ll figure out that I’m not here. If they know me, they’ll know I’m coming back.”

“What about the uncle?” I asked.

“My son?” she said. “That fool. He got a key when he hasn’t lost it somewhere. When he don’t have the key he just tries to knock the door down until we let him in.”

“Does he live here?” I asked, double-checking Bangs’ story.

“Nope. But he don’t live nowhere really. His wife has a house. But that’s her house. Every time they fight, she throws him out. He keeps drinking. They keep fighting. He keeps showing up here. I try to keep ’em out because Tiffany doesn’t like him.”

“Why don’t you just change the locks and this time don’t give him the key?” I asked her. She looked puzzled for some reason.

“Do you give everybody a key?” I asked her.

“No, of course not,” she replied.

But she had given me the key and barely knew me. I wanted her to think about that for Bangs’ protection, and the sake of the baby.

“Did you give a key to Darren?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Darren,” I said. “Darren Sparks.”

“Goodness gracious, who is that?” she asked.

“I am sorry for bringing him up. I know he passed away but I’m just saying, Granny, you can’t give everybody the key to your house.”

“I thought you were a nice young man. Now you’re trying to make me feel senile. Who is Darren Sparks?” she said, her hands now on her hips.

“The baby’s father?” I jarred her memory.

Her face darkened, like when someone walks by and steals the light away for a second. Her expression changed and then went blank.

“The baby’s father is not dead. Now, I don’t believe in that, saying somebody’s dead when they ain’t. It’s like voodoo. You call ’em out dead, then it happens. I got a lot of disagreements with my son. But I don’t want him dead either,” she said.

“And we don’t talk about that in here. The baby was born and that’s it. We take it from there. The baby is here. The baby didn’t do one thing wrong to nobody,” she said, seeming to have no idea that she had exposed the filthy truth.

“Tiffany is your granddaughter, right, Granny?” I asked her to be sure.

“Of course. She is my daughter’s daughter, God rest her soul. Now
she’s dead
. If I could have it my way—” Then she stopped herself on hearing the baby’s soft cry.

I left out when they left, watched them get into the van, and walked back over to the hardware store while the paint continued to dry.

What kind of family is this? I asked myself. The uncle, the one man who was supposed to be protecting the family, was fucking the family instead. The grandmother, old and confused, was welcoming the son, even though she clearly knew that he was fucking her granddaughter. Did she think not discussing it made it okay?

I should’ve known when I seen her uncle the first time. He was the real rat, not the one I knifed and pinned up against the wall. He had to be about thirty-eight or forty years old. Bangs is fourteen. He had to be fucking her at least since she was thirteen, probably even younger than that.

I felt a fire in my heart.

When I returned, the paint was dry. No one was home and I was glad about it. I placed everything back into its place and removed the masking tape. While I was taking care of all that, I had the locksmith changing their front-door lock.

In her room, I installed a dead bolt lock. This way, when she’s in her room, no one could get in unless she wanted them to, unless she turned the metal knob and allowed and invited them in. I even had the locksmith repair the window lock as well.

In the kitchen I emptied and rinsed out a jar. It worked perfectly as a vase for the flowers I brought for her room. I arranged them, filled it with water, and left them on her dresser.

I threw out her dirty old window curtain. For now the blinds would have to do. I thought of how easily Umma could zip through making a proper curtain for Bangs. Then I pulled the thought back. The reality was that this was the last stop for me with her. These gifts made me feel okay about my good-bye.

She ran around to the gym to see me like I knew she would. Basketball practice had just begun. I had just arrived.

“Hey, we’re locked out. It’s crazy. Granny’s key won’t work. It won’t open our front door,” she said with her usual excitement. I could see she was beginning to depend on me as her problem solver.

I gave her Granny’s key ring with the new keys to the new locks I had installed attached. “Here, your grandmother gave me her keys to hold,” I said.

“Why? When?” she asked. Her questions let me know that Granny didn’t spoil the paint surprise.

“I gotta go, Bangs. I can’t keep the team waiting.” She left reluctantly, as always. But I knew her grandmother and baby were waiting for her as always too.

I also knew she would come back and try to catch me after practice was over. So I left early and headed to the dojo.

“I meant to ask you, Chris, how did you convince your father to let you come back to the dojo?” We were all seated on the floor. The entire class awaited Sensei’s arrival from the back room.

“It wasn’t me. It was you guys. My mother kept saying how great she thought it was that you guys came to the church. Even my father was impressed that you stayed and helped add up the receipts. To tell you the truth, he thought we were all back there playing and pretending. When he saw the figures matching up with his accountant’s calculations, he respected that. He had to,” Chris said.

“So are you back in the league? ’Cause you know the blacks play the greens for the season opener. And I wanted to apologize for doing all the dunking I’m gonna be doing on you on May third,” I said, laughing.

“You might be dunking. But I ain’t gonna be nowhere around,” Chris said.

“I’m still on punishment. I can do the martial arts because my father thinks I already put so much training into it and he already put so much money into it. Besides, he thinks that you guys are good and have ‘redeeming qualities,’ ” he said, laughing.

“But I can’t play in the league ’cause my father said it’s ‘high risk.’ I can’t even go out on weekends until school ends and that’s not till June thirtieth.” He looked tight about it.

“Well, at least you’re here,” I told him.

“Who’s the red team playing for the opener?” I asked Ameer.

“The orange suckers from Crown Heights. But I took your advice, man. I sat my team down, we smoked some weed and talked about shit. We made plans, big plans. I told them I’ll never get used to losing, so we had to get on point,” Ameer said. “They took me seriously too. ’Cause if we ain’t in the running to get the money, none of this shit makes any c-e-n-t-s.” He laughed at his joke. I knew he was serious about that money.

“You got time. The scrimmage didn’t count,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, it was good we lost. Now that we got real games every week I’ll get the gorillas worked up and we’ll sweep this thing,” he said with a smile.

“Yeah, I’d like to see
that
.” I smiled back.

Being four doors down from Akemi’s family store had me crazy. It wasn’t just a physical thing. I missed her. I missed seeing her. I missed trying to talk to her. I missed her trying to talk to me. I missed watching the unique things she did and ways she went about it. While working, every now and then I’d look out to see if she would breeze by.

I resolved that until she was finished with that art show, I was on a back burner. I just told myself it was the same position she was in, when I was hard at work on the wedding job. She handled it and chilled out with Umma. I could accept and handle it too.