Saved and SAINTified (21 page)

S
aint rubbed his head then turned and opened his nightstand drawer. He pulled out a small leather bound box of Cuban cigars. Xenia bunched the pillow under her head to sit a little higher.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a sleepy voice.

Her eyes closed. Saint could feel how drained she was. It was as if all her energy was being pulled—and after what happened to him, he expected it to happen. There were no longer any shadows or guesswork around the corner. He was one step ahead, but still unable to figure out why. In less than ten minutes, she’d be fast asleep and that time would be used, over the next two days, for his sperm to meet her egg, and begin the process of the life they’d created together.

He lit the cigar, and sat back against the headboard,
propping one arm behind his head. Still feeling hot, he shook the sheets off of his body. His skin glistened with sweat. He took a puff of his cigar, blew out ringlets of smoke and cleared his throat. Xenia remained fast asleep.

Suddenly craving her again
after a few minutes, he set his cigar in a large glass ashtray and rolled her gently onto her stomach. She murmured something incoherent. Lying directly on top of her, her grinded his pelvis against her plump ass. He pushed her legs apart and reached up to link his fingers with hers as he nestled his face close to her ear.

“Baby, let me get a little pussy
,” he said huskily.

He waited, and then heard the f
aint, “Mmmm hmmm.”

He knew she wouldn’t be a very active participant
—she was far too tired—but at that moment, it didn’t matter. He just wanted the safety of her confines. He reached between them guided himself inside, and began to quickly thrust, pushing his groin against her ass, harder and harder, rousing her from her fatigue as he went deeper and deeper.

“Uh
! Uh! Uh!” He felt driven, running toward a goal of sweet release. His hands wrapped around her stomach, held her body steady against his as he continued to pound her from behind. He buried his head in her right shoulder as his climax approached. He needed the deep penetration before he drifted off to sleep. He needed to feel her
and
fill her, to receive the love and reassurance. He felt so completely lost and confused, yet all knowing. It was an annoying sensitivity, one that he couldn’t shake.

“Ahhh, shit
… Uhhh!” He jammed his hips forcefully into the back of her, making her gasp and claw at her pillow, speechless … as he came inside of her once more. “Uhhh … mmmm…”

Drained,
his weight pushed her down until he’d gathered enough strength to roll onto his side of the bed. He rubbed her back and watched her intensely as she fell back asleep, without missing a beat. But Saint couldn’t drift away, just like that. In deep thought, he stayed alert for several hours—blowing out the candles, pacing, channel surfing, finishing his cigar, thinking and contemplating.

Finally,
sleep came like a thief in the night with a set of numb chucks and steel brass knuckles. Once fully alert, he was suddenly out, and the world went black. His body welcomed the reprieve, though his mind and spirit continued to knit fables and talk amongst themselves…

****

Several hours later…

The sun filtered into the vast bedroom, illuminating
Xenia’s naked body. The room glowed a mellow orange and a sense of peace washed over Saint as he tiptoed his fingertips against her shoulder. The boys would be up soon, and he wanted to spend a little time alone with her, in the silence of their cocooned little world.

Xenia
woke and slowly turned toward him, disrupting their spooning position. She ground her face into his bare chest, smiling.

“S
aint…” She yawned, curling her small hand around his shoulder. He felt so much love, at times it overwhelmed him.“Yeah, baby,” he replied as he ran his fingers through her wild curls.

“How’d you sleep?” she asked, opening her eyes slowly.

“Not too good. How about you?”

“Dead to the world. I was so tired…”

“I slept; I just had a bunch of strange dreams. They didn’t make sense.”

Xenia
sat up straighter and Saint followed suit. He held her hand while they leaned back against their headboard.

“Is something on your mind, honey?”

Saint looked down at the sheets and pondered for a moment. “Yeah, I had so many crazy dreams last night. Some of them were childhood related. I was just thinking about where I grew up.”

“The
Bronx.” She smiled. “You seem preoccupied. Talk to me,” she offered over another yawn followed by a sweet smile.

“Yeah
.” He chewed his bottom lip and stared off into space. “You know, I told you about some of the things that I saw there, and how scary it was there back in the ’80s. That’s where I was born, yet, I don’t know ... It was just so odd to me, how I saw that shit as normal. I was having a talk with the new guy I told you about, Jagger. We were discussing things like that and then, earlier that morning when I spoke to Hassani, when he called me on your phone, he was telling me about a little boy—”

“Eric
.” She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, he told me about him.”

“Yeah, Eric.
I’m sorry that Hassani’s feelings were hurt. I talked to him about it though ...” Saint frowned. “I always want to protect them, though I know that I have to let them grow up and learn. Hassani and Dakarai will never have to see what I saw, though. It had more of an impact on me than I realized. No big ass rats, struggling ’nd shit. We were lucky, the gang members were a little afraid of my dad. When I was real little, I was afraid of him, too. My mother protected me, too. Believe it or not, some of the gang members from that time were not that bad. Well, I take that back. I’m saying, if you compare them to the ones around now. It was nothing like that. They could actually fight, the ones I grew up around. Kids ... just lost kids.”

“Well, most people don’t think of gang members as good people, Saint.”
Xenia gave a sarcastic laugh and shrugged.

“I know. I’m not saying they were angels, it was just different—they seemed a lot more innocent back then. It was only until crack came that shit got majorly out of control. A lot of the dudes I grew up with are dead, Xenia. Back then, The Puerto Rican and black gangs were predominant. Now, it is the Dominican ones who run the show but in any case that is what I grew up around. I just saw Puerto Ricans, and blacks and whites, getting along real well, most of the time. There were a few Asians, like my mom, but not many. I could count ’em one hand probably. They didn’t want to live in that fuckin’ hell hole. That’s what it was, but it was
my
hell hole, you know?”

Xenia
shook her head in understanding as she rubbed his hand.

“I miss it, sometimes
—but not the misery. We were poor as fuck. My grandparents’ business wasn’t doing well so my mom was bringing in less money and my dad had a typical teacher salary. The school was so messed up; sometimes they couldn’t pay him on time. To make matters worse, he had to take a pay cut, a drastic one. We were living on whatever food my mom could get from her parents’ grocery and it was usually the shit that was rotten or about to go bad. She could always turn it into something good though,” He reflected sadly. “At least I had something to eat … that’s more than a lot of people had at that time. My parents wanted to get me out of there. The fuckin’ landlords kept burning their buildings down … paying gang members to do it for chump change. Sometimes mothafuckas would still be living in there. Could you imagine that shit?”

“Why in the world would they do that?”

“For the damn insurance, Xenia.” Steel wrapped around his heart as he raced down memory lane, heated and ready to fight the faded remembrances while he hugged them at the same time. “The crime was bad, real bad, but there was still some semblance of respect for one another. It was one of those things where, if a cat told you he needed some bread, you’d give it to him and he’d pay you back without you havin’ to hunt his ass down. Then, crack came and blew that shit the fuck up. … I saw strong pillars of the community turn to fuckin’ bass heads.” He sprawled his fingers across his forehead.

“
All the damn abandoned buildings … people getting high on the shit and heroine. The gangs couldn’t even protect anyone anymore without guns. Before, you’d just get your ass kicked real bad, but after crack,” Saint shook his head and grimaced, “you got shot, point blank, in broad mothafuckin’ daylight. I remember the first time I saw someone get shot. My father wrapped his hand over my mouth so that I wouldn’t scream and we just kept on movin’. These two guys were going after each other and one of ’em turned and popped that mothafucka square in the middle of his chest. I can see it so clearly, like it happened yesterday.”

S
aint sniffed and wiped his nose. He was trying to purge, to clean out the cobwebs and make room for the new blessing. He needed to unload.

“You know, besides with Raphael, I never really talk about this shit,
Xenia.” He looked at her, his expression grave.

“Yeah…you’ve told me a lot
your childhood, but I’m a little surprised you never discussed this part of it with me in more depth.”

“It wasn’t that I was trying to keep it from you, I just honestly wasn’t thinking about it. It was one of those things I just squirreled away and didn’t give much thought
to for quite a while because the shit was disturbing.” He swallowed. “We’ve got another baby coming. I don’t want her to ever see any shit like that. I want Hassani and Dakarai to be totally closed off from this sort of thing.” He went back into protection mode. “It has a way of making you hard, cold, rough. You have to be, or you won’t make it.” Then a smile budded across his face. “Oh, check this out,” Saint snapped his fingers like the Fonz. “Yo, there was this one Puerto Rican cat, Bomb. He was in the Savage Skulls. They had—”

“First of all, your
New York accent has increased ten-fold in the last five minutes.” Xenia crowed. “Secondly, what is the savage skulls?”

S
aint rolled his eyes. “I thought you had the gang shit on lock down!”

Pissed,
Xenia put her finger in his face. “Don’t joke about that, Saint. You know how I feel about this topic. I’m not proud of what I did.”

“Oh baby, I’m just playin’
. Seriously though, you don’t know? It’s a gang, well, back then they called it a club, but it was actually a gang. There were a lot of gangs in the Bronx back then, but the ones I hung out with were the Savage Nomads and the Savage Skulls, mostly the Skulls though. To many people, they were bad news but I was just a little kid—they didn’t do anything to me. Back then, gangs had more integrity than these new cats. They pretty much steered clear of harming babies and little kids. The elderly got robbed, but not smoked  ...  it was mayhem though. Honestly, people act like this shit is new, or started in the ’60s. That’s bullshit. There have been gangs since the beginning of time. Men have fought over land, over turf, since we started to migrate across the globe. There is nothing new about this, but the Bronx put a different twist on it, that’s for sure. ”

“
I never thought about it like that, you’re right. And this took place when you lived in the Bronx?”

“Yeah, I lived
in the East Morrisania section of the Bronx around Charlotte Street initially. We had to move several times around there because it kept being burnt out, but I’ll get to that in a sec. Anyway, the gangs were everywhere. You either loved or hated them. I ended up loving them and I think that was the final straw. My parents got me outta there.” The sheets rustled when he laid his ankle over hers. “So anyway.” He wiped his nose. “The first time I actually saw, live and in person, people fucking, was with a gang member. I was a little kid and it was happening right in front of me. It was Bomb, the dude I just told you about, and his ol’ lady.”

“What?!”
Xenia laughed in disbelief.

“Yeah, they had some of those old buildings no one wanted, half burnt out
’nd shit, occupied. The abandoned buildings were either filled with junkies or gangs, sometimes both. Anyway, there were some rooms set up just for sex, I guess. Back then, there weren’t a lot of girl gang members, but they had a lot of girls with them … so that sparked my interest.” Saint smiled. “You couldn’t get a girl to fuck you, unless you had something to give her back, like some cash, a shirt, some wine, you had to have somethin’. There was always someone else, especially if she was eye candy, if she was hot, that would give her something and back then, that’s just how it was. We were poor, and some people were ashamed to say they were from the South Bronx, but the shit was just grimy. So everybody was out to get theirs, but again, there was respect and if you were a rat or disrespected another, you were in for a beat down and possibly death.”

Xenia
nodded and sidled a little closer to him.

“So, I learned that from an early age, but I was the little dude at that time, hanging with these gang members
, even though my father forbade me. I did it anyway. That Puerto Rican cat, Bomb, I really looked up to him. He acted like I was his little brother, and took me around. No one knew what the fuck I was.” Saint laughed. “A few of ’em thought I was Puerto Rican but I couldn’t speak Spanish at the time, so they figured it out. Then, they saw my mama, and my dad chased them off, away from our apartment building a few times, and that put all doubts to rest. I’ve gotten off track though so let me double back. Well, one day, Bomb had me up in there and I—”