Texts from Bennett (15 page)
Read Texts from Bennett Online
Authors: Mac Lethal
“Should I ride my bike?” he said.
“No, leave it here, let’s go! We’ll come back to get it.”
“Wait, man. Let’s talk about somethin’ right quick.”
ME:
I’m on the way home. What the fuck is going on? Why aren’t you answering my calls? Bennett is with me we are on the way call the cops im driving right now
Bennett and I piled into my car. I flipped the ignition and fishtailed out of the parking lot onto the street. Bennett was still quiet. He seemed sick to his stomach.
My phone finally rang. It was Harper. I could hear a nasally loud voice screaming in the ambient background of the other end of the phone.
“Hello? Harper? Hello?” I yelled.
I could hear the phone on her end ruffling and rubbing against fabric or furniture or something. Finally, Harper’s voice surged through my phone’s speaker and ricocheted off my eardrum. I was in such a state of shock from what she said that I about ran the red traffic light.
“Mercedes is here.”
Sylvia Plath and Young Jeezy Sitting in a Tree
“
Why is Mercedes at my house right now?!
” I yelled directly into Bennett’s face as I drove. It sounded like a sonic boom in my car.
I don’t even know if that’s a proper usage for the term
sonic boom,
but it looks cool when I write it, and I was really fucking stressed, so I’m keeping it in. Basically, I yelled really loud at Bennett, who was staring straight ahead, his pale, bloodless face damp with sweat from a cocktail of the humid summer day and some unstated internal friction over something mysterious he wasn’t speaking about. The expression on his face was ill and full of discomfort. It looked like he had food poisoning, or a sour stomach.
In either event, he wasn’t responding.
I had recently discovered a shortcut home from Popeye that twisted and burrowed through residential streets and school zones. I was going no less than 60 mph driving through it, rolling through stop signs, making turns without signaling, getting so close to the rear bumper of slower cars in front of me that I could see the color of my own eyes in their rearview mirrors.
I was impatiently pushing my way home when my phone suddenly started playing “It’s Raining Men” by the Weather Girls.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Where the fuck are you?” Harper said.
“I’m almost there.”
A NOTE ON BEING NON-APROPOS
A few months ago, I was lounging in my house’s new breezeway, drinking pinot noir and downloading ringtones onto my cell phone. I had just recently gotten a new phone, so I wanted to utilize all the cool features it had. I tried to download “Make It Rain” by Fat Joe, a bouncy, club rap song, as a first choice. I planned on getting several ringtones, so this would be a fun place to start. I typed “Rain” into the search bar under the ringtones section. I figured it was a popular enough song that I wouldn’t have to type the entire name out, right? About a tenth of a second after the results popped up, my inebriated equilibrium caused me to lose balance and spill my glass of wine all over myself and my phone. My slippery hands fumbled and dropped the phone in a twirling, flipping motion until it smacked, face-first, onto the Spanish tile. The facade of the phone was completely shattered, but after tinkering with it for a few minutes, and drying it off, I found that it was still 100 percent operable. The only problem, however, was the collision popped the mute switch out of the side of it, rendering it unable to be silenced or turned down. It also mistakenly downloaded “It’s Raining Men” by the Weather Girls instead of “Make It Rain” by Fat Joe, and automatically set it as the default ringtone for all incoming calls and text messages. Wonderfully, this was unable to be changed. It was very embarrassing. Most people in public would stare at me. Some would smile.
“
Hurry!
” she yelled, then hung up on me.
“
Why is Mercedes at my house right now?
” I yelled at Bennett, again.
He remained looking forward but finally responded. “She crashed in the basement with me last night.”
“Why?”
“She said she was gonna fuck Lil Juan from Twelfth Street if I ain’t let her come over.”
“I thought I made it abundantly clear that I didn’t want people coming over. Girls, your friends. Anybody.”
“I know, but she my girl, mane. You didn’t say I ain’t allowed to have my girl over.”
“Dude! Why are you such an idiot?”
“What if Harper told you she was gon’ fuck Lil Juan from Twelfth Street?”
“
Harper wouldn’t fuck Lil Juan from Twelfth Street,
idiot.”
“Yeah, dats what you think. Dat nigga drive a Benz and sell hella coke. Don’t be quick to judge, nigga. Lil Juan fuck everybody girlfriend.”
“Lil Juan wou—” I realized how ridiculous the conversation we were having was and changed the subject. “Well, she’s freaking out about something at the house right now.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You know? Whaddya mean
you know
? What is it? What’s the matter? Why didn’t you say something to me to warn me?”
Quite appropriate to the urgent nature of my need to get home immediately, right after saying that, I tried to take a sharp turn, was probably going a little too fast, curb-checked, and completely blew out my front
and
rear passenger-side tires. My car was rumbling loudly and rattling loose, scratched-up CDs, stray lighters, and gummed-up coins in the door and middle console. The top of my head vibrated as the car came to a grinding halt.
“Fuuuuuuuck!”
We were a five-minute drive or a thirty-minute walk from my house. One long, stretch of road, with two stop signs and nothing else. I started punching my steering wheel. It felt good to punch, but my aim inadvertently shifted to the middle of it, so my punches did nothing but honk the horn after a few times. Once I realized my windows were rolled down, I casually said sorry at a modest tone to nobody in particular.
For the octogenarian watering his rose garden in his front yard, the three kids playing basketball in a driveway, and the reverse pear-shaped woman speed-walking up the sidewalk, the twenty-five-second interval that just took place sounded something like this:
Vroom!!!
Kerplunk, kerplunk!!!
Pssssssssssst.
Grrrrumble.
“Fuck!!!!!!!!!!!”
Bang—Bang—Bang—Bang.
HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!
“Sorry.”
“This is absolutely fucking motherfucking wonder-fucking-ful. Now what are we gonna do?” I said quietly, with impatience and venom in my voice.
I called Harper. No answer.
“Should we push it?” asked Bennett.
“We’re at least two miles from the house. It takes like thirty seconds to drive there. Probably twenty-five to thirty minutes to walk. You want to push the car for two miles?”
“Man . . . yeah. Kinda. We need to get there. I can’t even lie. Who know what da fuck my girl is doin’ at da house,” Bennett said, scrunching his face and shaking his head.
“Okay, dude! You know what?” I snapped, shutting the ignition off. The idling, grumbling car engine went quiet. All that could be heard now were the neighborhood kids playing basketball and the distant chirps of bobwhites, cardinals, and sparrows. “Tell me now. What’s up? What’s the problem?”
He inhaled a giant breath through his nose, slapped his thighs, reached into his pocket, grabbed his flip phone, opened up his text messages, and showed me the conversation with Mercedes he was having back at Popeyes.
MERCEDES:
SO WHY BITCHES WRITING U LUV LETTERS? U GIVIN DA QUEENS DICK OUT? «QuèenMerceDe$»
BENNETT:
fucc u talken abot im at wrk
MERCEDES:
DONT PLAY W ME NUKKA I FOUND SUM BITCH LUV LETER N UR DRAR «QuèenMerceDe$»
BENNETT:
wat ?? CHILL im at wrk
MERCEDES:
SUM BITCH WIT A WEIRD MOSLAM NAME TALADEGA OR SUM SHIT GIVIN U HER NUMBER TALKIN ABOUT UR SINGLE «QuèenMerceDe$»
MERCEDES:
YOU CHEATIN? ILL CUT UR DICK OFF U LIL PUNK ASS FUCKBOY DONT EVEN TEST ME BENNY «QuèenMerceDe$»
BENNETT:
man dat girl wuz thanken me 4 saven her cat quit bein jelus u fuccin ideiot i hate when u ack this way god dam
MERCEDES:
O I BET U DO.. & UR GUNNA HATE WUT I DEW NEXT IM ABOUT THA LAST BITCH U WANTED TO PLAY W TO DAY HOMIE «QuèenMerceDe$»
MERCEDES:
BITCH ASS NUKKA «QuèenMerceDe$»
BENNETT:
chill out mercedes dont git me kicced out da house u so insacure sum times im at work fucc
BENNETT:
my mom is sik dont start shit i promis i dont even like that bitch
MERCEDES:
FUCK ALL DA PPL U LIV WIT THEY GILLTY FOR HELPIN U CHEAT IMA MOBB ON UR HOLE FAMLY 2..YOU LIL HOE ASS PUSSY «QuèenMerceDe$»
MERCEDES:
U A PUSSY.. COWERD «QuèenMerceDe$»
“That’s it? That’s how you left it?”
“Yeah. I ain’t respond to her. She crazy.”
“Dude, she was in the basement, wasn’t she? The perfume smell . . . W-w-w-w-ait. You let me come up to Popeyes to eat. And just sat there saying nothing? Knowing she was at my house starting shit?”
“She ain’t gonna start shit. Don’t trip. She always acts like this. I just don’t want her to yell at anybody. Don’t trip though.”
“Don’t
trip
?”
I sat there looking at Bennett, contemplating how hard I wanted to sucker punch him in the chin without warning, but I had no time to waste.
A NOTE FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN LEARNING THE D’ARCE CHOKE FROM SIDE MOUNT
I jog or do an hour-plus of Brazilian jujitsu training five times a week. I’m in great shape. Not trying to be bumptious or self-aggrandizing, just pointing out why I didn’t sit there and let another grain of sand fall to the bottom of the hourglass. Why I did this . . .
I reached over Bennett’s lap and opened the passenger-side door. We had to get somewhere immediately, and I wasn’t interested in going at his pace. I used my foot to push him out of the car.
“Let’s go!” I commanded, clapping my hands at Bennett as I emerged from the vehicle, before I took off in a fast-paced jog up the street.
Instead of following me, he just stood there; I imagine, asking himself,
Is this really about to happen?
But much to my cousin’s chagrin, I had internally boiled over with rage and frustration, so without losing a step in my rhythm, I circled around, jogged back to the car where he was standing—and openhandedly slapped him in the mouth.
It was straight out of a cartoon. You could see the spread of my handprint on his cheek in a dark-pink hue.
“
Keep up with me, or I’m going to kick your fucking ass. I don’t care how much of a gang member you think you are. I’ll beat your ass. Now let’s go!
” I said, jogging in place.
We both hit it, clipping at a comfortable, sub-seven-minute-mile pace. For the first twenty-five to thirty yards, Bennett was angrily running his mouth, which wasn’t exactly smart considering how out of shape he was. I thought about warning him not to overexert himself, but fuck it. He deserved the punishment.
After one hundred yards, his scrawny lungs were wheezing and squeaking. He sounded like a pawnshop accordion trying to insult someone in gang slang, while pausing to violently suck in air between every few words.
“Why
::cough, cough::
you gotta smack me
::eeerrrgghhh::
man? Why? I’m”—volcanic bursts of phlegm bursting through his chest tube—“a G. Respect me!
::wheeze, wheeze::
I
::sigh::
I respect
::wheeze::
you. Fuck.”
“Stop talking while you run, idiot, focus on breathing slowly. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”
Bennett’s face was burgundy. He wasn’t even breathing, just clenching his abs and grunting. He had no grasp on how to pace himself or how to maintain a slow, steady flow of oxygen to his
lungs. He was also wearing combat boots that were spray-painted blue. He dropped his hands to his sides and began walking.
I couldn’t wait. I increased the pace and yelled, “Hurry the fuck up!”
I was almost sprinting, which requires a slightly different type of conditioning than I’m used to. I could feel a tightening in my lungs and capillaries. Mind over matter. I cut through a few rows of housing sprawl and hopped a couple of backyard fences. One of my subdivision neighbors was unloading mulch from his truck when I zipped by him. He saluted me and said, “Howdy!”
Without making eye contact I yelled, “Sorry, I gotta run through your yard, it’s an emergency!” and sprinted on.
I slowed down and mentally processed where I was for a few seconds. I was close. My internal navigation clicked into gear, I drove my feet into the asphalt, and finally heaved by throbbing legs over the steep hill that was blocking my view of my house.
That cleared, I kept running but began surveying the area to see if any mayhem had transpired in the front lawn, no longer focusing simply on getting there fast so much as scoping out the situation.
And there she was.
I stopped at the edge of my driveway.
Mercedes.
Mercedes.
Mercedes, standing on Tallulah’s driveway . . . laughing? Tallulah was . . . smiling? Everything was . . . merry?
What in the actual fuck was actually happening?
I figured Harper was inside and safe, so I wasn’t too worried about her for the time being. I just wanted to figure out what was going on with Mercedes. I walked up to the two girls, who were blinking airily and making faces painted with feigned comradery. I was winded, slowing my patterns of inhaling and exhaling, trying to catch my breath.
Mercedes was nineteen. As much of a psycho, moonstruck, screwball that she was, it was impossible to deny the fact that she was attractive. Or it was at least impossible to deny that by age
twenty-five she’d
end up
attractive. If she could tighten all the loose screws in her head and refrain from going to prison on a felony assault charge, she could end up being quite a tantalizing woman.
