The Man in 3B (13 page)

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Open it and see,” he urged.

I pulled out the card and glanced at the inscription inside, but I was much more interested in the smaller plastic card inside the envelope.

I held it up, and Pop said, “It’s one of those Visa gift cards. I saw the way you were eyeing Daryl’s iPad, so I figured I’d give you one.” He patted me on the back. “Happy birthday, son.”

“Thanks, Pop.” I got up and gave him a quick hug.

My father’s eyes wandered over my shoulder. “Who’s that you got as your screen saver?”

I shrugged. “Oh, that? That’s Daryl. I got his picture off the Internet.”

“Three-B Daryl?” He sounded confused.

“Yep.”

He leaned in to get a closer look. “Oh, shit. That is him, isn’t it? He looks like a boxer or something.”

“MMA,” I said. “He used to be some kind of Mixed Martial Arts champion back in the day.”

“Get the heck outta here. No wonder he kicked those guys’ asses by himself like that. I was starting to think I was getting old.”

“You are old.” I laughed. “Hey, speaking of Daryl, maybe I’ll see if he wants to go grab a beer with me tonight.”

My father hesitated, clearing his throat before he said, “You spend an awful lot of time with Daryl, don’t you?”

“Yeah, we’ve struck up a pretty nice friendship. I like him a lot. Why, you jealous of our friendship?” I teased.

“Who, me? You’re my son. What do I have to be jealous about?”

“Exactly. I mean, considering I never say anything about your friendships and all the time you spend with Ms. Pam, Ms. Karen, Ms. June, and Ms. Nancy, I don’t see why you would be jealous. Me and Daryl are just friends. You and those ladies are—”

“I get your point.” That was enough to get him to drop the subject.

It actually made sense that he was jealous, considering the fact that I was hanging out at Daryl’s a lot, playing video games and stuff. Daryl talked to me like a man, unlike Pop, who seemed to forget sometimes that I wasn’t a little kid anymore. Sometimes I got so frustrated that I’d been thinking about moving into the dorms at Fordham or getting my own apartment. Pop seemed to be a little threatened by my friendship with Daryl, but I wondered what he’d think if he knew that Daryl was the one who convinced me not to move out. He said I should have a talk with my father instead. I still didn’t have the guts to do it.

“I’m gonna have a birthday surprise for you later in the week,” Pop said. “You have a happy birthday until then.”

About a half hour after Pop left, I knocked on Daryl’s door. I knew he’d be home, because he always seemed to be around at night whenever I stopped by.

“Hey, Benny, come on in, man.” He waved me in unenthusiastically. I could tell from the start that he wasn’t in the best of moods. “How’s things?”

“I’m doing a’ight, Dee,” I replied as I plopped down on his sofa in front of the TV. “Tell me you haven’t been in your pajamas all day.”

Daryl looked down at his clothes, which consisted of a T-shirt, pajama bottoms, and slippers. He frowned as if it had finally dawned on him that he was dressed for bed. “Yep. Haven’t even made it to the shower yet.”

“What’s up, man? You sick?”

“Nah.” He sat down on the recliner and picked up his cell phone from the end table. All of a sudden it was like I wasn’t even in the room. He punched in a few numbers and placed the phone to his ear. I watched his jaw tighten as he waited for the call to connect. Dude was seriously tense. He looked beyond pissed when, getting no answer, he finally pulled the phone away from his ear, hit end, and slammed it back down on the table. “Dammit!”

“Daryl, everything all right?”

He didn’t answer right away. It took a minute for him to come back
from wherever his head was at. “Oh yeah. Yeah, dude,” he finally said. “I’m okay. Just got a lot on my mind the past few days.”

“You sure?” I asked. “ ’Cause you sure don’t look okay.”

Again he hesitated.

“Look, man, you know you can talk to me, right? I mean, you listened to me talk about my pops plenty of times before,” I assured him.

Daryl looked at me and shook his head. “No, man, as a matter of fact, I’m not all right. I’m fucking pissed,” he admitted.

I felt bad that he was upset, but I have to admit that it felt pretty cool to think that Daryl saw me as an equal, as someone he could confide in—not like some little kid.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You remember the other day when I told you I was supposed to be going out to the Hamptons to see a friend?”

I nodded. “Yeah, the morning we ended up helping Ms. Nancy clean up when the pipes burst in her apartment. You said you had to cancel on your friend.”

“Exactly.” He picked up his phone again and stared at the screen, but he didn’t make a call this time. “Well, I’ve been trying to call ever since, and I ain’t heard a peep from her. First she wasn’t answering her phone, and now it’s disconnected.”

“I mean, I’m no expert in the love department or nothing, but it sounds like someone is trying to send you a message.” I was joking, trying to lighten his mood a little, but the look he shot me could have melted ice.

“My bad,” I apologized. “So, what’re you gonna do? You got no other way to get in touch with your girl?”

He shook his head. “She’s not my girl. She’s a friend. Someone I thought I could trust. Someone who wouldn’t play games.”

If this person wasn’t his girl, he sure looked broken up about her getting ghost on him. But what did I know? My expertise was in electronics, not relationships.

“Wish there was something I could do to help,” I offered.

As if an idea had suddenly come to him, he whipped his head in my direction and said, “Y’know, maybe there is.”

“Happy to help,” I said. “What is it?”

“You’re good with computers. You think you could track down a cell phone signal?”

I shook my head. “I’m good, but not that good. I don’t have the equipment to do something like that. We’d have the FCC all over us.”

He stayed quiet for a minute before he came up with another idea. “Well, what about hacking into the account for the number I have? Maybe if I can see who she’s been calling, I can find her.”

“Yeah, man, I could probably get into the account,” I said. My father would kill me if he knew what I was agreeing to do, but what the hell, I was helping out a friend.

“Cool. I’ll go get my laptop,” he said.

I stopped him before he could leave the room. “Uh, not tonight, man.”

“Why not?”

“It’s my twenty-first birthday. Hacking something like that is complicated and time-consuming if you don’t want to get caught. I’m trying to go to the club and get my drink on,” I said. “I actually came by to see if you wanted to go with me.”

Daryl’s shoulders drooped like he was totally disappointed. Damn, he must have been really strung out on this chick if he couldn’t even wait another day for me to hack her account.

“C’mon, Dee. Go get dressed. It’ll do you some good to get outta here. I’ll get her phone log for you tomorrow.”

He waved his hand, trying to look like he wasn’t pressed. “Nah, man. That’s not it. It’s just…” His eyes wandered around the room like he was searching for an excuse. “Didn’t you tell me your pops wanted to take you out?”

“He’s working tonight. Besides, he’s not exactly the best person to be with if I’m trying to meet someone, if you know what I mean.”

“Why not?” Daryl asked, looking slightly more relaxed. I guess talking about my issues with Pop—for the millionth time—helped him get his mind off the disappearing chick. “From what I see around the building, your father seems like a pretty popular guy. He might be able to give you a few pointers.”

“I wish,” I said. “It’s just, you know, sometimes he doesn’t know when to back off. Shoot, in high school it was so bad I stopped even trying to get with any girls. I mean, it’s pretty embarrassing trying to walk a girl home when your pops is trailing behind you in his car the whole way.”

Daryl let out a low whistle. “Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty bad.”

We laughed and joked for a while longer about the silly shit my father used to do, but all in all, I couldn’t complain. He might be a little overprotective, but Pop had taken good care of me ever since my mother died.

“What do you say, man?” I asked. “You gonna come with me or what?”

“Why don’t you ask some of your friends?” he said.

That kind of hurt a little. Was he saying he didn’t consider us to be friends after all?

“You know,” I said, trying to sound like it didn’t bother me, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying not to hang out with me.”

I guess that got his attention, because at least this time he didn’t totally try to brush me off. “No, man. That’s not it. It’s just that I’m a little tired, and I haven’t even had a shower today. Why don’t you run out and grab us a six-pack or something? I can whip your ass at some
Madden
.”

It was closer to what I wanted but still not good enough. “Aw, man, I don’t wanna stay in tonight. I’m
twenty-one
! Don’t you remember what it was like when you reached the drinking age? I want to go out to a club, throw back a few drinks with my boy, and who knows? We might both get lucky.”

He shook his head. “It’s getting late.”

“Late?” I walked over to his living room window. “It’s not even ten o’clock yet. We’ve played video games until three o’clock in the morning.” I turned to face him and asked, “What’s really going on?”

“Maybe we can do it tomorrow.”

“Tonight’s my birthday, not tomorrow. I’m only gonna turn twenty-one once.” I hate to say it, but I was starting to sound like a whiny little kid, even though the law said I was officially a man now.

“Look, I’m sorry. I can’t go out with you tonight,” Daryl snapped,
catching me a little off guard. I’d never seen him catch an attitude like that before. Well, I had something for him if he wanted to bitch up on me.

“Yeah, well, I guess I can’t hack that number either.” I stood my ground, waiting for him to respond. I wasn’t sure whether he was going to give in or tell me to get the fuck out of his apartment.

After some uncomfortable silence, he said, “Hey, Benny, I’m sorry. I apologize. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. It’s just that…” His words trailed off, and then he finally said, “Hell, I guess I should tell you the truth.”

He bent down and raised his pants leg to expose a large black bracelet around his ankle. “I can’t go out with you because I’m on house arrest.”

To say I was shocked is an understatement. You couldn’t have paid me to believe that Daryl, the guy who I’d looked up to practically like a superhero, was actually a convict.

“Man, what did you do?” I blurted out, then instantly felt bad.

I could see from the look on his face that Daryl was hurt. “Look, Benny, you’re a cool kid and all. I really enjoy kicking it with you, but I’m going to have to ask you to back off on this one, okay? There are a lot of things you don’t want to know about me.”

I nodded, staring down at the device that was locked around his ankle. I had so many questions. Not knowing which ones he’d choose to answer, I started with the basics. “How are you out all the time if you’re on house arrest?”

“I’m on house arrest from sundown to sunup for the next six months.”

“Oh… I know you don’t want to tell me what you did, but tell me one thing: you’re not a murderer, are you?”

He actually smirked. “No, man. Murderers are in jail. I’m only on house arrest.”

I looked down at his ankle, fascinated by the device that was attached there. “Hey, can I see that thing?” I reached out to touch it even before he gave me permission. I messed around with it for a minute, then sat back on the floor.

I asked, “If I told you I could get that thing off of you, then would you go out to the club and have a beer with me?”

“Dude, please. There’s no way we can work around this. It’s either a six-pack and a game of
Madden
on your birthday or a drink out at a bar tomorrow during daylight hours.”

I pushed forward with my plan. “I’ve never met an electronic device that I couldn’t manipulate.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to manipulate my way onto Rikers Island.”

I wasn’t ready to back down. This bracelet was just the kind of challenge I liked. “C’mon,
friend
. Trust me. Compared to a jewelry store alarm system, this thing would be a piece of cake.”

I was back home in the apartment I shared with my father and stepmother after spending a few days in Pennsylvania, where Slim and I went shopping at the outlets. We bought a bunch of things for our new place, and then I’d come back to Queens to pack the last of my stuff to move in with Slim.

I’d gotten out of the Hamptons rental as soon as possible, because staying there after Slim’s proposal would have been a recipe for disaster. Eventually Daryl would have shown up, and I was definitely not prepared to deal with that—ever. There was no reason for Slim to know about my fling. As far as I was concerned, my week with Daryl was something I would remember forever but never talk about again.

From the way Daryl was acting, it was obvious he didn’t see things quite the same way I did. He blew up my phone for days after I disappeared. I turned off the ringer, but it seemed like my purse was vibrating constantly with Daryl’s calls. It got so bad that Slim noticed and started asking questions. I finally slipped away for an hour, found a Verizon store, and had my number changed.

I felt a little bad about the way I was doing Daryl. I should have at least given him an explanation, but I couldn’t talk to him. Truthfully, I was afraid that hearing his voice would make me want to see him again; seeing him would make me want to kiss him; kissing him would lead to fucking; and fucking would lead to disaster. So I was moving on, and Daryl would have to do the same. He’d eventually understand that I was doing him a favor. Daryl deserved better than me.

I put Daryl out of my mind the best I could as I finished packing. Even though I was just moving to an apartment downstairs, it felt good to know I’d finally have my own place. I’d be close enough to keep an eye on my dad without having to share a space with my fat bitch of a stepmother.