The Syndicate (2 page)

As the heavy rain pelted down on us in Georgia, I couldn't get over the fact that my mother was dead. The only mother I'd ever known, who took a little piece of shit like me and turned me into the young woman I was today, was gone. How did she of all people deserve to be killed in a drive-by shooting? I couldn't wrap my mind around that shit. It ate away at me each day and night.

The way the authorities told the story, Mama just happened to be walking to the same bus stop where a gang member from another area was also waiting. She got caught in the crossfire when rival gang members spotted the boy at the bus stop and opened fire. I always told Mama she needed to drive or be sure one of us could pick her up. I never liked her walking, but the old woman never freaking listened. Never. Now we were left alone.

The wind blew angrily around us, whipping the ends of jackets, sweaters, skirts, and dresses. Many people had to hold down their hats and keep the programs from the funeral at the church held tight. Brown, red, and orange leaves danced around our ankles as trees swayed in the music of the wind.

The eight of us stood silent as the crowd thinned out. Our hands intertwined, grief pulling us closer together.

“Somebody please tell me this is a dream, a horrible fucking nightmare,” my sister Melissa begged. She didn't care that tears mixed with snot ran down her upper lip. Her normally pale face was reddened with sadness. She was tall, at least five foot ten inches. Most people would look at her white skin and my black skin and wonder how we were sisters. It was quite simple. Mama Claudette was the foster parent to eight of us children, all different races and ethnic makeup. She took us in and didn't care one way or the other what race we were. She loved us. Educated us. She sheltered and nurtured us when nobody else wanted or cared to. I glanced to the right of me at the rest of my siblings. Javon, black like me, my fiancé, stood to the left of me, hand so tight around mine he was darn near hurting me, cutting off my circulation.

On my right was Cory, Javon's younger blood brother. He was black and Filipino. He, too, had my hand in a death lock. His locs curtained his face as his head hung low. Next to him was Inez, who was Dominican. Her head was held high while she tried like hell to cry silently. As her lips trembled, I knew she was seconds away from breaking down. Next to Inez was Lamont. He was Native American. For as long as he had been my brother, I'd never seen the boy cry. He found other ways to show his emotions, normally by kicking someone's ass. But today, today, Lamont shed tears freely. The tall, hulking fighter looked miniscule against the pain we all felt.

Next to him was Naveen, who was Bangladeshi. His skin was brown, and his silky auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He was sniffling as he stared blankly at the beautiful white and gold coffin. Melissa stood next to him; the tall blonde looked as if everything on her body hurt. Then there was our youngest brother, Jojo, who was black as far as we knew but clearly mixed, we just didn't know with what. He took Mama's death the hardest. He was guilt-ridden. He was supposed to pick Mama up but had been running late. I hadn't seen him eat or sleep since the call came in that she had been killed.

“It's not a dream, Melissa,” Javon said.

My handsome king's voice came out with more confidence than I knew he felt. While his eyes watered, I'd yet to see tears fall. As soon as we had gotten the news, he went into protector mode.

“Are
. . .
are you sure?” he asked then looked down at me.

“She's
. . .
dead,” he finally said.

Everything that made me human in that moment ceased to exist.
Wait, no. Mama?
Mama was dead. I couldn't have heard him right. There I was worried about what would happen to Mama if one of us had passed and the thought never crossed my mind that someone or something had taken her away from us. Our lives ended and began with Mama. None of us had lived until she had come into our lives.

Water reddened his eyes, but no tears fell. Javon was a natural
-
born leader, so I knew in his mind he was already piecing together how to handle this with the rest of the family. He was a no
-
nonsense type of person. Once he calmed me down, we got dressed and he made the calls to gather the rest of us together.

That wasn't an easy feat as the news of her death crushed us.

“We have to get to the house so we can greet the well-wishers,” I said, once we'd all gotten into the limo provided by our uncle Snap.

The ride home was quiet. The mood inside of the limo was just as sullen, moody, and dreary as the one outside. We could see people already waiting for us when we got there. Mostly white but there were some brown, black, and yellow faces in the crowd. The front door of the house opened to Freedman Park, the only park in the upscale middle-class neighborhood.

In the springtime, peonies lined the front fence. Come summer, a bright perennial border popped up. The inside of the old Victorian-style home still had some of the original 1900s woodwork. The house boasted ten-foot ceilings, dark wood trim, pocket doors, and heart pine floors, and the original glass and molding. Over the years, Mama had increased the space from 2,000 square feet to 4,000. She said she wanted the house to grow with us and it did. We had no idea how Mama got the money to do those things. We knew she was pawning old jewelry she had, working in other people's homes, babysitting spoiled, rich brats for days on end. If any of the people now here knew Mama had an EBT card she used to feed us, they'd probably have shunned her.

“Come on, let's get this over with,” Javon said after we all had exited the limo.

The weather refused to be nice to us. The rain started falling harder. Trees whipped the windows and sides of the house. The wind was rude to everyone who was brave enough to stand outside. The poor old lady from next door was damn near carried away by it.

The smells of different foods—apple pie fought with fried chicken in the air—swept through the house. I was so tired of people asking me how I was doing that I was ready to blow. How the fuck did they think I was feeling? I knew they meant well, but when the last person left and after all the mess had been cleaned and the eight of us were left alone, I was happy.

We sat around the massive front room in silence, Mama's smiling face above the fireplace mantel haunting us. Javon looked at all of us. He had taken off the black jacket that matched his suit. He'd rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt up to his elbows. The fabric strained against the muscles of his chest and arms. His slacks hung grown-man low on his hips while his dress shoes knocked against the floor. He had a tumbler with amber brown liquid in it in his hand. I knew he was in pain by that alone. Javon rarely drank alcohol nor did he smoke.

“The easy part is over,” he said then finished off the liquor and passed the glass to me. I set it on the mantel above the fireplace. “The hard part starts now. None of us have lived a day without Mama. I know most of us were doing this school shit and working so hard because we wanted to make her proud. We never wanted to let her down. Now that she's gone, we have to go harder.”

“I got this fight coming up, bruh, but I don't think I can do it,” Lamont said.

“You can and you will. All that damn money Mama put into your training. You get your ass in that ring and beat the shit out that Russian-ass white boy, you feel me?” Cory finally spoke up.

He had been quiet the whole time. Javon was the oldest, with me then Cory bringing up the rear. Mama always looked to us to fill the void of guardian when she wasn't around. That was going to be our duty more now than ever. While Javon spoke with more eloquence and decorum, Cory sometimes let the streets slip through his lips if he didn't catch himself. He was a student of criminal law. He had a bachelor's in criminal justice and was a second-year law student. He could run circles around all of us with the law shit he knew, but sometimes his tongue got the better of him.

“It's so hard to focus knowing she's gone, Cory,” Inez said through tears.

“I tell you what, if any of you niggas think about quitting anything now that Mama's gone, we gon' have a problem,” Cory promised.

“Cory, you have to cut us some slack,” Inez replied.

“Yeah, we're fucking hurting here,” Naveen said.

“We should be able to at least take a break, Cory, time to mourn,” Melissa added.

“Cory's right,” Javon cut in. “None of you had better even broach the subject of quitting a gotdamn thing. We have to see things through and I'm going to be on your ass if you think this means you can quit or slack off for any fucking reason.”

There was so much bass in Javon's voice that we all stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. It was rare that Javon cursed and even rarer that he raised his voice. Javon was always in control of everything and that included his emotions.

“Yes, we all need time to grieve, but you better grieve while you work. No slacking. No time off,” he continued. “And I mean that shit.”

Silence followed his order. Nobody was fool enough to say a word lest Javon jump down their throats.

“I can't do it,” Jojo finally spoke up.