Bronxwood Read online

  When the waitress leave the table, my pops is still smiling, checking out her ass as she walk away. And me, I just can’t take it no more. “Can I ask you a question?” I don’t wait for him to say nothing. “Why you bring me here for?”

  The smile on his face go away real fast. He lock his eyes on mines hard and go, “You got a problem, Tyrell?”

  I don’t like the way he looking at me. “It ain’t no problem,” I say, keeping my eyes on his. “I just wanna know why I’m here. Why you wake me up for? To come and eat with you? ’Cause if that’s what you was—”

  “You gonna shut the fuck up long enough for me to answer you?” He don’t raise his voice none, but he still looking me dead in the eye and I can tell he starting to get mad. Like I care. He stare at me some more, and take his time before he say, “I woke you up ’cause I need your help with something. Tonight.”

  I sit back against the pleather on the chair, fold my arms in front of me, and say, “What you need help with?”

  Then he tell me ’bout this party he throwing and how much he need to do between now and ten o’clock tonight when the party s’posed to start. “This ain’t gonna be one of my regular parties. I’m only gonna have, like, a hundred people. Folks that got money and ain’t afraid to spend none of it to come to one of my parties and have themselfs a good time. A real good time.”

  I can’t believe this shit. He ain’t learn nothing in prison.

  “I need you to help me DJ,” he say. “Give me more time to spend with folks and give everybody that personal touch. And we gonna have some backroom shit going on too, you know’m saying, right?” He laugh.

  But I don’t laugh with him. “You remember why they locked you up, right?” The words is out my mouth before I think, but I ain’t gonna back down from what I’m saying.

  “Yeah, I remember.” He shoot me another hard look. “You remember who is the father and who is the son, right?”

  “I remember,” I tell him.

  “Good, then.”

  Me and him don’t say another word, not in the whole time it take for the waitress to come back with our food. My pops talk to her again while she put the plates and bowls down in front of us, but me, all I’m thinking ’bout is the smell of the food. I mean, by the time I get the first bite of that sandwich, with all them flavors in my mouth, just like that, I ain’t all that mad no more that my pops brung me here.

  My pops go, “Good, right?”

  I don’t say nothing. I just keep eating.

  “I been dreaming about this breakfast for a year,” he say, food all in his mouth and shit.

  Funny, but I ain’t think ’bout this place once since the last time me and him was here.

  Something happen to my pops when we ’bout halfway through with our food. He start talking ’bout everything, telling me more ’bout the party he throwing tonight. All the details. “I’m gonna charge seventy-five this time, but I’m gonna give folks a open bar for the first hour. They gonna like that. Then, to make up for it, for the rest of the party, I’m gonna be overcharging like a motherfucka.” He laugh again.

  I’m hardly listening to the man. I’m too busy eating. It’s a good thing he keep talking so I can get started on them grits and cheese.

  After a while, he tell me ’bout this apartment Regg hooked him up with. “It’s over by Mosholu Parkway,” he say, “not far from the reservoir. It’s nice over there.” Then he tell me that him and my moms is moving in on Monday and he wanna make enough money tonight to give Regg back all the money he laid out for the apartment, the first and last month rent. “I gotta get your moms out that place she living at now, Ty. Apartment is smaller than the fucking cell I just got outta.”

  Damn. What he saying is messed up. When ACS took Troy away from us and I left outta that shelter we was staying at, my moms ain’t had nowhere to go. First she went to stay with one of my pops friends, but I knew for a fact my pops wasn’t gonna want her living there. So I’m the one that found that little studio apartment for her. I seen a sign in the front of the building saying they was renting studios, no credit check. It was me that helped move her in there and me that paid her rent all this time. Almost seven months. Me. So why he gotta criticize instead of telling me I did alright taking care of his wife while he was sitting on his ass doing nothing for none of us all this time?

  But I don’t say none of this to him, ’cause, at the same time, I know there’s a lot of shit he can blame me for too. ’Specially what happened to Troy. I know he probably thinking I fucked up ’cause I ain’t made sure my moms was doing the right thing and taking care of Troy the way she was s’posed to. I shoulda stepped up and ran the family the way he woulda did if he was ’round. And even though I tried, I wasn’t good enough. And I don’t wanna hear that from him right now.

  So I stop talking and keep eating. Meanwhile, my pops is talking and eating at the same time. You ask me, he just rambling though. The man musta been in solitary or something, ’cause he acting like he ain’t had nobody to talk to for a while.

  A cell phone ring and I know that ain’t my ringtone. My pops reach into his pocket and pull a cell, a new one. He ain’t even been outta jail twenty-four hours. How he get a cell already? And why his phone better than mines?

  My pops start talking. I can tell it’s my moms and it sound like she ain’t know he left her place and wanna know where he at. He smiling big when he talk to her too. He saying, “I ain’t wanna wake you up. After last night, I knew you needed to rest.” He laugh. “And I’ma be back in about a hour for more.”

  Me, I swear, I’m sitting here hoping some terrorists or somebody will roll up in this diner and shoot all of us so I don’t hafta listen to none of this shit no more.

  It don’t stop neither. They talk for another couple minutes and I gotta say, it sound like they both real happy. Probably happier than they was before he went away. Finally, my pops tell her he gotta go ’cause his food getting cold. But before he hang up, he go, “Lisa, you know I ain’t forget ’bout that. I’ma work hard too.” More laughing. Then he hang up.

  No way I’ma ask what him and my moms is talking ’bout, what he working hard for. I ain’t sure I even wanna know. ’Cause I know him and the only kinda work I ever seen him doing was illegal shit.

  Anyway, I shoulda knew he wasn’t gonna be no different this time. This the third time he been to prison, and it’s always for the same shit. The thing that piss me off is, every time he sitting in a jail cell chillin’, his family be going through some hard times. But he don’t never get to see that part.

  When me and Regg went down south, he tried to talk to me ’bout my pops. He said he knew how I felt but that I should try not to be too hard on him. He was like, give the man another chance. Regg made it sound easy, but now that me and my pops is face-to-face, I know for a fact me and him can’t start over. Too much shit happened in the past.

  So I get through the rest of breakfast, not really talking to him, not really listening. Least the food is good.

  Before my pops pay the bill, he lean ’cross the table closer to me and go, “Let me ask you a question, Ty.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to figure out what he want from me now.

  “You got my gold chain? Your moms say she don’t got it.”

  Damn. “Um, I, I don’t know. I mighta put it someplace, to keep it safe.”

  “Good. Good. Find it and bring it to the party tonight.”

  I nod. “I’ma look for it.” Now I’ma hafta try and get that chain back from Adonna. Hope she ain’t get too attached to it.

  EIGHT

  My pops still doing all the talking on the way to the storage place, telling me who he invited to the party tonight, like I care. “All I know is this party better make me a lot of money,” he say, pulling the van into a parking spot and cutting the engine. “I got some things I’m working on.”

  He open the van door, but it take him a couple seconds to move. “Man,” he go. “My body ain’t used to that much f
ood no more. I need to go to sleep. Itis is setting in hard and fast.”

  Finally, he get out and so do I. We go ’round to the back of the van and take out the hand truck and a dolly and some rope and shit. When we get to our storage room and unlock it, my pops look ’round and go, “Shit.” Only, the way he drag out the word, it sound more like “sheeeeet.”

  I know what he thinking ’cause every time I come here I’m thinking the same thing, that it’s messed up all our stuff is here. When we got evicted, the marshals brung everything we had in our apartment here. Our furniture is here, my pops clothes, and all Troy toys. Everything. This place always make me feel mad, ’cause we been living without none of this stuff for a long time, and it ain’t right.

  At the same time, I’m feeling good that my pops is seeing all this now. He need to start understanding the changes we had to go through for the past year, see how we been living. I don’t think he get it.

  Inside the room, my pops go over to the big-screen TV first and start talking ’bout remember this movie we watched and remember that video game we used to play, but he might as well be talking to hisself. ’Cause I’m shitting bricks, hoping he don’t notice that I been using his DJ equipment without asking him first. He ain’t gonna stand for that, ’specially from me.

  The equipment is up against the wall, right by the door where I put it ’cause I had to get it in and out easy. Truth is, I been using it every three, four weeks. The way I see it, I ain’t had no choice. We was living in a shelter and his equipment was just sitting here. So I used it, threw my own kinda parties, and made some decent cash doing it. I ain’t gonna apologize to no one for that.

  Still, the man uptight ’bout his shit. He had them Technics turntables, I think, since before I was born. He always talking ’bout how good they made shit back then, so you never had to buy them again. I know I ain’t break none of it, but something tell me he gonna have some way of knowing I been using it.

  And it don’t take him more than a minute neither. “What’s this?” he ask. I turn ’round and see him holding this little stash of my own vinyl I kept right in the front of one of the crates, just so it won’t get mixed up with his shit. I’m so fucking stupid it ain’t even real. I knew his ass was getting out. I shoulda moved them records before I went away with Regg. “You been using my equipment?”

  “A couple times,” I say. “To make money to take care of everybody.”

  He stare at me, cold.

  “We ain’t had no money. We was in a shelter.”

  Still staring. The man looking at me like he wanna kill me or something.

  “Look, I know how you feel ’bout your shit, but what you expect me to do? You ain’t leave no money or nothing for us to—”

  I barely get them words out my mouth before he on me, grabbing me by the throat and slamming the back of my head against the wall hard. For a couple seconds I don’t see nothing. Then I see my pops face all up in mines. “I ain’t gonna say this again,” he say, so close he spitting in my face. “You need to remember who is the father here. Do you need help?” His eyes is hard and mad. I can’t even talk my head hurt so much, so I just kinda nod so he can let me go, and he do. Then he say, “Help me get this equipment outta here. I need to go home and take a shit.”

  It take me a second to move, but then I do and, man, I’m way past pissed off. So pissed, I can’t even hardly think straight. I help him lift one of the speakers on the dolly and stack some of the crates of records on the hand truck.

  It take us three trips to get what we need outta there, and we don’t say nothing to each other the whole time. When we done and back outside, I ain’t looking for him to drive me home or nothing so I just start walking away, ’cross the parking lot.

  “Get in the van,” my pops say. He don’t yell or nothing, but the way he say it, I know he don’t like me walking away from him.

  I keep walking though. I don’t gotta listen to his ass. I don’t look back, but I hear him start up the engine and drive up on the side of me. I know he gonna try and get me in that van, but I don’t care. I don’t need him to get back home.

  He drive real slow and yell out the window, “Be in front of your building by eight.” Then he just take off like I’m s’posed to care.

  I keep walking, out the parking lot and down the street to the train station, but I can’t even lie to myself. My head hurt. I could kill that man. For real.

  NINE

  When I get back to Bronxwood, all I wanna do is get upstairs and lay down. Not only is my head killing me, but now the Beast is startin’ to feel like I got a wet towel sitting in my stomach. I’m walking all slow into the building, probably looking like I’m fifty years old or something.

  It’s early and Cal probably still ’sleep. For a second I think ’bout knocking on his door and waking him up to tell him that I seen my pops and what he did, but, nah, it’s too early to get into that with him. I don’t know where the fuck Greg at. He must got a new girl or something ’cause he ain’t hardly ever here no more. It’s like me and Cal is living by ourself.

  I go in my room and close the door. All I wanna do is sleep, but I can’t even calm myself down. I can’t believe that man went and slammed me like that. He only been out a day and already he putting his hands on people. Treating me like I’m still a child, not a man.

  My pops wasn’t never like that. He wasn’t never the type to go ’round really beating me or Troy or nothing like that, but he definitely used to hit us when he thought we was outta line ’bout something. That’s the way he always been, demanding respect, ’specially from his kids. That ain’t never gonna change. But I’m sixteen. Why he think he still got that kinda right?

  Actually, only person I ever seen him give a real beat-down to was my moms. It only happened a couple times that I know ’bout, and the fact that I was standing right there when it happened ain’t stop him from beating the shit outta her neither. The whole thing was mad violent too.

  I take my sneakers and jeans off and get in bed. All I wanna do is go back to sleep, but it ain’t easy trying to stop myself from thinking. It don’t take me long to figure out why my pops hit me. He trying to get me in line and get his control back. He probably know I’m my own man now and he don’t like it.

  But what really fuck with my head is that I took that shit from him. Why I ain’t hit him back or something? Kick his ass? I mean, what the fuck is wrong with me?

  I don’t come outside ’til, like, ten after eight, and my pops is already down there waiting. Not that I care. Only reason I’m even doing this is for whatever cash he gonna pay me.

  I’m looking good though, wearing jeans and this shirt I got down in Atlanta. The shirt is all black with a design that make it look like somebody that be wearing, like, a size 14 sneaker stepped in red paint and walked ’cross the bottom of it. It was mad expensive, I ain’t gonna lie, but nobody got no shirt like it ’round here. And course I got my headphones hooked ’round the straps of my backpack ’cause I don’t be using nobody headphones but mines.

  I get in the van, waiting for him to say something ’bout me being late, but he don’t. Actually, I was taking my time getting my music together. My friend Patrick that live on the twelfth floor was putting some new songs on a flash drive for me so I could load it in my pops deck when we get to the party. My pops don’t know it, but I got most of my music already stored on his deck. And I don’t only play the new music Patrick downloaded for me. I play a lot of old shit too.

  I used to help my pops DJ all the time, so I know ’bout all kinds of music that kids my age ain’t up on. When I play some of them old songs at my parties, they be like, “Damn. Where you get that shit from?” They don’t know. I been listening to that music my whole life. Some of that music been ’round since my moms and pops was my age.

  When I play, I like to mix some of my pops old music with some new beats and raps. New mixed with old. That’s kinda my style. And my DJ skills is tight now. I’m better than my pops is. He gon
na see.

  I’m still pissed at him for what he did, so I don’t say nothing in the van. Not a word the whole way. He got the radio on again, so it don’t matter. Back in the day when I used to go to his parties with him, shit used to be mad fun. I started going with him when I was, like, thirteen and it used to feel good getting to leave home with him at night ’specially ’cause my moms and Troy had to stay home by theyself. I felt like I was grown, getting to stay up late, helping my pops set up the parties and all that. Them parties was wild too, probably not the kinda thing a kid shoulda even been at, but back then, I ain’t really see everything that was going on, or least I ain’t understand what was really going on ’round me. Everything. The drug dealing, gambling, pimping hos. All that. Took me a while, but now I get it.

  So, yeah, I’ma go and help him make this party dope, but I’m only here for one thing. Money. So I can buy my own equipment and not need his shit no more. Or him.

  The party is gonna be in the basement of a pool hall. Regg know the guy that own the place and got him to rent out the basement. The space kinda small for one of my pops parties, but this ain’t gonna be like all the other ones he throw.

  Regg is already there, going over the room, making sure all the windows and doors is locked and the only way folks can get in is through the side door off the alley, the one where they gotta pay to get in.

  And they got some other guys there too, my pops friends that always be working his parties. This dude Bones is setting up the bar, but I know he be selling drugs on the side too. In another corner, this guy Jay is setting up the poker tables. Then there’s this dude Leon by this door that must go to a back room or something. Leon a straight-up pimp that probably brung a bunch of hot girls with him to work the guys at the party for every dollar they got.