Concrete Rose, page 4
“Good. It’s payback for all them times you pissed in my face. You’ll be okay, Mav Man. You gotta find your groove. Don’t get me wrong, it won’t be easy. Everybody gon’ have an opinion ’bout how you do things. What I always tell you? Living your life based off what other people think—”
“Ain’t living at all,” I finish.
“You damn straight. Let ’em talk. Long as you take care of yours, that’s all that matters, you feel me?”
“I feel you.”
“Damn. A grandson,” he says, in awe. “What’s his name?”
“Iesha named him King since she thought that was his daddy.”
“Aw nah, man. You gotta change it,” Pops says. “Zeke named King that in honor of the set. I got nothing against it or your homeboy, but your son oughta have something of his own. A name with purpose. I was real mindful when I named you. Maverick Malcolm Carter.”
Maverick mean “independent thinker.” Malcolm come from Malcolm X. Guess Pops wanted me to be a leader from jump.
“Don’t throw something on your son,” Pops go on. “Give him a name that tells him who he is and who he can be. The world’s gon’ try to do that enough.”
Dang, I’ll have to think it out. “Yeah, a’ight.”
“Man. If I was home, I’d be the freshest granddaddy you ever saw. Have my little buddy riding around in the drop-top. Make sure you put him onto the Lakers ASAP.”
Pops a fool for the Lakers. He worshipped Magic and Kareem back in the day. He made sure I was a fan. “Fa’sho. I’m gon’ get him a jersey soon.”
“That’s what I’m talking ’bout. They got something special in the making, I can feel it,” he says. “That boy Kobe gon’ be a force. Mark my words.”
For a moment, we just father and son, talking basketball. Pops don’t feel a world away. “You think we’ll get a championship?”
“A couple of championships,” Pops says. “Kobe and Shaq gon’ ball out, no doubt. How things around the Garden?”
“It’s real calm lately. No turf wars or nothing,” I say. “The Garden Disciples ain’t tripping.”
“Good. Shawn, Dre, and them looking out for you?”
I guess that’s what Dre call that stunt he pulled. “Yeah. Sometimes they do it too much.”
“No such thing. Be glad somebody got your back. You may not always be so lucky.”
I got a feeling Dre gon’ always be a pain in my ass.
“Well, look, man, my time’s up,” Pops says. “Make sure you tell Faye I came down real hard on you regarding this baby business, a’ight?”
I laugh. She gon’ know I’m lying. “Yeah, a’ight. We’ll see you soon.”
“Looking forward to it,” he says, and I can hear his smile. “Love you, Mav Man.”
“Love you, too, Pops.”
I hang up, and my pops is a world away again.
The doorbell ring. I hop up real fast ’cause I don’t want it to wake up Li’l Man. I peek out the front window first like Ma do. It’s King.
I greet him with a palm slap. “Damn, man. Didn’t expect you to roll through.”
He slide in past me. “Phone call’s a waste of time. I was around the corner with a customer and figured I’d stop by. What’s up?”
What ain’t up? Part of me don’t know how to start any of this conversation. I stick my hands in my pockets. “Iesha holla’ed at you yet?”
King plop down on my couch and prop his feet on the table. Mi casa always been his casa. “Yeah, she told me. Where your Sega controller? I’m tryna play some Mortal Kombat.”
“Man, look, I’m sorry, a’ight?” I say. “I thought fa’sho Li’l Man was yours.”
“I told you shit happens. It’s all good.”
“You sure? You named him after yourself. I could see how this might make you feel—”
“Gah-lee, Mav! You sound like a female. Chill. I ain’t stressing that girl or her baby.” He pull my Sega Genesis controller from between the couch cushions. “Less for me to have to worry with.”
“A’ight. Long as we cool.”
“For life, homie.” He hold his palm out to me.
I slap it. “Fa’sho, except for when you rooting for the sorry-ass Cowboys.”
“Take your hating ass on somewhere.” King laughs. “Like the Saints gon’ do shit. My Cowboys gon’ whoop them like I’m gon’ whoop you on this game.”
“You wish. I need to holla at you ’bout something else.”
King blow into my Mortal Kombat cartridge in case it don’t wanna act right and put it in the Sega Genesis. “What’s up?”
Li’l Man wail in my room before I can speak. “Shit,” I hiss. “Hold on.”
Ma claim that one day I’ll be able to decipher his cries. Today ain’t that day. She told me to always check his diaper first thing. It’s clean, so he must want a bottle. Ma made a couple before she went to work. She think I pour too much formula. For somebody who claim that my baby is my responsibility, she help out a lot. I ain’t complaining. I rush to the kitchen, grab a bottle outta the refrigerator, and go scoop Li’l Man outta the crib.
It ain’t easy to feed a crying baby. It’s like he so hungry he mad, and he so mad he don’t wanna let me hold him with all the squirming he doing.
“Chill, man,” I tell him. I don’t know how I get the bottle in his mouth. At first he don’t latch on to it, and I’m two seconds away from calling Ma at work.
Finally, he start eating.
“Man,” I sigh. “You love to stress me out, huh?”
I carefully walk toward the living room and sit on the couch with him.
King play my Sega, keeping his eyes on the TV. “Iesha left him with you?”
“Yeah. Said she needed a break.”
“Oh.” That’s all King say at first. Then, “You gotta feed him within like a minute of him waking up or he’ll act a fool.”
“What?”
“I used to go over and help Iesha with him.”
“Oh.”
We quiet for a moment.
King look over at me and Li’l Man. “Yeah,” he says. “He do look like you.”
King can say it’s all good if he want, but there’s this look in his eyes that got me thinking otherwise. “Dawg, I’m sorry.”
He focus on the TV again. “Told you, it’s all good. At least with you he got a family, you know?”
“King, man—”
“You said you wanted to holla at me ’bout something else?”
I hate this situation, for real. I clear my throat. “Yeah, umm … I can’t sling with you no more.”
He do a double take. “What? Why?”
“Dre figured out what we up to.”
King hop up. “What the hell? You told him?”
“Nah! I wouldn’t do that. Dre figured it out on his own and convinced you involved. He want me to quit.”
“Let me guess, he only want you selling weed for him and Shawn for pennies.”
“Nah, man. He want me to quit drug dealing period. Said if I don’t, he’ll rat you out to Shawn.”
“So? I can’t believe you letting him punk you.”
“I was tryna look out for you!”
“I don’t need nobody to look out for me! All I need is this money! Don’t you?”
Our arguing make Li’l Man fuss. I rock him a bit. “Of course, but I don’t wanna get in trouble. Dre threatened to tell my parents, King.”
“So you gon’ leave me hanging?”
“Man, you know it ain’t like that. I’m saying you oughta consider dropping your side—”
“I ain’t dropping shit!” King says. “Mav, we could find a way to do this if we work together. You really gon’ let Dre and them get in the way of your money?”
It ain’t Dre I’m worried ’bout. If Ma find out I sell drugs, I might not see another day.
“I’m sorry, King,” I say. “I’m out.”
He glare at the ceiling like he could cuss. “Man, fine,” he says. “You do you, but I ain’t quitting. They can come at me, I ain’t scared.”
I swear, King never give a you-know-what. I think I care more ’bout him than he care ’bout himself. “I won’t tell them. Hold on, I’ll get my stash. Can you—” I motion at my son.
“Yeah, I’ll hold him,” King says.
I place him in King’s arms. Li’l Man whimper at first, but King bounce him and shush him. He probably done this before.
I go to the bathroom. Ma made it my job to keep it clean every week, making me the only one who go under the cabinet. I get down on the floor to look under there real good and move around the cleaning supplies. They help hide the space in the back between the wall and the pipe that’s just big enough for me to slide a Ziploc bag of drugs into.
I take it out, go to the living room, and I give it to King. He give me my son in return.
“We cool?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “Even if you is acting like a li’l punk right now.”
“Fool, you have met my momma, right? I got good reason to be scared.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll holla at you later. I got work to do.” He look at my son. “Take care of him, a’ight?”
I nod.
King hold out his fist, and I dap him up. Then he gone.
CHAPTER 5
Dre swing by the house around noon to take me and Li’l Man to the store.
His ride fly as hell. It’s a ’94 BMW, but Dre keep it so on point it look like a ’98 or a ’99. He found it at a salvage yard and fixed it up himself. Added candy paint, twenty-inch rims, and a sound system in the trunk. Oooh-wee! I can’t front: I like to be seen in it.
Dre help me get my son’s car seat situated – I don’t know what the hell I’m doing – and we head to Mr. Wyatt’s grocery store. It’s around the corner, on Marigold. Dre roll all the windows down, lean back in his seat, and drive with one hand. He nod along to that “1st of tha Month” joint by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony that’s playing on the radio.
I’m too tired to nod along. Right after King left, I put my son back to bed and tried to get a nap. Couldn’t for thinking ’bout that conversation with King.
Dre glance over at me. “You good, cuz?”
I rest my head back. “King rolled through earlier. I told him what you said.”
“How’d that go?”
“How you think it went? He was pissed, but he said he’d stop,” I lie. I gotta look out for my boy.
Dre nod. “Good. That’s all that’s bothering you?”
“Dawg, when did Andreanna start sleeping good?”
He laughs. “Don’t tell me you worn out already.”
“Hell yeah. I ain’t sleep worth shit this weekend.”
“Come with the territory, playboy. Be glad you got nothing else to do, like school. You told Shorty ’bout him yet?”
He mean Lisa. My baby only five two, but she ball like she six feet.
I twist one of my cornrows at the root. Last week, I sat between Lisa’s legs on her front porch as she braided me up. Fireflies flashed around us, and cicadas hit high notes. It was the kinda peace I needed.
“Nah,” I say. “I haven’t had a chance to go over there. I can’t tell her on the phone.”
“You gotta tell her or the streets will.”
“Ain’t nobody finna tell her.”
“Shiiiid, a’ight,” he says. “Put it off if you wanna. It’s gon’ bite you in the ass.”
He act like this gon’ be easy. Lisa gon’ be hurt, for real. It don’t matter that we weren’t together when I messed with Iesha. I messed with Iesha, period. “I ain’t ready to break her heart, Dre.”
“It’ll hurt her more if she hear it from somebody else. Take it from me. After some of the stuff I did, I’m lucky Keisha deal with me now.”
Dre been with Keisha since around seventh grade. Hard to imagine them not together. “Man, get outta here. Y’all stuck with each other.”
He laughs. “I hope you right. I’m more than ready to make it official.”
“Still can’t believe you getting married.” The word don’t feel right coming outta my mouth. “I love Lisa, but I can’t imagine letting a girl lock me down.”
“You say that now. One day, it’ll be a whole different story. Watch.”
“Nope! I’m a playa for life.”
Dre crack up. “Yeah, we’ll see.”
“Hail Mary” by Tupac start on the stereo. That’s my joint right there. ’Pac the greatest to ever do it. Hard to believe he been gone almost two years now. I remember when the radio announced he got shot in Vegas. I figured he’d be a’ight – he survived getting shot five times in New York. Dude was invincible. A few days later, he was dead.
At least that’s what they said. “Yo, did you hear? ’Pac alive.”
Dre laugh. “Get outta here! Next you gon’ tell me the world ending in the year 2000.”
People already bugging over this Y2K stuff, saying the year 2000 gon’ bring the apocalypse. We gotta make it through ’98 first.
“I don’t know if that’s true,” I admit. “They said on the radio that ’Pac living in Cuba with his auntie Assata. The government had a hit on him.”
“C’mon, Mav. Bill Clinton wouldn’t put a hit on ’Pac.”
Ma say Bill Clinton the closest thing we may ever get to a Black president.
“Shiid, I don’t know, man. ’Pac’s family full of Black Panthers, and he spoke so much truth. Word is he’ll come back in 2003.”
“Why 2003?” Dre says.
“It’s seven years after he faked his death,” I say. “’Pac got all these connections to the number seven. He was shot on the seventh. He died seven days after that, exactly seven months to the day that All Eyez on Me dropped.”
“That’s a coincidence, Mav.”
“Hear me out! He died at 4:03 p.m. Four plus three is seven. He was born on the sixteenth. One plus six, seven.”
Dre rub his chin. “He was also twenty-five when he died.”
“Right! Two plus five, seven. Then the name of his last album. That Makaveli joint.”
“The Seven Day Theory,” says Dre.
“Exactly! I’m telling you, he planned this.”
“Okay, let’s say he did,” Dre says. “Why he focus on the number seven?”
“Apparently, it’s a holy number, I don’t know.” I shrug. “I’ll have to look more into that.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll admit it, all that do seem planned out. But ’Pac not alive, Mav.”
“You said it seemed planned out.”
“Yeah, but only cowards hide and fake their deaths. ’Pac wasn’t a coward. I don’t care if the government wanted him dead, he would’ve gone out in a blaze of glory.”
True that. ’Pac was the definition of a rider. He wouldn’t be hiding from nobody.
“A’ight, you got me there.”
Dre pull into the store parking lot. Wyatt’s Grocery ’bout as old as the Garden. Granny used to send Ma in here when she was a kid, back when Mr. Wyatt’s pops ran it. You can buy everything from fresh vegetables to dishwashing liquid.
Dre help me figure out the stroller – why everything with babies so damn complicated? – and I push my son into the store. For a spot in the hood, Wyatt’s Grocery is real nice. Mr. Wyatt make sure that the floors always shine and the shelves stay neat.
He at the cash register, bagging up some old lady’s groceries. Mrs. Wyatt right beside him, talking to the lady. She retired last year and always in the store nowadays. Except when she across the street, getting her nails done. She keep them painted pink.
Her eyes light up when she see us. “Maverick, you brought the baby!”
Mrs. Wyatt love babies. She and Mr. Wyatt used to be foster parents, and they’d get babies and kids all the time. I always had somebody to play with thanks to them.
Mrs. Wyatt come bend down to look in the stroller. “Chile, you couldn’t deny this boy if you tried. He look just like you.”
“Yep,” Dre says. “Even got Mav’s big apple head.”
“Man, shut up!” I say.
Mrs. Wyatt laughs. “Be nice, Andre.” She grunt as she pick Li’l Man up. “Ooh Lord, you a big boy. They feeding you good, huh?”
“I’m in here to buy formula now,” I say.
“I see why.” Mrs. Wyatt smiles at him. He give her a gummy grin right back. “Faye told us you’re taking care of him by yourself today. Everything okay so far?”
Leave it to Ma to give the Wyatts a heads-up. They been our next-door neighbors so long that they family. “Yes, ma’am. I got it.”
Mr. Wyatt says goodbye to the other customer and make his way over to us. He got this thick mustache, and he always wearing some kinda hat. I think he losing his hair. Today he got on a straw hat to cover it.
“Careful, Shirley,” he says. “Hold him too long, and you’ll get baby fever.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. Ain’t that right, baby?” She kiss Li’l Man’s cheek.
Mr. Wyatt grab my shoulder firmly. “You not putting this baby off on your momma, are you, son?”
“No, sir,” I say. It’s always “yes, sir; no, sir,” to Mr. Wyatt. He drilled that in my head since I was little. “I’m handling it.”
“Good. You made him, you take care of him. School starts soon, right? You ready? Don’t let having a baby make you drop the ball on that.”
“Clarence, let the boy breathe,” Mrs. Wyatt says.
He’ll never do that. Mr. Wyatt stay on my back. As much as he gets on my nerves, I know he care. I remember when the Feds took down Pops. It was straight chaos in our house. Cops everywhere with guns. They made my folks lie on the floor, and an officer escorted me outside. I cried for Ma and Pops, begged the cops to let them go. They almost put me in a car to take me somewhere. Mr. Wyatt came outside and talked to them. Next thing I knew, he put his arm around my shoulder and took me to his house. He and Mrs. Wyatt kept me till the cops cleared Ma that evening.
“Breathe nothing. He’s got responsibilities now,” Mr. Wyatt says, his eyes set on me. “You need to take care of this baby financially. What you plan on doing jobwise?”
“He actually looking for a job,” Dre butt in. “You know anybody hiring, Mr. Wyatt?”
“As a matter of fact, I am. My nephew, Jamal, had to cut his hours down to part-time due to his schedule at the community college. I’m looking for someone to fill in the gaps.”
