Margaret Sexton - A Kind of Freedom

“Man, dawg,” Tiger sighed.

T.C. couldn’t tell if he had convinced him. Tiger had turned on South Broad, then left on Napoleon, but that was the way to Bon Bon’s house too.

“That ain’t even your old lady. She supposed to be your Betsy friend, and you treating her like the queen.” Tiger turned for a second to gauge T.C.’s response, then looked back to traffic. That was T.C.’s weak spot, and Tiger knew it.

T.C.’s guilt came back on him and strong. Tiger was close with Alicia and thought T.C. should have married her by now. Back in the G when they used to kick it together real strong, T.C. thought he would too. But she went ham on him all the time, and she wasn’t all the way right in the head. They’d be talking, laughing, he’d be feeling like the weight of existence was sliding off his shoulders, he’d shut his eyes, then she’d start screaming about something she found on his phone.

“Why you even going through my phone?” he’d yell back.

“I can’t trust you, T.C.,” she’d sigh. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

The thing was, the most she ever found was flirtatious messaging with his lil’ boos, and, yeah, they sent him pictures of their titties from time to time, but he hadn’t ever stepped out on her; he hadn’t ever wanted to.

“Awright, fine, nigga, I’ll ride with you a lil’ bit, get you the shrimp.” It was too late anyway. T.C. felt the car slowing down in front of the restaurant’s red awning. Another mile and they would have been at his lil’ boo’s, but it was all good. Either way he needed to change the subject. “You and this goddamn shrimp. You’d think they was mixing steak and lobster in the batter.”

“Nah, bruh, I ain’t got to beg. I got my own money. I just wanted to spend some time with you is all, go over our strategy and shit.”

T.C. didn’t say anything. He was still thinking about Alicia.

“How she doing anyway?” he asked.

“She all right, hanging in there. She stayin’ by her mama and them again, getting the guest room ready for the baby. I think they got everything but the car seat.”

“I’ll get that.”

Tiger didn’t say anything.

“I was already planning to get it,” T.C. insisted.

“Nobody said you wasn’t.” Tiger paused. “She still cry about you when your name get brought up.”

“Aw, bruh, don’t believe the hype. She the one kicked me out. I loved Alicia. I still do. But—” he stopped. There wasn’t any use going into this again. He could feel his excitement over Bon Bon diminishing the longer he stayed on the topic, his uncertainty rushing in, his sadness, the fear. He was twenty-five, but he wasn’t ready to be a daddy. He had told Alicia that, but she had gotten careless with her pills, and she wasn’t scandalous by any means, but T.C. still wasn’t sure she hadn’t done that on purpose.

“Anyway, man, what else you gon’ order?” he interrupted himself. “Them same red beans and rice? I could fuck up some chicken legs, I guess.”

Tiger didn’t answer him. “I’m not saying you did nothin’ wrong. I know she crazy. All these bitches is. And she probably in the ninety-ninth percentile of crazy, you feel me?”

T.C. laughed. “You right about that.”

“Especially now that she pregnant.”

“I hear you,” T.C. said. “I do hear you,” he repeated. “But Alicia got to see there’s consequences to her actions. She wouldn’t stop. It got to be too much. Every day accusing me, and that kicked me out more than she did. Only so many times you could be told you a cheater before you become one. Even now, she got me thinking I’m doing something wrong and she the one told me to leave. She the one wouldn’t take me back. I went back every day the first month, but she had her mama slam the door in my face. How many times I’m a go back for more of that? What kinda man would I be if I did?”

They pulled into a spot in the Popeyes lot, got out of the car, walked up. A cop car passed him, and T.C. felt his heart tense before he remembered he wasn’t the same man he was a few months earlier. He didn’t have anything on him for one; even if one of them po-po approached him, the most they would do was throw him up against the car, search his empty pants’ pockets, and slap him up for their lost time. He walked into the restaurant with a new swagger to his step, even turned back and looked one of them dicks in the eye. Inside, there was a line of course. T.C. remembered he couldn’t stand the smell of the place, a combination of stale frying oil and cleaning solution. Then the children running around knocking into his legs. One of them looked up at him as if he were on stilts at a circus. “Mama,” she said “it’s a giant.” She was almost whimpering.

Tiger doubled over laughing. “It’s good to be home, huh, my nigga?” he asked.

T.C. nodded, smiling that goofy-ass smile. “Yeah it is.”

Tiger talked nonstop about the block.

Spud had swooped in when T.C. left; he was bringing in two thousand a week, even had middlemen riding out to Chalmette for him, and people were saying his weed was good, almost as good as T.C.’s.

“Almost as good,” Tiger stressed again. “And that’s cause half of them only touched the gas you bought, not the gas you made.”

T.C. couldn’t even front. He grew the best weed he’d ever smoked. There was something hypnotic about picking out the seeds, testing the levels, trimming the leaves, drying the buds. But he couldn’t afford to grow enough to satisfy his base, so he supplemented, and some people got his creation, and some people got old regular bud.

“Once you back though,” Tiger was still talking, “and they get the real deal, it’s gon’ be like taking candy from a baby. Thing is,” he paused, “I don’t think you got enough. See Spud, he don’t even touch his own gas no mo. He fronts a lil’ bit to his middleman, then takes the profits off the sales, and gives that lil’ nigga a piece, and it’s not as dangerous that way, cause he not the one out in the streets.” He paused again. “If you did it that way, you’d have more time for your product, more time to be the creative genius you are.”

T.C. nodded the whole while, dipping his chicken strips in a pool of ketchup and tossing them back, thinking about Bon Bon’s titties.

“T.C.? Hello, T.C.?”

“Yeah?” He guessed Tiger had been trying to get his attention for some time.

“Did you hear what I was saying? When you get back tonight, maybe we could see about doubling up on them plants?”

T.C. nodded. “That’s cool,” he said, though the truth was Tiger’s plan was stupid. Adding middlemen would take the power out of T.C.’s hands. One of the reasons he’d gotten caught dealing only once was because he sold to old basketball friends, students at Dillard. On the other hand, it wasn’t sustainable. There was only so long you could sell before you got busted, and if he went in again for hustling, it was five years minimum. He didn’t have it in him to serve that kind of time, not with a kid on the way. If he didn’t have to worry about sales, he could grow more plants, put enough aside sooner to start his own business. He’d always thought he was going to be a basketball player, and it didn’t work out, but maybe he could coach other kids like him, see to it they didn’t make the same mistakes he did.

He wasn’t going to get into it with Tiger though, not right now. He still needed that ride Uptown. And maybe he would be a different man after that encounter. It was possible whatever was waiting between Bon Bon’s legs was going to be the magic he needed to go another way.

Tiger had always been a big eater, but today he put back two po’boys, not to mention the red beans and the French fries. He kept getting up to refill his Coke and after three trips he leaned his head back and let out a huge belch. Sure enough, when it had been time to pay, he hadn’t lifted a single finger for his wallet.