Mitchell Jackson - The Residue Years

Oh, so it’s you, Kenny says. Didn’t recognize the number.

It’s a whole lot that you don’t, I say. Where are my boys?

Grace, I don’t think I’m feeling your tone of voice, he says.

Cut the games, I say.

They’re at the park, he says. Call back.

I’ll do you one better, I say.

He lets the phone go quiet.

A barefoot toddler darts past me into the parking lot with no one giving chase.

Guess you didn’t hear me? he says.

Why should I be listening? I say.

See, that’s it, he says. We got court coming up. We’ll let the judge decide when you will and won’t.

Judge who? I say. I’m coming to see my boys.

Grace! he says. In all honesty, you can’t dictate shit, he says. What you need to do is get yourself situated, so when all this is settled, you’ll have a decent place for the boys to visit.

We shall see, I say.

Yes, he says. We shall.

The way I slam the phone knocks a quarter out the coin return. I turn my back to the booth, but don’t know where to go, don’t know what to do, but what I need is someone close who’ll listen, who could help. The nearest one I can think of is Kenny’s older brother Chris, who used to live not too far from here. Chris, who was an ear for me when his brother and I had troubles, whose advice Kenny would mind when no one else could get through. I hike Fremont, too tired to know how tired I am. A car toots at me, but I don’t bother looking up. I make a turn and amble by young girls twirling double-Dutch ropes. A block or so beyond, there’s a young couple carrying groceries into the same house where years and years ago I almost got caught in a drug raid.

That night the police kicked in the front door, guns drawn and shouting, and I burst out the back barefoot because I couldn’t run in heels. There was a dog chasing me till I hit the first fence, and I could feel the air from its bark at my feet. I sprang one fence and another, cut through black yards, my feet not feeling a thing. All I could think of was being caught, of having to explain what I was doing in the house in the first place. This fear kept me tearing through backstreets until there was nothing behind me but wind, until I reached Dawson Park, where I crouched behind a bush and waited till the sun rose.

You can hear the girls twirl their ropes and sing a tune. The woman grins at the man from the porch. He climbs the steps with armloads of bags and stops on a landing and a dog bounds out on the front to meet him and nuzzles against his leg. A last turn puts me on what used to be Chris’s block and what in a fair world still is. You can see a man that looks like Chris in a driveway, hovering over a two-seater with a hand sheathed in a fluffy glove. I huff to within a shout.

That sure is a nice ride, I say.

Hey, hey, hey. Well, ain’t this somethin. What’s happenin, sis? he says, snatches off his mitt. Ain’t seen you since can’t even call it. He rubs his pants, the hands he shares with his brother, thick and hairless, though his pinky nail is filed to a spike.

Happened to be in the neighborhood, I say. Thought I’d drop by and make sure you was still alive.

Now you know us pimps don’t die, he says, and moves closer. His cologne could knock you down.

Well, I see you ain’t lost your sense of humor, I say.

Ha! Never that. But on the serious tip, sis, what’s been up? When you last seen my thickhead brother? Me and Blood ain’t got up in a few.

Funny you should ask, I say. Cause I just got off the phone with him. Can I tell you I’m so finished.

Chris’s eyes linger on places I’d rather they wouldn’t. Makes me think what’s left to see in me of my last time out, what signs might give it away.

Yeah, Blood done flip-flopped, but that’s how it be when them white folks put you on payroll. Enough about him, though. How’s my nephews?

Getting grown too fast, I say. Actually, they been living with your brother this past year.

Oh, he says. Oh. That’s news to me. That a long-or a short-term deal?

Supposed to have been short, but your brother trying to see it turn permanent, I say. We go to court coming up here soon.

Court! As in before a judge? You got to be bullshittin! he says. That yellow nigga really is out his head. Chris throws his mitts on the hood. He swings open the driver’s-side door and plops inside. He thumbs the replica emblem anchoring his gold chain.

But on a happier note, I say. What’s the latest with you? You still ripping and running the streets?

Oh, you know how it go with me, he says. Get rich or go to jail trying. He laughs. He checks himself in his car’s tiny side mirror, pats the graying sides of his Jheri curl, pinches his hoop earrings. On the serious tip, though, sis, I got a little business I’m bout to start. Soul food restaurant by them old motels on Interstate.

That sounds nice, I say.

Hope so, he says. Got to find a way. But how about you? he says. You back working them corporate gigs?

Not so much anymore, I say.

He cocks his head and looks up at me. Well, I tell you what, I ain’t got but a couple weeks till my doors is open, and when they do, you got a job, he says. That’s my word.

Now, I just might have to take you up on that, I say.

Cool, cool, he says.

Chris asks where I’m headed and I tell him Kenny’s place. He asks if I’m driving and I admit that I’m on foot, catching buses, the train. So is Blood still out there in the boonies? he says. I nod and he offers me a ride. He collects his supplies in a bucket and sits the bucket by the garage. He tells me to wait in the car while he runs in to change. He struts out hot seconds later wearing a Hawaiian print shirt open to flash his chain and terry-cloth sweats. His Jheri curl is not of want for sheen.

We get on the road. The way he drives, you blink and you’re on the freeway, whipping lanes, his engine revving in low gears and whistling at a high speed. Off the bridge, we almost miss our exit for the highway heading east. He keeps the music off, and we end up trading stories. The road trip where Champ locked him out the car while we stopped to get gas. The night I punched his prostitute for cursing in front of the boys, the year we all flew to Canada for the Fourth of July. He and I have always had such an easy time. It reminds me how often between men — between brothers even — that a girl chooses wrong, and how, after a time, the wrong choices become us. Chris whisks the east highway in high gears and nothing else. The wind twirls my hair into a swarm. We get off the exit and catch the light and I tell him how an ex anything brings me down. He lets the car coast down the slope. Sis, you know it wouldn’t hurt for you to try and see the world sunny side up sometimes, he says. We ride the next lights in pinched quiet. He pulls over just inside the subdivision. I’d drop you right out front, he says, but it might be best for you if I don’t.

This hair, I make to smooth it and thank him for the ride and sling out the car. Hold up, he says, and reaches in his glove box for a napkin, and scribbles his number. He tells me to remind him of the court date: And I’m so serious about the job, he says. He backs out rather than risk a drive by his brother’s.

Kenny’s neighborhood is a world of its own, a world away from the Piedmonts. Boys shoot baskets at a curbside hoop; a man trims his front hedges; a couple power-walks toward a distant cul-de-sac. I stutter up to Kenny’s house, a sight in this season, a spread of lush grass cut sharp at its edges, bark dust smoothed over blooming weedless flower beds, paint that almost gleams. You can see how tired I am — the wrung eyes, the pillows in my cheeks — in the glass of Kenny’s front door. I take out a tube of gloss and paint my lips and practice a mock smile. Right now I could leave. There’s a feeling in me to leave, to whisk past the boys, beyond these perfect lawns and cheery strolling pairs, to sprint till I reach the other side of the brick walls that cleave this place from what could never equal up. Kenny throws his front door wide and frights me. I didn’t hear him walk up.