Apple Brown Betty (5 page)

“That's a Sam Moore,” Desmond told her as she ran her fingers over the soft upholstery of his sofa. “Ultrasuede…has the look and feel of suede.”

“All that,” Nora said, repeating the phrase over and over as he showed her through the rest of the house.

“And you did this all by yourself?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“You should have insisted your parents see this, Desmond. They'd be so impressed. Why have you shut yourself off, become so withdrawn and secretive?”

He didn't answer. She didn't press.

Somehow they ended up in the bedroom last. Somehow clothes were shed. Somehow their warm tongues were shared. Desmond wanted Nora up until the moment he climaxed; then, like men often do, he didn't want her anymore. She was expendable. A short-term fix. He needed a long-term answer that could outlast the longevity of even his parents' union. The dim prospect of finding such an answer left him gun-shy in the commitment department.

He moved to Nora now, sleeping so peacefully, and shook her shoulder. “Nora…Nora.”

She opened her eyes, momentarily thrown by the strange surroundings. She yawned, stretched. “What?”

“You know what we agreed to. You have to go. I want you to call your friend to pick you up.”

She blinked her eyes; the reality that her plan didn't work hit her like a ton of bricks. She started to whimper. She reached out for him but he turned to retrieve her neatly folded clothes from the chair behind him. He brought them to her and placed them on her lap.

“Go ahead and take your time,” he offered.

She looked at him, her eyes moist.

“It's me, Nora,” he said, shaking his head. “It's me. I'm sorry. I couldn't and can't chance failing at another relationship. I'd rather not even try.” He thought about his mother, his father. Thirty years, after all, was a long and elusive ghost to chase.

He turned and left the room.

 

“Cydney, I been trying to reach you all day.”

“I was at the library doing some research for a paper.” She could hear something in her brother's voice. “Why? Something happen, Shammond?”

“You spoke with anyone from the county prosecutor's office or Asbury Police Department yet?”

She'd just walked in the door, had her heels in her hands. She dropped them to the floor, bypassing the stand in her living-room closet where she neatly kept her shoes. County prosecutor's office? Asbury Park police? “Shammond, tell me what's going on. Are you in trouble?” She could hear a tear in her brother's voice, though she was oddly sure it was manufactured.

“George.”

“Pop G, what about him?” Her heart started to race. He was the one member of the family who actually accounted for something, worked hard, worked within the parameters of the law and didn't have any damning vices.

“You sitting down?” Slay asked. “I know how you feel about George.”

“Oh, my God!”

“They found him down by the boardwalk. Shot dead.”

“Pop G?” The words hurt as they left her mouth.

“Yeah, couple gunshots.”

“How could something like this happen? When?”

“They found him the other night. A drug deal gone bad, they're guessing.”

“Pop G wouldn't…” She couldn't continue, felt her head spinning, the ground leaving her. She dropped to the spot where she stood, leaned her back against the island separating her kitchen and living room.

“Wouldn't what?” Slay asked.

“Drugs,” she whispered.

“You don't know?”

“Don't try and tell me—”

“Not for himself…for Mama. Been copping her shit for a while now, since she got beat up that time.”

“No!”

“You sit up in your little pretend palace acting like the earth stopped spinning over here where you grew up, but it hasn't. Some bad shit goes down over here. Your wonderful stepfather couldn't figure out how to change Mama any more than you could. You just ran away from it—he chose to give in to it. He died a coward's death for it, too. Mama will be next, thanks to him.”

“This is too much,” Cydney cried.

“Yeah, well, I just wanted to let you know. I can come by later if you want.”

“No, no, no. Let me handle this by myself. I'll call you if I need you.”

“Aiight,” Slay said, disappointed.

“Bye.”

She sat there for a while, crying, hugging herself in grief. Then she wiped her face with the back of her hand, slipped her feet into her shoes and grabbed her car keys. She didn't know where she planned on going, what she planned on doing, but she knew she had to get out of her apartment.

Before she knew it, she was traveling around the Asbury Park circle, coming down Asbury Avenue headed into the broken city. How long had it been since she had come here? She came to Main Street, turned right instead of going left, toward where her mother stayed on First Avenue. She drove a few streets, then made the left on Cookman. Most of the businesses were boarded up. The sight of the decaying Steinbach Building jolted her. She noticed the lineup of cars just across the way. The glowing banner emblazoned with the name Cush outside the new restaurant. A line of white couples waited by the door to the restaurant, a half dozen or so other people making their way up the sidewalk toward the entrance. Cydney drove past.

Farther up the road, by the bridge, the weeping willow tree bent to a lean that placed it almost perpendicular to the ground; still stood strong. The tree had been like that for a long time and she wondered what act of God it would take to make it finally fall. She continued on.

A small posse of kids, none of them older than ten, darted by in front of her. She slammed on the brakes and laid into her horn. They didn't even look in her direction. One of the kids threw his basketball high in the air, aiming it at the electrical wires above, trying to dislodge a pair of worn sneakers hanging by their laces over the wire. Cydney continued on.

She came to the end of Cookman, with Heaven on Earth dance club in front of her. She turned left. Passed by that horrible go-go bar, Hot Tails. Passed an abandoned lot with weeds growing heavy from cracks in the pavement. Passed by what at one time was a parking garage. Now the entire facility was abandoned, the metal skeleton of the parking structure rusted brown, slabs of concrete angled up against the side of the ground-floor building. She continued on.

A boarded-up building ahead had an elaborate NJ Lottery logo spray painted in graffiti on the one free window. There was raw talent in this jungle, but seldom was it used for any good; seldom did it garner any value. Cydney continued on.

She passed another one of the endless paved lots. This lot had a rusted crane sitting along the edge, up on its haunches as if it had decided to sputter out halfway through its work. Farther up the road was the Berkeley Carteret—a lavish hotel—which somehow still thrived, still had business in the midst of all this poverty and neglect. It made her think of her brother. Slay—because that's who he was when he spoke of the hotel—always referred to the Berkeley as his corporate offices. Cydney came to a stop at the lake that separated the squalor of Asbury Park from the richness of Deal. She started to drive around the lake on the circular road and ride through Deal back to her home in West Long Branch, but she didn't. She stopped the car, cut the engine and sat looking at the ripples of water in the lake. She wasn't sure where exactly, but she knew not too far from here Pop G had faced his end. As she considered all she had seen on her way to this spot, she couldn't help but think he was all the better for getting out of this when he did, morbid as that seemed.

“W
here the backyard?” I ask my sister.

Cydney taps me on the back. “There isn't a backyard, stupid. This is an apartment tower.” Cydney always has been one for telling me stuff she thinks I don't know.

The building is tall and not too wide. Sign out front says, B…h A..s. George told us proudly when we pulled up in his getaway car that it would spell out Beach Arms if all the letters were there. Whatever. I don't like him and I don't trust him. To me he looks like the dudes that kill Bruce Lee's master in the movies I watch on Saturday afternoons. 'Cept George ain't Chinese and he doesn't talk so fast his mouth can't keep up. I walk inside the building and Cydney follows.

“He dragged us out our house to come to this,” I say to Cydney. The light thing above in the lobby is broke, hanging, wires and whatnot sticking out. “Ain't fair, I want a backyard.”

“He didn't drag us out our house,” Cydney corrects me. She gets that look grown folks get when they tell us kids to leave the room. “Mama lost the place 'cause Daddy didn't pay the bills right and he didn't leave no money to bury him.”

I swing back around facing her. “You shut up,” I tell her. I change what I said about George not talking fast before. He is a fast talker; he started spreading that lie before my daddy was dead hardly a month. I ain't liked George since before my daddy died. He used to bring Daddy home after getting him sick watching basketball and then stand out on the porch whispering stuff to Mama. He'd take off his cap, too, and something ain't right about that 'cause he won't come inside or nothing.

“Will not, it's the truth,” Cydney says.

I raise my hand to pass her a lick like my daddy did to Mama when she told lies, but I look up and see Mama coming through the lobby door. George is behind her, boxes in hand, wobbling along. I don't know how you can go from one house with two little girls and a Missus George to another house with somebody else's kids as easily as George did, but I'm sure Bruce Lee would frown on it.

“You two cutting up?” Mama asks.

“No,” I say. Cydney shuts down when grown folks question her. I know grown-ups ain't nothing but little kids that done got big, so they don't scare me as much as they do Cydney.

“Shammond, why don't you help your Poppa George carry some of the boxes in.”

“He ain't none of my poppa,” I say. I can feel Cydney shutting down beside me. I hold my chin up.

“You watch your mouth, Shammond,” Mama says to me.

George puts his hand on Mama's shoulder and smiles that smile them dudes give to Bruce Lee when they get off their first licks. Bruce wipes them smiles off their faces soon after. I wish I knew some of that hand-chop and foot-kick stuff for myself. I'd use it on George. “Let the boy go ahead and get used to the new place, run around and explore. I can handle these boxes,” George tells Mama.

Mama looks at me. “Thank Poppa George for letting you play instead of work,” she says.

I don't thank him. Instead, I take Cydney by the wrist and walk her with me through the lobby and down the hall. Cydney's older by two years but I'm more headstrong according to Mama. Headstrong—I think that means I'm smarter than Cydney.

“You've got to stop being like that with Pop G,” Cydney says. “He's our daddy now.”

I heard George tell Mama I was a thief last week when he noticed a few dollars missing from his wallet. Takes one to know one is all I can say to that. He stole Mama after all. “He ain't our daddy,” I tell Cydney. Bruce Lee and Daddy both would be proud of me.

S
lay curbed his BMW outside his mother's apartment tower. He stayed with her from time to time, but not often. He couldn't stomach George, but now that he was dead, Slay would probably spend more time at his mother's. Most nights, Slay worked into the morning and then dropped his head wherever, usually some fine young thing's Section 8 apartment.

Slay nodded to the young boys playing kickball with a deflated soccer ball on the sidewalk in front of the apartment tower. The boys scurried over to him like rats to cheese. Slay peeled off a couple bills, gave each of them one. They knew the routine. Anyone even think about going near Slay's car, the boys were to chase them off with rocks or the ragged pieces of red brick that fell from the front of the building and collected on the lawn where flowers should have been planted. The boys, all in the eleven- to thirteen-year-old range, thanked him and watched with adoration as Slay moved into the building.

Slay stood by the elevator waiting for that slow bucket to come carry him up his mother's apartment on the thirteenth floor. He looked down the hall at the apartments on the ground level, looked over by the stairwell and considered climbing the stairs for a fleeting second. The ding of the elevator saved him from having to move up those steps.

The elevator door opened and he was about to step on when the door of the nearest apartment swung open. Kenya, who had Pam Grier's nose and bosom, but was darker than the night in skin tone, peeked her head out. Slay held his hand in the elevator opening.

“I could feel you out here, Slay. I had to stick my head out,” Kenya said. “Sorry about Mr. George.”

Slay smiled at her. “What's going on, baby?”

“Nuttin' much. You know Boom got locked up again?” Boom was her on-again, off-again boyfriend. When Boom was off, Slay usually was on.

“Nah, word?”

“Yup.” She stepped out a little farther; a man's dress shirt with the buttons opened from her navel up hung off her slender frame. She bent down and picked up a half-full bottle of beer someone had left in the hall by her apartment.

“When he coming home?” Slay asked, peeking at Kenya's breasts.

Kenya held the bottle to her leg, swirled the butter-brown liquid inside the bottle around. “Not sure this time. His moms said she ain't bailing his black ass out no more.”

“You and the kids cool?” Slay asked. “Y'all got food and everything you need?”

Kenya's eyes dropped as she thought about her two little boys. “We tryin'.”

Slay moved his hand from the elevator, let the doors close on him, walked to Kenya. He'd pulled out a wad of bills by the time he reached her, placed them in her free hand. Kenya leaned into him. He hugged her with just his one arm.

“I'd be willin' to do work for you,” she said, her voice dropping. “You think I fit the bill, I bet I could make you some money.”

Slay had grown up with Kenya; had seen her through much. She'd seen him through even more. She was the one constant in his life. No way was he getting her involved in
that
life. He shook his head. “Take care those kids, you need anything, hit me off. I got the same celly number. Aiight?”

She nodded, grateful. “'Preciate it, Slay.”

He smiled. “Right, right.”

“You goin' up to see Miss Nancy?”

“Yeah.”

“How she doin'?”

Slay managed a smile. “Mama? She doing good.”

Kenya nodded. She knew it wasn't so from what she'd heard from others in the building. She looked down at her feet again. “You can come down, hang out after you done upstairs…”

Slay touched her shoulder. “Got some things to attend to. You just take care of yourself and them kids. And hit me on the celly like I said, you need anything.” He was back at the elevator when he remembered something. Kenya still stood in her doorway watching him. “Hey, yo,” he said. “What's up with those dogs? Your uncle got 'em for me?”

“Oh, yeah, true. He said he had two pits you'd probably like. Come check him at the spot whenever you get the chance.”

“You weren't even going to tell me,” Slay playfully admonished her, shaking his head.

“I'm sorry. I got so much on my mind. And it's been awhile since you had asked me.”

The elevator dinged again. Slay nodded to Kenya, waited for the doors to open, and then got on. He pressed for the thirteenth floor and leaned against the side wall as the elevator moved up. It was a wobbly ride, like riding a bicycle with no air in the front tire. Bumper stickers for old rap album releases covered the majority of the wall.

On the thirteenth floor, Slay moved to his mother's door, paused, then pulled out his key and stuck it in the lock. He closed the door behind him and walked into the darkened apartment. George's extra pair of work boots and a broken television stand with an empty fish tank on top lined the hall. Slay scooted past the hall clutter, moved through the living room and came to his mother's doorway. He could hear the radio playing, heard the announcer say, “That was The Standells and ‘Dirty Water.'” Slay tapped on the door. He opened it wider and walked right in instead of knocking a second time. Her body lay in a clump beneath the covers. Slay pulled them back. What he'd taken as his mother was actually a pile of dirty clothes, arranged neatly beneath the covers. It broke his heart to see those wrinkled clothes because he knew where his mother was. He wheeled and rushed from the apartment.

Her favorite spot was just around the corner, behind the basketball courts where no one played anymore because the rims had been torn down and never replaced. Slay parked the BMW and trotted across the asphalt, afraid of what he'd find.

Behind the court, he found her splayed across the dirt and grass like a neglected leather jacket. A busted Ziploc bag with water spilling from the slit and a goldfish that had taken its last gasp moments before rested in her lap. Her mouth was broken, bleeding.

Her dark skin was rough and ashy. The braided twists of her hair were coming loose at the ends. Slay slowed his trot, moved beside her, bent down over her. It felt as if he were peering at her in a coffin.

“Mama,” he called out. She didn't stir. He touched her shoulder and she jumped. “Mama?”

She grumbled and looked up at him.

“Mama,” he repeated.

“Georgie, baby, that you?” she asked, her voice distorted by her heavy tongue inching in the gaps where her teeth used to be.

“Nah, Mama, it's me.”

“Georgie, baby, pleeease. I been waitin' on you.”

“It's me, Mama.”

“You get it, Georgie, baby? Please tell me you got it, Georgie, baby. I cain't hole on much more. Come on, Georgie, baby, give it to me…”

“He's gone, Mama, it's me,” Slay said softly.

Nancy seemed to realize where she was. She looked around and crinkled her forehead. “Tole this fool my husband was gone and I needed help,” she said. She grabbed ahold of the Ziploc. “Offered him my fish…offered him my wet tongue and these juicy-fruit lips…” She was speaking of the one-named youngster—Larry—who conducted his business behind the courts. Larry was nowhere to be seen now.

“He hurt you, Mama?” Slay asked.

Nancy nodded her head. “Punched me in the mouth and tole me to get on.”

“Again,” Slay sighed. He hated this cycle. His hands were tied behind his back because he didn't like to acknowledge the place his mother was in, and if he came back here and got revenge off that poor sucker Larry who held down this plot of land like he was Donald Trump, then Slay would be admitting something he didn't even like to acknowledge in the solitude of his thoughts—his beautiful mother was a junkie. Slay looked around, over his shoulders. The night was still and quiet. They were alone. “Come on, Mama,” he said, placing his hands under her arms for support. “We need to get you home and cleaned up.”

“What about my goldfishy?” Nancy asked.

“He's gone,” Slay said. “I'll get you another one, but you got to promise to keep him in the tank.”

 

Earlier, Cydney had a difficult time getting up for work. She'd thought a steaming-hot shower would loosen the tension in her shoulders but the water just seemed to bounce off her skin. She'd spent the night reworking the last pages of a paper for her Critical Thought class; then, unable to sleep, she combed through her dozens of movie videos searching for something to settle her down and possibly ease her into the bliss of her dreams. She picked
While You Were Sleeping,
ironically enough, always having loved the wonder of the romantic comedy. She wondered if she, like Sandra Bullock in the movie, would ever get her Mr. Right.

Unfortunately, the movie made her even wider awake. She thought about her girlfriends from the old neighborhood. Chamique, Wanda and Miah. She wondered how many children they each had by now. She was glad, despite how hard it was, that she finally had the chance to pursue her college degree. She'd quickly stopped thinking of the old days. That life was firmly behind her. Her new life was college, the magazine, her new girlfriends Faith and Victoria. Changes for the better.

She'd ended up calling Slay, catching him on his cell phone, some girl in the background talking all loud to let whoever was calling know that she had him for the night.

“Cyd-a-knee,” Shammond had said, slurring his words. “I was thinking about you.”

Cydney was surprised to hear her brother sounding drunk. He despised alcohol and drugs. “Hey.”

“I wanted to call you but I got tied up.” He giggled like a fool into the phone. “Wanted to let you know there's going to be a memorial for George this weekend at the funeral home.”

“Chapman's?”

“Come on, Cyd-a-knee. You know ain't nobody else to fix up niggas around here but Chapman.”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“I'm handling all the arrangements—getting him cremated.”

“Cremated?”

“Yeah,” Shammond said. “It'll be nice.”

“What about his other children and his ex-wife, they in on it?”

“Sheeit,” Slay said, “they could care less. I did talk to his one daughter, though. She wanted to know if he had a policy or anything.”

“Did he?”

“Got some associates of mine looking into all that,” Slay said.

Cydney never liked to think about that portion of Slay's life, the portion where he had associates available to him. “Saturday?” she said.

“Yeah, around noon.” He giggled again.

“You been drinking, Shammond?”

“Little.”

“Why? Thought you didn't drink.”

“Taking my mind off things, is all,” he said. His mama, broken, beaten, addicted to that shit.

“Saturday,” Cydney said. “Okay, I'll be there. Bye.”

“Hey, yo, holeup,” he cut in. “What were you calling for?”

“Just couldn't sleep,” she told him.

“Ahhh, you learning to lean on me again, that's good.”

She smirked. Was it? “Bye.”

“Right, right…and wear something nice to the memorial.”

 

Now, at the Elizabeth Arden fragrance counter for work, Cydney was fighting the ill effects of that sleepless night. She yawned into her heavily scented wrist between stopping potential consumers so she could spray their wrists and make them smell like her own. She was dealing with such a woman now, an older white woman who appeared to have benefited from quite a bit of plastic surgery. The woman wore expensive sunglasses and an elegant scarf.

“This is devilish, sugar,” the woman said. “What is it called again?”

“Green tea…” Cydney's voice trailed off as she noticed a familiar face in the distance. She always caught a sense when he was near. He stood by a rack of jewelry, waiting for this woman to leave so he could come forward. He smiled when Cydney's eyes caught a glimpse of him. Cydney looked away, gave her attention to the starlet in front of her. “Smells wonderful on your skin, too,” Cydney told her. Then she whispered conspiratorially, “You know, every perfume isn't for every woman. It has to blend correctly with the natural oils and scent of the person. I've got a feeling, though, that everything smells good on you.”

The woman nodded in agreement. “I do have a devilish relationship with fragrance. I'll definitely take this.”

Cydney smiled. The commission from this sale was a week's worth of cable.

Cydney processed the sale, plus a few other accessories the woman noticed on her way to the checkout counter, and looked up as Stephon approached. She didn't want to see him but had to admit he looked mighty fine in that pink-striped shirt with the white collar, his tie loosened, his coat hanging cockily over his shoulder. His hair was cut low, his beard looking as if he'd recently had it touched up and trimmed, forming a perfect black border around the jawline of his face.