Crimson Footprints

Crimson
Footprints

Shewanda Pugh

Copyright 2011 by Shewanda
Pugh

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All rights reserved. Except
as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this
publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The characters and events
portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real
persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the
author.

For my family, who remind me
daily of what it means to be a Pugh. For Caleb, who gives me
motivation for all things I do. For Pierre, whose enthusiasm made
this story possible, and for Dr. Christine Jackson, who helped it
all come to fruition.

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

With the quiet hiss of an
old and burdened bus, the number 62 unfolded its doors and welcomed
Deena Hammond to the night. She took the invitation, hand on a
sliver of cool metal, gravel grinding under black pumps and stepped
down.

Liberty City. A shitty place
in the bowels of Miami. Where she was raised and where her
grandmother still lived.

Piss and Hennessey singed
her nose and Deena blinked, giving herself a moment for
acclimation. Enveloped in the dark thickness of a Miami evening, an
old black man slept, cheek to weathered wood on a bus stop bench.
Matted dreadlocks formed a pillow as sheets of The Herald covered
his middle. Deena stood there, eyes trained on the sleeping man, as
her bus disappeared into darkness. Dirt and twigs clung to his hair
and valleys creased his face. He was 40, 50, maybe 60.

He opened his
eyes.

She should’ve been afraid.
Would’ve been, had she had a different life, been a different
woman.

He looked her over, before
cracked lips hinted at the beginnings of a smile. But they would
get no further. Smiling here was so hard.

She hurried on.

The heat of Miami clung like
a sleeve, dampening her neck and smothering her breath, night never
alleviating its burden. She was flesh in Liberty City—all flesh.
Everyone was.

Used to the stares a
near-white woman got when ambling through the hood in a suit, Deena
moved, head high, towards her grandmother’s house.

Darkness engulfed block
after block of dilapidated row houses, public housing that
assaulted her architect’s eye. Boarded windows. Peeled paint.
Sticks that propped up exhausted AC units. Torn fences that
imprisoned rather than embellished. Toys, sandwich wrappers, tire
irons, lawn chairs, beer bottles and bicycle parts sat
helter-skelter in yard after yard, as if paying homage to the
American landfill. Under cover of night, elderly men and women sat
in cheap plastic lawn chairs, no doubt reminiscing about the
Peppermint Lounge on 79
^th
, back before Liberty City
was downright scary. It was a long time ago, longer than Deena
could remember.

Black teens in saggy jeans,
tall tees, socks and flip flops, strutted the streets, pockets
bulging with the wares of their livelihood. Deena spotted her
brother, Anthony, among them.

She stopped to watch him
from a distance. He stood on the corner of 14th and 63rd,
fists
clenched, pretending not to be
alert. He was tall in the night, oversized red shirt and golden
skin bright against the night
. Breath
held, Deena waited for what she knew would come. Her brother
glanced over his shoulder, paused, and did a sleight of hand with a
nasty black man whose head swiveled as he scratched
himself.

She looked away, blinking
back loathsome tears.

Head lowered, she crossed
the street, eager to close the distance between her and her
grandmother’s front door. A block more and she was there. Another
peeling and rotted door, held fast with deadbolts. She’d wanted to
replace it, but Housing wouldn’t let her. With a sigh, Deena
slipped her key in the latch, unlocked it and stepped
inside.

“
Listen, girl! How many
times I done told you, you better talk to that devil of a brother
of yours!”

Greeted by her consistently
hostile grandmother, Deena shut the door and gave a half, and what
she hoped was a disarming, smile.

Grandma Emma placed an
authoritative hand on her hip and eyed Deena’s Louis Vuitton
handbag and chocolate linen suit with stark disapproval.

“
Hmph. Why you always got
on that high class stuff ?”

She waved an immense and
dismissive hand in Deena’s direction before rolling her eyes in
impatience.

Deena frowned. It was more
than the massive stature and booming outdoor voice that made Emma
Hammond a figure of intimidation, it was the old school,
never-too-old beat mentality her grandmother housed which made her
tread in fear of a discipline last doled out better than seven
years ago.

Roused by the image of a
belt at her backside, Deena dug into her purse and fished out five
twenties before hurriedly handing them over. Her grandmother
snatched them and continued to stare.

“
What?” Deena
whispered.

She hated that look. The one
that said she did nothing right.

Her grandmother shoved the
twenties under her barnyard red housecoat and into her bra before
turning the scowl back on her once more. Behind her, the
furnishings combined for a cluttered, pop art-gone wrong kind of
feel. A corduroy couch, burnt orange and sagging, a tiny TV mounted
atop a taller one, and a wood-carved stereo with an eight-track
component sat contrary to dozens of old and chipped figurines
arranged in a battered china cabinet like a poor man’s Terra Cotta
Army. A threadbare peacock blue carpet played host to it
all.

Grandma Emma continued to
glare.

“
You heard me the first
time, gal. Get out there and talk to that boy before I put
him
outta
my
house. Now!”

Deena was turning before she
knew it, whirled by two big hands and shoved at the door. She
stumbled briefly, righted herself, and resolved to exit with
dignity. Apparently, she was talking to her brother whether she
liked it or not.

She spotted Anthony outside,
not far from the curb where she’d left him. Deena crossed the
street and parted the two dark figures that stood near before
touching his arm.

“
Anthony. I need to talk to
you.” It came out like a whisper, weaker than she’d
hoped.

“
Damn Ant, who’s
this?”

A dark and burly teen turned
a hungry eye on her. His jaw was prominent, his face hard, eyes
cruel. Crude tattoos covered his hulking body, one claiming him to
be the “enforcer.” In addition, the bulge under his ribbed tee was
unmistakable. But Anthony turned a cold, corrective, unforgiving
glare on “the enforcer” and he looked away.

“
What do you want?” her
brother snapped.

She met his impatience with
a tight smile.

“
A walk. Take one with
me.”

Deena turned and headed
down 17
^th
. She didn’t have to look to know he’d scurry
after.

On the opposite side of the
street, a black prostitute yanked at her blonde wig before giving
her leather mini the same treatment. Too-high fuchsia pumps made
her stumble.

“
Listen,” Anthony said,
falling in-step alongside her. “Say whatever you gotta say so I can
go. I got business I gotta deal with out here.”

Deena stopped. Her brother
did the same. They stood under a busted street lamp with a tattered
sneaker hanging from a phone line above, the words “Fuck the
Police” scrawled in blue below, and an old syringe lying forgotten
in the gutter.

“
You’re so selfish,” she
whispered, voice etched with a disbelief she’d been unable to shake
after so many years. “And God only knows what else you are. I try
not to think about it.”

She turned, the sight of him
sickening her. But he whirled her to face him, his honeyed eyes
hard and narrow.

“
I’m selfish?” he demanded.
He shook his head. “Listen. Say what you want. But I make food
happen. I make rent happen. I make your fucking safety
happen.”

Deena recoiled at the
curse.

“
But at what cost? At what
cost, Anthony?” She was somewhere between a sob and shout of
enragement.

Anthony inhaled.
“Deena—”

“
Please.
You don’t have to do this. I can get more money.
I can get a second job—”

“
You work hard enough as it
is.”

“
I’ll work harder if it’ll
keep you alive!”

They were the wrong words,
she knew, even before he turned to leave.

“
You’re so smart,” she said
to his back. “You could be anything.”

He had the shoulders of
their father—broad, sturdy, reassuring, and a mind just as
sharp.

“
Remember when you were a
kid?” Deena whispered. “You wanted to be a—a
firefighter.”

Her eyes
moistened.

“
You still could, you
know.”

He turned and gave his
sister a once over, eyes sad, smile sadder.

“
You could,” she
insisted.

In the distance, a siren
wailed.

“
You always could make
something out of nothing, Deena.”

He placed a hand on her
shoulder, leaned in and kissed her forehead.

“
Get back in the house, ok?
It’s not safe.”

He shot her a single,
regretful look, and jogged back to his corner.

When Deena returned, Grandma
Emma resumed her rant about Anthony. As Emma yammered, Deena tried
to recall where she left a set of concrete specs for a prep school
in Miramar. She needed them ASAP. It was possible she’d left them
on the bus. But if they were on the bus, then they were halfway
to—

Shouts pierced Deena’s
thoughts. Grandma Emma, ever the enthused spectator, abandoned her
tirade for a glimpse of the outside commotion.

“
Grandma!” Deena scolded.
“Get away from the door before someone shoots you!”

Emma dismissed her with an
impatient wave, wide backside jerking as she tilted forward,
cracked the door and peeked out.

“
Goddamnit, girl! This your
brother out here acting a goddamned fool again!”

Grandma threw the door wide
and Deena pushed past, intent on kicking her brother’s ass.
She’d
just
talked
to him. What kind of trouble could he possibly have—

Before she could finish the
thought, Deena froze, immobilized by what she saw.

A slender, striking man of
Asian descent was on the wrong end of Anthony’s .32. Arms raised,
his hands were splayed in a show of defenselessness. Despite the
growing crowd of onlookers and the pistol in his face, his
expression was calm, to his credit. Behind him, an old woman
mouthed something and made the sign of the cross.

“
Anthony!” Deena cried,
rushing forward.

Her brother cast a single
sideways glance, but kept the gun level.

“
Get back in the house,” he
said, an edge in his voice.