Suitable for Framing (4 page)

“Ma!” the young mother-to-be yelled, her voice startlingly shrill.

From behind her, a woman emerged from what had to be a bedroom. Skinny beneath the housecoat, she had thin-edged features under big pale-blue curlers in bangs of blond frizz that showed an inch and a half of dark roots. The toenails protruding from her cotton scuffs had been painted the same shade of blood red.

“She's looking for Peanut.”

The woman regarded me from behind sleepy eyes, plucked a coffee mug from the drainboard next to the sink, plodded to the coffeepot on the four-burner stove, and poured herself a cup without heating it first.

She slumped into a kitchen chair, downed the coffee like it was whiskey, then fished what looked like the last cigarette out of a crumpled pack of menthols, lit it, inhaled, and blew out a cloud of smoke.

“The police have already been here. They were here when I got home from work.” Her voice was husky from sleep; the slight accent sounded Cuban.

“I think she's from the state,” the girl offered, as though I wasn't there. “Probation or HRS.”

“No,” I said, offering my card, “I'm a reporter, Britt Montero from the
Miami News
.” I looked around, disappointed. “He's not here?”

The mother shook her head, trying without success to pat into submission the blond frizz that stuck out on one side. The other was mashed flat as though she had slept on it.

“I don't know why everybody's bothering me about him now,” she said, annoyed. “I told 'em. I warned 'em. Nothing I can do for him anymore. I done all I could for him.”

“Who?” I asked. “Who'd you tell?”

“Everybody—the cops, the school, social workers, the juvenile court. I told 'em all. I called the police on 'im myself, a coupla times. They never did anything!” she said accusingly.

The hand holding the cigarette toyed with her coffee cup. “I raised these two alone. My daughter here, never any trouble; but him—”

The teenager couldn't help but look pleased, bent head hiding a smug smile, though from the looks of things she was no potential Mother Teresa herself. She was now seated, her unfinished foot propped on a kitchen chair, bending with some effort as she concentrated on painting the last pale nail.

“Boys are nothing but trouble,” her mother said bitterly. “Boys and men. He's messed up in the head. Won't take his medication. Did good in computers in school for a while, but then … I moved here to get 'im away from the neighborhood where he always got in trouble. So what's the first thing he did? Got in trouble again.”

“What about his dad?”

“What about 'im?”

“Does he help, did he try to straighten out your son?”

She glared, eyes narrowing. “First time I see his ass in this neighborhood, I call the police. Look, I work on my feet, long hours, cocktail waitress at the Velvet Swing. I did the best I knew how, went everywhere I could for help. You wanna know how many times I sat in juvenile court after working all night? He was warned it was his last chance three times by the same judge. I begged 'em not to let him come home. But no, it's out of my hands now. They say he's in big trouble this time. Well, what took 'em so long to get excited? I coulda told 'em. Hell, I
did
tell 'em. Bastards never did a thing.”

“Does he know the police are looking for him?”

She and the girl exchanged glances. “He saw the TV news Tuesday night and took off with some of his friends,” the mother said.

“Did you see the car he was driving?”

Another exchange. “Hah.” She snorted. “There's always a car. I don't know what this one was, but I heard rubber burning.” Her voice sounded hollow.

“Have you heard from him since?”

“He was here,” she said, “while I was at work. He came by for some clothes.”

“He said I could have his stereo.” The girl's face was eager. “He took his laptop.”

“His computer?”

She nodded brightly.

“It
is
serious this time,” I told the mother.

“It was serious every time,” she said. “Just because nobody dies doesn't mean it's not serious. But it took this to get their attention. Don't know what he'll do now. But he ain't out joining the Boy Scouts.” She stared at me accusingly. “I didn't see no newspaper reporters interested before. Where were you when I was trying to get help?”

“It can't be easy,” I acknowledged, “raising children alone.”

“Tell me about it.” Cigarette smoke wreathed her sallow face.

I took notes, shocked to learn she was only thirty-six, four years older than I am. She looked ten years older, and brittle.

“If you hear from Peanut, ask him to call me,” I said. “I'd really like to talk to him about what happened.”

“He don't want to be called that anymore,” the girl sang out in a warning tone.

Her mother and I both turned to stare.

“He tol' me last night,” she chanted, looking coy from under long eyelashes. “Nobody's supposed to call him that anymore. He got a new name.”

“What is it?” I asked.

She concentrated, the effort curling one corner of her mouth and narrowing her eyes. “F,” she said slowly, “M, J.”

I glanced at the mother, puzzled. “Somebody's initials?”

She shook her head, face resigned.

“Must stand for something.”

“Yeah,” the girl said, smiling. “Like my name is Rings.” She waggled her weighted fingers.

“Mirta,” her mother mouthed. “Mirta.”

“Rings!” the girl said peevishly. “He tol' me what it meant.” The teenager screwed up her face. “Then I forgot but that's what he wants to be called from now on, FMJ.”

“Was he with J-Boy?”

She glanced at her mother, saw no warning, and nodded.

“Where does J-Boy live?”

She shrugged. “Somewheres over on Forty-seventh Street.”

“What's his real name?” I held my breath. It would be neat to ID the front-seat passenger before the cops did. I love that.

“Don't know, but I know his girlfriend. They call her Gangsta Bitch.”

Delightful, I thought, sighing. The woman had her eyes closed and a fresh cigarette between her teeth. Lottie should be here, I thought to glimpse the joys of motherhood. I felt blessed at being spared.

“Who else was he with?”

“Dinky, Little Willie, Cat Eye.” She ticked them off on her fingers.

“Is he the black guy?”

“Cat Eye? No. You must mean Cornflake. He's a black dude.”

“Where does
he
hang out?” I asked, thinking of the backseat passenger.

She shrugged. “Maybe at the Edgewater.

“Cat Eye has green eyes,” she trilled, seeing me to the door. “They call Little Willie that 'cause his daddy is Big Willie.”

“And Cornflake, he likes cereal?”

“You got it.” I was catching on. I stepped into the hall.

About to close the door, she hesitated. “I remember,” she said, face alight. “FMJ, I remember what it stands for: Full Metal Jacket.”

I swung by the Edgewater, the vertical mall that rises just north of downtown. The towering monolith draws kids like a magnet to its game rooms, eleven movie theaters, and food courts. Because it is near the paper, Lottie and I used to see movies there, but the audience has become younger and rowdy, with kids shouting out rude advice to the actors and cheering the villains.

The floors of the video game room are carpeted to absorb the explosions of intergalactic warfare and the ceilings mirrored to monitor the pumped-up participants. The intense body language of kids playing the sophisticated games, mostly violence-oriented and involving guns, suggests that to them it is more than a game. They are rock-and-roll without the music, most wearing au courant garments that baffle me. Are they pants that are too short or shorts that are too long? A number of youngsters seemed to know Cornflake, but all agreed they hadn't seen him for a few days.

“Why you looking for him when you can have a real man like me?” Flashing a gold-toothed grin and swaggering, he couldn't have been more than sixteen.

They fielded my questions with typical teenage macho and curiosity. “You his probation officer?” somebody demanded, as a metallic voice from the machine he was playing instructed,
Destroy all buildings to move to next level

“Nope,” I said, “just a reporter.”

“What channel?”

“Yeah, I seen her before,” bragged a boy wearing a purple rubber baby pacifier on a cord around his neck, another hard-to-fathom new fad. “On TV.”

“Eyewitness News,”
cackled his sidekick in baggy hip-hop shorts. “Eye in the Sky.”

“No, I work for the newspaper, the
Miami News
.”

The hip-hopper's stare was blank. “What channel?”

The future of my chosen profession looked bleak.

A skinny shy-looking kid in a Marlins T-shirt lingered on the fringe.

“Maybe
you've
seen him,” I said, trying to draw him out.

He shook his head slowly. Something sly shone in his eyes. Was he lying?

The boy who had been sucking noisily on his pacifier removed it to ask, “Why you want Cornflake?”

“I write stories and thought he might have one to tell.”

That brought choruses of, “I tell you a story, baby,”

“I got a story for you,” as they preened and postured and tried hard to look bad. “How about a nice
bedtime
story?” asked a kid wearing a Malcolm X T-shirt and a fade haircut.

“When you see Cornflake, ask him to give me a call,” I said briskly, ignoring their hoots. “I need to find out if some things I heard about him are true.”

They eagerly snatched the business cards I offered, exhausting the supply in my skirt pocket. A rash of obscene phone calls would probably be the only result. Who cares? I thought. Let them talk dirty to the newsroom voice mail. That curse on mankind deserves it.

“Bitt?” said one, scrutinizing my name.

“Brrritt,” I said, entertaining ugly thoughts about the Dade County school system.

“Staff writer?” asked the shy kid, reading off the card I had given him. “What's that?”

My reply—“I cover the police beat”—elicited cries, guffaws, laughter, and mock trigger pulling.
“Pow! Papow! Pow!”

“Right,” I said serenely, as the laughter died down. “I need to talk to Cornflake because he may be getting blamed for something that wasn't his fault.” Seed planted, I took off.

When I opened the trunk of my car to retrieve my purse, it buzzed like a swarm of killer bees. I flicked off my pager and it immediately began to beep again.

I drove across the street to the paper and called the city desk from the security phone in the lobby. “Where
are
you, Britt?” Gretchen's voice could shatter contact lenses.

“On my way in to the office.”

“Where have you been?”

“Out on the police beat, Gretchen, where I go every day.” I should have known better.

“I had a question, and since you couldn't be reached we had to pull one of your stories out of the early edition. I've warned you to stay in touch. You didn't answer your page.” Her tone was the one most people reserve for misbehaving ten-year-olds.

“I had it locked in the car so it wouldn't get snatched.” I sighed. “Give me a break. Remember? It was my day off yesterday, yet when you paged me I was already at the scene and on top of the story.”

“What have you done for me today, Britt? You're not off now.”

The lobby security guard whose phone I had promised not to tie up for more than a moment began to pout I turned away to avoid his scowl. “I'll be right in, Gretchen, as soon as I can,” I promised. “Hope traffic isn't too bad.”

I sprinted for the elevator and moments later, when Gretchen glanced up from the city desk, I was working diligently at my terminal. She looked puzzled and narrowed her eyes. “Britt, when did you get back?”

I shrugged innocently. “'Bout half an hour ago, I guess.”

She glanced at the clock and gave me a murderous look.

Gloria, the city desk clerk, promised to tell me right away if Peanut or Cornflake called.

“You working on something with teenage gangs?” asked Ryan. His rumpled shirts hide the heart of a poet He is much too gentle to be in this business.

“I don't think they're an organized gang, like the Thirty-fourth Avenue Players, just freelance carjackers who may have escalated to murder.”

He waxed bitter about the story he was working on, a feature on the Miami Design Preservation League, one of Gretchen's pet projects.

“That again?” I commiserated. “If anybody can make it interesting, you can.”

“Luckily I never get bored,” he said, “with you around, Britt.”

I offered to bring back coffee, headed for the third-floor cafeteria, and encountered Trish on the elevator. She wore a neat navy blue suit and a white cotton shirt with a little red string tie. The uniform of a job seeker, I thought. “You're in early,” I said.

“Thought I'd make another pass at personnel. Guess our talk last night gave me the heart to try again.”

I looked in her hopeful face and saw myself seven years ago. “I was just taking a break. You have time for coffee?”

“Sure.” She beamed at the invitation. “Great story this morning by the way, stripped on local. That poor mother and her children.”

She reached for a teabag as we passed through the cafeteria line but switched to Cuban coffee when she saw it was what I was having. “Never tried it before,” she said, grinning.

“If you want to stay wired for a week, it's great.”

We settled at a table with a postcard-perfect view of the bay, the eastern sky, and the shimmery Miami Beach skyline. Her big eyes drank it all in.