The Reason Why (8 page)

“Suck my dick, bitch!” Chino shouted.

The officer struck Chino again, this time leaving a gash across his right eye.

“Fuck you!” Chino shouted. “I ain't talking! I ain't telling you shit!”

The officer knocked Chino from the chair and kicked him in his stomach. Chino curled into a ball.

“You talk, you son of a bitch!” the officer shouted.

“Fuck you,” Chino said weakly.

“Get this asshole out of here,” another officer ordered.

Two officers lifted Chino up and dragged him back into the room with Fabian, Lupe, and Pepe, who had heard the whole thing. They saw Chino's bloody face and beat-up body. Pepe and Lupe exchanged glances. Chino had taken an ass
whipping and hadn't broken. He had held strong. They would report this back to their people.

“You all right?” Fabian asked.

“Fuck them hoes!” Chino said.

Fabian nodded. Chino had held his water under pressure. He hadn't just been interrogated, he had been beaten. That kind of loyalty meant the keys to the city. Fabian knew for certain he was going away, but he would make sure that Chino was taken care of. He had a cousin in New York that he would hook Chino up with to make sure that he was all right.

“It's going to be okay, bro,” Fabian told Chino. “You'll see. Stay strong, and the world is yours.”

“D
ang, Pooh, you feel warm as hell.” Chino placed his hand over Pam's forehead.

“I know. I don't feel so good.”

Chino wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to him. He kissed the back of her neck and then climbed out of the bed. “As a matter of fact, you're burning up.”

She started shivering. “I didn't feel well yesterday. I woke up last night with a headache, and now I have a fever.”

“Just get some rest, baby. I'll take care of everything.”

“I can't just lay in bed all day,” Pam protested. “I have clothes to wash, an exam to study for, I have—” Pam sneezed.

“Bless you!” Chino told her.

“I can't—”

“You won't,” Chino interrupted her. “I'll take care of your clothes and help you study for your test.”

“Yeah, right!” Pam said, trying to sit up. She sniffled and coughed.

Chino gently pushed her back down. “Baby, lay down. I'll
get your books and throw your clothes in the washing machine. Your books are in your backpack, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then,” Chino said, turning to head out of the room.

“Separate my whites!” Pam told him.

He turned to look at her with a grin on his face. “Duh! I know how to wash clothes, girl! I even manage to dress myself some mornings, isn't that amazing?”

“Okay, you got me,” Pam said mustering a laugh, lifting her hands, signaling no contest.

Chino turned and headed out of the bedroom into the living room. He grabbed her basket of clothes and carried it into the kitchen, where his washer and dryer were tucked away inside a closet. He pulled out her white clothes, placed them inside the washer, added a cup of bleach, a scoop of laundry detergent, and turned the washer on. When he was finished, he closed the top on the washer and walked to his pantry, where he found a can of chicken noodle soup.

Chino carried the soup to his counter, looked inside a drawer, found his can opener, and opened the soup. He looked inside his cupboard, found a microwave-safe bowl, and poured in the chicken noodle soup. He placed the bowl in his microwave.

The microwave beeped to let him know that his soup was done. He found a spoon from his dish drawer, placed the bowl on a plate, and then found some fresh saltine crackers inside his pantry. He placed a sleeve of crackers on the plate next to the bowl, and then carried it all into the room to place the bowl of soup on the nightstand next to the bed. He left and returned
from the kitchen with an ice-cold glass of lemonade. He wished that he had some Sprite or 7UP to give her, but he was out. He would have to run to the store and pick some up for her later. He searched his medicine cabinet for a couple of Tylenol to help break Pam's fever. He found a couple of extra-strength tablets and carried them back into the room with him.

“What's all this?” Pam asked.

“It's your breakfast,” Chino told her.

Pam waved him off. “I really don't feel like eating anything.”

“You're going to eat and get better, young lady,” Chino said, playfully. He handed her the Tylenol. “Take these.”

Pam sat up, plopped the Tylenol into her mouth, and sipped on the lemonade. Chino took the glass, set it back down on the nightstand, as she lay back on the pillow.

“Sit up,” Chino told her, sitting down on the side of the bed, with the bowl of soup.

“Chino, I don't feel like eating anything.”

“Sit up,” he gently insisted.

Pam sat up in bed, and Chino lifted a spoonful of soup to his lips and gently blew on it.

“I can't believe you're making me eat.”

Chino fed Pam a spoonful of warm soup. “I have to get you better.”

“Do you do this to all of your women?” Pam asked.

“Only the sick ones.” Chino winked.

He fed her another spoonful of soup and then handed her a cracker.

“I haven't eaten soup and crackers since I was a kid,” Pam told him. “I think the last time I did, I had a cold and my mother fixed it for me.”

Chino smiled and continued to feed her.

Swallowing a spoonful, Pam looked at Chino, smiled, and continued. “I like how you take care of me, Chino. Are you always going to be like this?”

“I'm going to try.”

Pam ate another spoonful and nodded. “I know you are.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Chino looked at Pam and dabbed the napkin at her mouth.

“No, not at all. It's just scary, that's all.”

“What's scary?”

Pam sighed. “I've never heard of a man fixing his woman chicken noodle soup, let alone feeding it to her.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“I'm saying, you've earned some major points here.”

“Sounds like you're feeling a little better already.”

“A good man makes his woman feel good.”

“Now I'm a good man, huh?” Chino asked.

“Maybe.”

“Here,” Chino said, handing her the bowl of soup. “Feed your damn self.”

“Chino!” Pam's eyes grew big as saucers and her mouth fell open in surprise. “I was just kidding!”

Chino laughed at her expression, then suddenly his face became serious. “Hey, baby girl, I have to head to New York for a day or two.”

Pam's heart thumped hard as she sat quietly and listened.

“My man, Fabian, set me up with his cuz to take over while he's on lockdown.”

Chino's recent run-in with the cops had shaken Pam up. This hustla had her tripping, and she was strapped in for the ride. “Chino . . .”

Chino walked into the living room and pulled out the only textbook she had inside her pack.

“
World Civilizations
!” he exclaimed. “My best subject!”

Pam laughed. “Yeah, I'll bet.”

“Girl, I used to teach world civilizations,” Chino said smiling, sitting in the bed next to her. “What do you want to know about?”

“We're talking about ancient Egyptians.”

“My people!” Chino said. “Invented all the important shit.”

“Like what?” Pam asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Oh, you trying to test me, huh?”

“What did they invent?” Pam asked. “Name one thing.”

“The motorcycle!”

“Boy, get the hell outta here!” Pam laughed, trying to shove Chino off the bed.

“What?”

“See, that's what I'm talking about. How in the hell are you going to help me study?”

“Because I'm the man. Let's see.” Chino reached for the history book.

Pam pulled it back.

“That's okay, I don't need no book to tell me about my people. We're an oral people anyway. I don't need no white folks to tell me that we were the first to navigate by the stars,
or to invent the science of astronomy, or to domesticate animals, or to irrigate based on the seasons along the banks of the Nile.”

“Chino!” Pam said. Her mouth fell open.

Chino laughed.

“How do you know those things?”

“Girl, don't underestimate me.”

“Chino!”

“You think that I'm just some dumb-ass street nigga, don't you?”

“No, I never thought that. I know you're smart, but . . .”

“But I shouldn't have any book-smarts, huh? I shouldn't know as much as my big-headed girlfriend? I shouldn't know that Akhenaton was the first to proclaim one true god and thus invent monotheism. I shouldn't know that the Egyptian pyramids were astronomically aligned, or that the pharaoh Sesostris had conquered the entire known world. I shouldn't know that Hatshepsut ruled as a man, or that Thebes was the center of Egyptian religious life, or that the Greek deities were copies of Egyptian ones?”

Pam's mouth remained wide open.

Chino pulled the book out of her hand. “Now c'mon, Pooh, let's study and get you an A on this exam.”

“I
love
New York!” Chino shouted out the window. “New York, New York, big city of dreams!”

Chino ducked back in the car; the biting December air was too much to bear hanging out of a moving vehicle. Chino and Joe Bub Baby rolled down the busy streets of Manhattan. One thing he loved about the city was its energy. It could be two or three o'clock in the morning, and Manhattan would be lit up like it was broad daylight. He particularly loved rolling through Times Square and the massive Port Authority Terminal to check out the wide variety of characters who hung out in those places. New York was like a zoo for humans. One could find a variety of different species wandering about.

“Yo, check that out, dog!” Joe Bub said, pointing to the white cats that had multicolored Mohawks.

Chino shook his head. “Only in New York.”

“Yo, let's roll through Harlem.”

“Mos def, but we can do that later. First we gotta meet Fabian's cousin.”

“A'ight,” Joe Bub agreed. “Aye, what's that cat's name again? Dragons, Dragoon, Dragoose?”

“Dragos, fool!” Chino spat. “This is my plug, remember that. You just along for the ride, so you be quiet and let me do all the talking.”

“Bet,” Joe Bub told him. “Hey, C, let's hit that club The Roxy while we up here.”

“I'm cool with that.”

“So old boy is Fabian's kinfolk?”

“Yeah, they moms are sisters or cousins or some shit.”

“That's fucked up how them cops did you.”

“Fuck 'em.” Chino shrugged. “They just mad 'cause they knew I was gonna walk. My name wasn't on the warrant, or the house, or any of the bills. I was just a visitor and had nothing to do with anything. At least that's what the jury would have been led to believe.”

Joe Bub held up his hand and Chino shook it. “That's how you beat that shit, baby!”

“They didn't really have shit on Fabian but about two ounces worth of powder that didn't fall into the bucket. That shit ain't nothing but about twenty-four months. As long as nobody talks, that's all he'll get.”

“He'll end up in a camp doing sweet-ass fed time,” Joe Bub added. “Golfing and playing tennis and shit.”

“The good thing is, he got the paper to just kick back and do his time real sweet,” Chino said. “He'll be good.”

“Man . . . if I gotta do a bid, I at least hope it's a fed bid,”
Joe Bub commented. He glanced down at his Swatch. “Hey, where we gotta meet them fools at?”

“Right here,” Chino said, pulling up to his destination, watching a car leave, “and there goes a parking spot right there.”