The Tragic Flaw (3 page)

It snaps at the overly playful Warren, almost removing a finger.

The dog, panting heavily, is chained, but its jaw-dropping physique makes the steel chain seem like an inadequate restraint. Its chocolate coat glistens as white foamy drool flows past its thick black lips and down its chin. Its robust frame helps to conceal dark-red eyes. The ears, set high on its head, ironically resemble flower petals.

“Damn,” Cicero mutters in a low voice.

“It's a boy, and I got his papers,” comments Warren, who is now on one knee lovingly caressing the beast's head. “I'm looking for a female right now so I can breed 'em.”

The dog looks Cicero directly in the eyes, causing him to take a small footstep back.

“Man, if you hear anything about a female for sale, let me know—” Warren says, finishing his sentence abruptly. He's cut off by arguing, and then a commotion, coming from inside his pristine home.

Cicero, hearing the ruckus, turns around to face the house as if expecting something strange or out of the ordinary to appear before him.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Five quick shots are heard, followed by the sounds of frantic scurrying. Cicero quickly pulls a nickel-plated revolver from his waistline and heads toward the back entryway. But before he can dart into the house, Warren yells to him, “Look out, C!”

With that, Warren releases the latch from his monster's collar. “Eat them mothafuckas up!” he yells to his instantly fanatical mongrel.

Warren's dazzling watch becomes shrouded in dirt and dust as the beast charges full speed toward the door. No longer barking, the only sounds heard from the creature are pants of rage and its huge paws pounding the earth.

Cicero leaps out of the way, as the beast would have certainly trampled him to reach his target. The front door slams and Warren's loyal animal begins barking loudly from inside the house.

Warren and Cicero cautiously enter. Cicero's weapon is cocked and ready to explode.

The two peer into the back room that several moments earlier was the venue for an urban sporting event. Now a dying body lay facedown on the hardwood floor, blood spewing from several new cavities. It's T.J.

Part of his head is missing. The once intact cranium has been splattered into bloody chunks all over the room, a grotesque ambiance. Active nerves in his body cause it to twitch. It is a disturbing sight.

Warren's loyal dog has his two front paws pressed against the front door, whining. His meal escaped.

“Damn, T.J.,” Cicero says in a saddened tone. He looks over at the dice.

One is flat, clearly showing two small off-white circles. The other cube is diagonally propped up, wedged between the wood floor and the carpet, equally displaying five dots on one side, and one dot on the other. The fateful roll was obviously a bone of contention; one that ended young T.J.'s life. He was nineteen.

Blood squirts out of his carcass' various outlets. His white T-shirt now resembles a cape used in bullfighting. His ill-gotten winnings have vanished.

Warren is appalled at the sight before him.

“Look at my fucking carpet,” he fumes. The blood has seeped into his flawless floor covering, leaving it a rosy pink. He stoops down over the body and gets a closer look, careful not to step into any of T.J.'s leaking juices.

“Man, why did he have to die like this?” Cicero asks out loud, but to no one in particular. He stands in the doorway.

Attila, Warren's furry companion, has made his way to the back room. The dog is more subdued now. It noses about the room, smelling the corpse and its bloodshed.

Cicero looks to Warren and asks, “You ever wonder how people end up in certain situations?”

Warren just glances up at him, disbelief written all over his fat bearded face. He offers no answer and his eyes return to the body and the blood.

Attila, who has begun to salivate, starts to lap at the blood. His thick tongue twists as it catches the liquid that is now beginning to coagulate on the oak wood floor as well as the white carpet. The beast savors the salty flavor.

“Stop! Stop, mothafucka!” Warren screams to his dog, forcefully yanking on its collar, barely budging the mammoth brute. “Stop! That's some nasty shit, Attila.” He's finally successful in tearing his parched dog away from the solidifying pool of blood. Cicero just stares at the scene.

Warren massages the head of his Hershey-colored dog, staring in its eyes. “That mothafucka could have West Nile virus or some shit,” he says in a concerned parental voice. “Now you got it, dummy.”

Attila's head lowers as if he knows he has disappointed his master. Warren shakes his head, showing obvious displeasure in his canine's choice for a thirst quencher.

Countless thoughts run through Cicero's mind as he continues to gawk at T.J.'s bleeding body. But one sticks.

“You truly are the devil's son now,” he says. “I guess.”

The bearded Warren, now fully dismayed by the situation that has unfolded in his home, stands to his feet, strokes his face, and walks out of the room toward the front door. Attila trots out of the room and plops down on the fluffy white living room carpet and begins licking his balls.

“A, C, come here,” Warren yells to his associate, who is still staring at T.J.'s corpse in the back of the house.

Cicero regains his composure and saunters out of the room. He's focused once again.

“One second,” he says as he goes to the kitchen, opens the near-empty fridge, and grabs a cold imported beer with a German-sounding name. After quickly popping the top off the green bottle, he takes a much-needed swig then walks out of the kitchen toward Warren and asks, “What's up?”

“Check this out,” Warren says, pointing to the dwindled row of footwear near the door.

Cicero notices just two pairs of shoes remain: his gators, and a brand-new pair of navy-blue sneakers. They would nicely complement a cobalt denim outfit. Apparently, their owner left with great haste.

Enunciating every letter, in a low menacing voice, Cicero confidently says the shooter's name: “V-Dog.”

He ponders his next move for a moment, then remembers a booster is coming by his condo with some handmade Swiss timepieces she got with her five-finger discount.

“Yo, I got some business to attend to, Warren,” Cicero says. “Be safe. And clean that shit up.”

Warren shakes Cicero's hand as he leaves out, then cracks open the cell phone on his hip. He punches one number on speed dial. It is immediately answered.

“Hey, we have a plastic bag situation,” he notes calmly.

“I'm on my way,” the male voice on the phone says, just as relaxed, if not cooler. He hangs up, cutting off the blaring reggae music in the background.

In roughly fifteen minutes T.J.'s body will never be seen again. The process of dumping bodies is an American tradition, a ritual free of dishonest eulogies, all-black attire, and sobbing mothers. It is a Kansas City tradition.

A dirt hole in the outskirts of town now awaits young T.J.'s remains.

B
ack in his iridescent SUV, thirty-two-year-old Cicero increases the volume on his stereo and contemplates his life's beginnings. Why had he been a spectator of murder today, and in the past? As he turns a few corners he recalls one of his first psychology courses, when he learned that everything we are begins in childhood, when we are all tabula rasa, so it is there he looks.

He reminiscences for just a few seconds until one day presents itself as that defining moment that would mold his persona, and inevitably determine which road his soul would take.

Cicero remembers the walls of his room on Highland Avenue were a streaky sky blue. He and his mother, with no prior experience, spent one Saturday afternoon painting them. They lacked the proper equipment, guide rules, new brushes, but went at it anyway.

A huge thirty-two-by-forty-four-inch poster of Nolan Ryan in his red, white, and blue Texas Rangers uniform hung on the left side of the full bed near the corner. Ryan's right arm was fully extended, his left foot firmly planted several feet from the pitcher's mound. The red-stitched orb had just left his mighty rifle. His face showed determination. This game was to be one of seven no-hitters.

Several inches down the wall was a shot of Bo Jackson in his silver and black. Number 34 had no doubt left some unaware defensive back grabbing his freshly bruised chest as Bo galloped toward pay dirt. His large powerfully built thighs bulged through his silver tights. His ripped arms clenched the oblong pigskin in a manner that suggested he was not prone to dropping it. The photo showed it was a sunny day in Los Angeles, as most days are.

Across the room, near the closet door, just left of the window, and to the right of his bookshelf and desk, Cicero decided to hang a poster of the great Michael Jordan.

Jordan is suspended in midair, flying high above the Chicago hardwood court. Fans look on in awe as His Airness leaps like a gazelle from the free-throw line toward the round metal hoop and its awaiting net. His bent arms and legs and red-and-black uniform produce an unnatural human swastika in the arena's sky. The grandeur of this athletic feat has yet to be duplicated.

Toy race cars and impressive-looking robots with moving parts and shoddy craftsmanship lie on the floor. A small, blue-and-white-striped rugby shirt bearing grass and dirt stains has also been strewn on the paneled floor, which could use a good sweeping. It joins the playthings that will surely lose their value soon enough.

Adjacent to the sweaty tube socks and breadcrumbs is one lone forest-green army soldier. Apparently, the plastic infantryman was cut off from his platoon in the middle of a heated firefight. In the confusion of imaginary mortar rounds discharging and claymores being set off, the M.I.A. found himself alone in a little boy's room. The smell from the socks alone has him considering hara-kiri.

Cicero's light-beige bookshelf has all the necessary requirements: the latest edition of the X-Men comic book where Cyclops proposes to Jean Grey, and the issue of Ghost Rider in which he battles the Punisher. On a higher shelf rests an old copy of
Extreme Lowriders
magazine featuring a new remote-controlled hydraulic system in a 1966 teal Ford Mustang with chrome Dayton wheels. The car's front end is several feet off the ground, exposing its chrome axle and detailed underbelly.

Under a lush, vibrant, orange comforter with diamond-shaped pockets creating a warm quilted veneer, where tiny feathers escape from unseen openings, rests a scrawny child in small yellow shorts.

“Cicero,” a honey-sweet voice calls out, ever so gently.

The swaddled child squirms a little.

“Cicero,” the woman's voice beckons once again, a bit louder. “Wake up, baby, time for school.”

Young brown eyes open and see the world for the first time this day.

A small hand with thin fingers comes from underneath the blanket and, forming a fist, begins slowly and forcefully rubbing the eyes in a circular motion, removing lumps of green crust from the corners.

Sizzling sounds invade his ears. The smell of grilled meat tempts his nostrils. The aroma of breakfast is enticing and persuades him to rise from his slumber.

The shirtless and wide-eyed Cicero, now fully awake, leans up and places his bare feet on the chilly morning floor. His ribs are clearly visible and his bird-like chest is rather pathetic, even for a kid his age.

Heat from a vent near the bookshelf causes the poster of Michael Jordan to repeatedly bulge, sway, and deflate. Bulge, sway, and deflate. Bulge, sway, and deflate.

Cicero peers through a crack in his bedroom door and sees his mother in her frayed blueberry-colored robe dutifully hovering above the hot kitchen stove.

Still seated on the bed, he takes the opportunity to retrieve a dog-eared magazine from under the comforter. The glossy back cover is blanketed with “900” numbers and voluptuous black women in miniscule bikinis and Tammy Faye Bakker face paint.

The little boy with adult desires smiles at his prized possession, which he firmly grips in both hands while staring at the cover.

“That's what I'm talking about,” he mumbles under his breath, as he closes his eyes and pretends to smooch this month's cover model.

“Cicero,” his mother calls out without warning.

Startled, he stands up and tosses his smutty keepsake under the mattress, where it joins a woman's pocketbook and a black fully loaded twenty five-caliber automatic pistol. All would be questionable booty indeed if he were not an urban child.

The curly-headed preteen, eager to greet his mother and devour her fine fare, throws on a dirty long-sleeved T-shirt and walks toward the kitchen. The sandy-brown locks that aren't matted bounce as he strolls down the short hallway past the half bath with the toilet that continuously runs and a double-paned window. Falling snow piles up on the sill.

A beautiful woman and a steaming plate of man-sized portions greet the young Cicero in the cozy kitchen.

She smiles, as does he.

“How did you sleep?” she asks.

“Fine,” he answers.

He opens the refrigerator door and grabs the pulp-free orange juice. Upon closing it, a tasseled certificate falls to the white linoleum floor. Cicero bends down and scoops the award off the floor and places it back on the fridge door.

It is surrounded by numerous honors, certificates, and awards in all colors of the rainbow, with accolades like top, number one, excellent, best, MVP, captain. Each marks his achievement in either academics or athletics, and features stars, gold stamps, ribbons and stickers. They come in all shapes and sizes with impressive signatures: the principal, the mayor, the state representative, the governor.

The acknowledgments completely cover the refrigerator door, minus several inches occupied by two photographs. One of Cicero and his mother in a warm embrace lies just below another of him and his older sister, the lovely Lucia, standing side by side with enormous grins. Surely they had just said, “Cheese!” with vim.

Cicero takes a seat at the small round synthetic wood table. There are three seats, but only two place settings.

Before him is a plate of grits, bacon, scrambled eggs with American cheese, English muffins and grape jelly, and sliced ruby red grapefruit.

He immediately dives into his mother's specially made bacon. In a move that would horrify any diabetic, she has sprinkled brown sugar on the slivers of swine meat, as she has for years. It's deliciously sweet and crispy. He smiles and begins to hum.

“Where's Lucia?” the eighth-grader asks his mother of the sister he adores.

“She's already gone,” his mother replies, even though its merely 6:30 in the morning, somewhat early for a high school senior to be off to homeroom.

The lady of the house begins to wash the dishes she has just utilized to make breakfast, and a few that were placed in the sink overnight by her snacking child. The kitchen is spotless. To the right of the stove is the counter, which extends in an upside-down and backward L-shape along the wall and on which rests a four-slot adjustable toaster that can accommodate the plumpest of bagels.

There's also an exceedingly large microwave that resembles some of the first models made, and an outdated boxy black-and-white television with missing knobs. Pliers from a drawer enable the family to switch from Leno to Letterman.

The walls are concealed in tacky, light-tan wood-grain wallpaper that has become unglued in more than a few places. Ms. Fix It had been meaning to get to it.

Above the table hangs a dark-brown plastic crucifix. It was given to Cicero by his seventh-grade teacher following his baptism. She said a bishop had blessed it. Prior to that, he had always thought she was a racist.

“Did you say grace?” his mother asks as her aging hands work deep in the blistering water under the cover of soapsuds.

With a full mouth he nods yes, even though he didn't, and polishes off the remaining eggs, leaving a huge portion of grits uneaten, and more grapefruit than his mother liked. He was never a big fan of either.

Knowing that her insincere son failed to say his grace, his mother positions the wet glasses and saucers on a yellow rubber drying rack next to the sink and says, “Son, there is a God, and He does watch over your food if you ask Him to. He helped me provide you with nourishment, and in return He just asks for a little respect and recognition. Okay?”

Cicero, reaching for his glass of cold O.J., simply nods in the affirmative again, and takes a prolonged childlike gulp. After wiping his mouth and gasping for air, he asks his hardworking mother, “You're not going to eat?”

Ringing out the dishtowel and turning off the faucet, his mother just smiles. “No, I'm not hungry, honey.”

Her son's eyebrows rise in response, but he nonchalantly continues to finish off his jelly-smothered English muffin. As he does, there's a knock at the door.

The diner looks up from his plate in surprise. He glances at the digital light-blue display on the microwave, six forty-five, and thinks that it's much too early for the postman. On top of that, no one ever knocks. Minus one person.

Knock, knock, knock,
three more follow. His mother calmly turns from the sink. She knows who raps upon her home's door.

Cicero signals as if he's getting up to answer the door but his mother looks to him and says, “I'll get it, honey.” Her son is relieved; he really didn't feel like getting up.

She sashays out of the kitchen, down the hallway, and turns right, through the undersized living room and across the polyurethane floor to the front door. Her full hips swing side to side under her form-fitting robe. Cherokee Indian ancestry comes through in her high cheekbones and the red undertones in her skin, which is accentuated by the light rouge and burgundy lipstick she failed to remove last night.

Just as Cicero noted, only one person knocks.

She opens the door and snowflakes trespass.

A tall man with wide shoulders stands on the front porch delicately powdered in ever-increasing amounts of snow. His brunette brim hat and overcoat complement his dark-olive features and repel the wetness well. His head slightly bowed, he lifts it and grins. It's Daddy.

The mother of his son beams at the sight of him. But it is a response that comes with years of experience with this man, and hard-learned and proven apprehension instantly manifests. Her smile diminishes.

“Hey, Ruth, how ya doin'?” her unannounced guest asks in a heavily accented voice. The chilly air makes his breath discernible. “You gonna let me in?”

“Hello, Antonio,” she replies sedately, pulling her robe tighter to protect her neck and chest from the winter nip. “Come in.”

He steps in and wipes his expensive wingtips on the welcome mat.

“Cicero!” Ruth calls out. “Your father is here.” The multiple bangles on her wrist slide down to her hand as she closes the door.

“Okay, Mom!” Cicero acknowledges from the kitchen.

There is an uncomfortable silence between the former lovers. Antonio looks around the tidy living room. Much of his illicit loot helped furnish it, including the authentic Italian marble coffee table imported from Florence, and the taupe Egyptian cotton window dressings direct from Cairo.

Ruth stares at him with a blank face, thinking about how she fell in love with one dimension of him, with little knowledge of his numerous layers.

“Hey, Daddy, what are you doing here?” Cicero asks as he prances in the room on gangly chicken legs and boat-like feet.

“I came to pick you up; you're coming with me today,” his father says with a smile. “Is that alright with you?” He pats his leather gloves together to shake the excess snow.

“Sure, Daddy, but I have school,” Cicero replies, “And I have—”

“Look, don't worry about school today,” his father says, dusting off his jacket. “You're hanging out with me, end of story,
capisce
?”

Ruth simply looks on. She is repulsed by Antonio's brazen contempt for what she has gone through to raise his two illegitimate children the right way, virtually alone. Sleepless nights. Lucia's sneaking out. Cicero's backtalk.