West End Girls (3 page)

Sitting off from the more progressive neighborhoods, the Palemos had many families that still lived in this neighborhood of tract homes since its inception in the '70s. A mispronunciation of the palomino horse, the Palemos was a small community that was part of an equestrian tract named after horses. Their house was on Appaloosa Way. This was the closest street to the next tract, Sandyville, named after beach-like themes. Apparently, it was a housing tract trend back then.

With no more than three to six city blocks of houses and a narrow strip mall, the houses started out all quaint and of equal size, about 1,500 square feet, with fenced yards and mature, overgrown trees. Some buyers in the late '80s, attempting to upgrade their homes, caused only strange mismatches however, with two-story glamour palaces next to cracker boxes, creating an aesthetic mess. It was a ghetto that had missed much funding and repairs, although it had not missed the increase in crime. But, all in all, the area lent itself to a homey feel and was indeed home to Sinclair. Moving to the West End had never crossed her mind.

“'Cuz, you know, family is important,” Unique said, her words drifting into a blur of sound, the moment going into a strange sort of vortex, a time warp that felt otherworldly.

Sinclair sensed it. Was it just her own thoughts about her home that had her distracted, or everything else the day had brought? The moment instantly sickened her.

The slow-moving car approached from the opposite direction. Sinclair felt it in her gut before it registered on her brain what was truly happening. She saw gold teeth flashing in her direction as the car picked up speed. Sinclair knew instantly what was going down. Shit was about to jump off.

“Just a li'l reminder! I want my money, bitch!” The ugly man behind the wheel screamed before a small green ball flew from the driver's open window.

Sinclair's head moved with the arc of the small ball as it went over the fence and landed on the porch of the house. Everyone froze for a millisecond, as if the world and time stood still, and for a second the ball did nothing.

“Noooooo!” Sinclair screamed.

As if all around suddenly realized that the small green ball was really a grenade, everyone ducked and ran for cover, screaming, cussing, and scurrying for protection.

Unique grabbed Apple and disappeared behind Stewart William's new car. He had just pulled up, no doubt, to share a lunch break with his wife and, instead of getting out, went over in the seat, disappearing from view.

Noticing Sinclair was standing there dazed with her hands on her ears, Unique ran out and pulled her behind the car, probably thinking Sinclair was just crazy enough to dart into the yard, as if she could stop what was seconds from occurring.

And she was right. Sinclair was crazed. Her brain had emptied of all reasonable thoughts.

There was an ominous silence then an explosion.

The explosion was tremendous, a deafening and sickening sound Sinclair would not soon forget. “Noooooo!” Sinclair screamed again, leaving her safe place and rushing into the street, dodging flying debris. She was hysterical, jumping up and down, feeling as if suddenly her heart too had gone up in flames.

Within five seconds another larger gas explosion went off, taking out the windows of Ms. Johnson's house on the right and that of the Smiths on the left.

Sirens could be heard in the distance, racing their way. Surely it was a commotion heard all over the world.

“Sinclair! Sinclair!” Unique screamed.

Sinclair was in a daze. Her ears were ringing, and all she could see was a blur of faces, as everyone came out from hiding and rushed to the street. Her mind went immediately to her bedroom and all she held precious there. Her treasures were gone.

Fire engines and police cars filled the street, where emotions were high. The damage had destroyed their mother's home completely. The explosion, meant to intimidate, became a spontaneous combustion that blew the house off its foundation. Sinclair had no idea that fooling with the electronic pilot, using a lighter to turn on the stove because the power was out, had created a gas leak. It was amazing that no one was killed.

“Mama!” Unique's oldest son screamed, seeing her through the crowd.

Sinclair's mind barely registered the question of why her nephew Marquis was in the
P
instead of the W.E., where Unique and her family lived. But then maybe he'd heard the explosion and seen the billowing smoke all the way from the West End. Surely, it was a noise that had rocked the world.

There was usually lots more incidents like this one in the West End, where there were a lot of apartment dwellers and so more people to make stuff happen. More people always led to something cracking, and more drama. Today, though, the normally quiet streets of the Palemos had topped the ghetto charts in excitement, with dogs howling, babies crying, and old folks coughing themselves into asthma attacks. It was horrible.

Sinclair just stared at what was once her home and tried to sort her thoughts. What was to become of her life now? She saw her best friend, Malcolm, through the crowd. She hadn't seen him in a minute and wondered where he'd been. Or where had she been? Her mind was such a jumbled mess.

Malcolm's expression was shock-filled. “
Daaaa-yum
!” He pulled off his baseball cap and looked up in the sky, as if some of the house might still be falling. “Did you do this?”

“Why in the hell would I blow my own house up?”

“No comment.” Malcolm snickered, halfway to fading. “Who did, then?”

“I dunno, but a nigga with a buncha gold in his mouf told me this morning at the courthouse when I went to see Deb that I'd have to get some money for him.” Sinclair shrugged, realizing now she was fighting emotion. She glanced again toward what was left of the house and the mound of rubble.

“Oh,
maan!
He had lots of gold jewry in his mouf? Damn! That's not a good sign. Deb done really messed up this time if he was fuckin' with them Oak Park cats. What Deb doin' fuckin' around all the way in Sac Town?”

Sinclair wanted to cry but didn't dare. Unique was doing enough of that for everybody.

“Maaaammmaa!” Unique sobbed while the paramedics checked on her and Apple.

There ain't nothing wrong with her that a good slap in the face wouldn't cure
, Sinclair thought.

“Tell me what he said to you. Is he gonna be back?” Malcolm asked, growing a little bit more sober.

Sinclair turned her attention back to him. “He just said Deb owed money and that now I had to pay.” Sinclair explained. The reality that maybe, old Gold Mouf, had really meant business had her scared witless, but she wasn't going to show it. She didn't know much about being cool, but she knew showing how scared she was definitely wasn't.

“Well, this ain't the way to get it, blowing up the damn house! Shit, the gouda was probably in the
housssse
!” Malcolm reasoned, using his comedic edge. He pointed at the rubble. “Now it's all burnt up!”

Sinclair wanted to laugh. Malcolm was crazy as hell when he wanted to be. Comedy was his gift, but what he wanted more than anything was to be a thug. Even now he was wearing his pants sagging on his thick hips with his wife-beater showing under his unbuttoned crisply ironed white shirt. She'd not seen him in over a month, since Debonair got locked up. Finals had kinda taken up her time before that. So, yeah, she'd been out of touch for a while now. Malcolm lost a little weight, but still she could see his round face. Brown-skinned with soft features like his mother, he was a little too sensitive to run with the dudes from the local clique and way too funny to be taken seriously.

After they watched the professionals at work for a moment or two longer, Sinclair said, “What a crazy summer this has been.”

“True dat. I'm almost glad it's over. Where you gonna stay?”

“Unique's, no doubt.”

Malcolm looked her over from head to toe. She was dirty and raggedy-looking and could see the sadness in his eyes. It was as if he knew she was unhappy being down like this. She usually looked her best when he saw her, but times were changing, and it'd been a while since they'd played together. Yes, it had been a summer worth forgetting, and now, with all her life up in the air, literally, she had no choice but to forget.

“She still stay in the same place?”

“Yeah.” Sinclair looked over her shoulder again at the firemen's hoses spraying the houses and the police officers asking questions. One cop was heading over in their direction now.

“I'll try to make it out there later then. I'ma find out who did this and take care of it,” Malcolm said, sounding tough and ready to rumble. He quickly left the area.

Malcolm liked to pretend he had a problem with the law. He didn't. His brothers and cousins did, but he was square, sweet, and never got in any trouble. Too bad Sinclair couldn't say the same about herself anymore. She was in trouble and didn't even know how it happened. And, by the looks of things, she was in deep.

“Hello, Ms. Nation. Wow! Your house got blown up today. Can we talk about it?” The black police officer sounded as white as the center of an Oreo cookie, and condescending as hell.

It was surprising that he was interested at all, or even just pretended to be, because no white blood had been spilt today. In fact, Sinclair was actually surprised to see so many county workers still here, being it was after five and all.

After answering questions that sounded more like threats of criminal charges for torching her own house, Sinclair and Unique got a police escort to the West End, where Unique lived.

“We'll be in touch,” the officer said, not sounding friendly or caring at all.

“So who blew the house up?” Unique's son, asked. Sinclair thought to herself,
You're only ten but nosy as all get out
. She didn't get around to asking him why he was in the
P
today. “What choo gon' do about it?” she asked instead. The shower felt great, and so did Unique's good-smelling robe. Being clean was an amazing feeling, after being dirty for four or five days.

“No lights, no hot water? My God, Sinclair, how long it been like that? Why didn't you call me?” Unique asked, her coffee-colored orbs blazing.

Unique had been on the phone since the moment they walked in the house, calling insurance companies looking for the one that might have carried a policy in their mother's name. But none had the information. Unique even called her mother's relatives, none of whom could give a good gotdamn, let alone offer any useful information.

“He got five years,” Sinclair answered, the words choking up in her throat, tangling with her negative thoughts about family and what they were supposed to do for each other, and what they had actually done in the last few years since their mother died.

“Five years?” Unique slapped the counter with the receiver of her cheap cell phone.

Sinclair figured she'd picked it up from Wal-Mart. Unique was a “Wally-world princess.”
But then, with all these kids, she had to save money
, Sinclair thought. Looking around the living room she took note of all the children littered around the small apartment.

“So what, you just figured you could wait it out?”

“Tanqueray was supposed to be managing the money. I don't know what happened, but first they stopped picking up trash and then this morning the lights. I figured gas was next. I kept asking her what the hell was going on, but she just said she was working on it.” Sinclair changed the inflection in her voice to match Tanqueray's. “This month, I guess she got tired of lyin' and just took the check and split. I ain't seen her since the first when it came.”

“I can't imagine that happening. Something else had to have happened.” Unique picked up the phone to call Tanqueray, but before she could, the door opened. “Currrrrtis!” Unique bellowed, running from the kitchen counter into his arms.

Curtis looked irritated and tried to hide it. His eyes swept the room quickly, freezing on Marquis and Cammie, Unique's elder daughter, before he finally spoke. “What? Damn!” he groaned at Unique's show of affection and seemed embarrassed. At least, that's what Sinclair thought she saw.

“I'm so glad you're here,” she told him.

“Big Mama's house blew up!” Apple blurted, animatedly reliving the moment of the boom. It was cute to see her sound so concerned. She didn't know nothing about no Big Mama, since she was a baby when their mother died.

“Yeah, baby, I know,” he said, softening his tone and picking Apple up.

Curtis wasn't Apple's father, but Sinclair could see the affection he had for her in his eyes.

“And I'ma fuck up whoever it was.” Marquis flopped on the sofa and pulled the remote from Gina, who gave him a hard shove.

Unique yelled, “Marquis!” She turned back to Curtis. “Anyway, it was so scary, Curtis. We were all hiding and . . .”

Curtis, still frowning at Marquis's words, sat Apple down and headed for the bedroom he and Unique shared. It was clear to Sinclair that their relationship was strained. Unique followed Curtis, shutting the door behind them, and Sinclair listened at the door.

“Don't you care?” Unique asked, her voice hitting highs and lows as if she was following him around the room.

“Unique!” he yelled then lowered his voice. “I told you before, I'm not into all this drama. Girl, you got just way too much drama in your life.”

“Drama? What are you talking about? No, Curtis, don't leave. Please don't leave,” she begged.

As the sound of their voices got close to the door, Sinclair hurried out of the way before she got caught eavesdropping. But they didn't come right out. Sinclair heard the sound of a mild struggle, just a little thumping against the door, and then nothing.