Capone

1. Erin Cooper

1

erin cooper

Thirteen years later…

As I let myself into my small two-bedroom basement apartment, the smell of weed and sound of mumble rap greeted me before I could put my purse down. Regret, as it always did, filled my chest as I plopped my purse down on the small kitchen table near the door. I waved the smell away from my nose as if that would do something. The smell was so thick and the music so loud that I had no choice but to inhale as I walked into the kitchen, which wasn’t far from the front door.

Since I clocked into work this morning all I had been dreaming about was clocking out. I wanted to take a shower, heat up my leftover Chinese food, and climb into bed to watch one of my favorite movies, Dream Girls while under the air conditioner.

It was all I had been looking forward to as I pulled the bus into the bus depot and clocked out. The train couldn’t bring me to my stop quick enough because that was all I had been wanting to do since I saw a clip of the movie on TikTok on the way to work. Now as I stood in my small kitchen getting lightheaded from the smell, all I could see was red.

Jaiden’s music was so loud that even if I did scream, he probably wouldn’t have heard me. I stalked down the hall past my bedroom and kicked at his door. “Jaiden!”

I could hear shuffling in his room as I stood on the outside fuming. Why couldn’t I have one day where I wasn’t constantly hollering at his ass about smoking and blasting music? He already knew our aunt, Josephine, wouldn’t hesitate to complain that she could smell the weed smoke coming up through her vents. Not to mention, Jaiden was sixteen years old and shouldn’t have been smoking at all.

The minute his sneaky ass cracked the door, all the smoke escaped into my face. He poked his head out the door with his eyes lower than Brittany Spear’s panties and had the nerve to smile like he was in there just doing homework and I hadn’t walked into my house sounding and smelling like a damn trap house.

“W…what you doing home, Erin?” He nervously chuckled while trying to keep me from looking further into his room.

“The better question is why the fuck are you smoking in my house? You know that shit bothers my asthma… who is in there?”

Jaiden knew I didn’t like his little knuckle head friends in my house. Half of them were up to no good and the other half were soon headed in that direction. I was trying hard to keep Jaiden on the straight and narrow, so he didn’t follow their path. He was going to be more than just a nickel and dime hustler on the streets. My mother wanted him to be more than that, so this was the promise I was keeping to her.

“Just Timmy and them.”

I sucked my teeth so hard that I had given myself a damn headache. “Jaiden, why the fuck do you keep playing with me?”

Before he could conjure up another damn lie, I pushed my way into the room. Like he had said, Timmy, Jerome and some chick was sitting on his bed holding a blunt in her hand.

“What the fuck is going on in here? You can’t turn in assignments on time, but you got time to be up here with these two dropouts and a chick.” I mushed Jaiden and stood with my arms folded. “Get the hell out of my house.”

Jerome always had respect and I didn’t mind him as much. Although he did drop out of school too, it was because he was the man of the house. School interfered with him working two part time jobs to keep food on the table for his mother and brothers.

It was Timmy’s ass that I couldn’t stand and wanted Jaiden to leave alone. He wasn’t a friend, and he was someone that you had to watch out for. I had been around plenty of people that pretended to be friends, and they were nowhere near that. I spotted the snake in Timmy right away and had plenty of talks with Jaiden to leave him alone.

Like a teen, he was hardheaded and wanted to do his own thing. Jaiden never listened to me, and it drove me crazy. I was busting my ass and paying bills so he could go places in life, and all he wanted to do was hang out with niggas who had nothing going for themselves.

“My bad, Erin,” Jerome quickly apologized with the random girl trailing right behind him.

I assumed she was his girl.

“Uh huh,” I remained planted at the door with my arms crossed.

Timmy’s ass walked past me, towering over me like he wasn’t seventeen years old. “You fine as hell, but you always tripping.”

I reached up and mushed him in the head. “You got me fucked up. Don’t fucking tell me no shit like that.” I pushed his ass out the room and toward the front door.

“Damn, keep your hands to yourself… I’m fucking with you.”

“Watch your damn mouth, Timothy!” I hollered, slamming the door behind him.

Jaiden remained in his room because he knew I was on a roll, and he was liable to be mushed in the face again. I was tired of having the same conversation with him weekly. Every damn week he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing and I was tired of it.

I was tired of trying to keep his ass out of trouble. He shouldn’t have been smoking weed or sitting in his small ass room with three other people. I don’t know what train they were about to run on that girl, but it wasn’t going to happen under my roof.

“I told you about having people in my shit, Jaiden. Why the fuck do I have to keep having the same conversation with you?”

Jaiden was doing something in his closet, so his back was turned to me. “You need to get some dick. Why the fuck are you always so angry?”

I was stunned.

Gagged.

Jaiden never spoke to me like that and had always been respectful. I raised him to be like that, and he was slowly turning into fucking Timmy right before my eyes.

“Who in the fuck are you talking to?” I shoved his ass in the closet, and he fell into the damn pile of clothes in there.

“My bad, E. I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” he quickly found some sense and apologized.

I quickly walked out of his room with my attitude on ten. “You got me fucked up if you think you’re about to be in my house talking to me like that. After all the shit I’ve done for you… I bust my ass—”

I tossed my shit around my own room, mad that Jaiden had tried me the way that he did. It was like I was staring at Jaiden, but Timmy was talking to me.

“I’m sorry, Erin. I lost my head for a minute… sorry.” He could barely stand straight because he was so damn high.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was drinking because the faint smell of alcohol hit me before I bull dozed into his room. While Jerome worked, I could always spot Timmy at the corner store, never doing anything productive with himself.

“Why do you want to be like Timmy so bad?”

“I don’t want to be like Timmy.” He scoffed, offended that I had insulted him that way.

“Smoking, drinking, and skipping basketball practice. What you thought? Coach wouldn’t call and tell me?”

He leaned on the wall, unsure of how to respond to me. When I was fired up, I wouldn’t hesitate to toss a shoe at his head. “I didn’t feel like practicing today.”

“I guess I must be stupid, huh? You haven’t felt like practicing since last month?”

When I was Jaiden’s age, I hated how my mother was always on my case. She had very high expectations and always expected me to meet them. With the amount of pressure she had on me; I was surprised I never cracked. Jaiden was smart and I knew he could make something of himself. He could get out of here and have a successful life.

He got straight A’s and was on the basketball team. His coach had so much faith in him that he had taken him under his wing. A lot of people in our neighborhood had taken us under their wing after they found out what happened with our parents.

“I didn’t say that,” he murmured.

“Get out my face, Jaiden.” I waved him out of my room and my face because I was so tired.

Tired of having the same ass conversation with him, and it going in one ear and right out the other. With him struggling to stand still, I could tell this conversation hadn’t even made it inside of one ear.

Jaiden closed my bedroom door, and I heard his door close shortly after. I plopped down on the bed and heaved a sigh. I never imagined that this would have been my life. Thirty years old raising my teenage brother who didn’t listen.

The life that Jaiden thought he wanted to be part of wasn’t the life I wanted for him. I knew exactly how that life ended for those involved. You were supposed to get in, get what you needed and then quickly get out before it landed you in prison or the grave.

Timmy was headed down the wrong path and nobody could pull him back. He had chosen this life, and he was going to either die by it, or sit in prison behind it. Jaiden meant too much to me, and I refused to bury him early or go visit him upstate because he didn’t listen to me.

Ryai: It’s Friday. What we getting into t ?tt I checked my cousin’s text message and tossed my phone onto the bed. The thoughts I had of laying under the air and enjoying my favorite movie was a distant memory, like most of my life. How could I sing “Effie’s Party” when I was too damn upset by what I had walked into?t“Jaiden, don’t you leave that damn room either. I’m going upstairs!” I hollered, as I left out the door and walked around toward the front of the house.tLike expected, Ryai was sitting on the porch with her rolling tray on her lap, rolling up a blunt. Meanwhile, I had just yelled at Jaiden about doing the same thing.t“Why those kids came running from the back like you had a gun?” she flicked her tongue across her blunt, as she waited for me to answer.tI sat down on the empty seat. “Jaiden was smoking weed again.”tRyai chuckled while shaking her head. “That boy is the biggest weed head.”tWhile Ryai found it funny, I didn’t. This was my brother and responsibility. How was I supposed to support us and keep an eye on him? I thought when he turned sixteen, I wouldn’t have to keep such a close eye on him, and now I had to keep an even closer eye on him.t“Ryai, is he getting it from you?”

She gave me that bitch be fucking for real look before flicking her lighter over to seal her blunt.

“You need to be watching that damn Timmy. I’m willing to bet that’s where he’s getting the weed from. Timmy been selling weed, and who knows what else.”

“That little bitch is a thorn in my side. You know he had the nerve to call me fine and tell me that I need to stop bitching so much.”

Ryai looked as if she agreed with the little bitch. “I mean, you are always on Jaiden’s case. He probably smokes to relax.”

“He’s sixteen, Ryai,” I reminded her.

“As if you didn’t smoke when you were his age.”

I stared blankly at her. “I didn’t.”

Ryai took a pull, and leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs in the process. “I forget you were a boring square.”

“Whatever. I was not a square. After the shit I’ve been through, you’re lucky that I didn’t resort to crack.”

After my parent’s death, my aunt took both me and Jaiden in. She tried to allow me to have a normal teenage experience while taking care of Jaiden. She didn’t want me to carry the burden of raising my brother. I couldn’t have the same experience that my cousin had because I felt responsible for my brother.

While Ryai was out living her best life, I was home making sure that Jaiden had enough to eat and was tucked into bed. My aunt worked nights at the hospital, so she slept all day and then cooked before going to work.

I couldn’t ask her to take on the burden of making sure that Jaiden made it to school, help him with his homework, or watch him play outside with his friends.

He was my little brother, and I was responsible for him. My mother always stressed how we would need each other one day, and that time was now. Jaiden needed me and I stepped up to the plate with the help of my aunt.

Soon as I graduated, I got a part time job while Jaiden was in school. It wasn’t making me lots of money, but it was still enough to pay our way around the house. My aunt always turned away my money, but I wanted to help. She had done so much, taking in extra mouths to feed and being a big support for me, I wanted to pay her back.

“A friend of mine opened a lounge. We should go tonight.” Ryai always had a friend that just opened or invited us somewhere.

That was usually how she convinced me to get out the house. She didn’t need to convince me today because I needed a drink and to be away from my brother’s hardheaded ass.

“Do I have enough time to take a nap?”

“Yeah, the lounge don’t get jumping until after one anyway.” She took a pull, and then tried to pass it my way.

I always lied about my imaginary asthma whenever Jaiden smoked. The truth was that I was starting to believe my own damn lie, and I thought that would deter him from smoking, seeing as he could kill his damn sister.

Instead, he continued to go against me and do whatever he wanted. I often prayed to God to give me guidance. Have I not done enough for him? Was I not around enough? There was so many questions I wanted to ask him, knowing I would never get the answers.

“Where’s Auntie?”

“Probably in the house arguing with the moving company.” Ryai rolled her eyes.

“You can’t possibly still be mad that Walt is moving in with your mother?”

“With us,” she reminded me.

My aunt had met her boyfriend, Walt, on a cruise. Josephine and Walt always laughed at how they met in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean but lived in the same city for years and had never run into each other. Walt was a bus driver for MTA and lived in Queens. If he wasn’t staying over here at Josephine’s apartment, then she was staying at his in Queens.

I understood why they wanted to move in together and take their relationship to the next level. They had been together for a while now, and it was time to take it to the next step. I never understood why Ryai disliked Walt so much. She never spoke on her reasons, Ryai just tossed shade anytime he was around, or my aunt spoke about him. Josephine was so happy whenever Walt was around.

It had been so long since she had been happy. Not since Ryai’s father was murdered a few months before my parents died. I don’t think my aunt ever truly healed from having to bury Ryai’s father, then her own sister in such a short time span. I watched her bust her ass at work and come home to give us three her full attention. There was never anything that you couldn’t ask Josephine. She would go to the end of the earth to make sure that we had everything we needed.

A lot of it had to do with our parents dying and her feeling guilty about not having a relationship with my mother when she passed away. I knew I could get away with a lot because of my aunt’s guilt.

“Girl, they’re upstairs and you’re downstairs.” I reminded her.

Ryai took another pull and crossed her arms. “Doesn’t matter.”

I rolled my eyes at my cousin and went into the house, heading to the second floor. The house we lived in was a two-family duplex with a basement apartment, so technically a three- family home. When we were younger, Josephine used to rent out the other two units while we all lived on the top floor.

When the tenant in the basement passed away two years ago, I took it over with Jaiden. My aunt never expected me to pay rent, I just paid it because it was what felt right. She had done so much for us, and I refused to see her struggle because she has a big heart.

It wasn’t like I didn’t have a decent job with benefits. Walt was the reason that I had been able to become a bus driver with MTA. He put in a good word to get my application pushed up within the system and had got me hired. If it wasn’t for him constantly being a listening ear when things were tough during training, and taking the time to show me the way, I wouldn’t have had this job.

Ryai complained as if she had to share a bathroom with the man. She lived in the first floor unit and didn’t have to see Walt unless she wanted to. I think the fact that her mother was moving on upset her. Maybe she thought she should have remained single for the rest of her life. Either way, Josephine was happy and had no plans on ending things with Walt because of her daughter.

“And like I said. You are only coming to the next damn borough. Why are you charging us tolls when you don’t have to pass one?” I could hear my aunt’s loudmouth the minute my foot hit the top step.

She was pacing back and forth in the kitchen with her hand on one hip while the other held the phone to her ear. When she saw me come in, she smiled, pointing to the kitchen table, and then rushing the man off the phone.

Aunt Jo didn’t play around with anybody, and she wasn’t one to take bullshit. To know her was to love her. If you truly knew her, then you knew that she would give her last to anybody that she cared for. It was hard growing up with her because she shared the same face as my mother.

Every smirk, eyeroll or smile reminded me so much of my mother. It was hard to miss her when I was living with her other half who looked exactly like her and shared her DNA. Despite being identical twins, my mother and Jo were different, and that was what I was missing from my mother.

While my aunt was loud and outspoken, my mother was always so quiet and meek. You would never hear my mother going off on someone because that wasn’t her personality. My aunt on the other hand would clear out the whole block if you had her fucked up.

I watched as she finished telling the mover how to do his job and then ended their call. No sooner than she hung up, her mood switched, and a smile came across her face.

“Hey Baby Doll, how was work?” She sat in the chair across from mine, rubbing my arm in the process.

“Hot and annoying. Summer hasn’t even come in yet, and I’m already irritated with people.” I snatched my glue-less wig from my head and sat it on the kitchen table.

My aunt grabbed my wig and examined it. “This one is nice… where did you get it from? This curly one is tired.” She racked her fingers through the curls.

I laughed because my aunt had a headful of long curly hair. She and my mother both had different hair textures. While my mother’s hair was fine and straight, my aunt had these huge bouncy curls that anyone would be jealous of. I, once upon a time, used to have the same bouncy curls.

All I had was a bald head with patches that I needed to finally make time to shave. When I was first diagnosed with alopecia areata, I was devastated. Not only had I lost my parents the year prior, but now I had to live with my hair falling out and having patches appearing all over my head.

It started with just one that I ignored because I thought it was from the tight bun I wore. Then another appeared, so I knew that something was wrong. My aunt took me to the doctor, and I was diagnosed with alopecia areata. The doctor said that it was more likely brought on due to the stress that I had been under since my parent’s death.

Every day was hard not living with them. However, that first year had to be the hardest. Jaiden called out for my mother nearly every night, and life was different. Going from having both your parents alive and well, to living with your aunt and cousin was a lot for me.

I had to switch from a private school to a public school because I moved to a new borough. All my friends distanced themselves from me, and life was hard. It was hard to focus on school when all I had was anxiety. My aunt had run into my room multiple times a week because I would wake up in a cold sweat screaming and hollering.

Something that I still struggled with as a grown ass adult. Except, I didn’t wake up screaming anymore. I just jumped out of my sleep in a cold sweat with my heart beating against my chest like I had just participated in a marathon.

“You alright, Erin?” I felt my aunt’s warm hand on top of mine.

I smiled. “I’m good, Jo. I promise.”

I hated that my aunt constantly worried about me. “What’s going on?”

She could always tell when I was stressed and would pull it out of me no matter how hard I tried to pretend that I was fine. “Jaiden was smoking again.”

Josephine’s eyes rolled and nose flared. “How many fucking times am I going to have to tell his ass about that shit?”

“The same number of times I’ve probably told him. Am I working too much? Why is he so determined to go against what I want for him?”

She settled down. “He’s sixteen, and a boy. Not to mention all the things you both have gone through over the years. Jaiden is trying to find his way like you were.”

“That damn Timmy is a bad influence.”

Jo put her cigarette between her lips and flicked the lighter a bit before it finally lit the cigarette. “There’s always going to be a bad influence around. Jaiden needs to learn how to read people. I ran into Timothy’s mother the other day. I was in the store grabbing cigarettes when she hopped out a tinted-out Benz to get some swishers. She was talking about them moving to a new neighborhood with a bigger house. Something about Timmy is about to have a new job.”

I rolled my eyes. “She needs to be worried about why her son is so disrespectful and why he’s not in school. While she sits on her ass, he’s out here doing who knows what.”

Jo chuckled while blowing smoke out the window. “You think she sits on her ass? Tasha is deep in whatever scheme she has going, and she’s about to have that boy doing the same thing. She’s trying to make him the man of the house since his father didn’t stick around. That is not his burden to carry.”

Whenever I saw Tasha, I was cordial. Mainly because Timothy and Jaiden were best friends. We were around the same age. Every time I saw her, she always had some new designer bag or shoes that she was flaunting. I could never understand why Timothy had to drop out of school to stand on the corner all damn day

Tasha was trying to make it where he would be able to take care of her and his sister, and he was just a child. As much as I disliked the boy, no child should have that pressure on their back. While he was standing on the corner, not in school, like a lost soul, she was whipping her brand-new Infiniti truck around, she didn’t give a damn about her son. Any real mother would have been trying to shelter their Black son away from the streets, not push them toward it.

“Did she mention what the job was going to be?”

Jo stifled a laugh. “Whatever she’s into. I know she has that boy doing something illegal. As much as Jaiden loves his friend, he needs to keep his distance from him.”

It felt like pulling teeth by trying to keep Jaiden on the right path. All he wanted to do was go against me. I missed the days when he thought everything I did was right and honored my word. Now, all I heard was him sucking his teeth and mumbling, “You be wilding.”

“I’m just trying to keep him from that life… you know.”

She gave me that knowing look. “You know I know more than anybody. All that lifestyle does is snatches the people you love and their hearts in the process.” She put out her cigarette and sighed. “Want me to shave your head for you?”

I laughed. “It looks that bad?”

“I just know you. You will let those patches fill in because you’re too tired from work or too focused on what Jaiden is doing. Erin, you have to start taking care of you… Jaiden will be fine. This is a phase he’s going through.”

“I hope so.”