Chapter 12
Theo O'Keefe
Fall is warmer in New York than it usually is in Boston. On the cross streets, there’s a biting wind that chills me while I walk aimlessly. I keep my head down and my arms wrapped around my waist.
I can’t go home. It’s John’s apartment, and he’ll be in the primary bedroom.
I sleep in one of the guest rooms. Nothing says home like a room decorated for strangers.
My mom couldn’t even let me help choose the paint color or bedding for the room I’m living in.
It’s a losing battle, and it feels like a war that’s been going on since the day I met John.
A war that I wasn’t aware of for years. As a five-year-old, I thought John was sophisticated and generous. He bought me expensive presents, and Mom and I moved into his enormous house. He’s old money, so the house and staff had been in his family for generations.
I thought I’d won the lottery. I had a nanny to cook and clean for me. A chauffeur drove me to school while I sat in the back.
But it all ended after a reporter and photographer came to the house to interview John and Mom about the wedding.
They argued for hours afterward. My mom was screaming about a birth certificate and a bastard boy named Jamal.
I thought things would get better after the wedding.
I’m not sure if they did because they shipped me off to boarding school and enrolled me in summer sailing camps for weeks at a time.
My mom would come visit me on parents’ weekend and one other time during the year, even though it was only two hours from our house.
All because John lied to the reporter, explaining that Jamal didn’t live with us because he went to boarding school.
A lie that changed my life.
A lie that kept me from my mother.
I lost it when I called my mom after the game and it went straight to voicemail.
My mom will never win mother of the year, but I think she loves me. Hopefully. I’ve blamed John, but maybe he was doing what my mom asked.
She’s either cut off communication with no warning or can’t use her phone for whatever reason. They confiscate phones at some rehabs.
What hurts the most is not knowing if what John said is true, that she doesn’t want to talk to me.
As I reach a busy intersection, the wind stings my face, and I turn away, noticing the sign is lit up to walk.
I’m not facing oncoming traffic and hear honking, brakes squealing, and I’m jerked back. A car misses me by inches.
“I had the right of way,” I say stupidly at the same time my savior says, “Are you all right?”
King. He saved me from being flattened on the pavement.
“Don’t touch me.” I push his hands away.
“Can’t believe I found you. Everyone’s worried.” King tugs me back onto the curb.
I snort. No one’s worried about me.
“Why can’t I get rid of you?” I yell, taking all my frustration out on him. “Stop fucking with me.”
King doesn’t flinch when I get in his face. He’s unmoved and I shove him. He’s solid and takes a step back but doesn’t lose his balance.
“What’s wrong with you?” I want him to disappear. My life would be so much better without him.
He remains stoic and smug, and my fist itches to punch his face. My arm moves of its own volition, and right before I connect, he catches my fist and stops me. Staring me in the eye, he doesn’t let go while he fishes his phone out of his pocket and dials.
“Hey, I’m with O’Keefe. I’m going to show him my neighborhood and MS 74. If one of us goes missing, blame the other.” He hangs up and opens his palm, pushing my fist away.
“Am I supposed to be impressed by that?” I sneer. He doesn’t deserve my anger, but at this point, I need to get away from him.
“No, but you’re coming with me.” He takes my arm.
“You’re fucked in the head if you think I’m going anywhere with you.” I stand tall and jut my chin.
“Are you scared?”
“No,” I huff. “All I have to do is find a cop, and they’ll arrest you for kidnapping.” There’s a cop a block down, and his ass will be in jail so fast.
“That’s short-sighted.” His mouth turns up at the ends.
“Yes, I’d most likely get put in the back of a car with cuffs, but then what?
They’ll figure out who I am and that not only am I your teammate, I’m your stepbrother.
” His voice is low, so I inch closer to hear.
“How do you think the Enforcers and their fans will react when it comes out that you had me arrested for showing you around the city?” He arches an eyebrow and waits.
Of course, he’s right. The fans aren’t on my side yet because of last season. It would be the nail in my coffin for my new start. “You’re really only going to take me around the city?”
“We’re going to a borough and back.” He tilts his head at the subway entrance.
“You’re taking me someplace sketchy.” I’ll never find my way home if we get separated.
He nods his head in agreement and barrels down the stairs to the trains. He swipes his card to get through the turnstile, then hands it to me to use.
Jamal doesn’t look at any signs or schedules or say another word until we’re standing on the train and holding the bar above our heads.
“We know nothing about each other. My mom told me some shit that turned me inside out. I’m not going to tell you about my life, I’m going to show you.” King is close enough that I can smell his soap and shea butter.
I grunt, having nothing to say. This field trip is futile. There’s nothing he can show me that will change my mind about the past. Except…it’s hard to tell what was real and what John made up.
We switch trains, and I become the minority. It never occurred to me that King lives in a world where he sticks out. He’s rarely in a room with another Black person. I’m getting side-eye, and I wonder if he’s ever afraid for his safety.
My heart rate picks up on the next train. I am most definitely the white dude who lost his way.
“We’re almost there,” King assures me.
I’m a big guy and have been in fights, so I can hold my own, but this is a dumb idea. If he wants to show me what it’s like to be the only white guy in a sea of Black men, I get it. It’s uncomfortable, and he lives it every day.
“This is our stop.” He touches my coat sleeve and exits the train.
The wind whooshes across the platform, chilling me to the bone.
“A few blocks this way.” He points in a direction which could be north, south, east, or west. I’m lost, but as I spin around, I recognize the Chrysler Building in the city skyline. Worst-case scenario, I follow the tall buildings.
Papers and garbage blow in the wind. New York is a dingy city, but this is rundown and unkept. Old parking lots are a combo of broken cement and weeds. There’s faded graffiti on all the buildings. Some are abandoned, and some look like they should be condemned.
“Where are we going?” There’s a group of guys hanging out on the corner, passing around a paper bag. If I screamed my head off, I doubt a cop would come.
“I want you to meet someone. My auntie.” He turns down a side street, and I’m met with a looming monstrosity of a building. Windows are broken, curtains blow in the breeze, and the smell… If poverty had a smell, it would be urine, booze, rotting food, and grass.
“I thought I heard your aunt died.” I wince at my words.
“My mom’s sister died,” he says as if I should know what the hell that means. But I assume this aunt isn’t the one I met when we were seven.
He walks past the main entrance to a side door with locks and a “Do Not Enter” sign. The locks must be for show because he easily swings the door open.
“What the fuck are we doing?” I say under my breath. The stairwell is concrete with puke-green paint, and most of the lights flicker, giving it an eerie vibe. I’m not scared exactly, but this ranks high in the bad-idea category.
King’s long legs take the stairs two at a time.
“You know, when we came to stay for the wedding, my auntie and I thought we were livin’ in luxury.
We didn’t know that the rooms were totally different if you went up the main stairway instead of the back.
The beds were the softest and nicest we’d ever seen. ” His statement punches me in the gut.
I’d looked for him that weekend but couldn’t find him. Because he and his aunt were staying in the staff quarters. The place we deemed subpar and disgusting, but it was the nicest place he’d been.
Nothing is what I thought. There are so many lies, and it’s possible I was complacent in their telling or a fool.
He opens a door on the fourth floor, and the smell improves, but not much else does. There’s a threadbare, dirty carpet that I couldn’t guess the original color of.
Halfway down, King knocks on a door. “Mary, it’s me.”
“J, is that you?” a weak voice asks, and the door is flung open. A short, round Black woman with gray hair in a bun hugs him. “Come in. Oh, you brought a friend. Are you hungry?”
“No, ma’am, don’t make anything for us.” He follows her into the living room, and the furniture isn’t vintage ’70s; it’s old and decrepit. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d show Theo our first apartment.”
“Here it is in all its glory.” Mary spreads her arms wide. The kitchen has a stove, a fridge, and a few cabinets. There are open doors to a bedroom and a bathroom. The entire apartment isn’t much bigger than the entryway where I live at John’s place on Park Ave.
Mary ignores King and pulls out food along with pots and pans.
“Once my moms started working, we could afford a two-bedroom.” King sits on the couch. I’m afraid if I sit next to him, it’ll collapse.
“You and your mom,” I say to fill the silence.
“Me, moms, and my auntie.” He nods.
“Did…did the three of you live here?” I can’t align his reality with the stories I was told.
“Sure did,” Mary pipes in. “You’re still too skinny.” She waves a spoon at him. “Once they moved out, I took over the apartment and kept J out of trouble. It’s like this apartment called to him, so he’d come here…accidentally…for years.” Mary laughs, and it’s clear how much she loves him.
I listen to them gossip about the neighbors as she serves us mac and cheese along with a wilted leafy vegetable that tastes much better than it looks. Mary calls it collard greens. King tries to decline dessert, but Mary wraps up slices of pound cake.
“We gotta bounce. Meeting the guys,” King responds vaguely. “I couldn’t come here without giving you a hug.” He stands and brings her into his arms, bending his knees so he rests his chin on the top of her head.
“Don’t be a stranger,” she scolds him. “It’s been too long.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He lifts her off her feet, and she squeals, but I get the feeling this is something they do.
“It was nice to meet you, ma’am.” I shove my hands into my pockets.
“And he’s polite!” Mary eyes King as if that’s significant in this alternate universe I’ve fallen into. “Put these in your pocket.” She hands him two pieces of cake in plastic.
When we’re back on the street, King grabs my sleeve. “I never hated you,” he says sincerely, looking me in the eye.
“Whaaat?” I sputter. Of course he did, otherwise he wouldn’t have said… I groan inwardly. John is a liar, yet I believed every bad thing he said about me and how his son thinks I’m a piece of shit.
“You said you hate me as much as I hate you, but I never hated you,” he explains, and I tsk. “I wondered what you had that I didn’t, that you got to live with my dad and the life I was supposed to lead while I lived here.”
I’m eager to say he got the better deal, but a gang walks by and I’m not so sure.
I don’t know anything.
King is so different from who I thought he was.