Chapter Twelve #2
While driving over, Rashad got four calls.
He ignored them all. Anna was just being mama bear, ready to play the role of the caring godmother while trying to get all up in his business.
His parole officer Nichole was just doing her job.
No doubt she’d received his text about getting a job.
He wasn’t ready to reveal that he no longer had one.
Hopefully he’d get hired somewhere else before their next conversation.
The last calls? Jamilah. Twice. Nothing else for them to talk about. She’d said more than enough last night.
He reached Leon and Blair’s house and pulled into the driveway.
It was an older home in a transitioning neighborhood, the status quo surrounded by new possibilities.
There were cracks in the concrete. A silver state-of-the-art security system stood in stark contrast to fading siding with peeling paint.
Still, there was something welcoming about the yard in need of mowing and beds of errant flowers on either side of the door.
That friends his age paid a mortgage and not rent was impressive.
They were adulting nicely and basically on a chef’s salary.
Making their way in the world. Just the thought strengthened Rashad’s resolve.
The door opened before he could knock. It was Blair, not Leon, who let him in.
“Dude! What’s going on? Jamilah’s been blowing up my phone. Leon says you quit. What the hell?”
“Good afternoon to you too, Blair.” Rashad continued to the back where Leon had transformed what might have been a den into a game room/man cave, with Blair yapping at his heels.
“Seriously, Rashad. What could have happened that was so bad you quit? You literally just started working!”
“What up, Leon?”
Leon nodded, his eyes glued to the TV screen. “Nothing to it.”
Blair continued, relentlessly. “I’m the one who hyped you up like damn near the Second Coming. For that alone I deserve an explanation.”
Blair huffed and puffed, her eyes going from Leon to Rashad, then back to her husband.
Leon got the memo and paused the game.
Rashad plopped on the couch. Blair sat in a chair.
“Yesterday after my shift was over, I accidentally left my book in the kitchen.”
“Why would you have a notebook in the kitchen?” she asked. “Creating your own bible?”
“Creating rhymes,” Leon interjected. “When he doesn’t cook, he raps.”
“Not really. More of a spoken-word artist.”
“Don’t rappers speak words?”
Glares from both Rashad and Blair now.
Leon shrank. “Sorry.”
“Anyway,” Rashad continued with a sigh, “I went back for it and overheard a conversation. About me. Jamilah was on the phone with someone calling me a thug and telling her I should be immediately replaced. Your girl agreed. Not a good look.”
“Hmm.” Blair considered Rashad’s words. “That doesn’t sound like Jamilah. She’s not two-faced like that. What exactly did she say, or even more important, what did you hear?”
“Her agreeing with this jerk acting like he knew my whole life.”
“Probably her father,” Leon said. “He works in law enforcement.”
Her father? Damn.
Given the words they’d exchanged, Rashad hoped it wasn’t her dad. In hindsight, however, Leon was probably right. The man definitely sounded overly protective, as though he was ready to kick Rashad’s ass on sight. Or try. Rashad wasn’t a lightweight. He knew how to throw paws.
“Well, if it was her father, I cussed him out.”
Blair brought a hand to her forehead. “Oh boy.”
“He was saying all kinds of foul shit about me. I had every right to defend myself. But still, if I’d known it was her pops, I would have expressed my thoughts differently.”
Rashad had the decency to feel bad. His grandmother, who helped raise him, would definitely not cosign his behavior.
She was one of those God-fearing, church-going sisters who’d give you a dollar if she had two and at the same time take that Bible she loved to quote from and use it to pop you upside the head. Granny didn’t play.
“She told me her dad was a police officer or detective, whatever. I walked in on him running down my criminal history, pointing out every mistake I’d made from the time I was fourteen.”
“How’d he know?”
“Background check,” Blair and Rashad said at once.
“That’s standard in hiring these days,” Blair pointed out. “Probably did one on me. They weren’t singling you out.”
“Doing a background check wasn’t the problem. I told her myself that I’d been to jail and that it wasn’t the first time. The problem was her talking about me behind my back. Listening to and making assumptions about my character when asking me directly would have been a much better move.”
“I’m sorry that happened, dog,” Leon said, sincerity and compassion pressed between each consonant and vowel. “That’s really effed up.”
It was the perfect answer from a friend to a man who was hurting, especially one of the rare ones who Rashad had trusted with his background.
Kids weren’t born bad. Urban teens didn’t just wake up with violence in them.
There were hidden agendas, plans made in high places, that created the worlds with crime as one of their few options.
Rashad appreciated Leon agreeing that he’d been wronged.
A phone rang from another room.
“That’s probably Jamilah again,” Blair said, rising. “Or my boss. Either way I’ve got to go. But do me a favor, Rashad? Please talk to Jamilah. Give her a chance to tell her side.”
“I already heard her side!”
“What you heard sounds horrible. I’d be mad, too.
Jamilah’s na?ve, but she means well. I’m not excusing her actions or ignoring your feelings.
I just know how excited she was to have you come work for her and how desperately she needs you right now.
There’s a huge job coming up and I can’t think of anyone better than you to help her pull it off. ”
“Oh, so this isn’t about her righting a wrong, it’s about me saving her ass?”
The phone stopped ringing.
Blair walked over and placed a hand on Rashad’s shoulder.
“No, Rashad. It’s about both of you taking a breath and giving each other grace.
She’s stressed the hell out. You’re sensitive about this and understandably so.
Just… I think the two of you together could be really successful, could help each other get what both of you want.
You’ve messed up, and people gave you second chances.
I’m just asking you to think about returning that favor. ”
When he got home and talked to Anna, her position was much like what Blair said. His friend Juke had his back, used words not spoken in polite company to encourage Rashad to do his own thing.
“T-Bone’s been asking around about you, man. He’s looking for you.”
“He’s not going to find me. Hanging out with so-called felons is what got me three years.”
“No, this jacked-up system did that.”
Rashad nodded even though Juke couldn’t see his agreement.
“Anyway, Tee is on the straight and narrow. Flipped a bunch of stacks and is now flipping houses. Some in Vegas, where he lives, and somewhere in Mississippi where his folk are from. All one hundred percent legit.”
This was news to Rashad. He hadn’t spoken to any of the Andersons since doing the bid for his boy Drew by not snitching to police that night about who possessed the weapon found in the car they pulled over.
“They owe you, man, and who knows? Maybe he can help you get your own biz.”
Rashad took in all of what everyone said.
Later that night, he sat alone in the quiet of his room, dark except for a small desk lamp and his imagination.
Again, he resorted to his best friend, the pen, to work out the feelings roiling in his stomach, smoldering between each heartbeat.
Pressing pen to paper, he took a deep breath. This time, the words flowed.
All society everywhere wants to be judge and jury
Causing inner fury. Their critique can’t cure me
Rest assured it’s a blurred line, a fake deed
Society’s sobriety from unkind minds who lured me
Who grew up in the vicinity of classmates for enemies
Gunshots for lullabies. Dead daddies. No last goodbye. Like Corey White. Rashad closed his eyes and searched for the elusive memory of his father’s touch. He couldn’t feel it.
NO space to cry. Powers that be who lie.
NO place to hide. Wide open genocide.
Again, Rashad paused as the faces of friends he’d lost swam into view. Rather than tamp down the roiling emotions, he allowed himself the rare moment to feel them and pressed the pain through his pen.
NO answers why. No better by and by.
NO recognition for tries. NO chance reaching for skies.
Only judgments and juries sending men to purgatory
NO grit all glories the pen behind their own stories
Behind the wall the unmitigated gall
To shine in concrete creative laboratories
Rashad smiled at this line. That some of the world’s most creative geniuses languished in prison was a fact!
Honorable roots grown through street soldier boots
Yet the truth that soothes makes the pathway smooth
Is this. Found guilty from a not-guilty plea
The twist. No losing dignity no spilling tea
Ten toes down for loyalty. A conscience free.
At the end of the day, Rashad could look in the mirror and be proud of maintaining his integrity, his character, of representing honor among those who mattered most.
YES. To mental sovereignty. YES. A bittersweet victory.
YES. A heart passed test. No stress. Say less.
YES. That energy best for me.
Rashad filled ten pages with emotions, song snippets, rhymes, raps, verses, or whatever these feelings ended up being, then cut out the light and lay back, fully clothed. He stared at the ceiling, looking for the thing that was searching for him.
His phone dinged. He lifted it up, read the name. Jamilah.
Sorry for what happened. Please call.
He tossed the phone, stripped naked, and strolled into the shower. Once finished, he returned to bed and slid between the covers.
Replayed everyone’s advice. Listened to his own.
Didn’t call her back.