Don’t Street Me. Talk to Me.
When the doctor finally told me that I could see my brother, I rushed to his room. Mazi was sitting up in the hospital bed when I walked in looking like he already knew everything that was about to come out of my mouth. It looked like he was already disappointed in his damn self.
Good. That saved us time some time.
I pulled the chair from the corner and sat down right in front of him.
I looked at him for a long moment without saying anything.
The look that I gave him said it all. He had a bandage wrapped around his left arm from the shoulder down to the elbow and an IV in his right hand.
He looked young sitting there under those hospital lights.
Too young. Like the little boy I used to pick up from school when our moms had a double shift and couldn’t get there in time.
I knew this shit had scared him, and I was glad for that.
That little boy who always looked up to me, that’s who I kept seeing when I looked at him and it made what I needed to say harder and more necessary at the same time.
“Talk to me. Did I not give you everything you needed and wanted?”
He looked at the blanket across his lap. “Street—”
“Don’t Street me. Talk to me.”
He let out a breath and looked up. “I needed money. My portion of the housing costs went up for next semester and I didn’t want to ask you because I know how much you already put out for us and I just—” He stopped. “I thought I could flip something fast and be done with it before anybody knew.”
“Before anybody knew? And why the fuck are you lying? You don’t need money when I deposit that shit into both y’all banks monthly. We not struggling no more bro, so I don’t want to hear that shit.” I got louder than I wanted to. “Mazi you got shot.”
“It was a graze.”
“Three inches to the left it wasn’t a graze.
Three inches to the left I’m identifying your body tonight instead of sitting in this chair.
” I leaned forward. “You understand what I’m saying to you?
Not talking about a close call. I’m talking about you being dead and me having to call Mama and tell her that I lost you out here in these same streets I have been fighting to keep you away from your whole life. ”
He looked away and I could see his jaw working.
“Look at me,” I said.
He looked at me.
“What would you have done if this was serious? What happens to your season? What happens to your draft stock. What happens to everything you worked for since you were fourteen years old running routes in the backyard because you wanted to be something.” I kept my voice low and even because raising it wasn’t going to accomplish anything right now.
“You’re twenty two years old going into your senior year with NFL scouts already watching your film and you out here getting shot outside a trap house like some low level hood nigga.
You know what that story does to your career if it gets to the wrong people? ”
He didn’t say anything.
“Who you working for? Who in the right mind around this muthafucka gave you drugs?
His eyes shifted. Just slightly. But I caught it.
“Mazi. Don’t play with me tonight! You know what I just left to be here with yo ass?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You better hope you’re fully healed before fall camp starts because if your arm isn’t right and your numbers drop that’s on you. Not me. Not Mama. You.” I sat back. “And you’re going to tell me who you’re working for eventually. Tonight or next week or next month but you’re going to tell me.”
He stayed quiet and I let him stay quiet because pushing him right now wasn’t going to get me anywhere and I had other things on my mind that needed answering.
“Bri came up here tonight,” I said.
Something shifted in his face. Softer now. “Yeah I know. She texted me she was coming.”
“You know her new man?”
He looked at me straight. “That nigga Marcus?”
“Yeah.”
“I met him once. Maybe twice.” He shook his head. “Street I don’t know that nigga like that. Me and Bri don’t even talk like that no more since she got with him. She kind of fell back from everybody.”
I watched his face when he said it and Mazi had never been able to lie to me. Not once in his life. He had the kind of face that gave everything away before his mouth caught up. Right now his face was telling me he was being straight. He didn’t know Marcus. Wasn’t connected to him.
Whatever thread of a phone call I had heard in that corridor tonight, it wasn’t connected to my brother and I trusted that. Now, I felt something loosen slightly in my chest.
“You need to stay away from whatever you been into,” I said.
“Whatever it is, whoever it is, you’re done.
You hear me? And doing that shit at school is some stupid, idiotic ass shit.
I know you ain’t no loser nigga! So you better stop acting like one.
You got the whole world in front of you.
Don’t fuck that up for nothing or nobody. ”
“I hear you.”
“I need more than I hear you.”
“I’m done Street. I promise.”
I looked at him for a long moment and then I stood up and put my hand on the back of his neck the way I had been doing since he was little.
“Don’t call Mama about this,” he said. His voice dropped. “Please. You know what this is going to do to her.”
I stood there and thought about our moms sitting in that house that I had bought her, thinking her boys were safe and straight.
Living the lives she had sacrificed everything for them to have.
I thought about what this information would do to her at this stage of her life when she had finally been able to stop running herself into the ground.
“I’m not making any promises tonight,” I said. “But I’m thinking about it.”
He nodded like that was the best he was going to get which it was.
I squeezed his neck once and left. This big brother shit didn’t look like it would get easier soon.
—
Melo was still in the waiting room when I came out, he stood up and looked at me waiting to see which version of this was going to happen.
I looked at him for a second. Disappointed as hell.
These lil ass niggas had been sneaky and secretive their whole lives.
One thing that they always did was covered for one another.
“We’re going to talk,” I said. “Not tonight. But we’re going to talk. Go on back there with yo partner in crime.”
He nodded and headed towards Mazi’s room.
I walked out of that hospital into the night air and stood by my car for a minute. I let everything breathe. My phone had been buzzing in my pocket the whole time I was in Mazi’s room. I pulled it out now and looked at the screen.
Brielle.
I stared at her name for a second.
Then I answered.
“I was hoping your number was still the same,” she said before I could say anything.
Her voice did what it always did to me and I hated that it still worked after everything and all this time.
“It’s the same,” I said.
“Can you come somewhere? I need to see you.” A pause. “Simone’s house. Can you come?”
I looked up at the sky and thought about Marcus and thought about BJ and thought about that corridor. I replayed the look on Brielle’s face when she introduced him like everything was normal and fine.
She was living with him. Had to be. That’s the only reason she’d want me to meet her anywhere other than her own place.
The way they moved together in that waiting room told the story before she ever said his name.
Which meant she was sleeping next to him every night and waking up next to him every morning.
Damn, that image sat in my chest in a way that I hated to admit.
“Give me bout forty minutes,” I said.
I was close to my crib, so I was about to shower and change real quick. I was sweaty and had been in the fight of my damn life tonight. Not to mention at a damn hospital. I was gone handle my hygiene, then see about Bri.
—
Gutta was already on Simone’s couch when I got there which didn’t surprise me.
Gutta and Simone had a love hate relationship.
They annoyed the fuck out of each other, but they wouldn’t leave one another alone for the fear of someone else having them.
It was toxic to say the least, but love is love, I guess.
He stood up when I came in and the first thing out of his mouth was Mazi.
“He straight,” I said. “Thank God it was just a graze. They stitched him up. He’s good.”
Gutta let out a long breath and sat back down. I could see the tension leave his shoulders. He loved my brothers the same way he loved me and seeing that reminded me of everything he had done four years ago in that apartment to make sure they had a future worth protecting.
“Thank God,” he said.
Simone hugged me when I came in. Real tight the white family did when they were relieved about something.
“The guest room is set up. You can go on back there.” she said quiet. “Bri’s on her way. Ten minutes.”
I nodded and looked over at Gutta and he was looking at me with that expression that meant he was already putting two and two together. His brows were raised and he looked confused.
“Don’t start.” I said.
“I ain’t said nothing.”
“You were about to say something.”
“I was about to ask if you wanted something to drink.”
“Hell nah. You can’t even lie straight!”
“Alright I wasn’t.” He leaned forward on the couch. “But Street—”
“Gutta I know what you’re thinking and I need you to keep it to your damn self.”
“I just—”
“Keep it.”
He put his hands up and leaned back. Simone looked between us and shook her head and went to the kitchen then left us alone. Although it was offered, I wasn’t about to go in their room without Bri being here yet.
We sat in the quiet for a few minutes and then headlights swept across the front window. I heard a car door and Gutta looked at the front door and then looked at me.
I got up and went to the guest room before she knocked.
—