Big Daddy Sinatra: Carly's Cry (3 page)

“Apparently,” Ashley said.

Then Jenay exhaled.
 
“Let’s just hope he doesn’t see us.”

That didn’t make sense to
Ashley.
 
She looked at her mother.
 
“Why not?
 
What’s the big deal?”

“This neighborhood, that’s what.”

Ashley frowned, confused.
 
And then she smiled.
 
“Oh, I forgot,” she said with a grin.
 
“You’re his queen.
 
He doesn’t allow his fragile queen to go
anywhere near anything that isn’t prime real estate.
 
It’s not a bad neighborhood, Ma, I told
you.”
   

But when the biker chick flung open
the door, and all they could see were dark tats on her pale white skin, and
biceps to rival Charles’s, and an annoyed, angry face, they both saw the
irrelevance of whether the neighborhood was bad: this woman didn’t look to be
about anything good.

“We’re looking for Donnie,” Ashley
said as soon as the lady stepped out.
 
She was average height, in her thirties, but was thick and solidly
built.
 
“Is he here?”

“And who are you supposed to be?” the
woman asked.
 
Then she frowned.
 
“Are you her?” she asked.
 
“You’re that bitch?”

Jenay immediately touched Ashley on
the arm.
 
“Let’s get out of here,” she
said, turning to leave, certain she should have turned around in the first
place when she saw where this house was located.
 
This was a bad idea all around.

But the woman’s singular focus was on
Ashley.
 
“You’re his bitch,” she said, as
if it was a fact.

“I am not his girlfriend, if that’s
what you mean by bitch,” Ashley made clear.
 
“I’m his sister.”

But the woman wasn’t listening.
 
“You’re the one,” she said.
 
“You’re that bitch he’s been fooling around
with.
 
The one that works at the Tool and
Dye.”

Ashley frowned.
  
“What?”

“I didn’t believe it when they told
me.
 
But it’s true.
 
You’re that bitch.
 
And you have the nerve to come to my
house?
 
To
my
house?”

“Girl bye,” Ashley said with great
annoyance as she turned to leave too, holding her hand up in an obvious diss,
but the woman grabbed her by her weave, pulling her backwards, and slammed her
to the floor.
 
Ashley screamed so loud
that Kasper and Charles heard the scream and both looked in that
direction.
 
Jenay tried to pull the woman
off of Ash, but the woman turned and put her free arm around Jenay’s neck,
pulling her to the floor right along with Ash.

“Get this fool,” Jenay began
yelling.
 
“Lord, get this fool!”

When Charles saw that woman slam his
wife onto that porch, his heart dropped through his shoe, his sunglasses
dropped from his hand, and he took off running.
 
Kasper was stunned.
 
It was just a
stupid cat fight for goodness sake.
 
But
nobody fought, cat or otherwise, with Charles Sinatra’s wife.
 
He ran across that street so fast he was up
on the porch within seconds.
 
And it was
his time to do the slamming.

He grabbed that woman away from
Jenay, which also got her away from Ashley, and flung her so forcefully that
she nearly fell over the porch rail.
 
Ashley was angry that the woman had messed up her two-hundred dollar
hairdo, and was about get her revenge.
 
Jenay didn’t wear weave, but she was gearing up for a confrontation
too.
 
They felt blindsided when that
woman came at them so aggressively.
 
Now
they wanted to blindside her.

But Charles shut it all down.
 
As the woman moved to get back up, he held
his arm around Jenay’s narrow waist while pulling Ashley back too.
 
“But she hit me!” Ashley was angrily crying,
ready to fight back.
 
“I’m not going to
let her get away with jumping on me like that!”

Charles pushed her away.
 
“Get in the car!” he ordered her.

“But she hit me, Daddy!”

Charles looked at his daughter.
 
He did not allow back talk, and every one of
his children knew it.
 
“What did I say to
you?” he asked her.

Ashley and her baby sister Carly were
adopted by Charles and Jenay into the Sinatra family, but even they knew their
father would knock them through a wall if they disobeyed him.
 
They knew he was not the one to trifle
with.
 
But Ashley’s natural instinct
wasn’t to cower and go along to get along.
 
She pushed boundaries.
 
“You told
me to get in the car,” she admitted, “but what about the fact that she hit me,
Dad?
 
I can’t let this Dollar General hoe
get away with that!”

“Who are you calling a hoe,
hoe
?” the woman asked, and she and
Ashley were about to go at it again.

Charles pulled Ashley back again, but
this time he slung her down those steps so hard she fell onto the
sidewalk.
 
“Get your ass in that car, and
get in there now!” he ordered her.
 
Ashley, seeing the anger in his big, green eyes, got up and ran to the
car.

Then Charles turned his attention to
the combative woman.
 
She moved back when
she saw that she was no match for him too, and hurried toward her front door.

“Is Donald in there?” Jenay asked as
the woman hurried past her.

“No, he ain’t here, and you know it!”
the woman decried.
 
“Y’all just came here
to start something!” she added, as she hurried into her house.

Charles grabbed Jenay by her elbow
and pulled, all but dragged her off of the porch and down to the curb where her
Mercedes was parked.
 
Ashley was behind
the wheel.
 
She pressed down the
passenger side window as they walked up.

“Take the car and go home,” Charles
ordered her.
 
And then, realizing which
child he was dealing with, added: “Go straight home or I’ll kick your ass,
Ashley!”

Jenay moved to get into the car too, since
she and Ashley rode over there together, but Charles held her back.
 
“You’re coming with me,” he said.

And as Ashley cranked up and drove
away, to go straight home as he had ordered, rubbing her hair down as she
drove, she was fuming at that woman.
 
She
was fuming at Donald for forcing her to have to look for his ass.
 
She hit the steering wheel as she drove.

Charles pressed his hand hard against
the small of his wife’s back and walked her across the street, three doors
down, to his truck in Kasper’s driveway.

Kasper was still standing at his
front door as Charles placed Jenay on the passenger seat of his truck, walked
around, and got in too.
 
Kasper had heard
how Big Daddy married himself a black woman, but he had no idea she would be
the one.
 
Not such a sweet, kind-looking
woman like that.
 
She didn’t look mean
and hateful at all.
 
Kasper always
assumed the woman who would become Charles’s second wife had to be a little like
his first one: mean and hateful too.
 
But
he didn’t see that in this one at all.

What he also didn’t see was Charles
again.
 
Charles left Kasper, and his
sunglasses on Kasper’s porch, backed out of the driveway and, without giving
his tenant a second glance, sped away.

Charles kept glancing at Jenay as he
drove, as if he was trying to decide if he even wanted to address what had just
transpired.
 
Jenay certainly didn’t want
to.
 
She reached into his glove
compartment, grabbed the comb she knew he kept inside, and combed her messy
hair.
 
Her hair was medium length, brown,
and bouncy, and with the kind of layered cut that allowed her to comb it back,
and then push it into a fluff-up that automatically settled into a reasonable
style. Charles couldn’t help but notice how gorgeous she looked when she
fluffed it back up.
 
He also noticed
debris on the pants of her pantsuit, apparently acquired when she fell on that
porch.
 
When he stopped at a red light,
he brushed it off of her.
 
Then looked at
her.
 
“What the hell was that about,
Jenay?” he asked.

“I was looking for Donald,” she
responded.

“You don’t come down in this hellhole
looking for anybody!
 
If you need to find
Donald you contact me, or Brent, or even Anthony or Robert.
 
But what you don’t do, and you’d better not
do again, is get in a car with Ashley of all people and drive to this side of
town.
 
I nearly died when I saw that
woman knock you down!”

Jenay looked at him.
 
The tenor of his voice had changed.

“What if I hadn’t been on that
street, Jenay?
 
What if I didn’t hear
your cry?”

“Stop worrying about me like that,”
Jenay said with a frown.
 
“I would have
been alright.”

“Yeah, sure.
 
That big-ass woman would have beat the shit
out of you and Ashley both!”

“That’s what you say,” Jenay
said.
 
“But I would have handled my
business.”

The light turned green.
 
Charles looked at her.
 
“When we get home,” he said, as he drove
under the light, “I’m going to handle mine.”

Jenay looked at him as he continued
to drive.
 
She knew what he was capable
of.
 
“What do you mean, Charlie?” she
asked a husband who now seemed bound and determined to let his actions speak
for him.
 
And that determination was what
was worrying her.
 
“Charlie,” she asked
again, “what’s that supposed to mean?”

“But things have changed,” Donald Sinatra
said to Tony and Robert, his two brothers, as they sat around the center island
of their parents’ kitchen, and he stood on the opposite side.
 
The television on the kitchen wall was still
on, showing a
Judge Judy
repeat,
forcing him to speak a little louder than his usual voice.
 
“We are a far cry from the way things used to
be.
 
I mean come on, man.
 
We twice-elected the first black president of
the United States.
 
If that isn’t
progress, what is?”

“There’s progress,” Tony said, “but
there’s still racism too.
 
Both can be
true.
 
I know this for a fact.
 
I have a PhD in Clinical Psychology,
remember?
 
I have a syndicated radio
therapy show, remember?
 
I listen to that
racist bull crap all day long.
 
You
should hear some of the nonsense people call into my show and proclaim.
 
Some people still harbor those kind of
views.
 
And some of those people, I am
sorry to say, are right here in Jericho.”

“Yeah,” Robert said, scrolling
through his cell phone messages, his mouth cocked into a half smile, “like that
biker chick Donnie’s been fooling around with.
  
What’s her name?”

“Gilda,” Donald said.
 
“Gilda Lane.”

“Yeah, her.”

Donald looked at Robert.
 
They were very close in age, but Robert acted
as if he was as old as their oldest brother Brent.
 
He sometimes came across to Donald as if he
thought he was superior.
 
“For your
information, Mister Know-it-all,” he said to him, “Gilda is not like that.
 
You’re just stereotyping.
 
Just because she’s a white woman with tats on
her arms and who happens to enjoy riding a Harley every once in a while doesn’t
make her a racist, okay?”

Robert knew there was more to his
belief than the fact that Gilda had tattoos and rode a Harley, but he wasn’t
going to argue with Donald about any of his females.
 
He never listened to reason, Robert never
listened to him, their arguments always went nowhere.
 
Robert continued to scroll his messages.

“But why Gilda?” Tony asked
Donald.
 
“That is what I don’t
understand.
 
You and Bobby are the blonds
in the family.
 
Both of you took after our
mother.
 
And both of you have the worse
luck when it comes to women.
 
I thought
blonds had more fun?”

Robert grinned.
 
“They do,” he said with a raise of his
eyebrows.

“And why wouldn’t I like Gilda?”
Donald asked.
 
“She’s good people.
 
And who are you to talk anyway, Tony?
 
She looks way better than those ugly barfs
you always go for.”

Robert laughed.

Before Tony could respond, the front
door opened on the opposite end of the great room, and Ashley walked in.
 
This was their new home that was built after
a fire took out their old home, and everybody was still adjusting to the
difference.
 
Everybody was also adjusting
to Ashley’s appearance.
 
“You look like
Don King’s sister,” Tony said to her.

Ashley, however, gave Tony the hand
and continued to stare at Donald.

“What’s the matter with you?” Donald
asked as she approached him.
 
He and
Ashley were best friends.
 
“What happened
to you?”

“Like really, Donnie?” Ashley asked
as she stood beside him. “You’re
here
?”

Donald was puzzled.
 
“Where was I supposed to be?”

“Bobby said he dropped you off at
crazy lady’s house three days ago.”

“And I did,” Robert said.

“Stop calling her that,” Donald
said.
 
“She’s not crazy.”

“She’d better be glad that’s all I
call her,” Ashley said, “when I get through with her.”

“I take it crazy lady is responsible
for your new hairdo?” Tony asked.

“What happened?” Donald asked,
looking at her disheveled hair.

But Ashley pushed him on his
arm.
 
“
Where were you
?
 
We’ve been
all over this town looking for you.
 
Nobody heard from you for three days.
 
You have Ma worried about you!”

“Perhaps you could have phoned him on
his cell phone,” Tony suggested.

“
Duh
,”
Ashley said.
 
“That was the first thing
we did, Genius.
 
He wasn’t answering his
cell phone.”

“Don’t pay Tony and Bobby any mind,”
Donald said.
 
“They think they’re smart
because they have book knowledge, when neither one of them have any common
sense.
 
They’re just a couple of---”

“
Educated
fools
,” Donald and Ashley said together, and then high-fived.
 
“So don’t even give them a response to their
foolish suggestions,” Donald added.

“But where were you?” Ashley
asked.
 
“We went to your girlfriend’s
house on Bronson and she tried to beat me and Ma’s ass.”

Everybody was astounded.
 
“She
what
?”
Tony asked.
 
“She put her hands on
Jenay?”

“You’re lying, Ash,” Donald said.

“For real though,” Ashley said.
 
“Look at my hair, if you don’t believe
me.
 
She dragged me across her little
front porch and knocked down Ma and tried to drag her too.”

Tony stood erect.
 
“Is Ma alright?” he asked.

“She’s alright,” Ashley said.
 
“And so am I, Tone, even though I know you
aren’t going to ask.”

“Gilda dragged Ma?” Donald asked,
still astonished.

“She tried to,” Ashley responded.

Even Robert had stopped strolling for
messages on his cell phone and was listening too.
 
“What’s wrong with that lady?” he asked.
 
“Wait till Dad hears about this.
 
He won’t beat a girl, but he’s going to beat
Gilda’s ass when he finds out she touched Ma.”

“Dad was there,” Ashley said, and
everybody looked at her.
 
“He almost
threw that woman off the porch getting her off of Ma.
 
You should have seen him.
 
He was red hot, you hear me?
 
He told me to get my black ass back home,
which I have done, and he’s personally driving Ma home as I speak.”

Tony looked at Ashley
doubtfully.
 
“Dad, our father, told you
to get your
black
ass back home?”
Tony had suspicion in his eyes.
 
“Somehow
I rather doubt Dad used that terminology.”

“He didn’t,” Robert said, as he
returned his attention back to his cell phone messages.
 
“Ash is just being the drama queen as usual.”

“Okay,” Ashley admitted, “he didn’t
say black.
 
But so what?
 
He told me to get my ass back home.
 
What’s the difference?”

“There is no difference,” Donald
agreed.
 
“But you see what I mean?
 
They major in the minor things of life and
still think they’re so smart.”

“You really have a complex about our
intellect, little brother,” Tony said.
 
“You really ought to have that checked.”

Robert grinned.

“You really ought to go play with
yourself, big brother,” Donald replied, and Ashley laughed.

“But for real though,” Ashley then
said to Donald.
 
“Where were you?”

 
“I was with Gilda,” Donald admitted.
 
“At least I was until this morning when I was barely awake and she
wanted some more.
 
I couldn’t take it
anymore.
 
My johnson couldn’t take it
anymore.
 
That woman wears me out, I’m
telling you!”

Ashley laughed, and so did Tony and
Robert.

“I’m serious,” Donald said
seriously.
 
“At first it was
exciting.
 
I could play hooky from work
for a few days and just hang out with this nympho.
 
This world class nympho.
 
But that gets stale real quick when it’s day
in and day out all the time twenty-four-seven no time to breathe or shit or do
anything else!”

They all laughed.

“I had to get my
white ass
away from there,” Donald added.

Tony and Robert looked at each other
and rolled their eyes.
 
“Now he’s
channeling drama queen Ashley, of all people,” Robert said.
 
“What is this world coming to?”

Donald looked up when he heard a door
slam outside and saw his father’s big truck through the bay window across the
room.
 
Charles had gotten out and was
walking toward the passenger side.
 
“Dad
just drove up,” Donald said.
 
Since he
and Ashley were the only two standing on the opposite side of the island, she
looked too.
 
“With Mom,” Donald added
when Charles opened the passenger door and Jenay stepped out.

“Does he look angry?” Robert asked
without bothering to look behind him.

Donald looked at his brother.
 
“When does Dad not look angry?” he asked.

“When he’s with one of his three
favorite children,” Tony said.

“Three?” Ashley asked.
 
“What three?
 
I know Carly is his favorite, and little Bonita.
 
But who’s number three?”

Robert looked at her as if she had
lost her mind.
 
“Think, child.
 
Think.”

“Stop asking her to do something that
is woefully unfamiliar to her,” Tony responded.

“Ha ha, very funny,” Ashley
said.
 
Then she realized who Donald
meant.
 
“Oh, Brent!” she said.
 
“Yeah, right.
 
Him too.”

The front door opened, and Charles
and Jenay walked in.
 
When Jenay saw
Donald, she broke from Charles and headed toward him.
 
“Well good afternoon, Mr. Sinatra,” she said
to him.

“I was going to call you, Ma,” Donald
said, “but I forgot.”

“You forgot that you’re being paid,
quite handsomely by your father I might add, to do a job?
 
To show up for work when you’re scheduled to
be there?”

“I know,” Donald said.
 
“Sorry.”

“Where were you?” Charles asked as he
made his way to the kitchen area too.

“With crazy lady,” Ashley said.

But then a TV commercial came on that
mentioned their name by name.
 
All of
them looked toward the television screen.

“If you vote for me,” said Herb
Cruikshank, a tall politician at a campaign rally, “I will put an end to
Sinatra domination in Jericho County once and for all!”

The rally crowd cheered vigorously.

“I’ll kick that Brent Sinatra out of
that same back door he walked in when he first became chief of police.
 
He wasn’t next in line for that job.
 
Nowhere near it.
 
But Big Daddy got him that job.”

Tony couldn’t believe it.
 
“What a blatant lie,” he said.

“And I won’t stop there,” Cruikshank
continued.
 
“I’ll get rid of Makayla
Sinatra too.
 
Elect me and she’ll be out
as our District Attorney.”
 
The audience
applauded wildly.

But Robert was confused.
 
“He can’t do that,” he said.
 
“Can he?”

But those with the answers, Charles,
Jenay, and Tony, were still staring at the television.

“I’ll kick her right out,” Cruikshank
continued.
 
“Right along with her corrupt
husband the chief.
 
She’s not a
Jerichodian anyway.
 
She’s just some
outsider nobody never heard of before she came to town.
 
How did she get that job over all of those
good men and women who’d spent years in the DA’s office?
 
Big Daddy rigged the system, that’s how.
 
He got her that job!”

“Lie after lie,” Tony said.
 
“Who would vote for such a person?”