Double Dippin' (37 page)

“Naw, that’s my shorty, man.” Brick threw up his hands in mock defeat. “Man, she runs the show. When she sees something she likes, ain’t shit I can do.”

“For real, man. It’s like that?”

“Hey, we gotta understanding.”

The clerk slapped hands with Brick. “That’s whassup, man.”

Brick had to laugh. He couldn’t hold it in. Misty was a cold-blooded ho. She knew just what to say when she wanted something. The clerk would be giving up all the tapes on Shane.

As he and Misty were leaving the apartment building, Brick pulled her to the side. “Don’t be trying to twist that shit around. That’s your trick. You fuck him and don’t be trying to get him to suck my dick.”

“Man, your dick ain’t gold. That freak wants some of my tight shit.” She patted her crotch.

“Why you lie to that man. Your pussy ain’t tight. You know my eleven inches got your shit stretched wide open.”

“No, baby. I’ve been away and my pussy done tightened up.”

“Whatever. Why ain’t you tell dude to get us a cab; I gotta get some sleep,” Brick complained.

Misty and Brick turned around and walked back to the desk clerk.

“Do you know where we can find a room somewhere nearby?” she asked.

He gave her the address of a rooming house on Chelten Avenue.

“Can you call us a cab?”

“You can walk. It’s right up the hill. Walk down Rittenhouse, make a left on Wissahicon and another left on Chelten. The rooming house is on the left-hand side of the street.” The clerk paused. “Can I stop by after I get off?” Then he deferred to Brick. “If it’s all right with you, man.”

Brick yawned and shrugged. “That’s between y’all. I’ma be knocked out—sound asleep.”

The clerk smiled at the notion of Brick being asleep while he and Misty knocked boots.

With the address in her purse, Misty and Brick left the apartment building.

“Can you believe Shane is getting it on with his own brother’s wife?” Misty said. “What a dog; dicking down his brother’s wife. Shane ain’t shit. Nevah was; nevah will be.”

As they neared the corner of Rittenhouse and Wissahicon, Misty and Brick stopped. Astonishment covered their faces as Tariq came out of the A Plus mini market. Striding toward Rittenhouse Street, Tariq turned a bottle of Mystic Ice Tea up to his lips.

“Aw shit. It’s gonna be some drama tonight. Fuck that rooming house, we gon’ follow Tariq.”

“Dayum, he looks happy as hell,” Misty commented.

“That sucka ain’t got no idea what he’s about to walk into,” Brick replied, shaking his head. “Knowing Shane, he’s probably charging up Janelle with his brother’s hard-earned money.”

“That shit ain’t funny. I’m starting to hate Shane,” Misty said in a soft voice.

Lurking in the shadows, Misty and Brick followed Tariq. They watched through the big picture window of the apartment building as Tariq waved to the guard. They saw the guard call him over and say something that made Tariq’s face break into a wide grin.

Misty shook her head again. She knew the clerk had told Tariq that his brother was upstairs visiting. Being the stupid-ass she perceived Tariq to be, she figured the poor fool probably thought the brother he worshipped was upstairs making a social call.

“Every dog has his day,” Misty said to Brick. “And Shane’s about to get busted.”

“Damn, I don’t know what got into me. How could I do this to Tariq?” Shane asked aloud. He grabbed his head in anguish.

“Shane, don’t worry. It’s okay. I’ll talk to Tariq. He loves you; he’ll understand.”

He pushed Janelle away from him as if he didn’t have a clue as to how he’d ended up in her and Tariq’s bed. He felt as if he’d been hypnotized. How could he ever look his brother in the eye? A lump formed in his throat. Their lives had irrevocably changed. And it was his fault. All his fault.

He didn’t want Janelle; he couldn’t stand her. It was the milk that had caused him to lose all self-control. “What do you mean, you’ll talk to him? I’ll bust you in your mouth—I’ll fuckin’ kill your ass if you ever mention a word of this to Tariq.”

Shane would rather kill himself than hurt Tariq. He had to be crazy to stick his dick inside his brother’s wife. Insanity ran in families, he’d heard. He was probably as crazy as his birth mother had been. He had a mental problem; he needed help; he realized that now. He prayed to God to spare Tariq the knowledge of his betrayal and promised he’d go to a psychiatrist and find out what was wrong with him if God would just answer his prayer.

“Shane, what are you saying? I thought we had an understanding.”

Naked, Shane got out of the bed and started looking on the floor for his clothes. He had to get out of there.

At that moment, the lock to the front door clicked and turned.

Shane’s and Janelle’s eyes locked in terror. By the time he spotted his jeans, which were tangled in the bed linen, Tariq was walking fast down the hall that led to the bedroom.

“Janelle,” he sang his wife’s name. “Hey, baby! We finished the job early…”

I
n a matter of seconds, Tariq was in the bedroom. His eyes took in the surreal scene. As if paralyzed by disbelief, at first he didn’t react. Then, his head snapped back as if he’d been sucker punched. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes as if hoping against hope the unbelievable scene wasn’t real. Tariq let out a loud gasp. Both hands cupped his gaping mouth, and then Tariq took off running. He ran blindly out the door and darted down the stairs that led to the main lobby.

Shane shot Janelle a murderous look and roughly shoved her out of his way. Cursing Janelle, he hurriedly put on his pants and shirt. He didn’t have time to put on his shoes; he had to catch up with Tariq. He had to explain. He had to beg his brother for forgiveness.

Barefoot, Shane ran to the elevator. But there was no sign of Tariq. His brother must have taken the back stairs. Calling Tariq’s name, Shane ran down the seven flights of stairs. When he reached the lobby, the desk clerk pointed to the front door.

Running as fast as he could, Shane zoomed out of the building, not feeling the pain as his bare feet hit the hard concrete. However, he stopped cold when he saw Misty and Brick. Their presence in the scenario seemed crazy, like a senseless, disjointed dream. With no time to figure out why they were there, Shane ignored his former friends and ran down Rittenhouse Street, yelling Tariq’s name at the top of his lungs.

As Shane barreled down the street, he heard screeching tires and then a nasty thud, like the crashing sound of a car making impact with something.
The sudden and horrifying sound brought his movement to a terrifying standstill.

Shane’s chest felt like it had caught on fire. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t speak. Most likely he was having a heart attack, he decided, as he found himself on the ground unable to move—gasping for air. He tried to scream his brother’s name, but it came out in a hoarse whisper,
Tariq!

Shane tried to pull himself up; he had to move; he had to get up, he had to find Tariq and make sure his brother was all right.

Shane crawled until his head stopped spinning. When he stood up, Misty and Brick vaulted past him, faces etched in morbid curiosity as they hurried to the scene Shane was too afraid to see.

Hobbling like a drunk, Shane finally made it to the corner of Rittenhouse Street and Wissahicon Avenue. He saw a man pacing frantically. “He came out of nowhere,” the man shouted. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t see him until I hit him. I swear to God, he deliberately ran right into my car.”

Tariq’s body, twisted in an unnatural position, lay in the middle of the street. Blood poured from the back of his head, his mouth, his nose, and his ears. The blood flowing from Tariq trailed down the black asphalt until it pooled and formed into a bizarre shape. Squinting in disbelief, Shane made out the image. Just like their mother, Tariq’s blood had spread into the shape of a pair of red wings.

“You no-good bastard, look what you did to your own brother,” Misty spat in Shane’s face. Brick shook his head in disgust. But their insults and open loathing didn’t penetrate. Shane’s world stood still and then went black as he collapsed to the ground beside his twin.

“It was a beautiful funeral,” Janelle reminded Shane a year later. “Tariq didn’t even look dead. He was as handsome in his casket as he was in life.”

“Tariq’s dead?” Shane asked in an eerily vacant voice. It was his depressed voice. And although Janelle didn’t enjoy hearing
that
voice, it was far better than listening to the harsh ranting tone he’d started using after Tariq’s death.

Back then Shane’s behavior could only be described as psychotic, but Janelle convinced herself that his angry utterances were caused by grief. She’d taken him into her home with the idea that once Shane’s grief had subsided, he’d replace the father Lil’ Man had lost; the husband she’d lost.

Kapri had divorced Shane, kicked him to the curb, and Janelle believed that since Shane was a free man, it was his responsibility to help her raise his brother’s son. She couldn’t imagine any other man raising Lil’ Man. She was certain Tariq would approve of her decision.

Janelle hadn’t, however, bargained on living with a man whose violent eruptions were so frequent and so severe she had to confine him with handcuffs and isolate him from the public.

Handcuffed, furious, and frothing at the mouth, Shane would shout obscenities for hours on end. He was delusional, and when he tired from shouting, he’d mumble a litany of false accusations. A frequent theme was that Tariq was still alive. At other times, he ranted that Janelle had murdered Tariq and had hidden his body in the basement or locked his body away, unclaimed, in a hospital morgue.

Desperate to escape, desperate to rescue Tariq, Shane often tried to break
free of the handcuffs. “I have to go get Tariq. I gotta get him from that funeral parlor before the mortician puts that embalming fluid in him.”

“Tariq’s gone,” Janelle would say. “He’s dead.”

Then Shane would drop his head, disconsolate, and mutter in anguish.

Whenever his ex-wife Kapri called, he would accuse her of starving their son, K’Shan. Shane also had a beef with his former friends, Misty and Brick. In Shane’s mind, the duo had conspired with the driver of the car that had hit Tariq. He vowed to strangle them both the moment he was free of the handcuffs.

Finally worn down, Janelle had no choice but to accept that Shane’s mental status was beyond grief. He was getting crazier by the minute and she wanted him back to normal. She and her son deserved an intact family, so Janelle had Shane committed to a psychiatric hospital, demanding a quick cure for his condition.

The psychiatrist diagnosed Shane as schizophrenic. His condition wavered from catatonic, where he sat in one spot for hours, to paranoia when he was terrified of demons coming to get him. And then there was rage.

“But he was perfectly normal before his brother was killed,” she’d said to the doctor, bewildered by the diagnosis. “He wasn’t crazy at all.”

“During the course of his life, I’m sure there were some telltale signs that his mental health was abnormal. There were probably subtle indications that went undetected due to his inconsistent home life and upbringing,” the doctor said. “Seeing a patient presenting symptoms seemingly for the first time between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two is not uncommon. In Shane’s case, there could be a genetic factor involved. Based on the information you’ve provided regarding his mother’s mental health, it’s possible that both he and his deceased brother could have been afflicted with the disability. But today, with modern medicine, Shane should be able to function normally.”

After his thirty-day stay in the psychiatric hospital, Shane returned home medicated and submissive. While he was subdued with medication, Janelle promptly marched him to the justice of the peace and became his wife.

“Tariq is dead, Shane. You were at the funeral,” Janelle finally told Shane. “Don’t you remember how Kapri had a fit when I told her you wouldn’t be sitting with her and K’Shan…remember how she started crying and making a scene when I told her you’d be sitting up front with me and Lil’ Man?”

Shane shook his head. “How long does Tariq have to stay at the funeral?”

“Forever, Shane,” she said, as if talking to a child. “He’s not coming home.”

Janelle instantly regretted her words. Shane’s expression darkened and then the tears began to fall.

She missed Tariq, too, but she had moved on. Shane had taken his place. As soon as Shane was back to normal, they’d put the past behind them and move forward as a real family. A husband and wife with kids.

And she was working hard at getting Shane back to speed. For one thing, she’d made a risky decision and had taken him off his medication. Janelle didn’t like her husband moving around like a zombie. Besides, the medication had side effects that made him feel sick and had also decreased Shane’s sex drive, and his inability to perform in bed was unacceptable.

Shane had been off his medication for months and his symptoms hadn’t returned. He wasn’t his normal self yet, but miraculously, he wasn’t psychotic either.