Drive Me Crazy (8 page)

“But your brother ... this thing ... this devil inside him ... he ain’t like us. Most people are sheep. They do what they are led to do. He has been led in the wrong direction. We have to look over him. Get him back on the right path.”

His speech faded. I went back to watching and not watching the television.

Rufus didn’t say much when he came back down. The pretty girl he had done his thirty minutes of therapy with, she closed her red robe and pushed her lips up into a whore’s smile.

Reverend Daddy stood, gave her the same regard as he did all women, his fedora in one hand, empty glass of whiskey glued in the other. He asked, “How he do this time?”

“Better than the last time.”

“What that mean?”

“He did good, Reverend.”

“He like it?”

“Yessir. He made me call Jesus so much I thought—”

“Don’t blaspheme, child. Remember who you talking to. I’m His representative.”

“Yessir. I apologize.”

They talked like Rufus was resting in a cot on the moon.

My eyes went to my brother. He saw how I was worried about him. It was always unspoken between us. Never knew how to say what I felt, hardly knew right from wrong. Just followed my old man’s wishes like the rest of his sheep, without questioning.

Reverend Daddy took out his wallet and handed the redbone girl a folded twenty.

He asked her, “You here next Saturday?”

“Yessir, Reverend.”

“I’ll bring him back ‘round the same time.”

“Yessir.”

“You tell anybody he come in here and do thangs with you?”

“Yessir.”

“Who you told?”

“Everybody I see.”

“Good. Make sure you come to church one time.”

“Yessir.”

“Tell everybody you see, young and old.”

After that Reverend Daddy took us up to Thrifty Drug Store, bought us ice cream.

By the time Rufus and me made it to the foyer, the front door opened. Pasquale stepped inside. A walnut-colored man with dark hair that curled like ocean waves. He was average height with a chis eled body dressed in FUBU and Timberland. All Hollywood muscles, the kind made for television and would never last two minutes in a street fight. He was an actor on one of those Negro Night sitcoms, played a heterosexual teacher that all the pretty women wanted.

I nodded. “What’s up, Pascal?”

“Pasquale,” he corrected.

I gave him a rugged smile, then a brief nod. There was no love for me in his eyes, that same reflection in mine. He spoke out of the left side of his mouth. He thought that made him look cool and tough. I’d seen tough. He wasn’t it. It just made him look like he’d had a stroke.

He cleared his throat, checked me out, saw my ripped pant leg, might’ve seen the blood staining my shirt and suit coat, then twisted his lips and told me, “Good evening.”

His eyes went to Rufus, returned to my hard stare, then back to Rufus. The energy was off, like he was waiting to see how Rufus was going to greet him. Rufus was waiting to see what Pasquale was going to do. My brother stood between us, shifting back and forth, pulling at his locks, then toying with his earrings, eyes glazed over, his soul sinking in quicksand.

Alexithymia.
That fifty-dollar crossword-puzzle word popped into my aching head. Maybe because Rufus kept moving, as restless as a shark, like he had to keep swimming in his thoughts so he wouldn’t have to stop and acknowledge everything that felt wrong in his world.

Rufus said, “We missed our flight.”

Pasquale shrugged a gangsta shrug. “Changed my mind.”

“Changed your mind?”

“Changed my mind.”

Rufus’s jaw clenched, made a popping sound, his gray eyes misted up.

A bright light flashed across the bay window. Somebody in an Expedition was turning around in the driveway, their high beams clicking low to high and back to low. I saw the egotistical rims. Spinners. Those cost ten thousand each. It headed back down the hill.

Shoulders square, Pasquale moved his gangster stroll across the marble foyer to the lush carpet, took to the spiral staircase without looking back, took the stairs two at a time.

Rufus walked me outside, his arms folded. I told Rufus part of the truth about my injury. Told little brother that it was because of a loan I’d gotten from Lisa that I needed to repay.

I said, “She called me an Uncle Tom.”

“No she didn’t. She called you Uncle Tom and she’s riding the pink dick?”

“Bet.”

Rufus shook his head. “You should’ve beat her ass. Remember how you beat down that security guard at Boy’s Market? That’s how you should’ve slapped some sense into her ass.”

We both laughed a raucous laugh at that memory.

After Reverend Daddy died, if we did have food stamps, that ghetto money could be used to barter for other things the same way people bartered with cigarettes behind The Wall. So when we got to Boy’s Market, Momma taught us how to steal. She’d sewn pockets in the linings of our jackets. The trick was to work quick and not put anything too heavy in your jacket lining. The weight would be a dead giveaway. Rufus got caught when he was sixteen. I was eighteen. Security followed Rufus out, grabbed his jacket, and a pack of frozen chicken wings fell to the ground. I was behind them, so he didn’t see me walking in his shadow. Cat was bigger, older too. Had gray hair in both his Curl and the bottom of his goatee. But I always protected my brother the best I could. No matter what the cost. There were two blows. I hit that security guard in the middle of his face. He hit the ground. His bloodied and broken nose told me that the fight was over. I knew right from wrong. But, right or wrong, you didn’t grab a man in the ghetto without expecting a fight.

Rufus laughed and slapped his legs with his palms. “Lord, I can still remember how he looked up at us and screamed.
Run. Make it look like I’m chasing you. Nigga, I don’t wanna lose my fuckin’ job. I got three kids. This all I got. Pick up the chicken and run, nigga, run.
”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You grabbed that chicken and ran like the wind.”

“If I’d run home
without
that bird, Momma would’ve beat me until Gabriel blew his horn. After Reverend Daddy, Momma picked up right where he left off. She’d hit you and you’d just stand there and look at her. I’d look at you and think, Lord, please don’t let that nigga hit Momma. She’ll kill us all.”

Our laughter gradually died. Thought about the days when I’d shoot craps to come up on some cash, break into somebody’s home, hook up with an older woman who had a fetish for young dick. Sometimes I just got a job. We let the misty memories of our past go. Then I closed my eyes, had another one of those moments I had from time to time. A sort of philosophical moment where I wondered if the life and things around me were just a product of my own mind.

Rufus said, “Yessir. Reverend Daddy taught us how to lie and Momma taught us how to steal.”

“That they did.”

I touched the wound behind my ear. Blood and pain told me this life was real.

I opened my eyes, told my brother, “I need quick cash to get her off my back.”

“When did she start tripping?”

“When I quit dicking her down.”

“Duh. Why didn’t you just keep on fucking her? All she wanted was some attention and some dick. Hell, she’s frustrated with pinky and wants the chocolate thunder.”

We laughed like two men in a locker room. His was deep and true, mine uneasy.

The anger in Lisa’s eyes; still saw it. I told Rufus that she had pointed her Glock at me.

That changed his disposition.

He said, “She’s a horrible human being. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. She looks like her mother, but she’s a nutcase just like her father. That Jekyll and Hyde would smile at the people at noon then destroy his enemies at midnight. He ran Compton the same way she’s coming at you. People cheered when he had a stroke. That stroke saved a lot of people’s lives.”

“Could you make it sound a little worse, Rufus? Could you do that for me?”

A cool breeze rustled through the palm trees.

He folded his arms and rocked. “Should I ask how much you owe her?”

“Don’t ask. And change your damn posture.”

He straightened up before he asked, “Do I need to call somebody?”

“I’m cool. She’s bluffing.”

“You should sneak in her house and piss in her Listerine.”

“Rufus,
c‘mon man. That’s nasty.”

“Or put some depilatory in her perm. Remember when I did that to Peter? He had curly hair and used a mild perm to make the curls a little wavier. I bought extra-strength perm and mixed it together with Nair and put it on his head, rubbed it all through his damn hair. When he said it was starting to burn, I told him, ‘Well, you only have a few more minutes.’ ”

My expression shut his laughter down.

He said, “You should look up Ray Ray. Now that’s one crazy-ass nigga. He’ll fuck a heifer like Lisa up for a value meal at McDonald’s and you won’t even have to supersize.”

I thought on it and shook my head. “A man handles his own problems, Rufus.”

“Oh, please. If that was the case Bush would’ve gone to Baghdad his damn self.”

“Whatever.”

“If you can’t find Ray Ray, what about Andre?”

“Rufus, I’m not calling in the cavalry because of a damn woman.”

“Newsflash. A bitch with a gun ain’t no woman. That bitch has balls.”

We both sat there, rubbing hand over hand, same thing Reverend Daddy used to do.

For a moment, I wished I had done whatever it took to keep the peace. For a moment. I thought about Wolf, how good he had been to me, like another brother, and I shook my head. I wasn’t a saint. I’d bedded a few married women, would experience another married woman and send her home wearing my scent without a second thought, but not if she was the wife of a friend.

We all had our lines in the sand, even if those lines didn’t run deep.

“Rufus, can you borrow ... get a cash advance from ... from ... a charge card?”

Rufus sucked his lips. “I’m broke and my credit is so fucked up right now it ain’t funny. Insurance doesn’t cover all of my expenses. I’m on disability because of Epstein-Barr. Hell, I was about to call you and ask you for another loan.”

His ailments were old news. I let out a sigh. Epstein-Barr was also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the yuppie disease that made him feel like he had the flu off and on.

He said, “Hell, maybe I should write a book like
Dawning of Ignorance
and see if I can get a million dollars.”

I motioned at the house. “What about Mr. Hollywood?”

Rufus shook his head and said, “Things are pretty bad between us right now.”

I didn’t press what was up. Didn’t want to know.

“We have some issues.” He nodded. “Pasquale had to get a second to get a lot of work done around here, outside of that he’s tight with his money, unless it’s going to benefit him.”

“How bad are things with you and your ... him? Nothing physical. No fighting or no bullshit like that.”

“Nothing like that.”

“I’ll kick that motherfucker’s ass if—”

“Nothing like that. He’s a pacifist. Nothing going on I can’t handle.”

I went back to silence. That was all I wanted to know.

“Pasquale’s done enough for me,” Rufus said, then looked down at his hands. Big hands, uncallused, nails trimmed to perfection. “Too much. I need to come up with money myself. Plus he’s put so much money into decorating this house. Redid the kitchen, all four bathrooms. ”

I nodded. He wouldn’t loan Rufus money to bury my momma. So I knew he wasn’t going to loan a dime to help keep me alive. My life wasn’t his responsibility anyway.

“So axing ...” He paused.
“Ass-k
...
assk
...
asssking
... him wouldn’t do any good.”

I smiled a brief smile. He did too. For a moment we were two little boys.

His voice cracked, “That should’ve been me in Memphis.”

“Shut up, Rufus.”

He folded his arms and pulled his lips in, those dull eyes misting up.

I got inside my car, started my engine, put my brother’s million-dollar lifestyle in my rearview, took to the narrow street and headed down the hill to mingle with the hoi polloi.

I’d left without telling my brother good-bye. Or I loved him. We always parted like that. Abruptly and with tension, like we were running away from any real emotions that festered inside us. Habits we picked up from our parents. Only we understood our dysfunctionality.

I gripped the steering wheel, the cool night air chilling my skin. I’d almost told Rufus that Lisa had paid me fifteen thousand to kill her husband. But Momma had died and left us in a bind. I had used that money to bury Momma. Didn’t seem like I had a choice at the time.

Just like I didn’t have a choice when those drug-sniffing police dogs started barking.

No. Rufus wouldn‘t’ve survived on the other side of The Wall.

Like I did when frustration bloomed and spread inside me, I told myself that I’d made some fucked-up choices in my life, but saving Rufus and burying Momma were the good ones.

A man had to do right by his momma. And blood was thicker than water.

My cellular phone beeped. It was hooked up to the car charger. I had at least one message. Hoped it was Lisa, but the call was from Arizona. She had hit me about an hour ago.

“Too bad you didn’t answer. Plans changed. My friend won’t be in town until tomorrow. Was hoping you’d have paged me. I like that. You’re different.” Her voice was honey. “Love chocolate. Love mature men. Love mature men in nice suits and nice shoes.”

She paused, made a few sounds, all soft and sensual, arousing and disturbing as hell.

“Your kisses ... haven’t had kisses in a long time. Forgot what that was like. You were corny, but for some reason I was feeling you. Been a while since I was this attracted to a man.”