Outcast (23 page)

Armed with her photo, when the flight landed in New York, the police were waiting. Two plainclothes detectives spied an older woman in the crowd who resembled Alex, and rightly assumed that it must be her mother. They watched vigilantly as the passengers deplaned. When Alex walked past the gate and embraced the woman they pounced.

“Alexandra Solomon?”

Alex looked around as if to suggest they couldn't possibly be addressing her. “I'm sorry. I think you have the wrong person.”

“No, ma'am,” one of the detectives replied, flashing her photo. “We have exactly who we're looking for.”

“Please put your hands behind your back, ma'am.”

“You're making a mistake.”

One of the detectives, a female, reached out to grab her.

Alex jerked away. “Get your hands off me.”

She reached for Alex again. “Ma'am, don't make this harder on yourself.”

“She didn't do anything,” her mother defended her, clutching her chest and wheezing.

“We got a call from the Fulton County Police Department in Atlanta, Georgia to detain her.”

“For what?”

“Attempted murder.”

Jamilah Solomon gasped.

Alex continued to struggle. “Get your damn hands off me.”

The more formidable male detective manhandled her and twisted her arm behind her back.

“You're hurting her,” Jamilah Solomon screamed, and pounded the man in the back.

After cuffing Alex he passed her off to his partner and took hold of the elder Solomon. “Lady, are you trying to get arrested?”

“Let my daughter go!”

“Mama, I'm all right.”

“I'm not going to stand here and let them do this to you.” Jamilah Solomon kicked the officer.

“That's it. Let's go.”

She collapsed into the man's arms.

“You don't need to be so rough with her, you jackass. She has asthma,” Alex screamed. “Mama, where's your inhaler?”

The officer grudgingly eased Jamilah into a chair. Alex looked on helplessly as she fumbled through her purse for her medication.

Once her breathing returned to normal, Jamilah regained her composure. Passersby stopped, pointed, and gawked as both she and her belligerent mother were escorted away from the concourse.

Tirrell tossed and turned on the uncomfortable cot in The Mission, but he couldn't sleep. The pain in his muscles was excruciating. His back was drenched with sweat and he was nauseous. Feeling as if he were about to vomit, he sat up and glanced across the dark room, sickened by the sight of a mob of crusty, hard-ankled men just like him. He felt queasy, bolted to the bathroom, and emptied the contents of his stomach. He threw cold water on his face and stared at his drawn image in the mirror. “How the fuck did I get here?” He slid down the wall and sat on the floor, twitching and scratching at invisible insects he felt crawling on his skin.

Several minutes passed before he left the bathroom, fished some change from his pocket, and stole away to the payphone in the corridor. It was after midnight and he knew the phone was off-limits at that hour, but he felt a virulent pull for a fix. He knew that if he walked out the front door of The Mission this time, he wasn't coming back.

“Mr. P . . . I'm sorry I'm callin' so late. I didn't know what else to do.”

“Damn, Tirrell. What happened?”

“Nothin' yet. But, my stomach is burnin', and my hands won't stop shakin'. I'm sweatin'. I just need . . .”

“C'mon, Tirrell. You gotta fight it, man. You promised me—thirty days and thirty meetings, right? You can do this. You have to.”

“I can't.”

“Don't tell me you can't. I know it's hard, but you gotta do it.”

“Can you come and get me? Maybe we can go get some coffee or somethin'?”

“You know I can't do that. There are rules and I broke 'em before to get you in there. I can't do it again.”

“Dude, I'm not gon' make it.”

“Have you used at all today?”

“No.”

“All right, then. A day clean is a day won. One step at a time, Tirrell. Before you know it you'll be lookin' back and you'll be amazed at how far you've come. And I'll be there to cheer you on, but only if you don't punk out and give up.”

Tirrell tried to quell his anger. “I don't need speeches! I need help.”

“What do you think I been tryin' to give you?”

Tirrell slammed down the receiver without so much as a good-bye. He brushed the dryness of his lips and vacillated between leaving and staying. With tears in his eyes he crept back into the bay of bunks, climbed into his bed, curled up, and rocked like a baby. “I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.”

 

 

Tirrell woke up the next morning, cleaned up, and reported to the kitchen to help with breakfast. He was listless and fatigued, but he'd made it through the night.

“Withdrawal's a bitch, ain't it?”

He looked up across the counter and saw a gangling, stringy, redheaded, freckle-faced man who couldn't have been much older than he was.

“It hurts like a son-of-a-bitch,” Tirrell responded.

“It gets better. Doesn't feel like it, but it does. At least that's the drill,” the man said.

“Sounds like you've had a li'l bit of experience.”

“I've been in and out—and in and out—now I'm back in. Third time's the charm, right?”

Tirrell smirked. “What you're sayin' is the program doesn't work.”

“It works if you work it—sucks if you don't.”

“So, why'd you come back?”

“I like the food.”

They both laughed.

“My name's Sean.”

“Tirrell.”

“Well, with any luck, Tirrell, maybe we can both make it through to the other side.”

“From your mouth to God's ears, Sean.”

After breakfast all the men went about their various chores until it was time for a required counseling session. They were asked to participate in a trust lesson. Trust being a foreign concept for Tirrell, he chose just to sit and listen.

Sean started. “I used to shoot heroin and I was dumb enough to share a needle. Classic, right? I told myself what we all tell ourselves. ‘I can stop anytime I want. I can handle it—just this one last time and no more.' But there was always another time, and another reason to use because all I wanted was the feeling that it gave me. The feeling I couldn't live without. I traded my addiction for my fiancée and a good job makin' a pretty decent salary; none of that mattered then. Now, I have AIDS and I'm an outcast to my family and so-called friends . . . Suddenly everything matters.”

Tirrell squirmed and then got up and left the room. Mr. Preston was passing in the hall outside with some local volunteers who were dropping off clothing and food donations.

“You all right, Tirrell?”

He shook his head.

“Stay right there. I'll be right back.”

Mr. Preston saw the volunteers to the door and came back to find Tirrell sitting on the floor. His arms were extended outward with his elbows resting on his knees. He stared blankly forward. Mr. Preston sat down next to him.

“There's this guy in there named Sean. Did you know he had AIDS?”

“Would it surprise you to know that he's not the only one? A lot of addicts wind up sick or dead.”

Tirrell turned to face him.

“Does that freak you out?” Mr. Preston asked.

“Not really. I've done some shit that I never thought I would find myself doin'.”

“Is that why you left the session, because you didn't wanna talk about it?”

“Yeah. Plus I was thinkin' about today bein' my birthday and I'm stuck in this place. It's not as if I got anything to celebrate anyway.”

“You're alive, aren't you?”

Tirrell laughed. “Is that what this is?”

“What are you now? Thirty? Thirty-one?”

Tirrell turned to face Mr. Preston. “Damn, do I look that old?”

“I was just askin'.”

“I'm twenty-three. Birthdays ain't never meant that much to me before, but I miss my family. Ain't that a trip?”

“Not at all.”

“When I was growin' up, Noonie—that's what we call my grandmother—she would go out of her way to try to make my birthday special. She would bake me a German chocolate cake, from scratch, and cook all my favorite food for dinner. She'd invite Kevin and Jacqui, that's my half sister. Kevin wouldn't come. Jacqui came sometimes, and my boy Marquis—never really had that many friends my grandmother would let in her house. I took her for granted. I took a lot of shit for granted. You know I only went into the Army because she wanted me to. ‘Your grandfather served his country. It made a man out of him,' she said. So, I signed up. I thought it was the least I could do considerin' all she did for me. I hated it, though. I guess in a way I hated . . .”

“You hated what?”

“Nothin'.”

“You hated her for makin' you feel like you had to go? It was your choice to go. You can't be pissed off at your grandmother.”

Tears filled Tirrell's eyes. “Man, I don't hate my grandmother. Why would you say some fucked-up shit like that? She's the only good thing in my life. The Army just wasn't gonna do it for me, that's all. I was never gonna get all the commendations and shit like my granddaddy got, and I didn't want to be in no damn war I didn't believe in. I saw too many of my boys get deployed and I know what that shit did to them. I didn't want the same thing happenin' to me.”

“So you let them kick you out.”

“It was either that, or get locked up for tryin'a kill this dude. They gave me a choice. I took a dishonorable.”

“If that's all they did to you, you're lucky. Somebody must've been lookin' out for you.”

“I guess.”

“I did a turn in the Army too. It wasn't my thing either. But if I'd done what you did, I know my country ass would still be kickin' rocks somewhere in a government hellhole.”

Tirrell scoffed. “It don't matter. Whatever I do I'll still be a screw-up.”

“So you get high and that's s'pposed to change things?”

“I get high for the same reason everybody else does. So I don't have to deal with not livin' up to bein' what everybody thinks I should be, and just bein' what they expect me to be.”

“How about you stop bein' so concerned about how other people see you, and change the way you see yourself? That's the only way this is gonna work.”

“Wow! Why didn't I think of that before,” Tirrell sneered.

“After you turned in that file incriminatin' those dealers, you had to know what might go down. What did you think they would do, welcome you into the fold? Did you really think this one thing was gonna somehow magically wipe away all the other shit you did?”

“I don't wanna talk about this no more.”

“You feel guilty, don't you? 'Cause instead of makin' things better, you made 'em worse and got your grandmother shot in the process.”

Tirrell got up off the floor and brushed himself off. “To hell with you, man.”

“Uncoverin' truth and peelin' that onion is hard, ain't it?”

“Truth is bullshit. Just like this program. Just like you.” Tirrell ran up the hall and out the door.

Mr. Preston let him go.

 

 

Tirrell stood out in front of a MARTA station like a disenfranchised beggar asking for spare change. The inhumanity was more callous because he was on the receiving end now. An hour went by—then two—before he finally had enough money for a couple of tokens to ride the train. He rode to the Kensington station, hoping to find Tasha home from the salon. He figured if she cared enough to show up at the hospital there was maybe a small part of her that had some compassion left for him.

He spied her car parked out in front of her building and it excited him. He was even more so when he noted that Darnell's wasn't there.

He was unkempt and in desperate need of a shave and haircut. In an attempt to make his appearance more suitable, he tucked in his shirt and smoothed down his hair with the palms of his hands before he knocked.

“Who is it?”

“It's Tirrell.”

There was no immediate response. He didn't know whether to leave or knock again. The door finally opened.

“Can I come in? I promise not to do anything stupid.” Tasha moved back and allowed him inside.

Tirrell started to sit, but opted to stand. He walked over to the large patio doors and peered out. “Where's Darnell?”

“Out of town.”

“Did I catch you at a bad time? You're not expectin' company, are you?”

“I wasn't expectin' you. But, if you're referring to Rickey, we're not seein' each other anymore.”

He resisted the urge to gloat.

“Why are you here, Tirrell?”

“I'm glad you're home. I really wanted to see you.”

“I heard that Miss Betty was breathin' on her own now.”

“Is she? I wouldn't know.”

“Kevin still won't let you see her?”

“To tell you the truth I haven't tried since the last time.”

“Why not?”

Tirrell turned to face her. “Look at me. I hardly recognize myself. I know she won't.”

“What have you been doin' to yourself? Where have you been stayin'?”

“It's a long story.”

“You look hungry. You want somethin' to eat?”

Tirrell chuckled. “It's not gonna be a salad is it?”

Tasha laughed. “I think I could come up with somethin' better than that. Tell you what, why don't I go get my clippers and give you a trim, and you can take a shower while I fix you some food.”

“Sounds good.”

Tirrell took off his shirt and followed Tasha into her bedroom. She sat him down in a chair, removed a nylon cape from her bag, and snapped it around his neck. He closed his eyes and lost himself in her touch. There was nothing sexual about it, just her closeness, and her closeness made him yearn for her. She followed the haircut by trimming the stubble on his face. He reached out and caressed her hand.

“Stop,” she chided. “You're gonna make me mess up.”

Tasha vacuumed the loose hair on the rug when she finished. Tirrell stripped and climbed in the shower.

He called out from the bathroom. “You wanna join me?”

“I'll pass.”

Tirrell removed the bandage from his leg and luxuriated in the hot water. There was no one pounding at the door waiting to be next. It was the best shower he'd had in a long time.

He cleared the steam from the mirror after he toweled off and took stock of his weight loss. In spite of everything that had gone down between them, he was overwhelmed by Tasha's kindness. He found a pair of Darnell's old blue jeans and a shirt and sweater laid out for him on her bed. As he dressed he spied her open purse on the nightstand. His nerve endings tingled, visualizing the celebratory high he could have.
If I only take ten or twenty dollars she won't miss it,
he reasoned. Just as he reached in, his conscience got the better of him and he withdrew quickly and left her room.

“I hope you don't mind, I threw the clothes you had on in the trash. Sorry, I didn't think you'd wanna put on any of Darnell's underwear.”

“No.” Tirrell smiled. “I think I can handle not wearin' any at all, if you can.”

He sat down to a hot plate of leftover spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, and a salad—the salad made him laugh. She laughed too.

“I was thinkin' about goin' to see Miss Betty if you wanna come.”

“You really want me to go with you?”