Rude Boy USA (26 page)

When they went back to the apartment, Ben looked around. He grabbed the bleach and a washcloth and began cleaning the walls and carpet of Jerome’s blood. He looked over and saw the box that Jerome had brought in with him. He opened it and saw the baby clothes for a boy. He had a son, Ben thought. He closed it, pushed it to one of the other corners, and continued to clean up the scene. Each scrub brought more regret. He took all of his anger toward his life situation and jealousy of John out on Jerome. He broke his vow never to harm any of his brothers. There was no returning for him.

As the afternoon went on, kids started getting out of school. The neighborhood did not offer many after school activities, so many of them would go to the abandoned lots and scavenge to keep busy until it was time to return home. Two kids, one nine and the other ten years old, went to a lot that they had not visited before. They stumbled onto the well-dressed body of a black man, missing his expensive shoes. They figured a homeless person had removed them. His other clothing would have been stripped off if it wasn’t already bloodstained. That man was Jerome. The two kids went to get other children to show them the dead body. Other kids went to get help for the bleeding man. Not too long after the discovery, ambulances and law enforcement arrived. They conducted an investigation, and when they were done, they removed Jerome’s body to the coroner for identification.

Jerome had been missing for almost twenty-four hours when Mariana became worried. She was concerned that he had not called and checked in on her and the baby. This was unlike him. John sent out some of the Jet Mafia to trace Jerome’s tracks. He became angry when one of them informed him that they left him in the Bronx at his request. “You are never to do that. I pay you enough money. We are still targets,” John exclaimed.

“Hey, he said he knew these people,” one of the guards told him. John and Mariana began calling people they knew. Mariana contacted her grandmother to see if he made it to her place. Her grandmother informed her that he came and left with the box, but she had not heard from him since. Mariana began calling hospitals, and John contacted his connections in the forty-second precinct. One of the officers there told John that they had found a male that fit Jerome’s description and that they were frantically trying to identify the remains because there was no wallet on him.

John knew that crime was common in that area and that the body the officer was describing was probably not Jerome. For all he knew, it could have been a gang member or another homeless person. He told the police that he would be down there later on. John continued to call other people to locate him, including Jerome’s parents. After hours of unsuccessful looking, John went to the precinct, and from there they directed him to the coroner’s office, where he met with the chief medical examiner. They took John into the freezer where the bodies were held to see if he could identify the body. When the examiner opened the freezer
drawer, John immediately noticed the bloodied suit jacket. Jerome’s head was swollen and unrecognizable, and he was pale. John felt light-headed and sick to his stomach, and he immediately vomited on the floor. He crouched down.

“Are you OK?” the examiner asked him. John shook his head. “Is this Jerome Dexter?” John nodded.

The coroner told John that they suspected robbery but required further investigation. It looked as though he had been killed and dumped there. John dreaded making the phone call to Jerome’s family and his wife. After sitting down for forty minutes preparing himself while dealing with his own grief, he picked up the phone to call Mariana first. When she answered, he told her with a shaky voice that the police had located Jerome, and he explained his friend’s fate. Mariana let out a bloodcurdling scream on the other end. She nearly dropped the baby, which made him cry and scream. Her mother ran into the room to see what the commotion was about. Mariana cried to her mother that someone had robbed Jerome and he was dead. Her mother attempted to comfort her but could not contain her own emotions. They both wailed in unison. John then called Jerome’s parents, and his mother did the same. The sounds made John break down in the office.

Celia by this time had begun looking for housing in Kingston. She settled for a colorful little house for sale on Old Hope
Road, the same street where Bob Marley and other musicians lived. Celia wanted to be a part of the musical community and knew this would be a great place to settle and find inspiration. She had just completed the closing process and was ready to move in. Celia was very proud when she held the keys for the first time. She did not have any furniture yet, but she was willing to sleep on a cot until she got everything settled. She had filed her paperwork to start a teaching program in the fall and had been brushing up on her piano skills. She had also decided to apply for a part-time job to keep her busy in the meantime. She was ready to get out of the hotel and on her own property. She had all of her affairs in order, and she had informed her mother that she would make Kingston her permanent home.

Celia returned to the Playboy Hotel to gather her things and give them notice that she would finally vacate the room. The front-desk concierge handed her a note from her mother instructing her to call home immediately. Not thinking much about it, she went to her room to begin packing her things. She had enlisted Karlus to help her with the move by offering generous pay. She sat down on the bed and called back home to her mother.

Her mother told her about what had happened to Jerome in the Bronx. Celia began crying hysterically and told her that she would be home shortly. While in tears, Celia continued packing and had all of her things moved to her home. She booked a flight to Miami and a connecting flight back to New York. Before she left, Karlus suggested that she stop
by his church to say some prayers for Jerome’s soul. She took him up on his offer.

Many people in the community attended Jerome’s viewing. John waited until most of the crowds had passed and the chapel was nearly empty. He spent most of the early day with Mariana and her family. He wanted to mourn alone. When the coast was clear, he walked up to the casket and knelt down. He apologized to Jerome for failing to protect him and for letting his family down. It had been John’s job. John wept as he had for the entire week since Jerome’s body was discovered.

As he knelt in front of Jerome’s casket, John felt the lowest he ever had, even worse than when Bernie passed away. He saw no other way out. He had no one to turn to. John took the gun barrel and put it to his head. He wanted to pull the trigger. He felt he had no one left. Everyone close to him was gone.

“Go ahead and pull it. Do us all a favor and off yourself,” a voice behind him said. Startled, John paused, put the gun down, and turned around. It was Ben. John had not seen Ben since the day he found out about Edina’s sale of the company. It took about ten seconds for John to recognize Ben since he looked dramatically different. Ben had on a skullcap and his Ghetto Brothers leather jacket. John looked at him in
bewilderment. “Go ahead and do it. You like showing off. Just don’t get your blood all over me when you do it,” Ben added.

John stood up to Ben. “I ought to punch you in your goddamn face.”

“For what? Taking your wife’s money? I bet you were devastated when you found out what happened to her, weren’t you?” Ben said to him snidely. “Or are you pissed about something else? What is it really?” Ben asked while he folded his arms.

“You’re nothing but shit,” John said to him. Ben looked at the gun in John’s hand.

“Yet you are here, ready to blow your own brains out. See, I know you; you won’t do it. You were hoping someone would come here and stop you. Too bad you got me, and if you want to kill yourself, well, I agree with you; I think you should,” Ben added.

John became heated. “You left your post! You abandoned your family!” he yelled.

“No! I left a shit show. In twelve months’ time, you turned what took Bernie and us ten years to build into a trash operation. You let your whore wife sell us down the river for pennies on the dollar because you were not paying fucking attention. You lost a girl. We have no clients; the fucking building burned down, and now you are in front of Jerome’s casket with a gun to your head. You failed, and you don’t want to man up to it.”

John shook his head. “No…no…I am not taking the entire fall for this. I bet you knew. You knew, and you did nothing, like you always do. That’s why you ran away. You are a thief, you are a fiend, you’re entitled, and you will never be anything more than that. Bernie never trusted you, because you are a big fuckup!” he yelled.

“Right, because you are the golden child, the prodigal son, the chosen one! LeBlanc can do no wrong. That should be you there in his place. You had him as your fucking gofer,” Ben said while pointing to Jerome’s casket. John took a step back, raised his gun, and pointed it at Ben’s head. Ben raised both hands. “Go ahead and pull it; you will be no different than me…brother,” Ben said.

“Oh my God!” Celia expressed in the background. Both men turned and saw her standing in the back of the chapel with one of the workers at the funeral home. “Don’t do this, John. He’s not worth it,” she said. It was the first time the four of them had been in the same room in a year, even if one of them was in a casket.

“Oh, welcome back, darling,” Ben said to her sarcastically. He looked over at John. “Hey, why aren’t you yelling at her for abandoning her post? Where the fuck was she for a year?” he asked.

“She didn’t take a vow not to abandon or dishonor your brother,” John said as he looked at Ben angrily.

“John, listen to me, please. Put the gun down. Don’t do this. Enough of the killing. Just stop,” Celia said. “Not here,” she added while looking at him. She walked closer
and separated them, not caring that there was a loaded gun with two angry men around it. “Ben, just go…Leave,” she told him.

“Celia, you will be nowhere with this guy,” Ben told her.

“Really, asshole?” John said to him. Celia looked at Ben and tried her best to get him to leave. Not only was she attempting to defuse a potentially tragic situation with John, but also she was trying to save Ben’s life. She knew John; he could shoot someone when he was in this state.

“Celia, please come home with me,” Ben said to her.

“Go…” she responded.

Ben looked at her, and then he looked at John and her again. Ben stormed off angrily. It was quiet for a moment.

“Can’t lose you too. Put that away,” Celia said sternly, referring to John’s gun. “It’s one thing to die from a broken heart like Bernie or for someone else to take your life like Jerome, but don’t do it yourself. It’s wrong, and I would never forgive you.” John took a deep breath and put the gun back in his pocket. They stood there and hugged in front of Jerome’s casket. John buried his face in her hair.

“Nice tan. Where did you go?” John asked.

“I went to find myself,” Celia answered.

“Well, did you?” John asked.

“Yes,” Celia answered.

“I’m sorry for everything,” he said to her.

“I’ve already forgiven you. I needed this for me,” she said.

“I’m glad you came back. I waited for you,” he cooed.