Saint And Sinners (28 page)

“You better
make
time for it…” he said sternly. And at that point, the woman gasped and shot backward
in her seat. He could see in her eyes that she could feel it…the energy passing between
them. Her eyes widened with fear and her lips quivered as he poked a bit harder.

“Think of something, an incident, a place, a thing. Whatever you wish Mama Pam, think
of it clearly, and I will tell you what you are pondering.”

She swallowed and clutched his arm, as if fearful she may tumble over. The woman’s
apprehension was clouding the whole matter, but he grasped desperately at bits and
pieces, anything he could hold in his psychic grip. He prayed it was enough to give
her what she needed, so that they may all move on with their lives…

“You just thought, ‘This whole family is crazy and Saint’s been drugging Xenia.’”
Saint laughed loudly, but not too loud that he didn’t hear the woman gasp. Pam covered
her mouth, as if a burglar were in the house and she were hiding in a closet not wishing
to be discovered. “Now come on, Mama Pam.” Saint bit into his lip and smirked at her,
his eyes growing more heated as he relished the moment. “Give me something
specific
…”

“Sweet, merciful Jesus in the rapture! Your eyes! They’re blue! They just turned blue,
damn it!” she blurted, pointing at him disbelief. Her own dark browns jumped from
his face over to Xenia’s, then back to him. Xenia kept her back turned, continued
to wash the dishes as if nothing at all were taking place…

“Take a deep breath and relax…just relax. Didn’t mean to scare you.” Saint ran his
hand up and down her arm. It was time he conducted the relaxation techniques he’d
learned so many years ago in college on his mother-in-law. He was afraid her poor
heart might not be able to take much more. “Now, come on, give me something,
anything
…” he encouraged once he sensed her heart rate returning to normal. And…there it was.

“Ahhhh, beautiful, Mama Pam. I have it now. She was a striking woman, just like her
daughter and granddaughters. Your mother had sandy brown hair. She was tall, pretty
as the sun rising in the mornings on a summer day and staunchly independent. You saw
her in your mind just now, probably a notion due to Xenia’s explanations. In any case,
she wasn’t the best mother though…but she tried.” He smiled sadly, feeling fragments
of Pam’s childhood, things he’d never seen before. “Regardless, you loved her so very
much. Now, to show you that I didn’t get that information from Xenia, I’ll dig a bit
deeper. I’m inside your mind. Don’t fight me, don’t run away…let me stay here for
just a moment.”

Pam gave a timid nod.

“The woman, your mother, was sitting in a black chair, her hands clasped around the
seat. You see, this is so beautiful because the very first time I read your daughter…”
He glanced at Xenia. “When I told her who and what I was, she thought of this
same
woman, your mother, and how she missed her so. She thought of a teddy bear the woman
had given her and here you are, thinking of her sitting in that chair. That was the
last time you saw your mother alive. She was sitting in that old, black chair with
the bottom half gutted out. It was a cheap old thing, but she looked downright majestic
in it. And…the last thing she said to you before you left her house was, ‘I’m sick,
but don’t you worry. God won’t take me until I get one more plate of pinto beans and
onions…’ That was her favorite. Anyway, when your mother said that, you laughed and
went straight home to make them for her, because you loved your mother despite her
ways…but when you returned with her food, it was too late. Strange thing was, you
never told anyone that, as you drove back over there, you had a funny feeling. You
knew you’d find her dead.”

Pam hollered out, her eyes immediately burst with tears. The poor woman came undone.
Saint quickly placed Isis down as things were now at a fever pitch. He got to his
feet and broke the woman’s fall when she slipped from her chair, screaming until she
fell unconscious.

“Mama!” Xenia threw a fistful of spoons down into the sink.

“Xenia!” he yelled out, snapping his fingers as his wife rounded the counter.

“Mama! Mama!” Xenia slapped her palm against the woman’s rounded face.

“She’ll be okay, baby, just get me that glass of water on the counter!”

A few moments later, the woman’s face was covered in liquid and her eyes rolled back
and forth in her head as she leaned against Saint’s chest on the ground.

Isis pointed to the woman’s face. “Water, Daddy! Wet water on Nana! She wet!” The
girl giggled.

Xenia plucked her daughter into her arms, holding her tightly while Saint helped Pam
get to her feet. He placed her back in the chair, giving her a moment. Everyone remained
quiet.

Then, Mama Pam took hold of her cigarette, which was now broken almost in two.

“Okay, so uh, you one of those psychic people…” she finally said, staring down at
the counter, her face constricted in angst. “…And Hassani got tha shit, too. I do
have one important question though.”

“Of course, anything.” Saint scooted closer to her.

“It’s the same damn question I had before all of this started!” she screamed angrily.
“Why didn’t you give me the lotto winning numbers, Saint? You knew damn well I was
up there every Sunday wasting my money!” She grasped her purse and angrily thumped
him across the head as if he were some crazed man trying to rob her.

“Mama!”

Saint grinned and rubbed his sore cranium. He’d taken a second too long to duck, so
she’d gotten him…stole his peace of mind.

“Mama Pam!” He smirked, continuing to rub his throbbing head. “I don’t have the winning
lottery numbers. It doesn’t work that way and even if I did, I could get in big trouble
about something like that… It’s hard to explain but, yeah…” He chuckled. “It doesn’t
work like that.”

“I need to smoke a damn cigarette right fuckin’ now! ’Scuse me for all this cussin’
in front of the baby but people’s eyes changing colors, talkin’ about my mama, and
Angels and money I fuckin’ threw away that I didn’t have!” She snatched a fresh cigarette
and a cheetah print lighter; her white one distributed no flame. Heading towards the
back of the place, she slid the door open, exposing a patio area. She kept her back
towards them as she no doubt drowned in deep emotions she wasn’t prepared to experience.
Slamming the door behind her, she lit up, the back of her body in view as Xenia cast
glances his way.

“Well, that went better than I expected.” She burst out laughing, then dumped the
remaining water from the glass into the sink as Isis sat happily on the counter next
to her, kicking her legs back and forth.

“Yeah…I have a funny feeling. Somewhere in her mind, she will dismiss this eventually.
It is too much for her to deal with, Xenia.” He shook his head. “I could feel it.
She knows it’s true though. She knew something like this was going on before she even
asked, but she didn’t want to believe it. She doesn’t want to accept it…and she’ll
find some way out of it. That’s fine though.”

Xenia nodded in agreement.

“I think so too but like you said, she knows we are telling the truth, and that’s
all that matters.”

“Well, truth is subjective. She is going to sit down and figure out a way later to
dismiss all of this, baby. She will convince herself we played a practical joke on
her, even though she never told you what her mother said to her, right before she
died. My eyes turned blue, I let her see that on purpose, but she’ll find an excuse
for that as well. She’ll figure she
did
tell you about her mother, she just doesn’t remember. It’s cool though…” He shrugged.

Xenia put her hand on his shoulder. “Did you read that, too?”

He nodded. “I did…Pam doesn’t like to be vulnerable because she is petrified of being
hurt. It’s understandable; she’s had a hard life. I saw glimpses of it, her fear,
how she was treated as a little girl. Your grandfather, like your own father, was
not a consistent presence, either. She’s strong, a survivor. She doesn’t have the
desire to deal with this though. It’s too much. Regardless, she will continue to see
things as the years pass, things she can’t explain away and then…she’ll
have
to deal with it. It won’t be me… She will see it from her grandchildren and she loves
them too much to stay away from them. It’s going to be hard for her.” He hung his
head, feeling a bit sorry for the woman, knowing what was to come.

“Because loving Angel Children is always hard, Saint. But, people like me, like Mama,
we can’t help it. To know you is to love you, and to love you is to know you.”

He grasped her hand. “Thank you for that… And I love you for loving me, nevertheless…”

*

“A
nd this is
where we used to play stickball…” Wearing a crooked grin, Saint pointed eagerly out
of the window, savoring the view. He turned the corner and continued to make his way
down Melrose, taking in the sights—some familiar, some not so much. Raphael cleared
his throat, his dark eyes half slits as the nodding bastard fought sleep with both
fists. He was losing, but Saint would jar him awake if he had to. He’d gotten the
man out of bed at three in the morning and made him drive over to his home, stating
this shit was important. Worst of all, he had no idea why’d he done it, but he felt
compelled. When Raphael stood on his stoop, his shirt half tucked in and his face
balled up like a prized fighter’s knuckles, he knew he’d better have a good explanation
for this shit. His other prisoners, Lawrence and Jagger, who’d just got in town to
meet with him, sat in the back of the car, gripping hot cups of drive-through coffee.
The two men wore reddened eyes from lack of sleep and a desire to cause Saint bodily
harm for interrupting their much-needed slumber. Now he had three grown ass men who
together could put his ass in ICU if he didn’t watch his damn step.

“Saint,” Raphael said sleepily. “If you don’t tell me why the hell you have me up
this early in the damn morning, I’m going to punch you so hard in the back of the
head, your damn eyeballs will pop out.” The man groaned and shuffled his legs about,
digging his heels into the light gray carpeting on the floor.

“Watch what you doin’ with your shoes, man! You groundin’ dirt into my car.” Steeped
in anxiety, Saint held onto the steering wheel with both hands, his eyes darting back
and forth while he observed Raphael practically doing the Harlem shuffle in his vehicle.

Not my car…you can’t mess up my car, man!

“Fuck! Yo! Car! Mothafucka!” Raphael half-joked as he stomped even harder, like a
child having a temper tantrum.

“Oh!” Saint smirked. “So
now
you want to pull a Dave Chapelle, a la Rick James, huh? You’ll find your ass on the
corner, man and I’ll let
all
these mothafuckas out here,” he pointed out his window at no one in particular, “the
damn dope fiends we keep drivin’ past, know that you got money in ya pocket and are
just
dying
to give it away!” Saint goaded as he approached a red light.

Raphael nodded and rolled his eyes, his head lulling to the side as if neck muscle
control was no longer in existence for the man.

“Saint.” Lawrence yawned. “You said you wanted to show us this building you were looking
at, that you’ve become obsessed with. Can we see it,
please
? Jagger and I just got in town a few hours ago, and we’re really pooped. We’d love
to see a tour of where you grew up later, but now is not the time.” The man spoke
diplomatically, like some fucking schoolmarm reprimanding him for an extended ‘Show
and Tell’ session of his pet turtle, Felix. Saint was tempted to lash out, to put
the Indian in his place, but Saint knew he was biting his damn tongue and that Lawrence
wanted to say so much more, but had handed him the sugar coated version. There would
be no little Indian to put away in a cupboard. Lawrence spoke the truth versus screaming
and hollering at him; he had to accept it as such. Saint scowled and held the steering
wheel a bit tighter.