Scandalous Heroes Box Set (67 page)

Of course he’d kissed a girl before. He was no longer a fourteen-year-old virgin. But when Vanessa’s lips touched his it nearly brought him to his knees. In one second it was as if a new Scotty had been created in an explosion of subatomic particles.

When she pulled back he felt naked and lost, as if her lips were an extension of his own. In that one second he was stripped bear of every internal safeguard that he had erected around himself. In that brief moment that their lips parted, Scotty knew that the person in his arms was everything that he could ever want.

Chapter 22

When the song ended and Eric Bourdon and War’s Spill The Wine began to play, everyone around the couple resumed their fast dancing. But not Vanessa and Scotty. They just stared into the others eyes and moved slowly and rhythmically to their own song.

Phonso turned to Angelique, “I think big bro just might have found someone who he actually trusts.” Phonso had hoped that something could pull his brother out of his solitude. He was like one of those monks from the karate movies that whipped themselves for some unknown sins. His smile wavered as he thought about Tino, but then Angelique kissed him lovingly and he remembered that he was in the here and now and he was happy.

Jalissa grinned as she watched the couple out on the dance floor. “Well it’s about damn time.” Dope boy or not, the way Scotty was looking at Vanessa was a way that Dante or none of the little fools she messed around with ever looked at her. She decided that maybe it was time for her to look for something real.

Two girls that had been sweating Scotty for years began mean-mugging the couple, gossiping that of course Scotty would go for the half-white girl.

A man that had been patiently waiting to get Scotty’s attention finally shot caution to the wind and approached the young man.

“Hey, Scotty. Sorry to interrupt man, but can I bend your ear a second?”

Scotty looked over his shoulder at the unwanted intruder. It was one of his regulars—but there was a time and a place.

“Man, don’t you see I’m busy?”

“Sure. Uh…sure. I’ll holler at you later.” He retreated wondering how long Scotty was going to be with his little young thing. Shit, money was money and that came before pussy, in his opinion.

Vanessa looked at the retreating man and then at Scotty and because of the sudden implosion of emotions between them, he could clearly read the change in her expression, in her posture. He could see that she knew that the guy had wanted to score some dope from him.

He stroked her hair back from her face, hoping to recapture that moment before the junky had interrupted them. But she was mentally retreating.

“Do you want to go outside and get some fresh air?” All of a sudden he wanted to be away from the projects and all that it represented--although he knew that he couldn’t run from himself. He was everything that he hated about the ghetto.

“Yeah, that would be good,” she said.

He took her hand and led her out of the room and then outdoors where the party was going on just as strong. He leaned against the stoop, still holding her hand and she liked the way it felt to have his big hand over hers. But there was a reality that she had to face; this man was a stranger to her. The boy that she had known was not this person and she could not confuse the two. Her desire for him was almost desperate but it also saddened her that he was going down this route. Something inside of her wanted to reach out and tell him that. And after a quiet moment in which he seemed to be waiting for her to do or say something, she spoke.

“Can I ask you a question?”

He nodded grimly. “You can ask me anything.”

It took her a long time to speak the words and when she did, she only managed to whisper. “Are you a drug dealer?”

He shrugged. “I suppose that’s what it amounts to.”

“What?” She asked not entirely positive of his response.

He looked at her steadily. “Yes Vanessa. I am a drug dealer.” When she just looked at him without responding he continued. “What are you thinking?”

She didn’t smile. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

Scotty looked away and inhaled deeply. After a moment he looked at her again. “It is what it is.”

“Everything is everything.” She said suddenly. He saw that she was disappointed in him and just the idea that she disapproved of something he’d done made him feel hollow inside. He fought against that feeling. His story didn’t allow for any regrets. He had done what needed to be done, but he could give her something that he had never bothered to give any other woman before; the truth.

He looked at the people milling around them. “Can we take a walk?”

She hesitated. “I can’t stay away too long. I don’t want Jalissa and the gang to worry…”

“Just around the block. I want to tell you something.”

He released her hand, and Vanessa had a sudden memory of her mother saying;
this is real talk…

They began walking away from the party and when it appeared that they were no longer in the vicinity of people wanting to greet him with a head nod or hand slap Scotty spoke.

“I suppose you know that my older brother was a big time dope dealer.” Vanessa nodded but Scotty didn’t continue for a long moment. They walked silently while he collected his thoughts. “I didn’t mind because it brought us food and lunch money and clothes that didn’t come from the thrift store. When he told me to make a drop or to pick up something I just did it. I didn’t think in terms of right or wrong. I did it because I wanted clothes, lunch money and food.

“But then things began to change and money was being made but it wasn’t coming to us; it was going into Tino’s veins. He’d gotten hooked on his own drugs. When I was a kid I thought it was such a waste; having all that money and throwing most of it away on a high. I had it already planned out—my life. I was going to be a drug dealer that didn’t use. I wanted to make so much money that I would never want for anything again, and I wouldn’t waste it on chicks and drugs and flashy shit. To me, that was what a successful businessman was; a street hood that didn’t get caught up in his own hype.

“Then one day a teacher of mine showed me that I could get all of the things I wanted without selling drugs. There was another side of the coin; one that I had never been exposed to. And as long as I stopped thinking that
this
was the only world for me, I could get away from it.

“And then one day my brother destroyed it,” he said, not speaking as if he was describing the loss of a dream, but just the facts of a story. “He had me start selling drugs at my new school and once I became the school’s drug dealer that dream ended.”

Vanessa looked at him sharply. “He was the one that had you do that?”

He looked at her then. “Remember those bruises that I always had?”

“Oh my God…” The black eyes, neck bruises, swollen lip…

He shrugged. “I got my ass kicked more times than I want to recount. But the reason that I’m still a drug dealer has nothing to do with Tino.” She grew quiet. “It has to do with my brothers and sisters. Vanessa do you have any idea where my brothers and sisters are?”

She shook her head fearfully because this tragic tale of Scotty’s life was hard for her to hear. In her innocence she had never conceived of what he’d had to endure in order to be that unmoving force that seemed to always be in her corner while no one had been in his.

“They’re all living together with my sister’s grandmother.” He slowly took her hand again, touching her for the first time since he began his tale. “About a year after you left, my mother took a turn for the worse.” He wouldn’t detail his mother’s drug addiction and illness that would eventually lead to the discovery that she had contracted the AIDS virus. His mother had always been too strung-out to care for any of them and suddenly she was not able to even care for herself. The state had informed her that they had a place for her to recover and asked if there was someone that could take her children…

“It was only a matter of time before we would be placed in foster care. There’s too many of us to keep together so we would have all been separated. ” He couldn’t imagine Erica and Elijah not being together. They were twins and as much as they fought, they were each other’s best friends. And poor Ginger couldn’t be taken away from everything that was familiar to her; brothers and sisters—and even a horrible home, because that was still all she knew. She would never come back from that and because she was just the autistic child of a junky prostitute nobody would care.

“So I went to visit my sister Beady’s grandmother. I asked her if she would take my little brother Tyrone who was also her grandson and she agreed. Then I asked her if she would take Ginger but she said no.” He stopped talking. “So I begged her. I begged her to take us all and I promised that I would take care of everyone and that she wouldn’t have to spend any money on us because I would take care of that too.”

Vanessa felt her eyes sting and she had to force herself not to cry. She was haunted by the fact that she had been safely with her grandmother while Scotty had needed her, while he was trying to figure out where to live. She bitterly cursed the death of her mother once again, but this time not for her own loss but for the loss of what could have been.

Scotty looked out into the distance as if he was reliving the events of the past. “She didn’t believe that I could do it.” He met her eyes and they were unflinching. “But the next week I brought her enough money so that she couldn’t say no.”

Vanessa wanted to shake her head in denial at what he was insinuating. “Scotty are you saying-”

He looked at her and his expression was hollow. “I became a drug dealer so that I could give it to her to take the kids.” He shrugged. “She already had guardianship of Beady so it was just a matter of her putting in a request to take custody of all of us.” 

“That’s horrible, Scotty! I can’t believe that this woman allowed you to go out like that just for her own greed!”

He shook his head. “No…it wasn’t like that. She literally couldn’t take us all on. She only lived in a 2-bedroom apartment and was on a fixed income. Taking Tyrone would have been a financial and physical burden but what I asked would have been impossible. So I had to make a way. It wasn’t Miss Gloria that took care of us. It was me that took care of her
and
them.”

She squeezed his hand letting him know that she understood. He had been stuck in a situation that had caused him to make a huge sacrifice. She did get it…yet this was the type of thing that sent people away for years, regardless of the motive.

“By the time she got guardianship of us all she had enough money to rent a house. Phonso and I were also under her guardianship—at least on paper, but we stayed in Winton Terrace. We stayed where the money was.” To Scotty there was no right or wrong; there was just reality. Miss Gloria needed the money and his siblings needed a place so he made sure they got it. “When I got busted Phonso kept it going.”

Vanessa mulled over his words as they walked hand in hand, approaching the party once again. Having lost so much in her life she understood the lengths one would go through to preserve their family, but there was something that she just had to ask. “And are you going to stop?” Is this the life he wanted to lead?

He stopped walking. “Vanessa, I don’t want to be this person. I don’t do drugs, I don’t like drugs…” he didn’t even like being around the shit. Drugs had destroyed his mother and had turned his brother into the devil. “But this is the only way that I know to take care of us.” He stared into her eyes and she looked away. “Vanessa, this is not my life, okay? I won’t do this forever. But I have a lot of people to take care of. If I stop right now then Beady is the only one that’s safe; she’s graduated and in college—which she pays for, not me. But there’s still Erica, EJ, Ginger, Ty and now Miss Gloria.” He pointed to himself. “I’m not even twenty-one. I don’t know how else to take care of them all!”

“Scotty!” She said sternly. “You will go to jail. This will not last. Period. I’ve only been back here one day and I can already see that everybody knows you, Scotty. They know what you do. They know who to go to in order to get what they want-“

“Vanessa-“

“If you get busted now we’re talking prison, not just juvie-!”

“Baby, listen to me.” She stopped and swallowed back tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. “I’m not addicted to this life. I’m not going to be a forty-year old hustler! I have a plan.” He looked at the people close to them and inhaled a deep breath and then quieted his voice. “I have a plan for my future. And it’s not this.”

After a long while she nodded, filled with conflicting emotions. Was she asking him to sacrifice his family? Was there anything in the world that would force her to sacrifice hers? All she knew is that she didn’t want this life for Scotty and as much as she wanted to be with him, she didn’t want it to be a part of hers. She cared about him…she more than just cared about him. But she felt sure that as long as he made a life in this dangerous world that he would only end up another victim. She just didn’t think she had it in her to watch someone else that she loved end up another victim of the streets.

Scotty took both of her hands and turned her until she reluctantly looked at him. “Vanessa, please don’t give up on me. I want more than this. I want to be more than this. I know that we are probably a million miles apart right now. But there is something that connects me to you that I have always felt. I don’t know another person on this earth that makes me feel the way you do. I’m not a knight in shining armor but I want to take care of you, I want to be there whenever you feel lonely, whenever you’re afraid. I want to …” His voice had been coming in a rush and he paused and slowed down. “I just want to love you. Can I just love you? I just want to have something for once in my life-”

She couldn’t take it any longer. She needed to be in his arms. She needed to hold him and to show him that she got it, that she knew that this wasn’t what he wanted to be. She swung her arms around his neck and held him close.