Texts from Bennett (22 page)

I surmised that she thought I was joking. Who would do something like that? Now it was war. Now it was time to get an answer. Yeah, I didn’t really know her. No, we didn’t have a moment or anything. But I wanted a date. I waited a few minutes until she came back by. She was walking fast, but I put my hand out to slow her down and she looked down at me with an expressionless face.

“Hey, maybe we could get a drink? I’m thirsty as you’ve seen. Haha,” I said.

“What?” she said. Leaning in, opening her eyes wider to focus on me clearly, “A drink?”

“Yeah, a drink.”

She nodded her head.

“Okay, honey. I think I can do that,” she said.

Oh, shit! It worked!

“Hell yeah, bro. She’s going to write the digits down. Nice work!” said Tampa Bay, leaning forward to give me a fist dap.

“Hell yeah!” I mouthed to him, nodding my head. He nodded back.

“I’m impressed, I’m impressed,” said the drunk guy next to me.

I smiled and stared forward. I was elated. I just pulled a flight attendant’s number out of thin air!

When Captain Christian Van Matre’s slow, lilting voice gave us the descent speech over the loudspeaker, I adjusted my seat forward. I looked outside the window at the Kansan farmland and rural, grassy sprawl that surrounds the Kansas City International Airport. I yawned. The flight attendant approached from behind, leaning over every few seats, to tell people what everyone knows: belts need to be buckled and seatbacks put forward.

I intentionally kept the tray attached to the seat in front of me extended down. There was an anxious knot in my gut. I was imagining what her name was. What her handwriting would look like. If she wrote a heart on the napkin, giving me a sign that she thought I was cute. I stared forward so it didn’t look like I was desperately waiting for her to give me the number. I wanted to appear patient and aloof. I’d raise my eyebrows when she put the number on my tray and act like I half-forgot about it. I’d say, “Oh, cool. Yeah, I’ll give you a buzz after I make a few business calls.” She’d wait in her hotel room for hours, hoping I’d call. I’d take my sweet-ass time and call
right
when she gave up hope and started feeling unwanted.

::Thunk::

Thunk. That was the noise a water bottle makes when set on a tray. Not the noise of a napkin with handwriting on it.

I looked down at the bottle’s odd shape. It was lightly wobbling on the tray, finding its balance. I stared at it for a second, then looked up to see if she was still there. She had already advanced a dozen rows forward and was not looking back at me at all.

Was there a phone number on this? I picked it up and studied it, looking at the label, top, and bottom. Nope.

I felt like a failure of catastrophic proportions. Guys behind me were giggling and the one even shook my seat a little.

In desparation, I opened the bottle and guzzled from it before yelling, “Thanks! I was super thirsty.” When I saw that the flight attendant was definitely out of hearing range, I said, “Call you tonight, Lindsey!”

No idea what her real name was.

While the plane was slowly deboarding, I turned my phone back on. It began to vibrate uncontrollably. Bennett was going apeshit in my text messages . . . again.

BENNETT:
fucc !

BENNETT:
why u tell me to do dat man wat da fucc

BENNETT:
yo

BENNETT:
i got fuccin fired !!

BENNETT:
plz hit me up wen u land

BENNETT:
dammit fuccccc

I was holding a heavy bag of luggage, so I could text him with only one free hand.

ME:
Hello?

BENNETT:
ay

ME:
Yeah what’s up? What happened?

BENNETT:
i got fired !!

ME:
What do you mean? Why?

BENNETT:
man i dont even no wat i did wrong but i made dat mothafucca mad as fuk.he almos calld da cops on me Cuz!

ME:
Wait wait wait . . . what?

BENNETT:
he startid cussin at me an shit.Sayin he gonna call da Po Po on me if i dont get da fuk off of da proparty

ME:
Dude, what did you do?

BENNETT:
i did wat u told me 2 do !

BENNETT:
i went up to Ned

BENNETT:
i said we need 2 talk

BENNETT:
he said talk rt here im busy

BENNETT:
so i told my homie manny who wrk n da kitchin to move out da way

BENNETT:
i said to Ned cant keep da job If u dont let me go to my inteview i will hav 2 quit if u dont let me

BENNETT:
he said Bennett we talk about dis alredy

BENNETT:
so then like a asshole he stop payin attn to me

BENNETT:
so i reach in da bag and grab da tomato

BENNETT:
an i said Ned u need 2 respect me plz dont take dis da rong way

BENNETT:
and i threw da tomato at him hard as fuk

ME:
WHAT????

BENNETT:
and it xplod all over his bacc

BENNETT:
it got on da counter

ME:
WHY DIDddd

ME:
Why did you do that!

BENNETT:
it got on sheila da chik who do drive thru

BENNETT:
huh

BENNETT:
u told me 2!!!!!

ME:
Why would you throw a tomato at him???!!!

BENNETT:
see man ! u gnna act like u didnt tell me 2 do dat! u fuken ass hole i new it

BENNETT:
U jus want a excus 2 kik me and my mom out huh ? u fuken assfuk

ME:
DUDE, WHY DID YOU

ME:
Throw a Toma

ME:
Throw a tomato at him?

BENNETT:
Nigga u told me to hit him wit a old tomato ! Dat was UR idea!!!

BENNETT:
U Said it

BENNETT:
ya an it wasnt even old i had 2 usE a new 1

ME:
AN OLD TOMATO?

BENNETT:
yea pussy u said it.go up in da kitchin and hit Ned wit a old tomato

ME:
Bennett

ME:
Bennett

BENNETT:
?

ME:
Bennett

ME:
I said ULTIMATUM

ME:
NOT OLD TOMATO

ME:
ULTIMATUM

BENNETT:
?

ME:
Oh fuck

ME:
An ultimatum is where you make someone decide between 2 choices!

ME:
YOU HIT YOUR BOSS WITH A TOMATO?

BENNETT:
Wat da fuk is dat

ME:
Oh no

ME:
Hello?

I didn’t hurry home. I didn’t care about Bennett losing his job. I didn’t care about paying the mortgage, or bills, or even keeping the house. I didn’t care. For some reason, the flight attendant’s apathy toward me depleted every ounce of confidence that I had left inside.

Everyone feels like an unwanted loser sometimes. It’s the only way to have those other times where you feel like the high-exalted king of the universe. The flight attendant wasn’t even that cute, I told myself. But that only made it worse because of the caste system in dating that states one is only as hot as the person they’re fucking.

I drove home, stewing in despair, feeling hopeless and awful. When I pulled up to the house, there was a car in the driveway. Its engine was running, and its exhaust pipe was grumbling, spewing puffs of toxic smoke. It was a vomit-yellow station wagon, with wood-grain side paneling and a bumper sticker on the back that read,
VOTE FOR DUKAKIS ’88.

The front door of the house swung open, and Bennett bursted out behind it. He started to run to the station wagon but skidded in his tracks when he saw me pulling up into the driveway. I stopped my car parallel to the station wagon and rolled down my window.

“What up, Cuzzo!” he yelled, nodding his head at me.

“What are you doing, dude?” I replied. “You going somewhere?”

The driver side window manually rolled down in jerks and fits.
A head popped out of it. It was a teenage kid in a Kansas City Royals hat, with sunglasses on at 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday night.

“Man, ain’t you a rapper, my nigga?” the unidentified kid said.

“Huh?” I said, having no idea who was talking to me.

“Rappers is s’posed to be ballin’ heavy as fuck, nigga! You drivin’ that bitch-ass Nissan Sentra—hahaha!” another unidentified kid, deeper in the car, said.

Great, a carful of teenage boys, all of them laughing at me and my car.

“I got other things to spend my money on, boys. Cars depreciate in value,” I retorted, and activated the garage door opener.

“
Pussy
don’t depreciate in value though, old man! And bitches love nice cars!” one of the boys yelled.

Okay, good point.

Bennett walked to the passenger side of my car and peeked his head in through the window. I could hear the station wagon doors open. Within a few seconds, three other boys were standing alongside him. One was his friend Leshaun, but the other two I’d never met before. I’ve known Leshaun since he was a little kid. He’s Bennett’s very animated, extremely loud best friend and the de facto leader of the gang. He’s also a bona fide hoodlum.

I got out of my car and walked back to greet the crew. “What’s up, dickhead?” I said to Leshaun, sticking my hand out. He shook it flimsily. Gangsters like Leshaun have a weird phobia when it comes to giving solid handshakes. Either that, or no one ever showed them how to properly shake hands, which was feasible. Leshaun’s dad has been in prison since he was five months old.

I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years. He was taller than me by three or four inches now, and burn marks, knife cuts, and homemade tattoos covered his exposed skin. He was honestly pretty intimidating. A bandana gently perched atop his head, positioned at a delicate angle, cleverly resembling a king’s crown. Under it was a full head of straightened, chin-length hair, tightly pulled back in a ponytail. He had another bandana hanging from his rear left pocket (like any Crip would insist upon). Both of the bandanas were heavily starched and flawlessly ironed. He had on a very large white T-shirt, with an
unbuttoned navy-blue Dickies shirt over it, also heavily starched and flawlessly ironed. Likewise his blue jeans.

In fact, all of them were dressed in various combinations of the blue bandana, button-up Dickies shirts, khaki pants, sunglasses, gold teeth, and earrings. Each had a slight variation to his outfit, but I had to hand it to them all. They certainly looked like four people you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley.

When Leshaun shifted the cigarette in his mouth, I noticed that he appeared to have seven to eight stitches in his eyebrow.

“Let me guess—you got into a huge gang fight and someone hit you with a brick?” I asked, pointing to his eye.

“Nah, nigga, that’s racist!” he said, scrunching his face.

“That’s racist?” I asked.

“Hell yeah, it is. I didn’t fight nobody. I fell off a horse. I went horseback riding and hit my head. I’m offended as fuck!”

Everything was silent. You could hear the sleeping cicadas quietly buzzing in the bushes. I studied Leshaun’s face. He looked me dead in the eyes and took a long drag from his cigarette. His face was starting to appear weathered and aged. He wasn’t the young boy he used to be. Life had gone a few rounds with him and effectively worked its jab.

“Are you lying?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“Nah, bitch!” Leshaun punched me in the arm.

“Leshaun, chill, nigga! Chill!” One of the guys behind him grabbed his arm.

Everyone’s face was filthy with panic.

“
Baaaaaahaha!
Aiight, yeah . . . I’m lying! Haha, you was all scared! I thought y’all was s’posed to be gangstas! Haha!” he said.

“Uh. So what did happen to your eye?” I asked.

“I got in a fight. Duh, nigga. I scrapped with a security guard. C’mon, Mac, black people don’t ride horses—ain’t you see what happened to Superman? That nigga fell off a horse and became a quadrupleznic! Nigga had to dookie in a bag for da rest of his life, and he never got no pussy again, just so he could say some gay shit like, ‘Giddy up, horsie!’
Hahahaha!
”

Leshaun had the habit of cracking himself up.

“Ay, cuz. What the fuck is a quadrapleznic? Stupid ass nigga. Don’t you know it’s called a paralegal? Superman couldn’t walk ’cause he was a paralegal. At least get the name right, dummy,” said a short, half-white, half-Latino-looking kid with slicked-back hair and a giant spider tattooed on his neck.