CHAPTER

Seven

Tonnnnnnnnnny!”

Tony rolled over in his twin bed and pulled the pillow over his head, blocking out his mother's insistent calls.

The bedroom door slammed open. “I know you hear me calling you, boy!”

“What? What?” Tony screamed into the pillow.

His mother, Ethel, walked over to the bed, kicking stray sneakers, comic books, and underwear out of her path as she went.

“There are dishes in the sink, the garbage was never thrown out . . . I came in this morning and the mice were having a picnic!”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Sorry, I forgot.”

“You'd forget your head if it wasn't attached to your body,” Ethel said, tossing the pillow down to the foot of the bed. “Now get up and do it!”

Tony took a deep breath and peeked over at the digital clock. It was just past eight o'clock in the morning. His mother had no respect for him. He worked hard all week long; all he asked was to sleep in late on Saturdays.

“Christ! That's what you need. You need the Lord in your life!” Ethel was shaking her index finger and bellowing from the doorway.

Tony sighed. “Ma,” he murmured as he sat up in the bed.

“What are you going to do with your life? Huh? What?” Ethel glared at him.

Tony got up from the bed, walked toward his mother, and kissed her affectionately on the forehead. “I'm going to do great things. You'll see,” he said as he moved past her and out into the living room.

“Really?” Ethel said, pressing her fists into her wide hips. “Well, start with washing the dishes!”

“So what happened with that girl the other night?” Errol asked as he plucked a wheat roll from the breadbasket. He had invited Tony out for a celebratory meal at the Sugar Bar.

“Nothing. I couldn't get her to come back to the spot with me, but I did get her number.”

Errol pulled the roll apart and stared into its soft middle. “What was her name?”

Tony shrugged his shoulders as he perused the menu. “I dunno. Stacy, Tracy, something.”

Errol shook his head, then something occurred to him. “Oh yeah, man, did you buy your mother a gift?”

Tony dropped the menu and gave Errol a blank look. “What?”

“Tomorrow is your mother's birthday, man. Don't tell me you forgot again.”

Tony nodded his head, and then gave Errol a sly grin. Errol knew what that meant.

Errol had been covering Tony's ass in so many different ways and for so long, it had become second nature to him.

When Errol's mother died when he was eight years old, Mrs. Landry had stepped up, filling the void the death of Errol's mother had left behind. So in some ways he thought of Ethel Landry as his mother too and treated her as such.

Tony, so self-absorbed, could barely remember to buy her a card. Errol scolded Tony about this on numerous occasions, reminding him that his mother had taken on a second job cleaning offices at night just to put him through college.

But talking to Tony was often like talking to a wall, so Errol had just given up and now sent an extra dozen roses in Tony's name.

“So you got that for me?”

“Yeah, man. I got it,” Errol said.

The meal was wonderful, complete with an expensive bottle of wine, followed by Couvoisier. The bill totaled well over two hundred dollars.

“Thanks, man,” Tony said as they exited the restaurant.

“No problem.”

They walked along the street in silence. When they got to the lot where Errol had parked his Range Rover, Tony turned to him and said, “You know, man, I think this is the beginning of something big.”

Errol couldn't remember ever seeing Tony's face so serious. So earnest.

“I think so too, man.”