Little Dre seems to be regressing. Sandra thought he was on the verge of finally sleeping through the night, but now he pops up like clockwork at 4:30 a.m., sniffing around for milk. She rolls over and pops a bottle in his mouth.
“Ma-ma,” Little Dre says between swills.
Sandra manages to wrestle free from the depths of her fatigue, but her eyes are still too heavy to open. “Little boy, Mommy’s tired. Lay down and go back to sleep.”
Dre ditches the bottle and reaches through the bars of the crib. “Ma-ma.”
Sandra forces herself up, lifts him out of the crib, and tucks him in bed beside her. “Your grandmother would kill me if she knew you were sleeping with me—”
The rest of her mother’s declaration sweeps through her head. Especially a boy without a full-time father.
Statements like that never bothered Sandra until the things her mother said started to come true.
“A woman can raise a boy to be a good citizen,” her mother said, “but she can’t raise him to be a man.”
The room blurs as Sandra’s eyes well up with tears. This is not where she thought she would be at twenty-five. Nevertheless, here she is, trapped—a single mother in Greenville.
“Ma-ma.”
Little Dre is all gums and two bottom teeth. Sandra smiles back at him through tears.
“Mommy loves you.”
She kisses him squarely in the mouth. He grabs both of her ears, opens his mouth, and slobbers all over her nose. Sandra practically drowns in sweet baby-boy juice.
“You can’t eat Mommy. Then who’s going to take care of you?”
Dre stops and stares at her. “Dah-dah.”
Moments like these give Sandra the chills because it seems that Little Dre understands things beyond his fourteen months. He grabs his pacifier and looks up at her with eyes as big as toy saucers.
“Yes, you do have your daddy.”
With that, Little Dre pops in his pacifier, snuggles against her warm body, and passes off to sleep.
Sandra’s eyes remain open.
Am I really going to be able to do this by myself for the next seventeen years?
Sunlight blazes through the lazy split between the black curtains that Andre uses to block out daylight and the foot parade of nine-to-fivers slogging to their Manhattan commutes. The only problem Andre has with living in a basement apartment is the ankle-eye view of the world that his one window provides.
But it’s the weekend, so the block is at rest.
Andre drops to the floor and forces himself into crunch position. He looks across the surface of his chest at the flesh beginning to gather around his abdomen. He sucks it up and pumps out fifty hard-fought crunches. After forcing twenty more, the delicious pain of throbbing abdominal muscles ripples through his core. He clenches his teeth and strains out number one hundred. With sweat running down the ridge between his pecs, Andre releases his strength and relaxes into the floor. He jabs at his six-pack obscured by a layer of flesh.
“A hundred of those a day and you’ll be back.”
He focuses on the milk crate nightstand, which is jammed full of stuff stacked and half straightened. The bruised, burnt-orange binder buried at the bottom captures his attention.
He reaches over and carefully slips the notebook out without disturbing any other pieces of the pile. The cover has “Dark Poet” scrawled across it in graffiti. Andre opens the notebook and is greeted by the handwritten draft of the first poem he ever gave to Sandra.
Once gray skies.
Cloudy.
Ominous.
Made my days dark as nights
And my evenings black as shadows.
I hid my face in misery’s toil,
Depression was my daily yield.
What has life prepared for me?
A seat at death’s table?
Shall I sup with travail endless?
The light of life did flicker when I looked on your face.
As the sun burst forth, bringing radiance and nourishment for the soul.
You are the curator of my newfound joy,
The heat that melts the icy confines of loneliness.
I welcome you to my world as dusk welcomes dawn in all its glory.
You alone know the secrets of my heart, my most sacred place.
Andre stares at the wearied handwritten paper and smiles. He recalls how terrified he was when he slipped Sandra the bright red envelope with the typed poem inside after humanities class.
“This is for you,” he said before ambling off with a carefully orchestrated, toplofty bop.
The next week in class, Sandra acted as if nothing happened. That confused Andre because his poetry usually melted away the wall of unfamiliarity that exists between a man and a woman when they first meet.
After Sandra ignored his poem, Andre second-guessed his decision to be so forward with his poetic advance. So he avoided her for the rest of the semester. His embarrassment and desire to prove to Sandra that he was “the man” is what inspired the end-of-semester poem that he performed in humanities class that finally got her attention.
That was the life.
He picks up the phone and dials.
———
Sandra’s phone buzzes. She sees that it’s Andre and ignores the call.
Andre is camped out in a window booth in Café Loco on Ocean Avenue. He checks the time on his cell phone. Ten thirty-seven a.m. Sure enough, Mr. Intensity is right on time. Big Will is all smiles as Sandra and Little Dre get off the bus. Sandra is clueless as he zeros in on her shapely bottom while she bends over to shake out Dre’s stroller and straps him inside. Andre’s head is thick with jealous ire.
Sandra turns and waves, and Will pulls off. Andre cranes his neck and follows her down the block until she passes from view. He makes his way to the door, but not before a pearly haired waitress drops into zone coverage.
“Don’t try scramming out of here without paying.” She crouches slightly and thrusts her palms out, fully engaged for the bump and run.
“That wasn’t my intention, ma’am. Really.”
The little old lady is tough as nails and not buying it. She stuffs the check in Andre’s breast pocket and pats it as if to say, “Take that.”
Andre presses a five-dollar bill in her hand.
By the time Andre is on the street, Sandra and Little Dre are gone. He canvasses the block and peers through each store window, then crosses at the corner. The first shop he encounters is a hardware store. Beside that, a newly renovated storefront with a sign that says NEW JERSEY TRUTH. It is without windows, so Andre opens the door and steps inside. He is met by two well-dressed black men in their late twenties who look like members of the Fruit of Islam. One extends his hand and gives Dre a firm handshake.
“Welcome, brother. We can let you inside in a minute.”
“Is this your first time here?” the other man asks.
It takes Andre a moment to realize that he’s been asked a question because he’s busy searching for Sandra through the beveled glass lodged in the wooden doors before him. “Yeah, but I’m not staying. I’m just looking for somebody.”
“We can help you, brother,” the man who shook Andre’s hand says. “Who is it you’re looking for?”
Andre feels like he’s being quizzed. “I can check myself when you open the doors.”
The young man looks through the glass pane, and before he opens the door he says, “We’ll stand at the back wall. And if you see who you’re looking for, point them out and I’ll pass on a message. I’m Fredrick, by the way.”
“Andre.”
Fredrick opens the door and escorts Andre into a room that is larger than he expected. There are at least 150 people seated in folding chairs with peacock blue cushions. The carpeted floor is the same color as the chairs and gently slopes down to a polished teakwood stage. It looks strikingly similar to a St. Peter’s College lecture hall. Andre scans the entire space, and in the middle of the fourth row from the front, he spots Sandra with Little Dre in her lap.
A sturdy man who exudes a ferocious air steps onto the stage. He reminds Andre of a good fullback: solidly built, low center of gravity, and prepared to bowl you over. Andre’s curiosity is piqued.
“Do you see who you’re looking for?” Fredrick whispers.
“Yeah, but I’ll just stand back here for a minute.”
Fredrick says, “It looks like all the seats are taken, but hang on.”
The speaker never introduces himself, he just plows right in. “Death is a process, not an instant. You’re not alive one minute and dead the next. Death happens in stages.”
Andre crosses his arms, presses his back against the wall, and facilitates a face of disengagement.
“Within ten seconds of your heart stopping, brain activity ceases. Then a doctor shines light in your eyes, looking for a response. There is none, so you’re clinically dead. But nowadays it’s not unusual for people to be brought back from clinical death. And two out of ten report having consciousness when they’re dead. Some remember, word for word, conversations doctors had over their dead bodies. Others see a bright light or find themselves on the highway to heaven in a naked bodysuit with a drop-seat flap.”
The gathering laughs, but Andre doesn’t. He loosens his arms and eases up off the wall.
“But the window of opportunity for life to return to your body is short, because within five minutes of your heart stopping, the body starts to deteriorate. And here’s the gruesome truth. Our community is showing all the signs of clinical death. The light is shining in our eyes, but there’s no response even though our consciousness is aware of everything that’s going on around us.
“Brothers. Ladies. Our body is decomposing and our consciousness is rotting with it. Turn to Leviticus chapter 5, verse 1, and I’ll show you how we’re complicit in our own death.”
Andre sucks his teeth. One of those Bible dudes.
Little Dre starts to fuss. Sandra attempts to plug him with the pacifier, but he swats it away. An older, heavyset woman is seated beside them. She offers to take Little Dre, but Sandra seems reluctant. However, Sandra swiftly complies when Little Dre continues to emphatically express what’s on his tiny mind.
Immediately Little Dre gives the heavyset woman a “who are you?” look.
“I’m Grammy Lee.” The woman speaks softly. “And you better settle your little self down.” Little Dre quickly quiets.
Andre isn’t comfortable with people he doesn’t know handling his kid. The two things he fears most are Little Dre calling another man “Dah-dah” or some other man disciplining his child. Yet he knows that once you’re out of the house, anybody can come in and be over your son.
Andre sours.
Maybe you shouldn’t have left.
Fredrick returns. “Here’s a chair,” he whispers.
“That’s alright. I’m not staying. What time is this thing over, anyway?”
“Twelve thirty. Can we talk outside?”
Andre pushes through the door into the lobby and spins around with an attitude stoked as much by his buckled relationship status as with Fredrick’s dickering. “What’s up?”
“Brother, don’t take this the wrong way. I’m trying my best to accommodate you, but your response seems to be a dismissive one.”
“You don’t know me well enough to decipher where I’m coming from,” Andre retorts.
“You’re right. But we have all kinds of people coming through here. And I’m sure you know that guys get crazy when it comes to their wives, their girlfriends, and their colors.”
“Well, I didn’t come in here with a hatchet and death on my mind, so you can let all the hot air out of your balloon.”
Fredrick smiles. “That’s pretty funny, actually. Andre, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Some of the men get together on Wednesdays for the Realness. We talk about whatever’s on our minds and try to get a truthful perspective on it. And, oh yeah, there’s hot wings on the house.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“It’s a standing invitation.”
Fredrick holds the door open for Andre, and once he’s back on the street he’s bent out of shape and not exactly sure why. He smirks.
Hot wings. Everybody’s got a gimmick.