Were it not for the gauze that crowns Sandra’s head, there would be no indication that she cracked her skull when her head smacked the pavement amidst the hail of bullets. Her face is peaceful, like a baby doll’s whose eyes automatically close when you lay her down. Mrs. Horton brushes her hair until it’s night-on-the-town together. She applies Berry Burst moisturizer to Sandra’s lips and dabs the corners of her mouth to remove any excess. She takes a seat and holds Sandra’s hand.
“Little Andre asked about you today. I told him that when you woke up, he would be the first to know. Of course that wasn’t good enough for him. He brought me his shoes and said, ‘Ma-ma going.’ He’ll be so happy to see you. So you can’t give up in there, you hear me?”
Mrs. Horton looks at Sandra, half expecting her to answer.
The corners of Mrs. Horton’s mouth quivers, and she hurries out of the room. She hides her face behind a two-handed mask of brown fingers.
Rock takes a deep breath. Despite witnessing scores of fights, shootings, beatings, and more, hospitals make him uncomfortable. To him, they’re like prisons with needles instead of handcuffs, a place where young and old pass away into eternity.
Andre is propped up in bed, minus the catheter. As soon as he sees Rock, he closes his eyes.
“Dre, what’s up?”
Andre turns to the wall. The only movement is his Adam’s apple as it floats up and down as he swallows.
Rock resists the temptation to wage a war of attrition by taking a seat and waiting for Andre to open his eyes. Instead he says, “You know how to find me.”
———
Once Andre is certain that Rock is gone, he opens his eyes.
Rock is still smarting over Andre’s diss when Grammy Lee answers the door.
“How’s Sandra and Andre?” she asks.
“Neither one of them are talking.”
“Did Andre take a turn for the worse or something?”
“No. He’s choosing not to talk. Could be depressed, probably angry. Maybe both. I don’t know.”
“How’s Sandra?”
“Still hasn’t woke up. But her mother’s there every day. Keeps her hair done, eyebrows arched. She looks like Sleeping Beauty. And her mom talks to her like she can hear her.”
“She can,” Grammy says. “There’s countless examples of people remembering conversations they heard when they were unconscious. Any new information from the police?”
Should I tell her?
“No.”
“I don’t know what’s happened to Greenville,” Grammy says. “When your father and I moved here, this was a place for blacks to move up in the world, own a home, raise a family.” She shakes her head. “But all of that’s dead now . . .” She reminisces aloud about the days before guns, gangs, and Greenville became an unholy trinity.
“Relax, Momma. I’ll get you some water.”
Grammy sits in her favorite chair and Rock drapes a blanket over her feet.
In the kitchen, Rock bypasses the faucet and peers under the sink.
Still there.
The hole that he cut out of the wall fifteen years ago.
Claymont was eight when he caught Rock hunched under the sink stuffing the hole with sacks of cannabis, dirty money, and a gun.
“Whatchu doing, Unc?” young Claymont asked, ever eager to find ways to bond with his high-strung uncle.
“Why don’t you try doing what I’m doing?” Rock asked.
“What’s that?”
“Minding my own business. And I better not ever see you under here. You understand me?”
“Yes,” Claymont said.
“Yes, what?” Rock demanded.
“Yes, sir.”
“Now get out of here.”
Rock slips on one of Grammy’s dishwashing gloves, gropes around the hole, and removes a .40 caliber Glock pistol with olive drab frame.
A wave of guilt batters him. He’s reminded of his sister’s expectation that he would teach Claymont to be a man. And that’s what he did, according to what he knew at the time.
Before prison, Rock thought that being a man meant being the hardest head on the block. And if he had to knock somebody’s block off to maintain his ascendancy, he did.
In Greenville, Rock’s path was not unique. If you didn’t play ball, go to college, or tote a gun for the government, you hustled, applying your ambition and native talents to a career in the streets. After all, it was America where you bought low, sold high, built your brand, and dominated the competition. And that’s exactly what Rock did.
Now, fifteen years after he marshaled his wildest friends into an organized unit, OGC controls the majority of crack sales in New Jersey’s second-largest city and has a reputation as one of the more ruthless gangs in the state.
Rock stares at the crude OGC tattoo on the web between his right thumb and pointer finger.
“Rocky, did you forget about me?”
“No, ma’am.”
He places the gun in the hole and fills her cup.
Andre now has a room without a palisade-stage view of the street. Jackson enters, clutching a Sweet Sunshine Get Well Soon bouquet. Carollo trails him with a giant smiley face balloon that he ties to the foot of Andre’s bed with a measure of good riddance.
“Andre, how are you?” Jackson asks as Carollo takes a seat.
Andre stares at him blankly.
“Come on, Andre. We’re here to help you find the guy you saw come after you and your girlfriend.”
Andre chooses silence all the more.
Carollo whacks the arm of his chair. “You know something? It’s your tax dollars what pays us to keep your neighborhood safe. I live in Garfield, so who shoots who in your hood doesn’t affect me. I do this to help you.”
“Help me?” Andre springs up, grimaces, and growls, “Are you going to be around when they retaliate?”
“So you’re saying it was more than one shooter?” Jackson asks, ever angling for information and an edge.
“I’m not saying anything. I’ve already been threatened since I’ve been in here. But you didn’t know that, did you?”
Jackson and Carollo are silent.
“That’s because you can’t protect me! If you could, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place!”
Jackson throws his hands up. “We didn’t come here to antagonize you.”
“But you did.”
“Okay. Sorry. Is that what you want to hear, Andre?” Jackson nudges his partner.
“Sorry,” Carollo says reluctantly.
“I just want to know what you saw,” Jackson continues.
Andre stares at him longingly.
He looks like me, but he’s on the other side.
Andre turns his back on Jackson, and the burn brought on by all the sudden movement twists his face into a scowl.
Jackson licks his thumb and snaps a business card from his breast pocket. He places it on the nightstand, and on his way out stops in the doorway. “Funny thing happened on the way to the ballistics lab. The bullets they pulled out of you were from the same gun that was used on the guy you hit with your bus. So you think real hard about that, Andre. And then you call me when you’re ready to tell me what you know.”
Andre harbors an image of himself buried to his neck as a storm tide rolls in. The first wave bubbles across the floor of his nasal cavity and drowns his sinuses. He disgorges a noseful of water and recaptures his wind when the water retreats. But the next wave . . .
Andre shakes the image and angers at the thought of the beady-eyed gunman and his young flunky.
They got me with small arms, but I’m gonna come back at them with something bigger.
He presses the call button and a nurse appears.
“I’d like more pain medication, and then I’d like to go by ICU.”
The nurse transports Andre to the other side of the hospital in a wheelchair.
He has her stop at the entrance to Sandra’s room because Mrs. Horton and some women he doesn’t recognize are huddled around Sandra.
Why do they have to have their hands all over her?
Mrs. Horton looks up and waves Andre into the room. After the ladies say, “Amen,” they surround Andre and, without his permission, lay their hands on him too.
The strident petitions of religious women fill the room. Andre is suspicious of what he feels rising inside of him. It swells with each woman’s cry out to God on his behalf.
Andre’s head and shoulders drop, despite his commitment to resist the wail that toils in his belly.
The prayers don’t stop.
It seems to Andre that these women call out every problem he has with their Creator.
“Take away the pain and disappointment that caused him to distrust you!” one cries.
“Show him that you’re real and that you’re concerned about his life!” another shouts.
“Remove the confusion and grant him the grace to see that you’re sovereign!” a third calls out.
“Repair the breach in our family and make him a part of it,” Mrs. Horton adds softly.
The women’s words travel throughout Andre’s body, and the pain that he felt after rising up against Carollo dwindles to a dull ache.
Finally, the wail ekes out of Andre’s throat as an anemic groan.
“Amen!” the women say in unison.
“Amen,” Andre whispers soft enough that only he can hear.
One by one the women touch Andre and depart until only Mrs. Horton remains. “I’m going to leave you two alone,” she says.
The quiet that settles in the room spooks Andre as he watches Sandra’s chest rise and fall. He uses his right arm to grab the side of the bed, and bolts of pain shoot through his wounded right pectoral muscle. When he pulls himself up, he shifts his weight to his left foot, and agony vibrates through his injured left thigh. Andre disregards the pain in his damaged left forearm and struggles up from the wheelchair. He grits his teeth, tilts over, and gives Sandra a painfully sweet kiss.