CHAPTER TWO

-YOKO-

 

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

- Edgar Allan Poe

 

Baltimore, Maryland

 

Meanwhile in another ghetto part of the country, moonlight glowed into a tiny apartment. “You know I always knew I was gonna have my son in this place,” Andrew said as he sat on the edge of the windowsill, which overlooked the snow-laced streets of Baltimore City. He grew up in Magnolia Gardens apartments, the same place where he was born, and he wanted the same for his child.

The window was open because the room was unbearably hot due to the radiator, which stayed on blast because it was temperature controlled by the landlord. “It’s always been a dream of mine.” His eyes rolled toward his wife who was breathing heavily in and out due to labor pains. “My father was born here and so was I.” He sighed. “And even though people said he left us for another woman, I still feel like his spirit is here, in this building.” He smiled. “Thank you for doing this for me. I know you wanted to have our child in a hospital.”

When the labor pains subsided she looked over at her husband, her eyes Asian-like courtesy of her father. The gold chain that should’ve weighed down his neck possessed by its excessive diamonds swung like the pendulum on a clock.

She wiped the brown hair that clung to her face and, despite the pain, forced out a smile. “You always get what you want, don’t you?” she grinned. “Even when you plotted to take me away from your brother.”

He chuckled, hopped off the windowsill and waddled toward her. Normally she wouldn’t be so brash but he figured the pain of bringing a child into this world made her bold and forthcoming. He crawled to the top of the mattress, lifted his leather blazer slightly in the back and took a seat on the edge of the bed. Once settled, Andrew reached for her hand and she embraced him.

“I am a wealthy man, Daisy.”

“You’re telling me something I don’t already know,” she smiled.

“It’s true. I have more money than a man should be allowed. I have men who would fight for me and give their lives if it would be pleasing in my eyes. But the only thing I wanted in this world was you and Vincent had that. Does that make me wrong because I desired my brother’s wife? And made her my own?”

“You know the answer to that,” she said breathing in and out of her puckered lips. “We are both foul. And we both should pray to be forgiven for our sins.” When she felt more contractions she squeezed his hand harder. And when the pain slacked she loosened her grip. “I’m sorry, Andrew. I didn’t realize my strength.”

He chortled. “When are you going to realize I can take it? You can’t hurt me, even if I’m smaller than you.” He winked. “I love you, Daisy. Always have. And I know it’s not right that I took you from him but from the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you belonged to me. Somebody had to get hurt in the process and unfortunately it was my brother.”

“We could’ve had the baby in our own home. Or in a hospital. Are you trying to make him jealous? What if he sees us walk out of this building with our first child? It would hurt him even more.” She paused. “He lives downstairs, Andrew. You both own this building so—”

“No!” he yelled, quickly correcting her. “My father owned this building and he left it to me. I let him stay here out of pity.”

“But it’s a dope house.”

Andrew found that hilarious considering all he’d done to welcome his new baby into the world by making it beyond presentable. “It may be but I cleaned it up,” he said firmly. “Look around. I brought in brand new furniture, fresh linens. Shit, this bitch look more like a five star hotel than a dope house,” he bragged. “Naw, baby. I brought you here because I was born here and my daddy too. This apartment”— he looked up at the ceiling— “this raggedy mothafucking apartment, believe it or not, holds tradition.” He paused. “Real men are born here. And money is made here.”

“But he will see us.”

“My brother living downstairs don’t have nothing to do with my motives for wanting to have my first child here and I wish you stop questioning me.”

She smiled and then the contractions gripped her again. “I’m going to make you happy, Andrew.” She breathed rapidly in and out of her nose and mouth. “I’m going to make you happy you made me your wife. Because despite my past life with Vincent, my heart always lied with you. Never your money.” Suddenly pain gripped her again. “Andrew, you got to go get Pam,” she said breathing laboriously. “I think this is it.”

Andrew hopped down and rushed out of the bedroom and returned with the help. It was time to have a baby. Pam had her two younger cousins, who acted as her assistants, bring hot water and washcloths into the room. Together the three of them coached her on until her child, who was female, was brought into the world. Pam cleaned the infant up and held her in her arms. “Awe, it’s a girl.” She grinned. “And she gonna be a fine ass little shorty too. Just like her daddy.”

When Andrew heard Pam’s words, he walked over to her and she lowered her body so that he could view his daughter. When he nodded she walked the infant over to Daisy.

“Leave us alone,” Andrew said in a heavy breath.

“Why I got to go?” Pam bucked.

“Yo, get the fuck out of here before I slap the shit out of you!” he yelled scaring her instantly. He may have been small but he was mighty and so were his threats. He loved his cousin but she played too much when he wanted to be serious. When they were alone he looked at his wife. “She’s like me. Isn’t she?”

“How do you know, Andrew?” Daisy asked with bulging eyes. “Even if she is, what’s wrong? I’ll love her no matter what.”

“Her limbs look like mine in my baby pictures. Why is it that Vincent gets a son of average height? And my child is…she’s a…dwarf.”

“Baby, I know it doesn’t seem that way now but we could raise her to be happy and strong. All we have to do is give her love. If we do our job, she’ll be a good person and treat people fairly. And because of it, they will treat her the same. All she needs are parents who love her. Will you help me?”

“You could love her?” he yelled. “Even if she is like me?”

“I would love anything we made together, Andrew.” She kissed her on the forehead. “You know that.” She paused. “Aren’t I your wife? Didn’t I put it all on the line to be with you?”

“Yes.”

“Then to ask me that when you know how much I love you is outrageous.”

He paced the room and shook his head. His future life with his daughter went into speed play in his mind and he didn’t like the show. “I don’t know…I don’t know what we gonna do. I mean…I don’t think I can handle it. I don’t think I can take my brother laughing at me because of my daughter.” He stopped pacing and looked up at her in the bed. “We have the same parents. Both dwarfs. Yet he is regular height and has a regular son. And me.” He exhaled. “I’m a laughing stock. All of my life.”

“Why is it always a competition? We have our family and he has his. Isn’t that enough?”

Andrew stopped pacing and using the small ladder, crawled back on the bed and sat down next to her. He gazed at his wife and his child. “I don’t want to resent her,” he said softly. “I don’t want to pour all of the things I hate about myself onto her.”

“Then don’t.”

“It will be too hard.”

She frowned. “What are you asking me? To give her up?”

Silence.

“Can you at least try to love her, Andrew? Try to be a good father?” she pleaded. “She needs you. She needs to see how a strong man with the same symptoms can still rule the world. She needs to see that she can be powerful, despite her condition.”

When he saw how much his wife loved their child already he said, “You’re right. You’re right, Daisy. I’m so sorry for making you feel that you or our child is inadequate. Just give me a few moments alone.” He got up and walked out of the room.

When they were alone Daisy gripped her baby tighter. “I love you so much,” she said as a cloud of fog escaped her mouth before rising in the air. Now that she was not exerting a lot of energy, she noticed that the cold air was settling in the bedroom, causing a freezing temperature.

Slowly she eased out of the bed with her baby. She underestimated the toll her body took from giving birth as she moved toward the window cradling her baby tightly in her arms. Once there, she slumped down and looked at Baltimore City. The tiny apartment where she was, was only two stories up, not much at all, but her view seemed large.

Andrew was a strong man who never allowed his height to hinder his rise in the world when it came to business. He was a powerful dealer who had a small army and a lucrative drug distribution market in the city. Yet she was in his life long enough to see how people treated him upon first sight. And the things their evil words did to his mind. And to his self-image. The bloody murders that occurred from people making him the butt of their jokes were only an afterthought. Even though he wiped out their lives, the pain was still everlasting, lingering, like an evil spirit that couldn’t rest.

Daisy glanced down at her baby girl again. “He will never treat you right even if he promises,” she admitted as tears rolled down her face.

 

****

 

The hallway was too small to be moving furniture, yet the hateful couple was doing it anyway. “Can you stop pushing me, mothafucka?” Maria yelled as she held firmly onto the far end of the twin mattress as they walked it down the steps in their apartment building. “Don’t get mad at me because this bitch is covered with bed bugs. I told you we should’ve tossed it when Dale first complained of itching.”

“But I paid fifty bucks for it,” Vincent advised as he gripped his end and pushed in her direction. “Now it’s gone in the wind.”

“Fifty bucks ain’t shit, nigga.”

“I don’t have money growing off trees like my midget brother.” He looked at Andrew’s limo sitting on the curb. “Everything I have I earned.” He acted as if he did more with his life outside of drinking twenty hours a day.

For reasons that were deeper than the center of the earth, Vincent despised his younger brother. It wasn’t just because he took the only woman Vincent ever loved by flashing his drug money in her face and sweeping her off her feet. He also disliked him due to the way his father treated him when they were kids.

Since Andrew was the same height as his parents, and Vincent was not, their father spoiled Andrew rotten. If he wanted something he got it and Vincent would be forced to watch the preferential treatment and pretend it didn’t bother him. But it always hurt badly. In the end, it made him bitter and pulled their relationship apart.

Vincent’s connection with his father was dark.

Very dark.

When they made it to the bottom step Maria poked her butt out and pushed the glass door open. The frigid air rushed inside the hallway causing pillows of fog to rise from their breath and float over their heads.

“Well next time, don’t buy no bed from a crackhead.”

Verbally insulting each other the entire way, they walked the bed toward the alley. Years of alcohol abuse caused Vincent to lose breath too soon so he said, “Just leave the bitch here. This good enough.”

“But the dumpster ain’t nothing but ten or fifteen feet away. Stop being trifling. We live in this neighborhood.”

Annoyed at his girlfriend, Vincent unhanded his end, forcing her to release hers too. “Listen, woman, I want to go back inside and drink my beer. If you want to kick this bug infested mattress to the dumpster than so be it. I’m gone.” The sound of his boots stepping on the snow disappeared when he entered the building.

Needing five seconds away from him, Maria leaned up against the brick wall and removed a cigarette pack from her pocket. She thought about their conversation and her life with Vincent. She realized every day that she was dumb for giving birth to his son because now they were stuck together forever. Like gum on the bottom of an old boot. She started to abort the baby but the yearning to have a daughter in her image convinced her to bring the child to full term. Her disappointment was great when she realized the baby was male but she tried to love him just the same.

In her defense, in the beginning, it was hard to deny Vincent. When he was inebriated he was funny, sexual and a pleasure to be around. As a matter of fact, that’s how they linked up, at a bar in the city. She was having a bad day due to losing her man to her best friend and he recently lost his wife to his shorter brother. But you’d never know troubles plagued him that day because he poured on the charm and she was won over. And then the morning came. He was a mean man who was consumed with everything else but her.

One of these days, she was going to rid herself of him. If only she knew when.

After taking a deep breath, she lit a cigarette and was startled when something fell out of the air to her left. At first she thought it was one of them fat ass city rodents but when she heard an outburst of crying and looked down she saw it was a beautiful baby wrapped in a blanket. “What the fuck?” she picked it up and looked up at the sky. The moment she did, she saw Daisy’s startled face. She was sitting in the window and appeared beyond guilty for what she’d done.

Daisy wasn’t doing some act of kindness by dropping the child on the mattress. She didn’t know anybody was outside and planned to release the child to its death. But now…well now Daisy considered the matter a sign. If she couldn’t kill her baby maybe there were bigger plans for her small child.

“Oh my God,” Daisy said covering her mouth. “She’s safe! You saved her!”

“Daisy, is that you?” Maria asked although startled at what was going on. Did she just witness a crime? A mother trying to kill her own baby girl?

“Yes,” she said trembling.

“It’s a good thing I was here. She could’ve died.” She paused rocking the baby gently to calm her down. “I’m bringing her up now. Open the door.”

“No,” Daisy said shaking her head and extending her hands out of the window. “Please don’t do that.”

“Daisy, I’m confused! You just dropped your baby and now you don’t want her?” Maria removed her jacket and wrapped it around the infant so that she could stay warm. “Are you telling me it was on purpose?”

“You don’t understand, Maria. If she stays with me I’m afraid for her life.” She paused wiping her tears. “Before you say anything, I have money.” She disappeared and returned with several stacks of cash. Fully loaded, she released it from her grasp and green bills floated to the bed where her child just landed. With the baby in one arm, Maria used the other to collect every last bill, stuffing them into her pocket before her greedy boyfriend saw her newfound fortune.

“I don’t know, Daisy,” she whispered. “I might not be able to get this to go past Vincent.”

“Then I’ll pay you. For as long as you keep her, I will pay you. You know I’m good for it, Maria. All I ask is for your silence and to keep where you got the baby away from Vincent.”

“Well what’s wrong with her?” Maria examined the beautiful child. “She seems perfect to me.”

Silence.

“Nothing,” Daisy cried wanting to hold her daughter in her arms again. “Do whatever you can for her and I will give you whatever you desire. Just please…never tell her about this night. She must not know how I treated her. It will ruin her for life.”