It would be approaching dark soon. This might not have been the best idea—not after all that Ray had warned me about. He told me they didn’t care about me being Maize’s sister no more. That they didn’t want anybody on their turf that could steal away their fresh recruits. “Seek and ye shall find,” said Jesus. I was set on finding Maize, with or without God’s help. I was praying that He had decided to come along for the ride. The streets were tagged, and every concrete place—walls, columns, and sidewalks—showed a silver scythe sprayed boldly. What happened to hopscotch boards and four squares?
A few blocks farther on, I saw a couple of men wearing plain, black shirts, like the one Ray had found in Maize’s bag. I bet I’d see that same patch on the right sleeve, on closer inspection. “Oh, thank God! Thank you, Jesus!” I raised my hands up to the sky.
They stood in silence, watching me, their eyes shifting and turning.
“Hey, hey.”
They turned straight to me, one leaning over a chain-link fence. Dogs snored lazily on the front porch of the yellow house, close by.
“You callin’ us?”
“Come here, baby,” the next one taunted. He was holding a bottle, and I could see the butt of a 9mm pistol hanging out of his low-riding pants. “What is a girl like you doing in the snake’s nest?”
Don’t be afraid. They won’t hurt me. I’m not a threat to them, right? “I’m looking for my brother, Maize Jones.”
“We don’t know nobody by that name.”
The one was still leaning over the fence when I approached, and I could smell his breath. They both had been at those bottles for a while.
“Of course, you don’t.” I laughed out loud at my stupidity. “He wouldn’t have used his real name. Thank God.”
“We never do.” Another man approached me from behind. I hadn’t seen him coming.
He looked me up and down through dreadlocked hair. His eyes were the color of dark clouds, and I hated the look of them. Gray, unnatural eyes, overcast with death as sudden as a lightning strike. Everything about him was sin. He had to be the leader. His confidence was overbearing, and I could feel the power exuding from him.
“I’m Pale Rider, and my momma sure didn’t name me that. Who are you?”
“Sweet Potato,” I said quickly, holding my place as he eyed me, feet planted firmly on the pavement. I took their laughter, not allowing the sting to affect me. “I’m looking for my brother. He’s only fourteen years old.”
“Old enough to carry. Old enough to pop.” He pulled his trigger finger.
I shuddered. “He needs to come home. He ran away.”
“Well, maybe he doesn’t want to come home. Or maybe he’s found his home.” The man stepped in closer to me. “Why don’t you go on back to where you came from? You don’t belong here, and you clearly don’t know the rules. I’ll let you get by with this today, but don’t you be coming around here no more. We don’t give second chances.”
He rubbed his finger against my cheek, and I flinched, snapping my head away. “But you are a little, dirty-faced, sweet-eyed thing. That could count for something.”
“Look,” I said, my voice rising out of fear. I couldn’t hide it, no matter how much I tried. “I’ve got to have my brother. They took my other little brother and sister for this and signed them off. I got to get him back so that I can save my family. Can you please help me?”
“I ain’t never had a pretty thing like you ever say please to me.” His evil laugh chilled me all over. “I kinda liked that.”
He grabbed my arm. “Say please one more time, and I might see what I can do.”
“Please,” I whispered; eyes closed.
I could smell the depravity on him—that fresh blood smell. I knew his hands were stained with it, never to be cleansed no matter how much he scrubbed. Only Jesus could clean something like that, no bar soap would do.
I heard a car approaching before I could see it, and I prayed it wasn’t Ray seeing me here on the street. I knew he would lose it, and that would mean they would kill him. Please, Ray, don’t come. It was the first time and the last that I hoped that Ray wouldn’t find me.
“Hey, Rider. What you picked up?”
I heard the young voice of the driver, but it wasn’t my boy. But he was somebody’s boy, a little thing with a thin face and bright eyes. My heart went out to his momma, if he had one, or his grandmother or his older sister. From his baby face, I knew he was no older than twelve, but he was driving the car.
A yell came from the backseat, bringing me crashing back to reality full force. I’d found him. Maize was pushing up the driver’s seat and climbing out of the black Impala.
He had a blackened eye and a cut across his left cheek that could have come from brass knuckles or even a knife. He’d only been gone three days, but there was something different about him. He seemed to stand tall.
“Sis, what are you doing here?” He came and tackled me, separating me from the others. “Go home, now,” he ordered through clenched teeth.
“Daddy signed Bell and Bean away, Maize.”
I watched his face fall for a second, and it was almost like I hadn’t even told him anything. Stone. Blank. Dead. He stared through me. See me, Maize! Hear me!
“Maize?” questioned one of the men. “Maize? Your name is Maize, and her name really is Sweet Potato?” The men rolled on the pavement.
One of them hollered through tears, “What were you? Some sort of Veggie Tale Gang? She was up in here saying God’s name and all. ‘Save me, save my family, Jesus.’”
They were hooting and mocking God, hollering out, “Praise Jesus,” their hands raised. I realized what Maize was doing. He was pushing me to the farthest corner of the street, out of earshot. I allowed him to.
“It ain’t safe for you here. Don’t you know that?” he whispered.
“And it is for you? I’ll take care of you. Momma left us a farm. Daddy kept it from us, but it will be mine on my birthday. We can go there. Please. Please—we have to get the kids back. Please come on. Please.”
Tears fell, and it was harder to see his face.
He turned over his arm, palm lifted, and fear closed around my body like a boa constrictor, slowly taking life from me, crushing my lungs. The sign of the scythe was tattooed across his entire inner arm, the words Slash to Kill scrawled underneath. I could see the clear tape still stuck to parts of his arm, telling me the ink was fresh.
“Oh, Maize,” I cried. “Why did you do this?”
“I didn’t have no choice. I don’t belong to you no more. My name ain’t Jones. You are not my sister, so you better get before you get got.” He spoke through clenched teeth still. “Just get out now. Swear to me you won’t come back down here. If you love me, you won’t come back down here. That me is dead. Call me dead. But don’t come down here, because you’ll be dead, too.”
“I love you. That’s why I’m here. I won’t leave without you.” I put my arms around his waist.
I could sense the change in his body. His panic had been replaced by an inner strength, a confidence only a gun could give. I felt it before I saw it, as it brushed against my fingers when I tried to wrap myself around him. It was tucked in the back of his pants. Oh, Lordy! Not a gun.
“Maize, please turn from this. We’ll run. Together,” I whispered in his ear, “I’ll take care of you. Me and Ray. I promise we’ll leave tonight and never look back.”
“I can’t leave. You know that. You know what would happen if …” His voice trailed off when he heard his new name called.
“Shack.”
His eyes turned from me. Did they call him Shack? Lordy! “Shack, bring us that big sister of yours.”
“Nah, man. She’s gone. She ain’t nothing.”
But his eyes told me I was everything as he pushed me into the street.
“Run,” he mouthed to me.
I didn’t have to be told twice, because I saw the young driver slide into the car, eyes warning me he could catch me if I took off. Let him try. I bolted and never looked back. I couldn’t face seeing Maize for the last time. His blank, cold expression, his stance. Those bruises and cuts from some kind of fight already. His tattoo sealing his fate.
They yelled as the engine roared. “Get her!”
I ran through a few yards, knocking over a patio table and tearing some clothes off a line. I hit fences and circled back, knowing if I let my feet lead me, I’d find my way back to Soul Food. It had to be that way; I could see the overpass leading to the interstate. And, as if a miracle had appeared, I saw Big Red rolling slowly past. Ray’s arm was hanging out of the window, his head turning this way and that.
I screamed, “Ray!”
He knew I was in trouble and slammed on the brakes, climbing over to swing open the door.
“Get in.”
As soon as I scrambled in, he barked, “Climb in the back seat and stay low. Do you hear me? Don’t you look up.”
I did as he instructed, putting my head down, but I could feel the rocking of the big SUV turning around in a driveway. I heard the accelerator picking up. We moved faster and faster, away from a scene that would replay in my mind for the rest of my life.
When the car started to slow, he called out, “Climb back up. We’re all right now.” And I knew that meant we were safe from any East Coast Grims, safe from my own brother.
I was too devastated to cry. My well had run dry. “I found him.”
He reached across and grabbed my hand. “Promise me you won’t go down there again. Promise me. I swear I was about to lose my mind.”
He pulled over on the side of the road and put the car in park. “Come here.” He reached across and grabbed me, kissing me full on the mouth. “I can’t have you going down there ever again, do you hear me?”
“Maize is gone,” I said quietly.
“Wait—you said you found him.”
“He’s not Maize anymore.”
I put my head on Ray’s shoulder and watched as the cars passed by. The world was moving on, even as mine had stopped.
“I’m so sorry, Sweet Potato. Everything seemed to blow up. Bombs are hitting from every direction.” His arms held me tightly.
I cried, “How can things all get better and then worse at the same time? How can God do this to me? I’ve been His faithful servant. I’ve believed, even when I shouldn’t. I believed more here than in any other place.”
“Believe without ceasing, Sweet Potato. God is still here with you. Maize made his own choice, and now …”
He didn’t finish what I knew he was about to say. He’ll have to live with those choices or die by them, one or the other. But I would be the one living with them, too. Bell and Bean thought Daddy would be able to go down there and pull Maize out from their clutches, and our life would go back to our un-normal existence. Daddy was going to get himself killed if he didn’t watch it. Those Grims would have hurt me if they had caught me. I remembered the blank look in Maize’s eyes when I told him about the kids being signed off. He’d acted like he didn’t even care. I’d lost my little brother for good. Before, he would’ve fought anyone—a dragon, a giant—for Bell and Bean. The venom was spreading in his veins, and I feared we’d never find an antidote to fight it.
“I told him if he came back, we would hide him. We would go to the farm. They’d never be able to find him.”
I sat back in my seat, and Ray set the car moving on down the road to Soul Food.
“And what did he say?” I didn’t hear any hope in his voice.
“He said he had no choice. He had this sickle tattooed on his whole arm. You know what they called him?” I sighed. “They called him Shack. That broke my heart.”
“Why? Shaq was one of his favorites. Didn’t he have a card he carried with him?” He tried to smile at me, but it didn’t feel right for any of us to be smiling.
“We came from a shack, Ray. He’ll be reminded of it every time somebody plays tag or calls his name.”
I sighed, drawing my feet into me. I wanted Ray to keep driving—to hit the interstate and never look back.
“What if they saw him playing basketball and called him Shaq after Shaquille O’Neal? That was probably what they meant. I remembered Maize saying he wanted to be a basketball player for the NBA.”
“Oh.” I exhaled in relief.
“We have to keep moving on from our pasts, Sweet Potato. Whatever life throws at us, God will find a way to turn this into a message.”
He pulled up in his garage. It was Sunday afternoon, and the Soul Food was closed. Mrs. Sunshine was sitting out on the back patio with a tall glass of lemonade, talking to Mr. Joe while he grilled some steaks. Life was going on. My heart was still beating.
“Well?” Mrs. Sunshine stood up, walking quickly to me. “Baby, come here.”
She knew without me having to say a word. I guessed she was right when she said she could read me like a book. My drama had come to an end. It was over, no cliffhangers. She took me in her arms and cradled me as a momma would.
“You hush now, you hear?”
But I didn’t even know if I was crying, at this point. Ray’s hand was on my hair. Mr. Joe was coming over to put his arms around me, too.
“I ain’t had one of these huddles since my high-school football days. Feels kinda girly.”
I laughed again. How could I make that sound? They squeezed me harder. “I’ve got to tell Daddy what I saw.”
That meant I would have to face him. Never mind. Well, maybe Ray could. I honestly never wanted to talk to that man for as long as I lived. I could write it down for him—tell him not to waste his time going down there to bring Maize back. Maize didn’t exist anymore.
“He’s out. Left right after stopping by here around two. He said he would check in on you and the kids by calling,” Mr. Joe said. He stepped back, straightened his apron, and went off back to cooking.
Ray grabbed my hands and pulled me into an embrace of his own. “You’re staying with us, if you haven’t figured that out yet.”
“I don’t want to be a burden.” I looked over his shoulder at Mrs. Sunshine. “Did you fight for my kids?”
“Your Daddy did all that behind our backs, Sweet Potato. But I believe it’s God’s way for those precious children. We know full well they’ll be taken care of.” She blinked hard. “What are you going to do?”
“They told me not to fight for them, but that’s like telling me not to breathe air.”
I fell on the grass again, not wanting to sit in them patio chairs. I wanted to be connected to something godly, not man-made. Not steel.
Ray reminded me. “You need to call them. It’s getting late.”
I dialed the number quickly with his phone, and my heartbeat quickened with each ring. When Mrs. Patty answered the call, she told me I could come over to see the kids any time, day or night. She tried to assure me they’d wanted me to stay with them, as well, but Daddy had said I would rather stay with Mrs. Sunshine and Ray. He didn’t have any right to make any of those decisions. I would’ve chosen those kids, but it was too late now. My life had been decided for me—yet again with no control on my part. Soon, that was going to change.
The kids told me all about their supper with the Andersons. Bean was hollering in the background that Pastor laughed at his joke about the blind man. I would’ve laughed if I could’ve been a witness.
“That sounds nice,” I said, feeling the lump rise in my throat. When they asked me what I had been up to, I lied and told them, “Nothing at all. Just boring old stuff.”
Telling them I’d seen their tatted brother in the middle of becoming a street soldier wouldn’t be a good-night story worth sharing. “Well, goodnight then, my two little turtle doves, sweet loves from heaven above,” I said to them both on speakerphone.
The plates were set out on the patio table, and I stared down at the food. Did they expect me to eat this? They all took hands around the table, and Ray blessed the food. So that was how it was done in a normal house. The conversation was all about Maize and what the church had been doing to look for him.
“Call them off. Call it off, Mrs. Sunshine. Tell Pastor it’s a lost cause.” I pushed at the food on my plate. “Somebody is going to get hurt if they go down there.”
“Clarence has been down talking to your daddy some.” Mrs. Sunshine patted my hand.
I had to know the whole story about Denise’s brother. “Tell me about what happened, please. I have to hear it all,” I begged them.
Ray said, “She needs to know. Devon being in The Five is something we don’t ever discuss. You know how you told me Maize was dead. He was lost. Devon has been lost to that life for three years.”
“The Five? What is that?” It didn’t sound like no gang—more like the Jackson Five or a boy band.
“Devon was a bright boy with a future of gold,” Mrs. Sunshine said. “He would’ve been on a scholarship to play ball. He even helped Ray when he was first on the JV team. He was my sweet nephew that always had joy in his step.”
Mr. Joe said, “They call him the Joker, and the last time I saw him, he got a tattoo of a joker card on his whole back. The fool.”
“He joined The Five when he was sixteen. Not much older than Maize. Those gang members would seek out the kids they thought were weak and would pull them through the fence like magicians.”
“Like Maize,” I whispered. “He’d told me he was going to run away, but I didn’t believe nothing he said. He told me he was going to get lost. And that was what he did.”
“You know the path that he’s on is self-destructing.” Ray paused, trying to judge my reaction.
“I know gang life. I’m a street-junkie’s daughter, a shelter queen. Don’t you think I knew what I was walking into today? That man told me I didn’t know the rules, but I know that Maize signed over his blood and guts and will give it all to them for the sake of that name. That life. He’s dead to this world, and the Devil has him aholt.” I shivered, my breathing ragged and voice hoarse.
“The Five have a special initiation. Five killings in five days, and you’re in,” Ray said. “My cousin, a cold-blooded killer. He played war with me in this backyard. I looked up to him. Five in five days.”
“Oh,” I cried. “The beating that Maize took. His eye, his cheek. He’d been in some fight. What if he’s killed somebody already? He’s just a baby.”
“We don’t know how the East Coast Grims work in their initiations, but we know they have been gaining strength, even though they’re a local gang. There are always warrants out for them—newsflashes. Their tags are coming closer and closer as their territory mounts.”
Mrs. Sunshine reached out to me. “And they are enemies to The Five.”
At my previous school, we had a gang that wasn’t any joke. They brought their name to the school, and not a single campus officer or teacher even tried to stop them. How was Maize handling all the pressure and the Devil’s work around him? I knew my chances of ever having him back were none to none.
“He’s gonna die,” I said quietly. “Or go to jail. I know the result. So did he. That’s what kills me about this. I know why he joined the gang.”
“He told you? Devon jumped head-first into a world unknown to him. By the time we tried an intervention, he had already murdered and was a top seller on the street. He seemed to be loving the taste of that thug life. He was too far gone.”
Mrs. Sunshine said, “That’s why Clarence is out there with your daddy, looking for Maize. They might get him before he’s initiated, and to somebody that might make a difference.”
Reality was sinking in. “He knew he could get lost in a gang, and that once he was in, I wouldn’t be able to interfere. That’s what he wanted. He wanted to be free of us, but he was too scared to make it on his own. It makes sense to me now.” I pitied their hopeful hearts. They should have known from their own experience with Devon that Maize was never coming back to me.
Mr. Joe stood up. “Well, if we aren’t going to eat this meal, we best wrap it up for later. Let’s get you settled.”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me up.
Mrs. Sunshine said, “I know you’ve had a tough one, Sweet Potato. Let me run you a bath.”
She said that so normal—like that was what mommas did for their children. If the bath had bubbles, I might lose my mind up in here.
Ray smiled at me. “Anything that is here is yours now. You know that, right?”
I tried to fight off the dull throbbing starting at the base of my neck. How my feet moved down the hallway into that tub, I didn’t even know. Maybe I was in shock. None of this was happening to me. Dear God, let me wake up and let me be … where? The motel with them kids all huddled up with me on one bed? Give me the shed, Lord, at that old abandoned house. Give me those woods where we played Peter Pan with broken limbs and sticks for swords, fighting off Captain Hook. Let me be Wendy and take Maize’s hand and fly away with our own little Tinkerbell over the pines and through the swamps of North Carolina again.
Give me those days when I could make up a story, weave them into a spell and a smile. I’d make them forget their existence for a little while. Give me a chance to show the kids I could make us a new way, a reality that gave them all they needed. All we needed was love and being together. I always knew that. That was what the road taught me. I had to get us back together, but was that what God had in store for us, after this?
Maybe what Bean and Bell could get was what they had deserved all along—a replacement family, but a family all the same. The Pastor said he would take care of them, and his words moved in my spirit even though I denied them. I knew they both wanted that. I always thought I was their life support, but Daddy had pulled my plug. Miraculously, I was breathing on my own. How come?
Daddy. I pounded the water with my fist, watching how the ripple went out around me. That was like Daddy sending shock waves all throughout our lives, without taking any responsibility for it. How could he have denied us that farm? How could he have strung us along, tearing us down emotionally when he should have been building us up? And I had loved him. I had trusted his leadership, never failing to encourage and support him. He was more lost to me now than Maize was. I would have to face the fact that the life I once knew was now over. I had to learn to cope and maneuver through this new set of obstacles. How I was to do that, I wasn’t quite sure. I remembered what Ray had told Daddy and me before—that we needed to pray ourselves through it. I guessed I could always start there.