Mama came up the stairs appearing pitiful. Miss Shante walked slowly behind her holding Nadia by the hand, sniffling and wiping her reddened eyes with a handful of tissue. No one said a word to one another. Other than the soft crying of the two women and Nadia's childish babbling periodically, the front porch of the house stood still and deathly silent.
Mr. Larry's truck pulled up against the curb in front of our house where he exited with his usual paint splotched work clothes and cap. He marched from the street to the walkway, up the steps, to the porch. He stood up against the column closest to the steps, taking in the solemn scene before him. "Angie, baby; I'm so sorry. I wish that I would've been here for Montel tonight. I. . .I dunno what to say."
Mama gave Mr. Larry a weak smile as she looked up toward him with sad, tear moistened eyes. "I know, Larry. It's not your fault. Montel and Leon was just a disaster waitin' to happen." Mama sighed with grief. "Ya know, Larry, I think that it was God's will, I really do, because I've lost my oldest son once again, and I've been taught a bitter lesson." Mama rocked back and forth slowly on the old rocker sitting at the far left corner of the porch. "I should have left that man a long, long time ago, but I was hardheaded, thinking only about my needs as a woman and not those of my kids. Now, I've lost one of my kids because of my selfishness-maybe forever." She looked at Mr. Larry. "Try living with that."
Mr. Larry leaned back against the banister and lit a cigarette, deeply dragging on the Salem menthol before exhaling a thick cloud of smoke into the cool, night air. "Don't you dare blame yourself, Angie. Montel only did what any good child would wanna do, and that's protect their mother. There's no shame in that. "
"He's right," Miss Shante jumped in. "If it wasn't Montel, eventually it would've been Cedrick who would've beat his butt down. It was bound to happen."
I agreed wholeheartedly with both Mr. Larry and Miss Shante. "Yeah, Mama; I can't stand Leon! I mean, I respect you and love you, but if left up to me right now, I would've probably killed dude!"
"Cedrick Rohan Philips," Mama shouted. "You quit all that nonsense about killing folks, 'cause I don't wanna hear talk like that. You understand?" Mama's demeanor quickly switched from downcast and somber to hotheaded and fiery. She seemed to stab the thin air as she forcefully pointed her finger angrily at me. "You will not now nor ever be a statistic of this neighborhood. Do you hear me? It's happened to one of my sons and I won't allow it to happen to another!"
"I don't think Cedrick meant it like how it sounded, Angie," Mr. Larry said in my defense. "You've got a bright and promising young man here who only wants the very best for his mother, just like Montel did." Mr. Larry took one last drag on the cigarette before flicking the smoldering butt off into the dark street beyond. "I know the Lord works in mysterious ways, and I feel in my heart of hearts a lot of good is gonna come from this. Just you watch and wait on God."
"Amen. . .Amen. You're so right, Larry," Mama said in a more calming tone. "Please pray for my strength in the
Lord, because I sure need it."
"What Satan meant for evil, the Lord is gonna change for His good. You just watch and see. I'm telling you," Mr. Larry prophesied as he took my mother's hand into his own, comforting her as best he could.
Early the following morning, as I fiddled around under the hood of Fatima's Buick, I was tapped on the shoulder by someone who'd approached me from the rear. Slowly, I backed away from the open hood and turned to see who it was. I was surprised to see my old archenemy, Baby, standing in front of me smiling. I hadn't seen him since the fight a while ago back in May. His hair was neatly trimmed as was his goatee and mustache. He'd traded in the bandanna, wife beater, khaki's and chucks for a casual, salmon colored, buttoned oxford shirt with navy blue linen slacks and a pair of spiffy looking black leather penny loafers. He also carried a leather bound copy of the King James Bible tightly in his left hand. He slowly stretched out an open palm toward me, to which I clasped after a moment of apprehension.
"That's what I'm talking 'bout. . .Praise the Lord! How are you doin', Cee? Man, it's really good to see you again." It looked like Baby. It sounded like Baby, but this couldn't be the Baby I knew standing in front of me talking about praising the Lord.
I was in a state of disbelief. I just stood facing Baby, looking dumbfounded for several seconds before gathering myself again. "Yeah, it's good to see you again too, Baby." Even then as I spoke those words toward my erstwhile enemy, it came out sounding hollow, with a hint of surprise thrown in.
Baby chuckled lightly at my awkward reaction to his sudden extreme makeover. For over an hour and a half, Baby and I talked, laughed and talked some more. He spoke of how he'd plotted with a few other neighborhood kids to kill me and Montel right after our fistfight, but he could never quite orchestrate the drive-by properly and how a slew of personal tragedies befell him one after the other, culminating with the shooting death of his cousin, Petey, at the hands of the fearsome Pirv Bloods. It was these unpleasant events that led him to attempt suicide.
"Yeah, Cee, I tried to take myself out, dawg. I must've drank over a fifth of Vodka, straight and then I got in my whip. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in an emergency room with tubes and stuff attached to me. My whole body was bandaged up like a mummy. I went over an embankment out near Ventura Highway. My car fell twenty feet down to the rocky bottom. Paramedics had to use the jaws of life to free me from that burning car. I was airlifted by helicopter to Cedars Sinai where I was hospitalized for what seemed like forever. I was in real bad shape, Cee."
I shook my head at the horror Baby had survived as he continued.
"I was told that I was comatose for over a week. But check it; I was visited by some type of beaming light or something. I know it sounds crazy, but this is real talk, Cuz. I'm talking about a figure of pure light. The feelings going through my body, Cee-I'd never felt anything like it in my entire life." Baby shook his head as if not only couldn't he believe what had happened himself, but he couldn't believe he was telling me about it.
"I felt every emotion; pain, pleasure-you name it, dawg, that I had given to the people around me. All I could hear was moanin', cryin' and voices of people screamin' or hollerin' out in pain. I could actually feel the presence of a whole lotta people. Then the place started to smell bad. I 'm talking 'bout real, real bad; like a whole lotta dead bodies or something. On top of all that, it started getting really hot, and then came the flames."
To my surprise, I found myself listening intensely to Baby's every word, as if I didn't doubt one bit that something like that could happen to a person; could happen to him.
"It was hell, man," Baby said. "I bet it was," I replied.
"No, for real. I was in hell," he clarified. "I was given a choice to enter the light or come back into my broken body and receive Christ as my Lord and Savior and become a responsible soul. I wanted to go into the light at first because it was so peaceful, but after I got a glimpse of that, I didn't want to end up there for eternity. So I chose to come back and make things right with God. I've given my life over to Christ because I know now that He is the only way to salvation and everlasting life; not bangin' and runnin' the streets with a gang."
Baby gently took the bolt ratchet from my hand and ducked down under the propped open hood of the Buick, turning and tightening, only pausing long enough to switch tools twice. After ten minutes, Baby had the big luxury car purring like a kitten.
"Wasn't nothing but a slight li'l radiator leak, Cuz," he told me. "Luckily for you, you had a bottle of engine stabilizer at the bottom of your tool box. It'll pretty much take care of your' minor engine problems for a minute."
I gave Baby a fist pump, thanking him for both his automotive assistance as well as his eye opening testimony, then we both sat on the hood of the car reminiscing about Montel. Baby said he had no grudge toward Montel for the fight outside of Mr. Lee's store and promised that he'd visit Montel at the L.A. county jail before his trial date was set. Baby opened up his Bible and recited the thirty-ninth Psalm aloud and with passionate conviction before turning to face me. He concluded by closing the sacred text.
"This Psalm was for all the boys in the hood and cats out here on the grind, in general, but it was for Montel in particular," Baby stated. "No matter what happens to Montel on his court date, the Lord is gonna have the final say. And trust me, Cee. It's God whose gonna get the glory regardless of what man decides as a final verdict. So keep ya head up, Cee. Just keep doin' you and trust in Him. You'll be fine." We bumped fists one final time and then he walked away, melting into the distant streets, praising God's holy name triumphantly as he went.