CHAPTER TEN
YOU JUST STAND HERE, and the people, they come to you-oh. You don’t even have to do nothing. Easiest money you ever make, bro. William had given him the instructions the night before, dropping a bag of product in his hand before he had even asked for it. He had been to parties where weed was available, had even tried it twice but didn’t like it; it didn’t take or something. But he had never seen someone make a sale, much less ever considered getting into the business himself. But talking to William these past few nights, seeing the vast stash of cash that kept growing in his pocket with each passing car, he had to admit it was something that merited further exploration.
Before, it had never made any sense to him why anyone would get into a business as potentially risky as this. Cops, guns, permanent records—it was all the stuff of the CSI shows his mother loved to watch, with the sorrowful-looking young black and Latino dudes who were doomed to get caught and, eventually, incarcerated. But as a dirty white Lexus drove up and a young white guy in a freshly pressed dress shirt rolled down his window, Kollie understood something that the shows never seemed to get right: the ease, the essential logic of the business. How it actually made perfect sense to sell something to folks who wanted it, even in some cases, medically needed. Shit, the stuff was even legal now in some states! And with money to be made like this, who wouldn’t get involved and make themselves something more?
Kollie hunched over and walked briskly to the car, a small bag of product slid between his middle and index fingers, exactly like he had seen William do, ready to make the exchange in less than a second.
“You’d better get up. Mom wants to talk to you before her shift.” Kollie hadn’t been able to find a pillow to cover his head and drown out his sister early that morning, but he had nearly managed to fall back asleep before Ma entered his room minutes later.
Ma asked him to please stop by Tetee’s family’s house that night—even if for just a little while. It would mean so much to Tetee’s father, who had recently completed the master’s program in computer science at the University of Minnesota and received word that he had secured a good-paying job downtown at Oracle. Tetee’s family and a bunch of their friends were throwing him a full Liberian party to celebrate his achievement, and Ma had been baking pans of sweet bread and spicy Liberian meatballs the past three days for the occasion. Kollie was lying facedown on his bed, his clothes still on from the night before—the roll of cash for William still in his pocket—when she popped her head in. She leaned over and touched his leg lightly as she spoke, and his fuzzy brain was lucid enough to hope there was not even the slightest smell of weed lingering on him. He would need to learn to be much more careful.
“Well?” she asked expectantly.
Kollie groaned and turned his face away from her, not ready to face the day, much less the night after it. The last thing he wanted to do was think about seeing Tetee and Gabe and Haji and who knows who else from school there, plus family and community members who had undoubtedly heard about his suspension and the “unfortunate incident” at the assembly. He didn’t know why his mother would want him there anyway, with all the questions and embarrassment his presence would bring up. No, it was better to stay away as long as possible, until memories of the event had faded from people’s minds and he was back in school doing well. But he couldn’t say any of that to Ma, so he said instead, “I’ll think about it.”
Now, after spending the day wandering around the neighborhood and the evening selling a bit of product for William, his stomach was growling. The thought of platters of delicious, fresh Liberian food made him ache with hunger. Maybe he could sneak into Tetee’s, grab a couple of plates of food. It was nine o’clock, and the party would be in full swing. Liberians from Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center, and Crystal would be descending upon the house to celebrate Tetee’s father’s degree, greet family and friends, and eat until they were beyond full. He could squeeze his lanky frame against the wide bellies and ample bosoms of the decked-out men and women who would be pushing through the door of the house, and no one would see him. There were probably eighty people packed into the modest ranch house already. That was how Liberians lived on this side: Work hard, play hard. This much, at least, they had learned from the Americans.
Kollie walked this way and that, down this neighborhood street and another, until he heard the steady beat of Liberian gospel music. He was almost there. When he turned the corner, he saw cars parked all the way down the street, women in too-high heels and shiny low-cut dresses holding on to elbows of men in brightly colored button-down shirts and suede shoes. Kollie laughed in spite of himself. He remembered one night after another such gathering, when his parents were still together, his father commenting on the hordes of Christian women dressed like tramps.
These people work all day, all night breaking their backs, making their pressure go off for these old sick white people-oh, his mother had snapped back. This the one time, the one place they have to show themselves off and be something. Let them have it, Ujay. Just let them have that. Kollie remembered that his mother’s rare verbal challenge to their father had shocked them all.
He pulled his hood up over his head and thrust his hands in his pockets. Then he fell in behind a large family bringing gifts and pans of food through the front door of Tetee’s house. This way, he could almost look like he was one of them, the teenage son bringing up the rear. The tween girl of the family, wearing tight jeans and an equally tight T-shirt, gave him an odd look as he neared her, but he pretended not to see. She shrugged, then looked away.
“Siraj! Edwin!” Tetee’s mother exclaimed as they entered. “Welcome to the family-oh!” She glanced over the group quickly, but Kollie was fairly certain she didn’t see him.
“Congratulations, my sister,” the man said, hugging her warmly, and Kollie used the moment to slip past them, fighting through the crowded living room toward the kitchen where he knew the food would be.
“—A man’s achievements are never just his own. His whole family, his whole community are what make everything he has, everything he enjoys in his life, possible. So, I need to thank my wife for making sure I had the space and time to complete my lessons, and the food to give me the energy to do it. I also need to thank my children, for listening to their mother when she told them to leave me alone-oh.” The room laughed appreciatively. Tetee’s father was standing in the middle of the living room, giving the formal speech that was always expected on such occasions.
When he was younger, the content and length of the speeches had seemed normal to him, but as he got older, Kollie found them over-the-top, too long, and self-important. They evoked a sense of Africanness that he found embarrassing now.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kollie saw his own father standing to the right of Tetee’s. Ujay looked proud of his friend from his university days, and Kollie was aware that he wished his father would look at him that same way someday. His breath caught when he saw his mother seated on a couch partition beside his father, her hand reaching up to touch his elbow. He couldn’t remember the last time they had been out in public together, much less touched. Kollie frowned. He wondered where Vivian was, and how his father had persuaded her not to come. As concerned as his father was with how people in the community saw him, he rarely if ever came out for any events besides weekly outings to church, where he was the last one in and the first one out of services, where he barely spoke to anyone. Liberians here hardly knew Ujay Flomo at all. And if he was honest, Kollie was beginning to see that he probably didn’t either.
Kollie made himself turn away from the spectacle of his parents and carefully pushed between sweaty, overdressed bodies toward the kitchen table. He stuffed a plastic fork and knife in his pocket. Then he grabbed two paper plates and tried to balance them flat between his fingers on his left hand. It would be tricky, but he would try to fill them both high with the spicy Liberian meatballs and sweet bread his ma had made; the torbogee and rice, fried tilapia, Liberian potato salad and rice, ribs, and gravy the other women had brought. His mouth watered.
At the far end of the table, he saw a sheet cake, already halfway eaten, with the remnants of the words, CONGRATULATIONS, JOSIAH! written across it. He would see how many pieces of that one he could fit on the plates, as well. He made himself focus on serving up the most food he could, quickly and efficiently, ignoring everything around him. If he could get out of here without anyone recognizing him, it would be a miracle.
When he was done, he turned around and tried to carefully walk back across the packed living room the same way he came—but now with two overflowing plates of food. Someone jostled his elbow and almost made him drop everything. He sucked his teeth. “Sorry-oh!” said an older man in a blue-and-white country shirt, and Kollie nodded at him absently to let him know it was okay.
A group of four men in their twenties stood right in front of the door. “The Old Ma wan eat da money even more than the wicked Papi,” one young man said, the spit flying out of his mouth and punctuating each syllable. Kollie knew they were arguing about Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
One of the others shook his head and laughed. “Hey-menh! Give Ellen shot-oh. You can’t say her name in same breath as Taylor.”
The first man sucked his teeth. “She appointing her one son to the ministry of health, and the other to the ministry of finance, I hear? Or something like dat. What she think, we just her pekins, don’t know what happening?”
A third young man, who couldn’t have been much older than Kollie, laughed bitterly. “We live through the war for this? Just more corruption? This is why we can’t ever develop-menh. Why I glad I on this continent and not the other one. Man, that place still going nowhere!”
The fourth man’s eyes lit up suddenly, and he came alive. “It still too early to judge, Comrades. Ellen may still be great-oh. Liberia may still be great, if we finally challenge the West and their neocolonial economic and political slavery.” Two of his friends rolled their eyes, and the other looked like he was stifling a laugh. “You mock me, but mark my words: Africa will rise again!” Two of his friends patted him on the shoulder, looking like they had heard this Pan-African fervor all before.
Kollie felt a grin leaking out the side of his mouth, despite his best attempts to contain it. It wouldn’t be a Liberian party without fiery political debate about the state, fate, and future of the homeland. But then came the inevitable next wave—the shame that came with knowing this was an old and useless debate.
He was three steps from the door when he sensed someone at his left trying to get his attention. He told himself to ignore it, but his curiosity got the best of him, and when he looked he saw Angel, seated in the corner alone. Her eyes were lit up, and she actually looked pleased to see him. He had no desire to see what all that was about, so he took a huge step through the middle of the would-be political reformers who he knew were really just future home health care aides, and then Kollie was out, free of the party, free of his family, free of Liberia, walking briskly away from the laughter and the noise. When he was a block beyond the last of the cars parked for the party, he sat on the curb under a streetlamp to eat the food, which had grown cold and flavorless.