It was after 1:00 P.M. and Lewis sat at the corner table of an empty, run-down fast food joint. He wore his work shirt, jeans, and work boots. His head was resting heavy in his hands, his temples starting to pulse with pain brought on by the meeting he’d had not long ago.
This morning, the ringing from Lewis’s phone had pierced his brain like a railroad spike.
“Hello,” he said, still in bed under the sheets, his head throbbing from all the beers he had consumed last night.
“Lewis, it’s Salesha. You need to be meeting me and Salonica at ten o’clock.”
“Meeting you for what?” Lewis said, sitting up in bed, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. He noticed Monica was gone.
“You just do.”
“It can’t be at ten. I’ll be at work.”
“You get a lunch break, right? Make it at noon.”
“Where?” Lewis said, not certain he was even going to show.
“We gonna be getting our hands and feet done, so meet us at the salon on Forty-first and Cottage Grove.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Lewis said, preparing to hang up.
“Lewis,” Salesha said, her voice much more businesslike now. “I’m serious. This ain’t no bullshit.”
“Yeah.”
At noon, Lewis walked up to the salon, saw Salesha and Salonica in the window looking like twin prostitutes. Huge frozen curls were stacked on top of their heads and sprinkled with glitter. They looked like Christmas trees.
They wore tight T-shirts, miniskirts, and strapped high heels, the straps crisscrossing up their thin calves.
Lewis pulled open the door, and Salonica said, “We can’t talk in here. Let’s go to your car.”
He followed them to the truck. Lewis clicked the keyless remote, watched the two women get in, Salesha in the front seat, the daughter in the back.
Lewis climbed in afterward. “What’s this about?”
“Ain’t you happy to see us, Lewis?” Salonica called from the backseat.
“Yeah.”
“Haven’t seen you since my sister’s funeral, and all you got to say is ‘What’s this about?”’
“I’m sorry,” Lewis said. “But it’s always something with you, so I just want to get to it.”
“Fine,” Salesha said. “We want Layla.”
“She’s in day care right now. But I told you, I’ll work out a time when you can—”
“Naw. I think you’re misunderstanding us. I ain’t sayin’ we want to see her. I’m saying we want her. I want my grandbaby back,” Salesha said.
An hour later and Lewis still couldn’t believe Salesha had the nerve to ask him that. He looked up at Freddy, sitting across from him.
“And what did you tell her?” Freddy said, a soda cup in his hand.
“I told her hell the fuck naw, and to get her and her daughter’s country asses out of my truck.”
“Damn,” Freddy said sadly, shaking his head. “What you think they gonna do?”
“She said they weren’t gonna take no for an answer. They said they’re gonna keep hounding me, ringing my phone. I told them to try it.”
“You try giving them a few bucks to go away? You know that’s all they probably—”
“I ain’t giving them shit!” Lewis said, shooting up from his seat, raising his voice. “Give them money for what? So I can keep my child? Naw, yo’. It ain’t like that. Trust me when I say that, Freddy. It ain’t going down like that.”
A Korean man, the obvious owner of the fast food joint, looked out over the counter as if expecting trouble.
Freddy noticed the owner eyeing them. “Dude looking at us like we about to rob this place.” Freddy stood and said to the owner, “What the fuck you lookin’ at? We paid for our nasty-ass food. Can’t we eat it without your supervision?”
The man ducked back behind the counter.
Freddy sat back down. “Don’t stress it, Lewis. You need something to take your mind off this nonsense, and you know your boy, Freddy, got what you need.”
“I don’t need nothing,” Lewis said, his head in his hands again.
“You don’t need to see the Bulls spank the Lakers’ asses on Thursday?”
“For real?” Lewis said, perking up. Then deflating he said, “Naw, Monica’s thing is on that night, remember?”
“Dude, sometimes you gotta do something for yourself. When was the last time I been able to get us tickets to a Bulls game?”
“Like two years ago,” Lewis said.
“And when was the last time you went to one of Monica’s things?”
“The last time she had one. I gotta go every time she has one.”
“So you deserve a break, right?” Freddy said.
“Yeah, you right. Thursday night, we on!”