LAYLA
Outside the church, five guys mingle on the west end of the street, pants hanging low, loud talking about their next reckless conquest, and a friend who was shot. Curses liberally added in between every other word tumbling out of mouths. This scene I’m glad Christy didn’t witness. Most don’t grasp the nuance of South Side living and all the work of representing this place not as a warzone, but somewhere with nice homes, friendly faces and untapped potential. Those guys on the corner are the South Side stereotype personified. What people imagine and fear when they listen to thirty-second news stories.
If we’re to truly look at ourselves and not at our pain. If we realized our value and spent less time captive to hasty perceptions. If we saved ourselves, what could we become? They fear our skin and we fear our power. It’s a perfect storm for destruction. Our destruction.
I’m always exerting time and energy and effort justifying where I live to colleagues and friends and strangers who believe they have the right to speak about where I come from based on hurried statistics, as if they’re some kind of ordained experts on my neighborhood, my side of the city.
Shades of black and brown and tan, deep and light, intermingle throughout these streets with a different kind of testimony; a different kind of worship; a different kind of church, and prison or death, a different kind of hell. But sometimes it’s too much. Wearied residents abandon Chicago, a place cradling both rich history and affliction, for Atlanta and North Carolina and Alabama. A reverse Great Migration of sorts.
The guys on the corner are too consumed with missed chances, lack of opportunity, relinquished dreams and hollow guidance. They’re ready to prove manhood by lashing out with a gun, bad aim and the temperament of a child; they eagerly war among themselves for imagined domain and false pride.
A few of the guys on the corner I recognize. One of them went to my elementary school. We were in the same class. His name is LeTrell. He stopped coming around seventh grade. Then I started seeing him on the corner.
LeTrell spots me now and I smile at him. He at least nods. A small gesture, nothing big, but a recognition.
The headache returns. My temples throb in a familiar rhythm.
“Hey.”
Even though I recognize the voice, I still jump.
“Damn it, Tim!”
“Whoa. Such language, church girl.”
“Other than sneaking up on people like a ninja, did the army teach you how to annoy the hell outta people, too?” I say.
He chuckles. “That talent comes natural along with my good looks and charm.” He comes from behind and embraces my waist, and I turn and kiss him.
“Aren’t you afraid of someone saying something to your dad?”
“I don’t care.”
Tim lets go and searches my eyes with that deep, abiding gaze and replies, “What’s wrong?”
“Is it too dramatic to say everything?”
Tim tilts his head to his left, unsure of how to reply.
“I just had a fight with Dad is all. About Ruby and everything that happened last week. Dad wants to bury his head in the sand. I’m sick of it. It’s like he doesn’t know how to help any other people except Lebanon King.”
The sun, hidden behind the fluff of clouds, emerges again shining light on the church. Wind whips around our bodies, daggers of cold air cutting our skin.
“Did you know your dad was the only one who could get my dad to stop drinking for a while, get him to come home?”
I shake my head. I knew parts of Tim’s story. The ones I pieced together from our childhood. The memories I made with him, the ones I make with him now. He was alone a lot in school if Ruby or I weren’t with him. His clothes worn and hair matted. He didn’t always smell very good. Kids made fun of him, but I knew better than those silly kids. So did Ruby. One time, Tim stayed with me when I scraped my knee falling off the slide. His arm, skinny and ashy, a comfort, and I leaned on him until Momma found us together several minutes later.
“Your dad was the one who suggested the army. He took me to the recruitment office. Helped me study. Don’t you remember?”
I shake my head again.
But I do remember. My dad leaning over Tim, timing the practice tests for the ASVAB, or some other aptitude test with a lot of capital letters. The tests. Dad would go over the answers in a gentle way. The encouragement. It was like the spelling tests he’d help me study for. Dad has the same smile when he’s proud. It takes over his whole face. And the hugs he’d give. Now Tim has me softening my resolve when all I want is to rant and be angry. When all I want is to dig and find answers to help Ruby and now I’m considering going back into that church and hugging Dad and asking if we can start over.
“Why don’t you come to my place for a while? Cool off.” Tim suggests, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I check my phone for any other texts, calls. “I can’t. I gotta be somewhere.”
“Ruby,” Tim says answering a question that no one asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to, Layla. Everything you want to say, even when you’re not talking, is on your face.”
I hear the loose gravel from the cracked concrete underneath Tim’s feet shift as he makes his way down the stairs.
I catch up to him and look in Tim’s eyes. He knew I was going to speak, but he did so first.
“I know he upsets you and I know he’s not easy, but you’re not either. Make the effort while he’s here. If these past few days didn’t teach you anything, learn that. Please.”
The deep brown globes of his eyes show concern and something softer.
“I’ll talk to you later,” he says.
“So there’ll be a later?”
Tim smiles, a sole dimple embedded in his right cheek. “You don’t get rid of me that easy.” The gravel shifts under his feet once again as he walks down the final few stairs, past the guys on the corner, and out of my sight.