9
DEMARCO
Once all but one of the police left, I was allowed inside our apartment to gather a few of my things. They were still treating the place as a crime scene so I had to hurry. I didn’t have much that I needed, since I hadn’t been home in so long. I grabbed my toothbrush, deodorant, and a few pair of underwear, and walked out. The police officer who was standing by the door locked up behind me and asked me if I needed a ride to my grandmother’s house. I thanked him but said no thanks.
I needed to find Jasmine. I threw my book bag over my shoulder and walked down the street to Mrs. Eichelberger’s house. I let myself into the gate and walked down the stone pathway until I came to her porch. A light was on in the front room and I could see a television’s blue light dance off of the walls. I walked up the stairs and rang the doorbell.
“Who is it?” a male voice said from the other side of the door.
“DeMarco from down the street,” I said.
I heard a few locks disengage and the door swung open. A tall white man with long hair pulled back into a ponytail stood before me with a smile on his face. He had a clean-shaven face and had two hoop earrings in each of his earlobes.
“How are ya?” the man said.
“I’m good,” I said. “I need to pick up my little brother.”
“Yeah, sure. Come on in,” he said and backed away from the door to allow me room. “I’m Scott; Michelle’s husband. How are you?”
I walked into the house and my skin welcomed the coolness of the air conditioner. The house was as awesome on the inside as it was on the outside. It didn’t look like anything I had ever seen in the Bluff. They had hardwood floors and a stone fireplace with a large flat-screen television hanging above it. They had white shelves with books for days. Devin was lying on a leather sofa beside Mrs. Eichelberger, who was sitting with a laptop on her thighs. She had on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and looked like a schoolteacher. She removed her glasses and placed them and the computer on the table beside her. She stood when I walked in.
“Is everything okay?” Mrs. Eichelberger asked.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “The police took my mom. I think she shot her boyfriend.”
“Did he die?” Scott Eichelberger asked with a look of genuine concern on his face.
“I don’t know. I think so,” I said.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Can we offer you something to drink?”
“No,” I said. “I just need to grab Devin so we can get out of y’all hair.”
“Where are you guys going?” she asked.
“To my grandmother’s house. It’s not too far from here.”
“DeMarco,” Mrs. Eichelberger said, shooting a look to her husband, “I know you don’t know us very well, but we want to help. We would love to watch Devin for you until you get yourself settled,” the woman said.
I contemplated her offer. My mom did say to leave Devin with her, but to me that was kind of rude to just pawn your kid off on some white folks. But then again, I needed to find Jasmine and get myself together. Grandma wasn’t in any kind of shape to be running after Devin, and Uncle Moochie wasn’t responsible enough to watch a goldfish, nevermind a child.
“For how long?” I asked.
“For as long as you need us to,” Scott Eichelberger said.
“Okay,” I said. “I can leave you guys a few bucks.”
“No,” Mrs. Eichelberger said. “Save your money. He’s fine.”
“Well,” I said, not sure what to say. “I will come by and check on him tomorrow. Hopefully I can get settled in at my grandmother’s in a few days and I’ll come back to get him.”
“Take your time,” Scott said. “You have a lot going on. Devin is fine. We’ll treat him like royalty.”
I sighed. Something didn’t feel right about leaving my brother with a bunch of strangers. White strangers at that! I would feel much better leaving him with Mrs. Gloria or somebody. I had a feeling that Devin was in good hands, but I still didn’t feel right leaving him.
“Okay,” I said. I walked over and stood over my sleeping little brother. He’d had a long day and seemed to be sleeping so peacefully. I didn’t want to wake him, so I just reached out and touched his little head. “He needs a haircut. I will come over tomorrow after school and take him to get one.”
“Take him with you too,” Mrs. Eichelberger said, pointing at her husband.
“Hey,” Scott said. “What are you talking about? No barber in his right mind would cut this.”
I chuckled and reached down to pick up my bags.
Scott and his wife walked over to me. They looked at each other, then Scott spoke up. “You know you’re more than welcome to stay too.”
“I’m good,” I said, wondering what kind of people I was dealing with. I understood them taking Devin in—he was just a little kid—but I was bigger than both of them, fresh out of juvey, and saw the way they had looked at me when I walked in. Their eyes registered fear, but obviously something inside of them was overruling that feeling. “Thanks for the offer, but y’all already doing enough.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Eichelberger said, and I could’ve sworn I saw relief on her face.
“I’ll be back tomorrow to take Devin to get a haircut, and if I’m settled, I’ll take him off your hands. Can I have a phone number where I can reach y’all? I’ll give you mine too.”
“Sure, and no rush. We love having Devin over,” Mrs. Eichelberger said, then walked over to her end table and scribbled their number on a Post-it note. She handed me the number, then rubbed my arm in a reassuring kind of way. “You take care of yourself out there, DeMarco, and call us if you need us.”
Scott Eichelberger reached out and shook my hand. He had a flimsy and weak grip, but he smiled and used his free hand to pat my shoulder as if we were old friends.
I walked out of the Eichelbergers’ home not knowing which way to turn. Once I was out of the gate on the sidewalk, I turned around and looked back at the nice home in the middle of the hood. Devin is living it up, I thought.
I walked back down the street to our apartment and noticed that all the police were gone. It was as if nothing even happened. I needed to find my sister, so I walked past my house until I got to the end of the street. I couldn’t remember which house Kecia lived in, but I knew it was at the end of the block. It was almost midnight, but folks were out like it was the middle of the day.
“Brah,” I asked this guy who appeared to be about eleven years old. He was standing on the corner looking for customers for his illegal narcotics sales. “Which one of these houses does Kecia live in?”
“Who you?” he asked while scowling at me with the typical Bluff mean mug. He was already hardened and there was no fear on his bony black face.
“DeMarco, man,” I said, not really in the mood to play this game tonight.
“Ohh,” the boy said as if he really knew me. “When you get home?”
“Today,” I said. I didn’t know him, but I was pretty well-known throughout the area for my criminal exploits, my skills on the basketball court, and for my tattoos. “I’m looking for my sister. Have you seen her?”
“Nah, but Kecia lives right there. She probably know where she at,” he said and pointed to this house that was at the end of the dead-end street. There were no streetlights on because the kids got a kick out of shooting them out. As fast as the city would come and put them up, shots would ring out even faster. Finally the city said forget it and left the residents in the dark. I walked down to the end of the street and caught a break. Kecia was sitting on the front porch listening to an iPod. She was wearing a T-shirt and some pink booty shorts. I figured she was out trying to escape the heat.
“What’s up, Kecia,” I said as I walked up her driveway.
She pulled the plugs out of her ears and stared at me. She frowned as if she had no idea who I was.
“Have you seen my sister?” I asked. “This is Dee.”
“Ohh, snap. What’s up, boy,” she said. “Man, you done got tall. What they feeding you in that jail?”
“Nuttin’ good,” I said. “Have you seen Jasmine?”
“Nah,” she said. “We hung out last night, but I haven’t seen her since.”
“Where did y’all hang out?”
“Stevie Nichols had a party. It was off the chain. I guess she had a better time than we did because when it was time to leave, she was nowhere to be found. But somebody said they saw her on the bus today.”
“So y’all just left her at the party with some rappers?”
“She was straight,” Kecia said. “Jasmine can take care of herself.”
“Yeah, and it’s a good thing because y’all sure wasn’t looking out.”
“Whatever, man. That was all part of the plan. I wouldn’t leave her out there like that, but if you see her tell her we need to holla at her. She should have something that we need to split four ways.”
“Whatchu mean she got something that y’all need to split four ways? What does she have?”
“Now you dipping ya nose where it don’t belong,” Kecia said as if I was going along with her game. Six months ago, I would have been down with her program and could see myself trying to get in where I fit in on their little hustle, but I didn’t want any part of that life anymore.
“Well,” I said, “it was good seeing you. If you see my sister before I do, tell her to get with me ASAP. We have a family emergency.”
“I will,” she said. “You looking good, Dee.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I didn’t know what Jasmine and her so-called Diva friends had going on, but something didn’t seem right. I decided to not press the issue with Kecia since I had seen my sister earlier in the day.
“A’ight, Kecia. Do you have a cell number for Jaz or anything?”
“Yeah,” she said and flipped through her phone. I pulled out my own phone and punched in the numbers that she gave me.
“A’ight,” I said. “Thanks a lot. I’ll see you around.”
“You straight,” Kecia said and popped her earplugs back into her ears and continued listening to whatever she was enjoying before I showed up.
“Yo, Dee,” the young street dealer who I spoke to earlier called out to me. “I need to get me one of those tats, brah. I got some chetta.”
“Just come holla at me tomorrow after school,” I said.
“School?” he said, then pulled up two fistfuls of money. “I bet you can’t get this in school.”
I laughed and shook my head. “You better put that up. You’ll need it for a lawyer pretty soon.”
“Stop putting the jinx on me,” the youngster said. “I’m smarter than you, brah brah. Po po can’t touch me. I’m the new Teflon kid round here. They call me the ghost, because whenever they here, I disappear. Poof.”
“I bet you are,” I said as I made my way back down the street toward my apartment.
I really didn’t feel like walking the two miles to my grandma’s house and it was too late to go over to Jolly’s. The cops said I needed to stay out of my apartment, but since when did I ever care about what they said? Never! And I wasn’t about to start now.
I walked up to my front door and turned the knob; it was locked and I didn’t have a key. I walked around to the back and tried the window; it was open, so I crawled through it and got inside. I flipped on the light switch and watched as what appeared to be a few hundred roaches scattered in every direction. I picked up the can of Raid that I had bought earlier and started blasting them into the roach afterlife. As I was spraying away, I looked on the hallway floor and saw splatters of blood. My eyes followed the crimson line from the floor all the way up to a big round spot on the hallway wall.
“Man,” I said to myself as I held the can of bug spray in my hand, staring at the bloody wall. “Homeboy got fired up. I guess he won’t be peeping at nobody else. Freak.”
I went into the bathroom and sprayed some more roaches. I relieved myself, washed my hands, and decided it was time for a hot shower. I wasn’t concerned about messing up the police officers’ so-called crime scene. I doubted that they would even come back. Shootings, murders, robberies, rapes, and any other crime you could think of was a daily occurrence in the Bluff, and to most of the police officers who worked the area, we were all expendable.
I pulled the shower curtain back and looked down at the dirty bathtub. It had a dark ring around it that revealed it hadn’t been cleaned in weeks, which was perhaps the last time Jasmine had stayed home. There was a pile of dirty clothes in it, so I pulled out the mildew-stained clothes and tossed them on the floor. I turned the faucet on to as hot as it would go and jumped in. The water felt good on my skin and I could almost feel the smell of the juvey center coming off me. I found a wrinkled-up slab of soap and lathered up every inch of my body, then stepped under the showerhead and allowed the water to completely rinse away the bubbles. After about thirty full minutes in the shower, I turned off the faucet and stepped out onto the floor. I looked around for a towel but couldn’t find one. I walked out of the bathroom, crossed the living room, and walked into Jaz’s room. She kept her own personal stash of towels. I opened up the closet and there they were, folded neatly in the top of her closet. I grabbed one and dried myself off. I wrapped the towel around my waist and walked into the living room. I dug around my bag for a pair of boxer underwear and a T-shirt. Once I was dressed, I plopped down on the sofa.
I was tired but still a little overwhelmed with today’s events. I grabbed the remote control for the television and channel surfed until I found something that looked interesting. The apartment had an odor that wasn’t the same as the one I had smelled earlier, but I guess death smelled different than anything else. I sat back, threw my feet up on the other end of the sofa, and closed my eyes. My mind raced over where I was when I woke up this morning to where I was laying my head tonight. I couldn’t do anything but shake my head.
What a birthday, I thought as I drifted off to sleep.