Your Corner Dark

  Frankie looked over at the guy, bending, twisting his clay. “I should just stay home, you know? He might need me. He doesn’t have anyone else.” He shrugged. “It’ll be okay.”

  She hugged herself. “Well, I’m really sorry, Frankie. You must be crushed.”

  “Dealing with it,” came out of his mouth as he reminded himself of what he could hope for. And he did have things too: his father’s recovery, a high school diploma. Lots of kids didn’t even have that. And… given Leah’s concern, the way she was taking the news—maybe her, too?

  “Isn’t there anything you can do about it? Can you apply next year?”

  When he shrugged, as noncommittal as he could be, she reached for his hand. “I know you must be feeling bad, but… truth. It’ll be good to see you around.”

  That sliver of hope swelled. “How about we go out again, have some chicken this time?”

  “You liked the sushi that much?”

  “I think I like… you.”

  And he’d done it—for good or for bad. He had declared himself. He knew the first one to admit it in this game always lost, but he felt that if he didn’t, he’d lose anyway.

  “Cool. Maybe next week, then?”

  She hadn’t said she liked him back, but her eyes were soft, her head sweetly tilted, and she’d agreed to go out again. That had to mean something. He could work with that.

  She looked back at her blank canvas. “Not to kick you out, but I’ve got to get back to this. Seems I need to fill it up with something.”

  Twenty-Four

  sunday morning, Frankie sat beside Aunt Jenny in the back of the Toyota, a knapsack fat with weed between them, the musky scent so strong it would seep into his clothes. The car crept through downtown Kingston. Ice Box, driving, leaned back, hand resting on the wheel. Cricket, in the front passenger seat, picked at a loose knot in his cornrows. Frankie gazed out the window, Frankie Green, killing machine drumming through his head.

  “Frankie, this a no shopping trip, you know, mon. We driving close to Taqwan’s turf,” Ice Box said, face stern in the rearview. “You’re a lookout, so look out.”

  “Yes, mon.” Frankie squared his shoulders. He started watching the streets, which he knew were watching them. He edged his elbow against the handle of his gun, making sure it was still there, in case things got twisted.

  The buildings they were passing reminded him of the architecture in New Orleans he’d seen in a magazine once, ornate columns, off-white, light pink, and beige. Three men in short-sleeved shirts and straight-leg pants stood next to one of the pink office buildings. One stared back at Frankie, pulling something out of his pocket.

  “There!” Frankie shouted.

  “What?” Cricket asked.

  It was just a cell phone. The man looked down at it, answered a call.

  “Nothing,” Frankie said quickly. Stupid! He resumed scanning the street. Focus! Women with crinkled shopping bags dangling from their shoulders stood in front of a dollar store. A few feet away, a homeless man held his pants up with one hand and begged with the other.

  A clutch of schoolgirls in blue-and-tan uniforms walked by a grilled-window moneylending store. One had the same honey complexion as Leah. The time he’d first seen Leah, some invisible vibe forced him to focus on her and only her. It was as if he’d suddenly discovered a new way of looking at people. One of the girls turned his way. She was wearing Ray Bans—and then he was seeing Ray-Ban Boy, lying in the dirt, dust still circling from his fall, the spreading red. Focus!

  Ice Box pulled to the curb across from the crafts market. Aunt Jenny turned. “Frankie, you and Cricket come with me.”

  Ice Box looked at her in the rearview. “You sure me shouldn’t come? What if Taqwan knows about this deal? Him must want Brown’s connection too.”

  Taqwan? Hell yeah, Ice Box should come! “Yes, Aunt Jenny. Let Ice Box go instead of me!” Frankie urged. He thought he was only coming along as lookout. That was what Joe had told him.

  “I have my gun too, big man. We’ll be okay,” Jenny assured them both. “We’re simply going to a meeting. It’s a very important one and I don’t want to scare off the distributor, not that she scares easily, mind you.”

  “Distributor?” Frankie asked.

  “I’ve been negotiating to get Brown’s contact down here at the market and a few other places.”

  This Frankie understood. It was about turf, and growing the posse. Winston had said the posse was growing. It would grow even more now.

  Winston! Frankie wondered how he was doing. He had to talk to Joe about him. After this. “So why do you need me?” he asked his aunt.

  “You’ll find out. The contact is skittish about something, and I don’t know what.” Then she added under her breath, “Hell if I’m going to let her back out of this deal.” She patted Frankie’s knee. “So don’t overreact to anything, but you have to look ready and be ready, you understand?”

  Ready for what? But he knew enough not to ask, nodded as if he did know.

  “Good. Put on the backpack.” Jenny swung open the car door and got out.

  Frankie and Cricket followed as she strutted onto the sidewalk in front of a fit dark-skinned man in a crisp white shirt. Her bag slipped and fell to the ground. The man reached down and picked it up.

  Jenny elbowed Frankie. “You see how Cricket is alert?” Frankie turned. Cricket had drawn his handgun, his finger on the trigger.

  “When you come on this type of job, you must always be ready.” She took the bag from the stunned man and headed for the outdoor market. Frankie gaped—the place was huge! Rows of vinyl tents were spread out over the entire block. Drums filled with shirts, bins of blue jeans everywhere. Water coolers housed cool drinks for sale. Cheap plastic toys and imitation Nikes and Adidas sat on cinder blocks next to boxes of plastic-wrapped candy. A woman in a worn apron sat on a milk carton. She lifted her hand in a half wave, and Jenny nodded back. She must be a lookout.

  Jenny turned down a row thrumming with light-haired tourists, all speaking a throaty language Frankie didn’t recognize. Their number and the way they moved as a pack suggested they were fresh off a cruise ship. Jenny skirted the crowd until she reached a powerfully built woman with a wooden cross around her neck. The woman picked up a pile of black shirts and disappeared through the slit of the tent flap to her stall.

  Jenny told Cricket to wait as she beckoned Frankie to follow her.

  Inside the stall were stacks and stacks of garbage bags, all full. A teenage girl perched on a stool, a nine-millimeter handgun on her lap, her finger on the trigger. Frankie tried not to look shocked. And now he wondered if he should have his hand on his own gun. But that might provoke an incident. He could put his hands behind his back and look tough, but that was just stupid. So he let them fall by his side.

  “This must be your nephew,” the woman with the cross said. Tall and dark-skinned, as dark as Frankie, she had propped herself up on one of the garbage bags, stuffed tight. “Yes, I see what you’ve been saying. A very smart young man. I see him figuring out what to do already.”

  Frankie blinked hard. Was she an Obeah woman? Could she read minds? Could she cast spells, too? Frankie glanced at his aunt. And why would she tell this woman about him?

  “So, explain to me, Denetria. I thought the deal was done.” Jenny’s gold bracelets jangled as she gesticulated. “Me know is not Taqwan you worrying about.”

  Denetria took a tee from the stack, one that read JAMAICA, NO PROBLEM, and started folding it slowly.

  His aunt shifted from one high heel to the other. She was nervous! “If you go with Taqwan, you have to get more muscle, you know? Teenager on a stool isn’t going to cut it. Taqwan will try to pull you under his influence.” Denetria’s eyes narrowed, but Jenny powered on. “You won’t be independent no more. You know him have party connection with the JLP. I know you don’t like dealing with them. You’re a PNP like Joe, like me, like Brown was.”

  Though Frankie kept his eyes fixed
on Aunt Jenny and Denetria, he was fully aware that the girl with the nine-millimeter was staring at him, had been the whole time. If things went sideways, like with Ray-Ban Boy, he would be dead. Like Ray-Ban Boy. Still, he resisted the urge to pull out his gun.

  Denetria finished folding the tee and set it down. “Yes, okay, Taqwan wants me to distribute here and at the seaports. But I like you. Plus, Brown trusted you and I trust Brown, God keep his soul.”

  “So, what’s the problem, girl? You will get the same product, it’s just coming directly from Joe, instead of Brown. Farm to market, girl.”

  Denetria picked up another T-shirt. JAMAICA, NO PROBLEM. “Problem is, Joe is doing enforcing for the PNP.”

  The girl on the stool shifted the gun to her left hand, cracked her knuckles, then returned the weapon to her right.

  “He’s intimidating voters,” Denetria went on. “I know it has to happen. Election is a few weeks away, but me don’t want no bloodbath like inna Seaga and Manley times.”

  Seaga. Manley. Frankie knew those names. His tenth-grade teacher had talked a lot about them. They were political candidates way back in the 1980s election, when more than five hundred people were murdered because of political affiliations. He’d actually lived through all that madness when so many people got killed during elections.

  “Joe can’t take it too far, not on Taqwan’s turf.” Denetria put the T-shirt away neatly on top of the other one she’d folded.

  “War is bad for business,” Aunt Jenny agreed, picking up a T-shirt and starting to fold herself. The tent flaps rustled. Frankie slid his hand to his gun as sunlight spilled into the room.

  Three teenagers stalked into the tent, two with handguns at their waists, the third clutching some sort of sawed-off shotgun, the barrel pointing down.

  “Time fi go, boss,” one said.

  Denetria held up her hand—wait—then turned to Jenny. “It’s a deal—as long as you understand that I can’t have a war in my backyard. Taqwan controls turf two streets from here.”

  Aunt Jenny nodded. “Me understand, Denetria.”

  Denetria raised an eyebrow. “Does Joe understand?”

  Another nod. “Yes, girl. He’s been understanding.”

  “Okay. I assume the backpack is the first delivery to make things official?”

  Aunt Jenny nodded, extending her hand. “So, we have a deal, girl?”

  “We have a deal.” Denetria shook Aunt Jenny’s hand. “And as you can see, me have much more than teenager on a stool.”

  Aunt Jenny then nodded at Frankie.

  Sliding the knapsack off his shoulders, he put it on the folding table. He somehow understood that when you made illicit transactions, you never handed the merchandise or money to the customer, no matter how safe the environment seemed. Then he wondered how he knew.

  Denetria looked at Aunt Jenny. “Yes, very smart boy. He knows how it’s done.”

  “Yeh, mon. No flies on him.”

  No flies? Then he chuckled—Aunt Jenny meant he wasn’t a dumb shit.

  As well as the transaction had gone, he was happy to get out of that tent, see Cricket and sunshine again. He noticed two other grim-looking boys standing nearby, clearly more of Denetria’s people. Denetria knew what was up—that was for sure.

  As he and Aunt Jenny and Cricket made their way out of the market, Frankie kept looking back over his shoulder. The two teenagers were still fiercely watching. As dedicated and focused as, well, he’d been about engineering. Like he’d better become, if he wanted to stay alive.

  Twenty-Five

  the nurse clutched Frankie’s father’s medical chart to her chest as if it were a sick child. “The doctor feels the treatment hasn’t had enough time to take effect yet,” she was telling Frankie. “The delay in getting the Linezolid didn’t help, and your father’s blood pressure is lower than we’d like, but we still have hope.”

  “Hope. Pfff.” His father looked up at the ceiling, clenched his jaw.

  Frankie’s mouth went dry. When the treatment had come, he’d expected a quick recovery. But his father’s face was still tinged with an unhealthy yellow, and now his eyes were sunk deep, as if etched in with some sort of tool. His arms were covered in goose bumps despite the fever. Frankie wondered if the nurse was just being hopeful. Maybe the treatment wasn’t going to work after all? Still, he had to be hopeful also.

  Frankie bobbed in the cheap plastic chair, his nerves electric. His father could easily decide to say to hell with the treatment and walk out of the hospital, banking on cerise tea. Bumboclot! “So, how long do you think it will take for him to get better?” Frankie asked.

  She pulled harder on the chart. “I can only say that the doctor remains hopeful.”

  Samson slapped at the rail. “Lawd God, you people even know what you’re doing?”

  The nurse sighed. She was pretty, in a tired way. “Mr. Green. I sincerely wish you were feeling better. We’re doing what we can,” she said.

  Frankie didn’t wait for his father to start in about using bush tea or any other country cure. “It’s okay. We’re grateful for all you’re doing.” He nodded firmly at his father.

  His father turned his head away in disgust.

  The nurse hooked Samson’s chart to the bed rail. “All right then. If there’s nothing else, I’ll leave you two alone.” Odd—she wasn’t looking Frankie in the eye anymore. And her words seemed more clipped than usual, like she was nervous. She was scared, he realized. Was it something about Samson’s prognosis—or had she somehow gleaned that Frankie was in a posse? No, he was just being paranoid.

  “Thank you,” Frankie called after her.

  Soon as she was gone, Frankie’s father slammed his hand against the mattress. “This is bullshit. Me have a good mind to just leave this damn place.” He was breathing heavily.

  “You can’t do that, Daddy!”

  “All that money,” he muttered. “You know what? Get me clothes, mon.”

  “No, Daddy.” Frankie tried not to sound desperate as he grasped his father’s forearm. The skin felt hot, the muscles soft. “You need to do this. I’ve got it taken care of. Just lay back down.”

  “In all this time me not getting any better. It’s bullshit, mon!” He stabbed a finger in the air. “All them want is money.”

  Frankie kept his hand on Samson’s arm. “We just have to wait for the treatment to work.”

  His father pulled his arm loose and struggled into a sitting position. Frankie knew the effort this took him, the cost of the show.

  “Frankie, look, thank you. But next thing you know, them going to want more money. And me don’t want you spending no more. Me don’t want nothing to interfere with your scholarship. That is your future. God knows you worked hard for it.” Beads of sweat pooled on Samson’s forehead.

  A gnawing ache started up in Frankie’s stomach. It was as if the lie was something he’d swallowed, something rotten, now eating away at his insides.

  “Come boy, go get me clothes. We’re leaving.” Samson started pushing the sheets down, pushing trays away, yanking at the bed’s safety bar. He clearly had some reserve of strength.

  “Dad! You have to lie down! You have to give the medicine a chance!”

  But his father was swinging his legs—stick thin in only two weeks—over the side of the bed, his breath raspy. His father would die to secure Frankie’s future. Commit medical suicide. Frankie couldn’t let him.

  “Dad!” Frankie felt pure panic. Samson was trying to stand, his arms shaking the bed rails so hard the entire bed was rattling. Where was that nurse? For once, of course, no one was around. Frankie couldn’t think of anything else to do except what he dreaded most. It was the only thing that might stop Samson from leaving.

  He said it fast, certain he would vomit. “Dad—I got the money from Uncle Joe. It’s not from the scholarship.”

  Samson went deathly quiet. Bizarrely, a phrase his mother used to say popped into Frankie’s memory. He was a man who’d spent a long
time growing a seed into a plant only to find it chewed away by a squirrel in the night.

  Samson’s face seemed to contract: his eyes were suddenly closer together, mouth inched up to his nose, the furrows on his brow had taken over his forehead—a shrunken head of despair. “Damn you, Frankie!”

  “I made a deal for the money. I’m doing some work in the posse.” There, he’d said it. He wouldn’t elaborate.

  His father slumped back onto the bed. “That son of a bitch,” he said first. Then, in a voice gone shaky, as if pleading with God himself, “You can’t do this.”

  “I did it already. I had to. Daddy, look, you have to stay and let this treatment work. You have to.”

  “Don’t tell me what I have to do. I’m your father and I tell you.” His father glared at him. “Boy, you don’t know what you’ve done.”

  “I do.” But Frankie fought the urge to break down in sobs. “And it’s done already. So please, tell me you’re going to stay and keep taking the treatment. Or I’ve done this for nothing. I can’t lose Ma and you—”

  Samson started twisting like he was tied up with a rope and was trying to escape. “Lord, see my trial! Frankie, you’re a damn fool. This will not abide.” The anger got him going again. He started to sit up, but he was weakening, “You let Joe, Joe of all people take you!”

  Frankie summoned all the calm he could muster. “Look, Dad. I think you have to consider how much you hate Uncle Joe, and how much you love me. And which is more important to you.”

  Samson stopped. With the look on his face, he could have been a duppy. “What is this you’re saying?”

  “Dad, if you love me more, you will stay here and keep taking the treatment.” Frankie was spent. He had nothing more. “I can’t say it any clearer.”

  Down the hall, a bedpan hit the floor. The elevator bell rang. His father sat nodding as if he’d never stop. They sat there a long time, could have been minutes, or maybe hours, both of their heads down. The silence was torture.

  “Okay,” Samson said at last. “You throw away everything, Frankie. Lawd help you.” He shook his head as if ridding it of mosquitoes. “When me get out of here, me going to talk to Joe and straighten this out. Owing money to that man is like owing it to the devil himself.”