Tenants
Mark and James
have been friends since forever. They liked to say they were friends from the
cradle to the grave. The only time they spent any real time apart from each
other was when James went away to college. Even then Mark would visit some
weekends and anytime James knew of a big party. While James was away for his
four years getting his degree in communications Mark was home in PG County
carving out a notch for him self in the home contracting business. When James
graduated it was a forgone conclusion that he would come back home to hook up
with Mark and get some kind of business venture in the works. Mark banked a lot
of his early earnings as seed money. James did his part working during his time
in school to add to the capital they would need. Once James came home Marked
invited him to come stay with him until they got their venture off and running
and he could afford his own place; that's how they ended up at the Bontemps.
Mark sat waiting
in the visitor’s area looking at everyone, he loved to people watch. He had been here so often he nearly forgot it
was the visiting area of a maximum security prison. He watched as parents visited sons, wives
visited husbands, children visited fathers, girlfriends visited boyfriends and
in some cases boyfriends visited boyfriends.
As he sat there waiting for his brother to come into the room He could
over hear an inmate talking to his visiting mother. The mother was in tears as the young boy
explained to her that he was going to be killed if he didn’t put at least $200
on the book of one of the inmate that ran his cell block.
“Mom they know
I’m getting out in a few day and they don’t want that. He said if I don’t get him the money they
gonna kill me. You have to do it Ma!”
“I don’t have it
Eric baby.” The weeping mother replied. I just don’t have it. I could barely pay for your lawyer and the
rest of the bills this month."
Brian continued
ear hustling until he noticed a guard waving him over. The guard that always brought Mark's brother
in appeared at the door with a funny look on his face, there was something
wrong. Mark tucked the $500 he had in
his hands to put on his brothers books into his pocket. He thought back to the time he came to visit
and could not because he had gotten in to some kind of altercation and had been
put in solitary confinement, not this bullshit again he thought.
"Hey Mark,
how's it going?"
"Not bad
man, where's my brother? I've been
waiting here for almost and hour."
"Man, I
thought someone would have called you."
The look on his face was one
of fear and
disappointment.
"Your
brother was killed last night Mark. I
know they are being real hush-hush
about it but I
thought they would have gotten word to the family by now."
Brian could not
believe what he was hearing. So many
memories danced around in his head as he stood there fighting back tears. The look of that prison visiting room
suddenly started to sicken him. There
was a smell to it that he had blocked out all these years, it turned his
stomach. He had always said that he
would never visit anyone in prison and his brother initially didn’t want any
visitors but about three years into a 25 years bid it started to get to him and
he called Mark and asked him to come visit.
It was a no brainier; Mark was on his way his way the next day. And he continued once a month until today.
Mark shook hands
with the guard and headed for the exit for the last time. As he made his way across the room that
mother and son caught his attention again.
The mother was still in tears and the son’s battle to not shed any tears
was lost. The wad of money he had in his
pocket seemed to become as heavy as lead.
When he reached their table, without saying a word, Mark stopped and
counted off ten $20 bills and dropped it in front of the young dude. He then dropped the remaining 20's, $300 worth,
into the mother's hands. "Have a
nice day." Her eyes, full of tears,
looking up at him spoke volumes. Before
she could say anything before Mark walked off, out of that visiting room never
to return again.
*****
James sat on the
couch looking around Mark's condo. He
thought Mark must have been doing very well with his contracting business to
afford this place. He was feeling very
happy for his friend; it only fed his drive to get things going for himself. He
walked to the guest room, where he was now calling his room for the time being,
and admired the décor. Mark was doing
very well. The more he looked around the
guilt started to filter in. Here he was
living in what seemed like the lap of luxury compared to where he came from. Compared to where his mother still lived. He sometimes got these feelings of guilt
while away at school. When he got a full
ride to VCU he could not wait to get away from all the shit going on all around
him in the streets of D.C. One spring
break he came home and one of his worse fears seemed to come true. He could tell that his mother was on
drugs. He tried to talk to her but she
didn't want to talk about it. After that
James came home only when he had to. To
stop from having to ask his mother for anything and to use as an excuse not to
come home he got a job near school. This
shit would have never happened had he not gone away to school he thought. He would have never allowed it and no one
would have sold his mother drug because they knew he would have fucked them up
without giving it a second thought.
Growing up in
one of the toughest areas of D.C. James held his own in the streets. In fact that how James and Mark meet; James
came to Mark's rescue one day. Now this
happened when they both were in grade school but hey, it was the beginning of their
friendship. Growing up, together, they
got into a lot of fights. And it became
known that you didn't want to fuck with James and Mark, especially James. But once James left for school he wanted to
leave all that behind him. But now he was back, back and ready to do some good.
He figured if he and Mark could get
their thing, whatever it was, off the ground he could move his mom out of the
old neighborhood and get her straight.
She'd been dating some guy over the last few mouths so James figured
that how she had the money to do the shit she did. He must have also been the one that turned
her on to it, she would never have known where to go to get it and if she would
have gone to anyone in the neighborhood they would not have given it to her
because of James.
"Fuck!" He silently screamed; I'm done thinking about
this shit. He sat there for a minute
then she came to his mind. The only she
that he every really cared about, Dana.
Her birthday was in a few days, he didn't realize it until just
now. But in his mine that was a good
thing. He'd done a good job of
forgetting about her and he thought of this as a major set back. Her birthday had become sort of a sore spot
for him. He used to love to spend that
day with her, they would do whatever she wanted to do.
But for the last three year she'd had someone else in her life and they were
getting the attention he wished he could.
So for that reason he'd decided to move on. It wasn't just that easy but he was doing
well with it. That is until he came home
and saw he; that fucked him up. While he
was away at school it was easier. He
could deal with it a little better because she was hundreds of miles away. When he realized that she was seeing someone
it crushed him, almost broke his spirits. For awhile his grades suffered but he
knew if that continued he'd lose his scholarship and lose his ride so he got
that shirt straight real quick. After
that he lost himself in work and school.
All he had on his mind was finishing school so he could get home and
get something up and going with Mark.
He'd made the decision to push Dana out of his mind or at least to the
back of it. But sometime that was just
too hard to do.
Unit #4
It was about 9:30 Saturday morning
when the moving truck pulled up in front of The Bontemps Condominiums. Without wasting any time the four men jumped
out of the cab of the truck and got right to work. The street was empty and the building was
quiet as they worked to move the contents of the truck into unit #4. Mrs. Williams curious about what was going on peeked out of her window to see what the ruckus was. What she was seeing was the movers moving in the belongings of Tiera Fisher.
Tiera
Fisher she is not from the area, she was moving to Maryland
from North Carolina
for a new job. If you asked her it was
her dream job. Excited was too weak a
word to describe how she felt about her new job and moving in to her new place,
she could not wait to get to the DMV.
She'd visited once when she was in her early twenties and had a ball. Every since then she'd had her heart set on
moving here and working on Capital Hill.
In
no time the movers were all finished and all of her belongings, still boxed,
were moved in. The bigger items; bed,
dresser, and tables were all set up per Tiera's instructions. Just as the movers were putting the last box
inside up pulled a black Honda sedan.
The smile was so big on her Tiera's face that it could be seen before
she even got out of the car. When she
did get out she danced around in celebration.
This was the beginning of her dream.
The only time Tiera had been away from home and her parents was when she
was away at school but this was different.
This was her own place, un-chaperoned and able to do anything she wanted
to. When she finished school she moved
back home and searched for a job. She
found one but it paid just enough to start paying off her student loans and put
a little money in her pockets. So at
home with her parents is where she stayed for the next 8 years. But all her hard work had finally paid
off. She'd gotten the job she'd always
wanted. To make things even better the
job was paying all her moving expenses and her Mom and Dad helped out by giving
her a house warming gift of ten thousand dollars. Tiera was ready to take on the world.
All
that needed to be done now was to get the boxes emptied. The first thing she did when she got inside
was pull out her Mac book and soon the sounds of John Legend's "Who Do We
Think We Are" filled the beautiful space that she now called HERS! Happy, Tiera danced and unpacked ready to
face her new life head-on.
No comments:
Post a Comment