Page 22

TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO

“I’m sorry, Zaire. We’ve tried everything that we know how, and I haven’t been able to find a family to place you with.”

“Yeah, I get it. No one’s trying to take care of a seventeen-year-old. It’s cool, Ms. Brew. It’s like I told you; I've been holding my family down for a minute now. I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

“While that may be true, I have a responsibility to place you somewhere so that you’re not homeless. If that’s not with another family, then—”

“Hell, nah,” I say, standing from the table abruptly and causing the chair to fall backward.

“Zaire, honey, please don’t jump to conclusions. Why don’t you give it a chance before you dismiss the idea altogether?”

“I told you I’m not going to some group home like I’m some delinquent or something. I ain’t never been in no trouble.”

“The transition home isn’t for delinquents alone, but youth such as yourself who are transitioning into adulthood. They provide a stable place for you to reside, hot meals, tutoring, and homework assistance—”

“Don’t need that either,” I say, shaking my head as fury runs through me. My parents fucked up royally on this one.

“Just try it. Besides, they also provide college support. I’ve seen your grades, Zaire. While they’re not bad, they’re also not getting you into any four-year traditional college either. The staff at the home can assist you in getting into a good technical school.”

“I can do that on my own, Ms. B.”

“What about housing assistance? Can you do that? When you graduate and are ready to move into the real world, they will help you find a place of your own as well as job placement.”

I think about the eight or nine-dollar-an-hour job, if that much, the home would help me get.

That shit wouldn’t be a drop in the bucket for everything that I need.

With my sisters and brothers spread out around the city, my dad in prison, and my mom in the hospital, the last thing that I need is to be kept somewhere where they’ve got restrictions on me too.

I need to be free to do what I have to so that I can hold my family down. But I’m no fool. I know that Ms. Brew has a job to do, and she’s not about to let me walk out of here freely at the ripe old age of seventeen to do what I need to. I’ll play by her rules . . . for now.

“A’ight, Ms. B. I’ll go with your plan and see what it gets me.”

A slow smile spreads across her brown features. It’s like the sun coming out after a thunderstorm. Ms. B is a pretty lady and fine, too, for someone in her mid-thirties.

“Well, let me make a few phone calls, and then we’ll be on our way. Okay?” she asks excitedly as she stands and prepares to leave the conference room.

“Okay.”

She pauses in the doorway. “Zaire, will you be here when I get back?” she asks hesitantly.

“I ain’t going nowhere, Ms. B,” I say.

At least not right now, anyway.

The drive to the group home took about twenty minutes, the time spent with Ms. Brew rattling off all the good that the group home could do for me and what I could get out of the program if I worked with rather than against them.

She mentioned once again her sorrow for what our family had gone through and said that she would be praying for my mother. She also promised that she would pick me up once a week to see my mother or my siblings.

I wouldn’t get to see all of them at once because they were in separate homes. Savannah had gone to one home by herself, and Damascus and Cheyenne were in separate ones from Savannah and each other. Only the twins were together but separated from the others.

I hated that shit. They needed each other, especially Damascus. Damn. He was just a baby, and he wasn’t used to not being with his family. I could imagine that he was always crying, Shy, too, probably.

Savvy was too strong to let anyone see her emotions, so she probably kept them hidden until late at night.

That’s when she might break down and cry.

At least, that’s the way it had been since our Pops was locked up.

Thinking about the twins, I shake my head.

I’m sure they’ve probably been in one fight after another, and they’d only been placed with a foster family for less than forty-eight hours.

We pull up to a three-story, red brick house with tall glass windows. There is a huge wraparound porch with two porch swings.

Potted plants hang from the ceiling, and rose bushes are strategically placed at the bottom of the porch on either side of the stairs. The lawn is freshly cut, and there’s a big oak tree out front that has a tire swing.

Ropes suspend another swing from a large pine tree. The large windows sparkle cleanly like someone just washed them.

Ms. Brew smiles. “Remember, everything’s going to be fine and I’ll always be here for you,” before she presses the doorbell.

Ms. Brew isn’t only a caseworker who’s been assigned to my family’s case, but she’s also my former middle school social worker. She worked at the middle school that I attended, and she was always cool, close to my mom, and kept an eye out for me.

At least, if someone’s watching over us, I’m glad it’s someone that I’m familiar with. I was surprised yesterday after my mom’s breakdown when Ms. Brew showed up at the door. I had no idea she no longer worked at the middle school.

I hate that my mom called the police on us. Not only did it fuck with our heads, but it caused us to be split up. While I didn’t know what to do with her having a mental break, I damn sure wouldn’t have called the folks.

The minute she did that shit, I’d taken my backpack and entire stash, ran down to Parker’s, and asked him to hold onto it until I could clear some stuff up. My siblings didn’t need me locked on the other side like my pops.

Parker had walked back to the house with me and sat throughout the entire ordeal with the police, watching sadly with me as Ms. Brew came in and took over.

Before the night was over, she had another worker helping her to divide us up.

When I’d suggested that I stay with Parker, she’d said that couldn’t be arranged because they weren’t in the system.

His parents and family would have to undergo exhaustive background checks first, and I wasn’t about to ask nobody to subject themselves to that bullshit.

The door opens now, and a stern-looking older Black man with grey sprinkled throughout his short afro opens the door. He frowns at me before instantly straightening his face and smiling broadly at Ms. Brew.

“Mr. Pepperdine, how are you?”

“I’m doing pretty well, Ms. Brew, now that you’ve graced us with your presence. And you?”

“I can’t complain. Mr. Pepperdine, this is Zaire, the young man that I told you about over the phone,” she explains, gently resting her hand on my shoulder and ushering me forward.

The man steps back from the door, opening it wider, and I step inside and then aside so that Ms. Brew can enter.

I watch as he watches her ass as she leads the way to the kitchen, a place I presume she’s been several times before. I follow him and her as she gives him a rundown of what’s happened to my family in the last thirty-six hours.

He listens intently as we settle around a table.

The man explains that all the children are at school, as it’s the middle of the day, but they’ll be back in about three or four hours.

He gives me an explanation of how the program works, introduces me to a few other staff who work in the home, and then provides me with a sheet of paper that has the rules.

I’m told that I have to sign it; it’s a behavior contract. I didn’t sign up for this shit, but one look at Ms. Brew’s hopeful face, and I’m signing that dotted line like a muthafucka. I can’t disappoint her. Not right now, at least, but I know that a time will come when I will. It can’t be helped.

I owe a bigger allegiance to my family than I do to her.

She stands and smiles at me. “Okay, well, I’m going to leave you two to it for now. You can get to know one another better. Zaire, I’ll be back this weekend to take you to see your mother, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I mutter, forcing a smile to my lips.

She smiles broadly back at me and then pats my shoulder before she’s off. Mr. Pepperdine walks her to the door, I’m sure just to be in her presence a little longer and to watch her ass.

When he returns, he waits until the woman cooking, Pauline, leaves the kitchen before he speaks.

“Look, I know your kind. Ms. Brew might believe in you, but I can already tell that you ain’t gon’ be shit.

Don’t think you’re about to come in my program fucking it up with your street thug ways because I don’t play that shit. You got me?”

“Man, you don’t even know me to judge me already,” I snap.

“I know your kind. I’ve kicked a dozen of them out of my program. If you can’t get with what I’m saying, you might as well walk out those doors right now.”

Laughing, I stand and say, “You ain’t said nothing but a word, big homie.”

Shaking my head, I make my way back down the hallway that I came down.

“Don’t know how you think you’re going to survive on the streets. You can’t even face your challenges like a man.”

“You know nothing ‘bout my challenges,” I say, continuing toward the front door with him on my heels.

I guess he thought he’d call my bluff.

“You’re running at the first sign of trouble.”

“Not running. I had no plans on staying here all along. But seeing as how you’ve given me every reason not to, I’ll execute my plan sooner,” I say, pushing the door open.

“Young man, wait!” he shouts.

“Why?” I ask, turning back around on the second step down. “To make sure you that you get that monthly check for me being here?”

His eyes narrow, and his mouth grows grim.

“I’ll pass,” I say, jogging down the final steps.

When I reach the end of the drive, I pull out my wallet and check it. Not that I need to because I already know that there’s three hundred twenty-one dollars and forty-two cents in there. Not enough to survive on, but enough to get me to the other side of town. Parker has my product.

All I need to do is reach him, sell what I’ve got, and re-up. I’ll be back in business in no time with a more definite goal in mind.