The Syndicate Read online

  “She’s . . . dead,” he finally said.

  I panicked. “Who? Who’s dead?”

  “Mama. That was, um, Victor Hill, the sheriff. Mama’s dead.”

  Everything that made me human in that moment ceased to exist. Wait, no. Mama? Mama was dead. I couldn’t have heard him right. There I was worried about what would happen to Mama if one of us had passed and the thought never crossed my mind that someone or something had taken her away from us. Our lives ended and began with Mama. None of us had lived until she had come into our lives.

  My bones felt brittle, like someone had sent a full blast of electrical shock through my system. Mouth went slack. If Javon hadn’t caught me, I would have fallen straight to the floor. I hadn’t even realized I was screaming until he grabbed me and held me in his arms.

  “No, no, no, Javon, stop playing,” I pleaded, voice choked with tears.

  Water reddened his eyes, but no tears fell. Javon was a natural-born leader, so I knew in his mind he was already piecing together how to handle this with the rest of the family. He was a no-nonsense type of person. Once he calmed me down, we got dressed and he made the calls to gather the rest of us together.

  That wasn’t an easy feat as the news of her death crushed us.

  “We have to get to the house so we can greet the well-wishers,” I said, once we’d all gotten into the limo provided by our uncle Snap.

  The ride home was quiet. The mood inside of the limo was just as sullen, moody, and dreary as the one outside. We could see people already waiting for us when we got there. Mostly white but there were some brown, black, and yellow faces in the crowd. The front door of the house opened to Freedman Park, the only park in the upscale middle-class neighborhood.

  In the springtime, peonies lined the front fence. Come summer, a bright perennial border popped up. The inside of the old Victorian-style home still had some of the original 1900s woodwork. The house boasted ten-foot ceilings, dark wood trim, pocket doors, and heart pine floors, and the original glass and molding. Over the years, Mama had increased the space from 2,000 square feet to 4,000. She said she wanted the house to grow with us and it did. We had no idea how Mama got the money to do those things. We knew she was pawning old jewelry she had, working in other people’s homes, babysitting spoiled, rich brats for days on end. If any of the people now here knew Mama had an EBT card she used to feed us, they’d probably have shunned her.

  “Come on, let’s get this over with,” Javon said after we all had exited the limo.

  The weather refused to be nice to us. The rain started falling harder. Trees whipped the windows and sides of the house. The wind was rude to everyone who was brave enough to stand outside. The poor old lady from next door was damn near carried away by it.

  The smells of different foods—apple pie fought with fried chicken in the air—swept through the house. I was so tired of people asking me how I was doing that I was ready to blow. How the fuck did they think I was feeling? I knew they meant well, but when the last person left and after all the mess had been cleaned and the eight of us were left alone, I was happy.

  We sat around the massive front room in silence, Mama’s smiling face above the fireplace mantel haunting us. Javon looked at all of us. He had taken off the black jacket that matched his suit. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt up to his elbows. The fabric strained against the muscles of his chest and arms. His slacks hung grown-man low on his hips while his dress shoes knocked against the floor. He had a tumbler with amber brown liquid in it in his hand. I knew he was in pain by that alone. Javon rarely drank alcohol nor did he smoke.

  “The easy part is over,” he said then finished off the liquor and passed the glass to me. I set it on the mantel above the fireplace. “The hard part starts now. None of us have lived a day without Mama. I know most of us were doing this school shit and working so hard because we wanted to make her proud. We never wanted to let her down. Now that she’s gone, we have to go harder.”

  “I got this fight coming up, bruh, but I don’t think I can do it,” Lamont said.

  “You can and you will. All that damn money Mama put into your training. You get your ass in that ring and beat the shit out that Russian-ass white boy, you feel me?” Cory finally spoke up.

  He had been quiet the whole time. Javon was the oldest, with me then Cory bringing up the rear. Mama always looked to us to fill the void of guardian when she wasn’t around. That was going to be our duty more now than ever. While Javon spoke with more eloquence and decorum, Cory sometimes let the streets slip through his lips if he didn’t catch himself. He was a student of criminal law. He had a bachelor’s in criminal justice and was a second-year law student. He could run circles around all of us with the law shit he knew, but sometimes his tongue got the better of him.

  “It’s so hard to focus knowing she’s gone, Cory,” Inez said through tears.

  “I tell you what, if any of you niggas think about quitting anything now that Mama’s gone, we gon’ have a problem,” Cory promised.

  “Cory, you have to cut us some slack,” Inez replied.

  “Yeah, we’re fucking hurting here,” Naveen said.

  “We should be able to at least take a break, Cory, time to mourn,” Melissa added.

  “Cory’s right,” Javon cut in. “None of you had better even broach the subject of quitting a gotdamn thing. We have to see things through and I’m going to be on your ass if you think this means you can quit or slack off for any fucking reason.”

  There was so much bass in Javon’s voice that we all stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. It was rare that Javon cursed and even rarer that he raised his voice. Javon was always in control of everything and that included his emotions.

  “Yes, we all need time to grieve, but you better grieve while you work. No slacking. No time off,” he continued. “And I mean that shit.”

  Silence followed his order. Nobody was fool enough to say a word lest Javon jump down their throats.

  “I can’t do it,” Jojo finally spoke up.

  We all turned to him. His voice was low and even. The designer gold-trimmed glasses he had on couldn’t hide the pain in his eyes. They were red and puffy as he glanced at each of us, eyes stopping on Javon.

  “Can’t do what?” Naveen asked. “Whatever it is, add it to the list of shit you seem to can’t do around here. You can’t cook. You can’t clean. Mama always did it for you. You can’t iron your own fucking clothes. Can’t do shit, Jojo. Just like you couldn’t pick Mama up like you were supposed to,” he spat.

  My eyes widened. I was so shocked and dismayed by Naveen’s words that when Cory jumped up and shoved him backward, it didn’t register.

  “Navy, chill out,” he barked at Naveen.

  Naveen and Jojo were the youngest, Naveen’s eighteen to Jojo’s seventeen, so they often fought like any true blood brothers would. They tended to be back on good terms by the end of the night, but this time, there was something in Naveen’s eyes that told me this wasn’t any ordinary fight.

  “Naw, don’t act as if we all haven’t felt the same thing. If he had picked Mom up like he was supposed to, she’d still be here,” Naveen yelled. “He’s a spoiled little piece of shit who needed Mama to wipe his own ass, but when she needed him most he couldn’t be there for her. She wouldn’t have even had to be at that bus stop if he had done what he was supposed to!”

  Jojo’s face did something freaky. He frowned then looked like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. His lips moved like fish as if he was trying to explain or defend himself but didn’t have the words. The pain and hurt from Naveen’s words were written all over his face and in his body language. Then his expression changed. The hurt behind his brother’s words turned to malice. He leapt from the chair so fast it was like a blur. Jojo shot right past Cory and speared Naveen over the chair that was behind him.

  It was like something off of WWE. I think what shocked us most was that normally Jojo was cool, ca
lm, and collected. He rarely got in fights or spats outside of sibling rivalry. So for him to go at Naveen shocked all of us.

  “Fuck you,” Jojo howled and he swung at Naveen. “You always talking shit, coming at me like you stupid.”

  As he squealed and yelled, Cory and Lamont pulled their little brothers apart. Jojo was still fighting mad as tears rolled down his pecan brown face. Naveen tried to shove past Cory, but couldn’t. Lamont had Jojo wrapped in his arms. Normally, Naveen didn’t show his temper, but judging by the veins popping out of his forehead, he was visibly angry.

  When he saw he couldn’t get past Cory, he picked up a bowl of gravy sitting on one of the tables and chucked it at Jojo. The bowl hit him in the head. Gravy and blood spilled down his face. Jojo grunted and his glasses fell to the floor.

  Melissa and Inez rushed over to him while cussing at Naveen. “Navy, why you do that?” Inez asked with concern in her voice.

  “You’re a dickhead, Navy,” Melissa chided.

  “Are you out of your damned mind?” I screamed at Naveen.

  Before I could fix my mouth to verbally assault Naveen further, Javon was across the room. I tried to grab the back of his shirt, but he was too quick. His nostrils were flared. Eyes were cold and flinty. When Javon was angry, everyone gave him wide berth so it was no surprise when Cory moved away from Naveen just as Javon reached him.

  “Javon, no,” I pleaded, knowing he was seconds away from putting Naveen on his ass.

  He grabbed Naveen by the collar of his shirt and slammed him down into the chair behind him. The big, cushioned chair rocked and wobbled from the force of the slam and Naveen’s weight. He almost cowered under Javon’s anger. I was happy that before Javon could do any real damage, he caught himself.

  “You sit your ass in this fucking chair and you stay there,” Javon said through gritted teeth. “I don’t need this shit from you today, understand?” he asked, a finger pointed sternly in Naveen’s face.

  “All he had to do was pick her up,” Naveen said defiantly, making Javon try to grab at him again.

  Cory jumped in front of his brother, and spoke something in Tagalog while trying to stop Javon from laying hands on Naveen. Naveen threw his hands up to try to stop whatever Javon was about to do, but Cory had blocked his brother.

  I could tell that Javon was trying to keep his anger in check. He was trying to level out his temper so he could be in control and responsible for what he was about to do. But Naveen’s actions had pushed him to the edge and Javon was struggling not to fall over. Naveen’s chest rose up and down slowly as he bit into his bottom lip, water rapidly leaking from his eyes. Fresh tears rolled down my face as I knew all of this stemmed from the fact that Mama was gone. My sisters and I were used to this. Growing up in a houseful of boys, we’d seen our share of dick measuring contests, but this was different.

  “All he had to do was pick her up, Von,” Naveen pleaded his case while looking up at Javon. Still crying he said, “That was it. That’s all she ever asked him to do and he couldn’t do it.”

  I ran a hand over my eyes to stop the tears. I glanced around the room and it was easy to see that Naveen was right. Most if not all of us had that same thought process at one time or another since Mama’s death. I was guilty of it myself. My first thoughts asked why she was at a bus stop when it was Jojo’s job to pick her up. She’d taken money from her savings to buy him the car he wanted on his sixteenth birthday and all she’d asked was that he pick her up from the juvenile center three days a week. Jojo had been half-assing the job since he’d gotten his whip. But Mama never made a big fuss about it. Jojo was spoiled. Naveen was right about that, too.

  Jojo must have sensed it as well. As gravy and blood slid down his face, he studied all of us. When his eyes landed on me, I dropped my eyes out of guilt. When I looked back at him, he had a pleading look in his eyes as he looked at Javon and Cory. He found no reprieve there either.

  “I . . . I was coming. But she said . . . She sent me . . . She texted and . . .” he stammered; but he couldn’t finish whatever it was he was about to say.

  The glass tumbler that I had placed on the mantel of the fireplace fell to the floor with a hard crash, startling all of us. Mama’s picture seemed to be glaring down at us. That calmed down all the anger in the room.

  Jojo pulled away from Lamont and ran up the stairs. Javon ordered Naveen to go outside and cool off before he stormed out of the room himself. Cory and Lamont soon left too, leaving me, Melissa, and Inez alone.

  Chapter 2

  Javon

  The woman I felt was my true mother was gone. The only woman who stepped up to the plate in my and my baby brother’s lives was gone. Mama Claudette was gone from me. Fuck! The image of her sweet, warm nut brown face gazing down at all of us in regard as if telling us to pay her attention back in the house flashed in my mind. I could hear her now: “Quit with all that discord and sassing. Y’all are family and this right here is not acceptable at all. It makes no type of sense to waste that type of energy on everyone here, because they love you and would not do harm on ya soul. Not purposely and mean it.”

  Naveen’s words rang true in my mind. I hated that it was there, hated that I agreed. As the eldest of this family, shit, I was supposed to be the logical and clear-thinking one; but I couldn’t see past the pain in my heart. Love him like my own blood I did, but Jojo had made a deadly mistake. Part of me wanted to know what the fuck had kept him from keeping his promise to her and picking her up, but another part of me just didn’t give a damn in the moment. Kid or not, his immaturity in this one thing had assisted in Mama Claudette’s death.

  A numbness spread through me. My rising hurt was mixing into a rage that I might not be able to contain. I was known to be a silent killer with my temper. Stone-faced, locked jaw, usually it took nothing for someone to understand not to mess with me, or know that if they did not heed my one-worded warning life would become very difficult from that day on. The way I emoted my feelings started long ago.

  From where I stood outside of the house, I could see the parlor where we all once stood. People had entered and exited our childhood home as the wake finally ended. I could smell food resting in warmers from the kitchen. Greens with neck bones and ham hocks, sweet potato casserole, sweet cornbread cake, fried turkey, mashed garlic potatoes, seasoned green beans with potatoes, fried fish of every type: our home had turned into a prime soul food restaurant. All in the memory of our foster mother Claudette.

  Looking toward Shanelle through the window I watched her jet forward to frantically pick up the tumbler. Glistening tears spilled over her apple cheeks, as her amber brown skin had reddened. I saw myself going to her in two strides had I been back in the parlor. Saw my other self kneeling down to help her, then pull her into my arms as she held me and cried. But, none of that was going down. I stood with my hands in the pockets of my black slacks staring at my foster mother’s garden. It seemed, even as I was a grown man, Shanelle’s presence could keep my anger in check, and only two other people could be that type of anchor for me. One was my blood brother and the other was dead.

  My first memory of Mama Claudette was simple: she was my aunt. Not by blood though. How my mother, Toya, explained it was that back where she grew up, every kid in the hood called her Auntie, so that’s how. Every day it seemed my mom would drop Cory and me on her doorstep, even if my aunt wasn’t home. Toya would simply unlock the door, push us inside, and tell us not to get in trouble. See, the woman who pushed my brother and me from her twat was a manipulative leech and gold-digger.

  Whenever there was some old head who had money who lost a wife, she’d find her way near him in our neighborhood and live there until she got kicked out because a family member ended up learning that she was there. All of this while Cory and I ran the streets just to get out of the house from her tricking off old men. Nine times out of ten our mother kicked them out and it was on to the next one though. People in our hood always gossiped about how money ended up “
missing” whenever Toya got involved.

  Twice Toya had been married. Her first husband, my father, was a terminally ill seventy-year-old man who was a war vet, surviving ’Nam. Dude got mad checks, one for being a war vet, and another for serving in ’Nam and having been sprayed with Agent Orange. When he died, my mom moved on, and a fat amount of money mysteriously disappeared with her. Everyone in the neighborhood spoke about that shit until she linked up with Cory’s father six months later.

  Cory’s father was a retired sixty-year-old Filipino who lived in our hood. He used to run several liquor and grocery shops in our area. Toya stayed with him the longest. I remember how he always was handing her ducats. She never took anything from him lower than $2,000.

  Toya and him would break up then get back together. He’d always give her money. Cory and I learned Tagalog and Spanish from him and Toya’s off-and-on boyfriend in between Cory’s pops. Eventually Toya’s running in and out of our lives and other niggas’ lives settled down when she went back to Cory’s father. Years later, after they divorced because she didn’t want to move to the Philippines, she collected money for Cory until his father died when he was ten.

  After that, she died six months later from being shot by the kid of one of the men she was trying to take money from, leaving me and Cory homeless and in the system. We were in Ohio then. I remember running away with Cory after I pulled a gun on an old, racist couple we were fostered with. Bastards would religiously take a broom and beat me and Cory with it until it left welts on us because we were the beasts from the wild.