“So what’d you do?” I had asked Ameer.
“You know I had to fatten up the reward. Them other cats went for the free lunch. I talked ’em up to sixty bucks for each of my appearances.”
“What if you would’ve got picked as the face that fit the crime?” I asked.
“Nah, the cop told all of us if you’re not guilty, you got nothing to worry about and something to gain. Besides that, it’s impossible. Ain’t nobody got a handsome face like mine,” Ameer joked.
Now this Brooklyn detective who must have thought he was better than the blue boys ’cause he got to wear his own cheap clothes to work was trying to buy me with a beef burger. Guess they thought the same shit worked on every man the same way. It didn’t.
Mystery novels I have enjoyed reading taught me more than a few things about the American law. These cops had forty-eight hours to book me on charges and stand me before a judge. All of the charges they had mentioned so far were bullshit, although they were good enough for them to use falsely to book me. However, even they wanted more. I wanted them to hurry up and charge me and move me and get it over with. Still, I wasn’t going to help them to do it.
“Not going to eat—we’ll see how long that’s going to last. Take one bite of this burger and you better be ready to give me something: names, bodies, drugs, weapons.” He left. The others followed him out.
The door clicked closed when the last one exited. So what I was cuffed and locked in a side room. I wasn’t sweating his burger or fries. I had already eaten after the murder and right before my arrest. The thought of my last meal threw my mind into rewind. I was alone, just me and my memories, and that was cool with me.
4. THE RED BAG • A Reflection
I had already eaten well in the few hours between the murder and my arrest. I had been crouched on the curb between two parallel-parked cars, a cream-colored Comet and a Ford pickup truck. I had two bags of purchases from the dollar store on the corner, in a Brooklyn neighborhood where I did not live, but where my family business had a few customers and where I had delivered clothing that Umma made for them. I was setting up to write Umma a letter, a task that had to be done with truth, intensity, and skill.
Seated in the middle of a darkened street underneath the radiant light pouring from a sign on a row of stores, it was the perfect spot for me to complete my second and final task of the night. Curbside, the vehicles shielded me from the view of the foot cop posted across the street on the corner, to my right. The pickup truck shielded me from the parked cop cruiser on the same side where I was seated but at the opposite corner from the foot cop, to my left. Behind me, a mailbox shielded me from the view of people walking by. As my second wife would say, “a strategic position.”
Knowing that any of these vehicle owners could walk up at any moment to start their cars, drive off, and expose me to view didn’t matter. There was no reason that any of these cops on this block in this neighborhood should be looking for me, other than the fact that police stay looking for young black males for the sport of their hunt.
The bright light made it possible for me to see enough to pen a letter to my Umma, the most serious letter I ever wrote in my lifetime, to the most important person in my young life. Sure, I could call her on the phone. Yet I couldn’t call her. To call her would be to hear her voice, and her heart was always in her speech. And her expressions of love would cause me to unfreeze at the very time that I needed to remain ice cold, calculating, and calm.
Instead, I would mail her my words, thoughts, instructions, and feelings so that she could be absolutely certain. A letter would place enough distance between Umma and me that I could remain accurate and highly focused. I pulled out my newly purchased dollar-store gloves and put them on.
Unwrapping the six-piece stationery set, six pieces of pale mint paper and six matching envelopes, I placed the stamp on the right-hand corner of the envelope first. Pulling out my black ballpoint pen, I shook it to distribute and loosen up the ink. Instinctively I looked up into the sky as though I was asking the heavens to clear murder from my mind enough for my thoughts and words to flow perfectly, precisely, passionately. All I saw was blackness, a stingy moon, and a starless sky.
As I put the pen to paper, the radiant light from the store sign blackened, causing my area to darken and the block to become dim. What did it mean?
Placing the cap back onto the pen, I pushed all of my items back into the bag and eased up some to search my surroundings. The store three doors down was lit and open for business. The sign above it read MIDNIGHT WASH. It was a Laundromat. Reluctant to move away from the mailbox where I would post my letter, which was my most immediate concern, another idea swiftly came to mind.
Calmly, I walked diagonally and entered the place. It was empty at first glance. I moved three steps to my left and stood behind a paper sign taped in their window so no one could see me from the street. I glanced around. There were paper signs everywhere: WE CLOSE AT MIDNIGHT was the first one I saw. Good, I thought to myself. It was 10:30 p.m. I calculated. I could come out of my murder wears, throw ’em in a twenty-five-minute wash and then a twenty-five-minute dry, and remove any evidence of the slaughter. The kind of evidence that the naked eye could not see but that might be on me. The kind of evidence that if erased, could cast doubt in any investigation, and in the mind of anyone in charge of deciding the term of my imprisonment. I could write the letter while the clothes washed and dried and be out of here no later than 11:30 and drop the letter into the mailbox. After that I wouldn’t care what happened. Destiny would move me.
My thoughts were interrupted. I heard a female voice talking—not to me, but I didn’t hear anyone answering her, either.
REMOVE YOUR CLOTHING IMMEDIATELY AFTER YOUR MACHINE STOPS was another sign on the wall. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST OR STOLEN ITEMS. CHANGE MACHINE IN THE BACK. I headed to the back. That’s when I saw her.
Bare feet, red hair like a fire hydrant. Dark eyes and sculpted black lips like a smoker. She had one leg cocked up like a flamingo as she held her phone to her face, talking. Her words flowed like music. Her accent came and went from ’hood chick to almost Jamaican. But the rhythm revealed that she was not Jamaican. She could do more than three things at one time. Deep in conversation with whoever was on the other end, even her hands were speaking as she gestured like a conductor leading an orchestra. All of that, and still, like a hawk she watched me as though I was food after a long starvation or drought.
Small waist, short legs with thick thighs and hips like they were created for continuous breeding. She was leaning lightly on the wall between a row of washers and the money machine that ate dollars and burped out quarters. I sized her up as no threat to me. She wouldn’t run out into the streets and yell, “He’s in here!” I could see that she was no joke either, serious, and brewing with secrets. She spoke in a lowered voice at first, but increased the volume as I approached. Moreover, on her long, black cobra-stitched lanyard key chain, which she wore on her tiny tight denim panty shorts, there dangled about twenty-one keys. So I figured she works here in the Laundromat; cool. I put my two dollar-store bags down on top of one machine. I pulled out my hoodie, a transit authority uniform shirt I had stuffed in one of the bags, and the matching cap that goes with it. Turning my back to her, I swiftly removed the murder black T-shirt and threw it all into an empty washing machine.
“Cutie on the run! As soon you said dat!” the redhead blurted out suddenly with slight laughter. I walked over to the vending machine and bought some detergent with bleach for colored clothes.
“I seen him around here before, just walking through,” the redhead said.
I removed my belt and eased out of my sneakers, socks, and then my jeans. Underneath, I had on my black basketball shorts. I threw my jeans, the belt, and the socks into the machine with the clothes I already had in there.
“Him hold him head so high, you’d think him God’s right-hand man.” The redhead pushed each of those words out slowly
with heavy accent and emphasis.
I poured two packs of liquid detergent over the clothes.
“Him don’t give a girl a glance or a chance, like him too good for we,” she said.
I closed the washing machine door, took out a ten-dollar bill, and inserted it into the change machine on the wall by where she was standing.
“Him body like artwork. I like ah lick him like a lime bomb-pop.” She paused. “Yeah I know, dem thick Popsicles were red, white, and blue-colored. But, I love lime.”
I pushed the quarters in and the machine started. I watched the suds form and rise up in the water.
“Me pull it gently with me lips, suck to the sugar come down like guava juice. Make he go crazy for I and relax a likkle,” she said. “I swallow like it’s sorrel. Soon him tell I, him love me.”
I looked at her. Her eyes locked onto mine, still staring. She wouldn’t lower her gaze, as though she expected me to look away first, as though she was the man instead of me.
“I fire up the cooking pots for he. Him too good for takeout. I prepare fresh roti with curry goat, or chicken curry rice and peas. Ya know I could do Guyanese or Jamaican ting.” She said it as though she was making an offer to me, her eyes on me as she spoke to what had to be another woman on the phone. Then I knew . . . They sing their words in a different way from the Jamaicans. She was a Guyanese-born African with that Indian blood running all through her. I could see from her hair texture and length—natural, not a wig or weave, but the red color was just her style and spin on it. Still, the ’hood in her was the heaviest.
“Of course. Redverse is the only man for I. You don’t hafta remind me, gal. Facing twenty-five years to life . . .” She grunted, “. . . is a long, long, long time. I hold it down for he, ayah. Me take care of every-ting for he. But I body is a nuther matter,” she said as I headed to the bathroom, making good use of my time. The bathroom door was locked. The sign on it read, ASK THE ATTENDANT FOR KEY. BATHROOM IS FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY.
“Come December the sixth, mark two years I hold out. But on dis warm summer night me feel some-ting. Me see some-ting, I body want to own,” she said without laughter and with a dramatic expression. Then she pulled the receiver a few inches from her face, where she had been hugging it. She looked at me standing there waiting for her to take a breath or break or to get off the phone.
“Him know me talk about he. But him pretend him don’t know.” She paused.
“Bathroom key.” I said only those two words to her. She spun her hips around. Now her butt was facing me. A rectangular wooden paddle that said MENS was buried in her small butt pocket. She had stopped talking and stood staring again.
“Slide it,” she said. “Take it!” she said. I pulled it out easy, not wanting to graze her body at all, even with my gloved fingers.
“No, I was talking to he,” she said after pulling the phone back to her face and leaving it between her chin and shoulder as I walked away.
Bulb blew out in the bathroom as soon as I flipped the light switch on. Seemed like lights had been flickering, blacking out, or busted all around me all day and night long. I didn’t have time to think about if there was a meaning in that. I felt around until I found the sink and the knobs for the water. I turned it on, removed one glove. Hot water worked. Cold water . . . nothing. I put my two plastic bags down on the floor and undressed completely. I didn’t mind the temporary darkness. I needed the seclusion. I scrubbed my whole body like a surgeon does before surgery, even beneath each fingernail. Removing all blood, filth, germs, and yes, gunpowder and all other evidence.
Fifteen to twenty minutes seem to ease by in seconds. I was wearing the new white T-shirt I’d purchased from the dollar store, not the quality I’m accustomed to, but clean and good enough for survival mode. Wearing new boxers and socks, I was standing and thinking about my Nike Jordans. I didn’t have time to throw those in the machine or to wait the amount of time it would take for them to dry. I didn’t have the idea or the willingness or the nerve to buy the bullshit men’s skips when I was shopping in the dollar store (which was the only kind of sneakers they sold) to wear while my official joints were washing, either. And I didn’t have the desire to stand barefooted in the Laundromat like the redheaded flamingo. With soap and tissue, and hot water that had increased so high in temperature that it felt like it was searing off my fingerprints, I cleaned my Jordans by hand, the tops and the soles. I pulled out the old laces and wove the new laces in the dark. Knew everything about kicks by heart. Didn’t need my eyes or the light to get it right.
Done, I opened the bathroom door to catch some light to use to clean up behind myself. I pushed everything I needed to trash in one bag and placed everything remaining in the other. I wanted to burn my trash but didn’t want to trigger any smoke or fire alarms.
My washer had stopped. I pulled out my jeans and threw them into the dryer, dropping in enough quarters for it to spin for twenty-five minutes. I tossed the plastic bag containing my trash, even my leftover bar of soap, into the washer with my basketball shorts and the rest of the clothes I purposely planned to leave behind. I fed the washer more quarters and rewashed the washed clothes and my trash, including the plastic bag.
The girl was gone. With only myself and my thoughts and the sound of the dryer drying my one pair of jeans, I was moved to make salat, a late-night prayer at the end of a day, weighted down by rapidly moving passions, pleasures, and tragedies. Events so serious they altered and rearranged and twisted the future of more than seven lives including mine . . . way more than seven, but only the seven is what I cared about most.
I have missed three prayers today, I thought to myself. I had the wall to my left and the machines to my right. There in the limited space between, I stood moving my mood and mind into prayer mode, then lifted my hands, then folded my right hand over my left hand at my chest, then bowed my body halfway and held my hands on my knees, then got on my knees, and bowed my head pressed to the ground.
“A-Salaam” was the last word of a heartfelt prayer. “Peace,” even though this day was chaos. But prayer put me in the right frame of mind to write my Umma a letter. Once I did that and dropped it in the mailbox right outside the Laundromat, I would be ready to face anything no matter how harsh or horrible.
Between Umma and me, that’s how it was, and that’s how it is, and that’s how it had been since our arrival in the United States of America at New York’s JFK airport more than seven years ago. We only trust one another. To this day, because we know how outsiders, people, and politics can flip without notice, and circumstances change drastically, we keep our emergency suitcase packed so we can flash out in an instance. No one could tell me or teach me anything about my Umma. No one could tell Umma anything about me, either. We had agreed that urgent or important words had to come from her lips to my ears, and from my mouth to her heart—period. Even if there was an adult or elder speaking or saying anything about me, her son, it would not matter. Back home of course it would. Respect for elders and even a slightly older brother, sister, cousin, and of course for aunts and uncles and grandparents, was our way and beliefs. But in America, where the adults themselves are as confused as the children, afraid to grow up and embarrassed by aging, where it is a way of life not to believe, and where most adults are crafty liars, it would not.
Even though I had given Chiasa, my second wife and the last person in my family to see and touch and speak to me, my words and instructions, and even though Umma loves Chiasa, it would not matter. So both the murder and the letter go hand-in-hand—had to happen. Not one without the other.
Bismillah . . . In the name of Allah . . . Allah isalik, God is watching, hearing, so say only the truth. I wrote the letter exclusively in the beautiful language and lettering of Arabic. Azeezti Umma, I greeted her warmly.
* * *
Oddly, the dryer stopped at the same time that I heard a heavy gate slamming shut, resulting in a strange silence for a Laundromat. Leaving the space where I had been leaning
and writing using their folding table, I could now see that the solid metal gate shielding the front door of the Laundromat was closed down and I could now hear someone rattling the padlock on the other side. My eyes shot towards the clock: 11:30 p.m. The front door entrance and exit was sealed shut, half an hour early.
Returning, I grabbed my jeans out of the dryer. I stepped out of my kicks, got fully dressed fast, and then stepped back in. Wearing a wool hat on my almost dry, washed hair and gloves on both hands, I pulled the few remaining bills out of my plastic bag. I pushed them into my right pocket. I then slid my box cutter into my slim side-leg pocket. Carefully, I signed the letter, folded it, and sealed it in the stamped envelope. Laying it down on the folding table, in neat English print, so that there would be no error or delay in Umma receiving it, I addressed it to my Queens home. I then pushed it into my back pocket along with the emptied and folded plastic bag. Now there were no bags to carry. Purposely hands-free, I pushed through the door marked EMERGENCY EXIT and walked right into the Red Flamingo.
“Ya sprinting out of ’ere on a hot summer night in your winter clothes?” she asked without smiling and looked down at the gloves I had been wearing to prevent myself from leaving a trail of fingerprints in this place or even on the letter, envelope, or pen I had been using.
“Open the door,” I told her, referring to the door behind her that she was purposely blocking.
“Where’s ya cleaned laundry?” she asked me. I moved her out of my way and opened the door. Instead of the door leading me out of Midnight Wash Laundromat and into a side alley, I was now standing in a tiny tight kitchen with two chairs, one table, a small stove, and a lighted glass fridge. Flames flared beneath three covered pots and one flat pan. The scent of ginger was good and it was trapped because there was no window. Instead there was an iron-grated vent. None of that mattered. I had no time and no reason to start playing house with her.