Frankie decided to have some fun. “Need anything, Mr. Brown?”
Mr. Brown flinched, his nostrils flaring. “You interrupted my count, Frankie.” He turned back to his work, this time mouthing the numbers.
Shrugging, Frankie passed the walls of wooden shelves—noticed that the Nescafé and cans of butter beans needed replacing—to the front door. Where the heck was Winston? Just outside, perched on milk crates at a rickety folding table, two old men silently studied snaking lines of dotted ivory.
“Yes now!” one shouted, and slammed down his domino.
“You gimme di game!” The other old-timer wound up like he was going to chop the table in half with the domino in his hand, but at the last minute landed the double four softly as you please. That set off a twister of insults and sharp comments.
Frankie laughed. He hadn’t played dominoes in eons. He remembered a rare late-night domino party in his own backyard. Remembered the pungent flavor of curry goat his mother had made. She had barged her way into the game he was playing with Samson and some of their grown-up friends. “I only know how to match,” his mother had said, as if she were meek and helpless, her doe-like expression all innocent. Frankie couldn’t forget the way Samson’s eyes held her.
The game had become intense, both sides close to reaching the total number of points they needed to win. Frankie’s mother was surveying the tiles, probably counting the matches. Frankie remembered looking at the line of dominoes on the table: the four and two domino matched with the two and the six. He had figured that if his mother had a six in her hand she could play, but if she had a double six, or some other way to block the game so no one else could make a move, she might be able to win, because she had the highest point total. But double six… no way.
Just as he was thinking that, his mother smacked her fist down on the table and slowly opened her hand like a magician. Double six. “I suppose this means I win,” she said, and the tipsy guests exploded with laughter, some shouting loud complaints of clever deception.
The remission was what was truly deceiving. Frankie had thought that remission meant the cancer had been stopped. But little by little it snuck back, ate away at her until it took her life. Watching the old-timers now, Frankie realized that his father hadn’t played dominoes since his mother had died. Damn.
Just then Winston strolled up, looking sheepish.
“You’re late,” Frankie called out. “You said you were coming by forty minutes ago.”
“Me here now, mon,” Winston said, shrugging past him into the store.
Frankie shook his head and followed him in, returning to his spot behind the cash register. Winston began thumbing through Frankie’s statistics book. “Me don’t understand one word in this thing.”
“Maybe you should go back to school—”
“School? That’s for you. Me have to scuffle. Me name ‘Sufferer.’ ”
“What’s my name, then? You see where I work.” Frankie pressed a key on the ancient cash register. He knew it wouldn’t even open.
“You package the ganja for Mr. Brown, though,” Winston countered. “Him pay you extra for that, no true?”
Frankie gave him a cold, blank stare; he’d never told Winston about the side-hustle part of his main hustle. Winston clearly had his ways. But there was one thing Winston didn’t know about. “He let me drive the other day, his van, you know?”
This gave Winston pause. “Brown did? Where?”
“All the way into Kingston.”
“Him was in the van with you?”
“Yeah, but I drove, mon.”
Winston twitched a shoulder, playing it off. “So, what about the foreign t’ing? The scholarship?”
Frankie was as weary of that question as he was of working in the store. “Don’t know yet.” He was so lucky to have gotten into the fancy school. Winston and his other friends had, one by one, dropped out of their dinky high school on the mountain. None of them were graduating. Fact was, Frankie couldn’t stop feeling kinda guilty about it, like he was an imposter or something. Like, why him? How was he worthy of all he’d gotten, and might still get if he actually got the scholarship? Yeah, he’d worked hard, but still. Why him? There were others all over the island, just as deserving, maybe more. Like, why not Winston?
Winston picked at his teeth with his thumbnail, a habit he’d had for forever. Their mothers had become friends when Winston was in second grade, after his father took off. Mamma helped take care of Winston while his mother worked. Winston always piled his plate with more than he could handle, stuffing himself as if the future had no more, his ma used to say. Frankie considered this. Winston always got caught up in saying and doing things that came across as desperate; guy was always trying too hard. He always needed more…. Frankie knew how his psych teacher would describe it—needing to be more than his father was, and at the same time, not worthy, because of his father. And Frankie’s spin on it was, it all made Winston sometimes act like an idiot. Frankie had felt that way about his own father, still did from time to time.
Still, there was no doubting Winston’s friendship. Back in fifth grade, Frankie had been crazy sick with a high fever, the whole town saying prayers for him. Winston had been so freaked out that he had tried to steal a toy car as a gift for Frankie. Of course, Winston being Winston, he got caught. But still. His mamma always said Winston’s heart was in the right place. That had to count for something.
Winston closed Frankie’s textbook. “So, you know you better watch out for Garnett now.” He tapped the counter for emphasis. “You know that, right?”
Frankie half nodded like it didn’t matter, but felt his heart quickening. “Which posse he’s in?”
“Taqwan’s. He—”
Frankie drew in a breath. He had read the newspapers, followed the killings. Taqwan’s name was attached to a lot of shit, all over Kingston. “Yeah, I heard about Taqwan.” If Garnett was part of Taqwan’s posse, then he had even more to prove than Frankie had guessed. Pride was everything. There were killing reprisals between posses all the time. Not good. Not good at all. And now Winston was getting caught up in all this mess? “Winston, how ’bout you? Tell me ’bout the—”
“Hello, Franklyn!” a voice called out. Aunt Jenny, Samson’s sister, swept into the store, breezing right past Winston, who was totally checking her out.
Frankie flicked the back of Winston’s ear, motioning for him to keep his damn eyes in check.
Over Aunt Jenny’s shoulder were two large handbags, one stuffed full, the other empty. She placed the full one on the counter. Frankie suspected it was stuffed with cash, payment from one of Mr. Brown’s distributors. His aunt used many covers to avoid police while acting as a courier for Mr. Brown and for Uncle Joe. No one would suspect that at her waist was a Glock 41, a weapon made to remove chunks of flesh with a single round, a gun so appropriate for her, the weapon’s logo could be a picture of her face. Ice Box and Buck-Buck were his uncle Joe’s muscle in the posse, but Aunt Jenny was just as dangerous and way smarter.
Always full of airs, she sauntered over to the discount vegetables, chose two St. Vincent yams, and deposited them into her empty handbag as if taking perfume samples in a mall. She continued shoplifting: two star apples, a tin of Ovaltine, and a can of butter beans. Frankie watched without watching—how much could fit in that bag, anyway?