For working so much.
For not being there.
Especially right then.
“I’ll run ya a salt bath,” Mrs. P said as they stepped into her house, and fragrant warmth wrapped around him like a hug from a fluffy incense stick with arms. “I know you’re not a little kid anymore, but it’ll do ya some good. I just made some dolmas, and there’s some of those olives you like, the ones with the creamy feta inside, in the fridge. Put something in your belly. I’m sure you’re starving.”
In truth, food was the furthest thing from Quan’s mind…but one didn’t say no to Mrs. P. So he did as he was told. He stuffed himself with Mrs. P’s world-famous (if you let her tell it) dolmas—a blend of creamy lemon-ish rice and ground lamb rolled up into a grape leaf. He ate his weight in giant feta-filled olives.
And when the salt bath was ready, he stripped down and climbed into the fancy claw-foot tub in Mrs. P’s guest bathroom.
Quan closed his eyes.
Swirling police lights and Daddy’s collapsing body flashed behind them.
Van doors shutting.
Taillights disappearing.
Would Daddy go to prison?
For how long?
What would happen now?
Quan wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.
So he sank.
It was easy at first, holding his breath and letting the water envelop him completely. Even felt nice.
But then his lungs started to burn. Images of Dasia and Gabe popped into his head. He remembered telling Gabe he’d teach him how to play Uno when he got back from Daddy’s house this time. Little dude was four now and ready to learn.
Quan’s head swam.
Dasia would be waiting for Quan to polish her toenails purple. That was the prize he’d promised her if she aced her spelling test. And she did.
His chest felt on the verge of bursting, and everything in his head was turning white.
And Mama…
Dwight—
Air came out of Quan’s nose with so much force, he’d swear it shot him up out of the water. As his senses returned to normal, he heard water hit tile and the bathroom at Mrs. P’s house swam back into focus.
He took a breath.
Well, more like a breath took him. He gasped as air flooded his lungs, shoving him back from the brink of No Return.
It’s the same type of breath that’s overtaking him now.
Here.
In his cell.
And as oxygen—a little stale from the cinder block walls and laced with the tang of iron—surges down his throat and kicks the invisible weight off him, Quan knows:
He won’t die now just like he didn’t die then.
* * *
—
He can breathe.
January 12
Dear Justyce,
Look, I’m not even gonna lie: this shit is weird. I don’t write letters to my mama, but I’m writing one to you?
Smh.
(Wait, can I even write that? This ain’t a text message…)
(See? Weird.)
(You better not tell nobody I wrote this.)
Anyway, I had this dream last night and when I woke up, the first thing I saw was that notebook you gave me with all the Martin Luther King letters in it.
Sidenote: I really do appreciate you popping by to see ya boy before you headed back to that fancy college you go to. Ol’ smarty pants ass. But for real, it was good to see you. It, uhh…did a lot for me. Gets more than a little lonely in here, and I don’t get many visitors, so you coming through was—well, that was real nice of you, dawg.
Now back to this notebook you left. At first I thought it was wack (“THOSE” black guys, huh?), but the more I read, the more interested I got. Like it was a lot of shit in there about Manny—my own cousin!—that I didn’t know because I ain’t really KNOW him, know him. That was kinda wild.
And YOU! Man, we got way more in common than I woulda thought.
It was one letter in the notebook that made me wanna write this one to you. Not sure what happened (you mentioned doing the “wrong thing”), but there’s a line you wrote: “Those assholes can’t seem to care about being offensive, so why should I give a damn about being agreeable?”
I don’t know what it is, but that shit really got me.
I’ve never told anybody about the night my dad got arrested. It was a couple years after you and me met in the rocket ship. I was eleven. Cops busted up in the house in the dead of night like they owned the place and just…took him.
And I haven’t seen him since. They gave him 25 years in prison.
It’s only one other time in my life I ever been that scared, J. It all happened too fast for me to figure out what I could do. I think deep down, I knew he was prolly going away for a long-ass time—I was fully aware of his “occupation,” and while I was sure the cops wouldn’t find any contraband in his actual house (he was real careful about that), he dealt in more than just green, and the net was wide, so it was only a matter of time.
I really miss him, though.
I dream about the whole scenario a lot. Did last night, in fact. And when I woke up and looked at the date? Today is the sixth anniversary.
Shit hit me harder than it usually does. Probably because it also means I’ve been up in here for almost sixteen months. It’s the longest stretch I’ve ever done, and I don’t even have a trial date yet. I do my best to just cruise—not really think about where I am and what it’s actually like to be here. But today I couldn’t help but notice how bad the food is. How heavy the giant iron doors are, and how…defeated, I guess, everyone up in here seems, even though a few of the others talk a good game about getting out.
I keep thinking, like: What would my dad say if he could see me now? How disappointed would he be?
Yeah, what he did for a living wasn’t exactly “statutory,” as he used to say. But if there’s one thing he was hell-bent on, it was me NOT ending up like him. We talking about a dude who used to drop my ass at the library when he had to make some of his runs. (Head librarian had real bad anxiety and was one of Dad’s clients so she took good care of me.) Don’t nobody know this, but I used to eat up the Lemony Snicket “Unfortunate Events” joints like they were Skittles. You ever read those? Them shits go hard. Kinda wish I had my collection here.