I just miss the fact that I could really count on him to help out at the center. And the sex wasn’t bad when I had an itch that needed scratching. He was all right as an FWB.”
“What the hell is an FWB?”
“A friend with benefits!” Karen chuckled.
Amina paused, and her eyes widened when Karen told her what it meant. “Girl, he was just taking up space and keeping you from finding the man you were supposed to be with. But I might have to look into this FWB thing a little more.” Amina laughed. “You wait and see. I’m gonna call you from my house on the beach and tell you all about the fine young hottie that’s gonna fall in love with me and knock me off my feet. I’m gonna get me a young tender roni.”
“Watch out now, cougar! I see I’m gonna have to keep you away from the youth center. You might start scoping out the youth to give them more than just a little hope and inspiration.”
Amina laughed. “I like them young, but not that young! They have to be at least drinking age. And since I’m a black woman, that would be panther, not cougar. Get it right, girlfriend!”
Both women cracked up then.
“You’re a hot mess, Amina. A hot mess!”
“And don’t you forget it. Come on, girl. I need some lunch if I’m gonna tackle the rest of this. Let’s go downstairs and eat. I know you’ll be talking about how I worked you to death and didn’t feed you.”
Karen got up and followed Amina down the stairs. But their conversation about love struck a chord. She had just turned thirty. Was it time for her to find a man? She shook off the thought.
“You know me so well. I sure will talk about how you worked me like a slave and didn’t offer me a sip of water. Not to mention it’s hotter than hell up in here. You would pick the start of summer to want to clean out your attic and move down South. Only you, Amina, only you!”
“Girl, stop complaining and come on!”
They laughed and continued walking. Karen barely realized that she still had the journal in her hands.
Darius “D-Roc” Rollins stood in the finished basement of the home he’d purchased for his grandmother, not really listening to the chatter that was going on around him. He still couldn’t believe that his younger cousin—his only cousin, who had been just like a little brother to him—was dead.
He had dispensed with his normal entourage for the funeral and was thinking about taking a break from his boys for a little longer. He just needed a change. He needed a break from everything that had kept him away from his family for years.
And the way he was feeling about the loss of his cousin, he really didn’t want a large group of people just hanging around him following his every move. The group mentality had lost its appeal. Most of his core entourage were his homeboys anyway, so they took the respite as a chance to visit with their own families.
He looked around the room. The newly finished room had state-of-the-art electronics, a minitheater, wall-to-wall cream carpet, plush rust-colored sofas and light olive-green paint on the walls. The large mahogany sofa tables, end tables and table and chairs off in the corner tied the entire room together. It was actually his first time seeing the room since it had been remodeled. He was glad that he had surprised his grandmother by paying for it and hiring someone to make sure no detail was left to chance. The large space was now a family recreation room that was perfect for entertaining large groups. He’d had it remodeled a year ago for his grandmother’s birthday, thinking it would keep his cousin home more. He had no idea then that they would be standing in the same room mourning the loss of the boy.
How could you account for an eighteen-year-old college student with his entire life in front of him being gunned down in a neighborhood that he no longer lived in but couldn’t seem to stay away from? How did a person come to grips with the fact that no matter how much money he sent home to get his family out of the hood and keep his cousin out of the streets, the streets still managed to claim his cousin?
He looked around at all the faces standing around the basement, eating the food he’d had catered for the repast. The sad thing was that most of the people there probably couldn’t care less about Frankie. Most of them were only there to get a glimpse of “D-Roc.” Some had even asked for autographs and some had snapped pictures with their cell phones.
Pathetic. He didn’t regret his celebrity by any means. But he did regret the way people behaved because of it.
“It’s good to have you home, son.” His grandmother came and stood by him.
The tall, bronze-complexioned woman with her salt-and-pepper hair curled softly around her face looked older than she ever had. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and he could tell she’d been crying again. It broke his heart to see her so torn apart. She’d raised him after his mother was murdered, and when her youngest daughter had gotten pregnant as a teenager, she’d essentially taken on raising that child, too—Frankie. Burying Frankie probably felt as bad to her as when she’d buried Darius’s mother.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come home more often. Maybe if I had—”
“Don’t you go blaming yourself, Darius! Wasn’t nothing you could do to keep Frankie out of them streets. Lord knows we tried. He just wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t have listened to you either.”
“How you know that, Mama? He might have. He looked up to Darius.” His aunt Janice was only six years older than him. She’d had Frankie when she was eighteen. She was also tall with a bronze complexion and looked like a younger version of his grandmother. She wore an expensive weave with jet-black hair hanging well down her back. Despite her tears and sorrow at the moment, she was still in her typical perpetually angry state of being.
Unfortunately, this time she had a right to be angry with him.
Darius knew he should have done more to make sure his cousin stayed away from dangerous situations. It took more than buying a nice big house in New Hyde Park and moving the family to the safer Nassau County suburb. It took more than footing the bill for private school and guaranteeing a full ride to college.
Neither he nor Frankie had ever had a father figure—just Grandma and Janice. What Frankie needed—hell, what the little thug who had shot and killed Frankie probably needed, for that matter—was someone there who understood what it meant to be a young man in the hood, someone willing to be there and talk to him and talk him out of foolishness.
All the money in the world didn’t make up for time. It was funny how it took tragedy to bring some lessons home. For the first time in his life, he knew more than ever that nothing beat time. The death of his cousin brought that lesson home with enough poignancy to last several lifetimes.
His chest felt heavy. So much pressure was building up; it felt as if it was going to cave in and all of his insides would be exposed. Something had to give, and he had to let it out or he knew he might just explode.
He tightened up, holding it in. He couldn’t break down. He had to be a rock for his grandmother and aunt. He let out a stuttered breath and then another.
Frankie was dead.
It was his fault, even if he hadn’t held the gun. He needed to own up to that and not cry over it like a little boy.
Man up!
That’s
