“The boy was my patient. He adopted me this spring.” I told the two of them what had me so wild and crazed and suddenly depressed.
“Can I get you something, Alex?” said Annie Waters. She had a concerned look on her face.
I shook my head. I had to talk, had to get this out rig
ht now.
“Marcus found out I gave help at St. A’s, talked to people sometimes. He started coming by the trailer afternoons. Once I passed his tests, he talked about his life at the crack house. Everybody he knew in his life was a junkie. Junkie came by my house today… Rita Washington. Not Marcus’s mother, not his father. The boy tried to slit his own throat, slit his wrists. Just eleven years old.”
My eyes were wet. A little boy dies, somebody should cry. The psychologist for an eleven-year-old suicide victim ought to mourn. I thought so, anyway.
Sampson finally stood up and put his long arm gently on my shoulder. He was six feet nine again. “Let’s head on home, Alex,” he said. “C’mon, my man. Time to go.”
I went in and looked at Marcus for the last time.
I held his lifeless little hand and thought about the talks the two of us had, the ineffable sadness always in his brown eyes. I remembered a wise, beautiful African proverb: “It takes a whole village to raise a good child.”
Finally, Sampson came and took me away from the boy, took me home.
Where it got much worse.
CHAPTER 5
I DIDN’T like what I saw at home. A lot of cars were crowded helter-skelter around my house. It’s a white shingle A-frame; it looks like anybody’s house. Most of the cars appeared familiar; they were cars of friends and family members.
Sampson pulled in behind a dented ten-year-old Toyota that belonged to the wife of my late brother Aaron. Cilla Cross was a good friend. She was tough and smart. I had ended up liking her more than my brother. What was Cilla doing here?
“What the hell is going on at the house?” I asked Sampson again. I was starting to get a little concerned.
“Invite me in for a cold beer,” he said as he pulled the key from the ignition. “Least you can do.”
Sampson was already up and out of the car. He moves like a slick winter wind when he wants to. “Let’s go inside, Alex.”
I had the car door open, but I was still sitting inside. “I live here. I’ll go in when I feel like it.” I didn’t feel like it suddenly. A sheen of cold sweat was on the back of my neck. Detective paranoia? Maybe, maybe not.
“Don’t be difficult,” Sampson called back over his shoulder, “for once in your life.”
A long icy shiver ran through my body. I took a deep breath. The thought of the human monster I had recently helped put away still gave me nightmares. I deeply feared he would escape one day. The mass killer and kidnapper had already been to Fifth Street once.
What in hell was going on inside my house?
Sampson didn’t knock on the front door, or ring the bell, which dangled on red-and-blue wires. He just waltzed inside as if he lived there. Same as it’s always been. Mi casa es su casa. I followed him into my own house.
My boy, Damon, streaked into Sampson’s outstretched arms, and John scooped up my son as if he were made of air. Jannie came skating toward me, calling me “Big Daddy” as she ran. She was already in her slipper-sock pajamas, smelling of fresh talcum after her bath. My little lady.
Something was wrong in her big brown eyes. The look on her face froze me.
“What is it, my honeybunch?” I asked as I nuzzled against Jannie’s smooth, warm cheek. The two of us nuzzle a lot. “What’s wrong? Tell your Daddy all your troubles and woes.”
In the living room I could see three of my aunts, my two sisters-in-law, my one living brother, Charles. My aunts had been crying; their faces were all puffy and red. So had my sister-in-law Cilla, and she isn’t one to get weepy without a good reason.
The room had the unnatural, claustrophobic look of a wake. Somebody has died, I thought. Somebody we all love has died. But everybody I love seemed to be there, present and accounted for.
Nana Mama, my grandmother, was serving coffee, iced tea, and also cold chicken pieces, which no one seemed to be eating. Nana lives on Fifth Street with me and the kids. In her own mind, she’s raising the three of us.
Nana had shrunk to around five feet by her eightieth year. She is still the most impressive person I know in our nation’s capital, and I know most of them—the Reagans, the Bush people, and now the Clintons.
My grandmother was dry-eyed as she did her serving. I have rarely seen her cry, though she is a tremendously warm and caring person. She just doesn’t cry anymore. She says she doesn’t have that much of life left, and she won’t waste it on tears.