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Chapter Seventeen
This Christmas Day was a direct contrast to the one they’d had last year. There were no extravagant gifts from Charlie. In fact, the Browns hadn’t heard or seen Charlie for several weeks, but she was home today. Butch wasn’t a drunk and dancing fool, and there was no Christmas tree. Christmas Day was dry like a desert. It came and it went. That same dryness and cheerless mood continued into New Year’s Eve. There was no party, no crowd of people crammed into the Browns’ apartment having a good time, and no Bacardi making a small fortune from selling food and liquor.
It was January, and Butch was still sober and unemployed, and Bacardi was just unemployed. Claire was a disgrace who even failed to kill herself, and she was the laughingstock of the projects. Without God around, Charlie had fallen into the slumps of poverty with her family. She still had a few nice things to boast for the New Year, but that way of life was becoming only a memory. Her cash was really low. She wasn’t much of a stick-up kid without God and Fingers in her corner, so she was reduced to petty crimes like shoplifting and minor scams to get by.
Chanel simply minded her business. She went to school, the library, and home, and she occupied her time by studying and hanging out with Mecca in Harlem on the weekends. Her hopes of seeing or hearing from Mateo had faded. It was a new year, and she figured she should let the past stay in the past.
It was a cold Friday evening with the city feeling like Antarctica. The wind chill felt like it had dropped to -70 degrees. Chanel took warmth and comfort inside her bedroom. She occupied one end of the room, and Claire had the other. They said nothing to each other. Chanel was reading a book and Claire had her headphones on listening to music.
Her sister had gotten better. The psychiatric observation that Bacardi put her in helped somewhat, but Claire still had her issues to deal with.
It was too cold to go outside, so everyone was inside doing something. Butch was in his bedroom watching TV, and Charlie and Bacardi were hanging out in the living room smoking a blunt together and talking shit.
It was a regular day for everyone, or so it appeared. Chanel was grateful that the house was quiet. The January weather was making it impossible for her to escape to anywhere else—especially to Harlem. She was stuck indoors until it got a bit warmer and the ice melted.
So, the sudden knock at the door surprised her and everyone else. They were rapid knocks that echoed through the apartment. No one had any idea who it was. Who could be visiting them on such a frigid evening?
Bacardi jumped up from the couch with the blunt in her hand. She cursed, “Who the fuck knocking at my door? You expecting company, Charlie?”
“In this cold? Nah.”
Bacardi walked to the door looking like she belonged in an old hoochie mama movie, wearing curlers in her hair and a colorful robe that could blind the blind. She swung the door open and saw two niggas standing in front of her. She had never seen them before, but by the way they were dressed, she could tell that they were some money niggas. One was wearing a mink jacket, and he was really fuckin’ handsome. Bacardi sized him up quickly, seeing the Rolex around his wrist, the clean Timberland boots, fresh haircut, and she even peeped the .45 tucked in his waist. The second nigga wore an expensive leather jacket, jewelry that glimmered, and stylish jeans and boots that looked costly. Both men were Hispanic.
Who these Spanish niggas here to see? she wondered. She figured they were there to see Charlie. She figured that Charlie had come through for the family and probably met the next money nigga to leach off of while God was in jail.
“Hello, ma’am,” said the nigga with the mink coat.
Ma’am? Bacardi thought. She wasn’t that old.
“My name is Mateo, and this is my boy Pyro. Is Chanel home?”
Bacardi’s mouth dropped open. Chanel? Bacardi couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“You mean Charlie?” she wanted to correct him.
“Nah, Chanel. She a dark skin beauty with long hair and a beautiful smile,” Mateo said.
Bacardi was blown away. She quickly ushered the men into the living room and told them to make themselves at home.
Charlie was shocked too. She sat there staring into the faces of the two well dressed Hispanic men who were now crowding her living room.
“Shit!” Charlie muttered in admiration of them. Chanel? How? Why?
Bacardi sweetly called out Chanel’s name. Her youngest daughter had some explaining to do. She wasn’t mad, just shocked that Chanel was able to attract two fine niggas like Mateo and Pyro.
Hearing Bacardi call her name, Chanel meekly walked out her bedroom expecting her evening to go from calm to chaotic. Bacardi never called her name unless it was some trouble coming her way. Chanel expected her mother to riff and rant about something to her—some wrong she had done.
Chanel slowly traveled down the hallway and could see her mother standing at the edge of the hallway with her eyes zeroed in on her like she was the warden and Chanel was an inmate taking her final walk to the death penalty. Bacardi always had this uncomfortable look toward her youngest.
But when Chanel walked into the living room and saw Mateo and Pyro standing in her home, she had no idea what to think or what to say. She was stunned. Was she dreaming? But then she saw his pearly white smile and heard him say, “Hey, beautiful.”
Mateo didn’t get the greeting he thought he would get.
“What the fuck you doing here?” Chanel chided. “It’s been how fuckin’ long since I saw you?”
She stood there standoffish. She hadn’t heard from or seen Mateo since that day he’d dropped her off in August. It was January.
“What’s that, five months?” she added.
