The Importance of Being Dangerous Read online

  The Importance of Being Dangerous

  David Dante Troutt

  For Naima and Shawn

  Contents

  1

  BEFORE SHE WAS A BODACIOUS QUEEN of the game, and…

  2

  THE LAST TIME Sidarra had been in church, her parents’…

  3

  SIDARRA WAS ONE of those people who believed that almost…

  4

  TUESDAY NIGHT WAS GETTING TO BE THE STRANGEST NIGHT of…

  5

  AFTER SIDARRA’S PARENTS DIED, she became the kind of person…

  6

  GRIFF HAD THE KNOWLEDGE, born of hundreds of hard cases.

  7

  “SO FIRST WE’RE PLAYING POOR,” Raquel started as they stood…

  8

  IT TOOK YAKOOB MUCH LESS than the twenty-four hours Griff…

  9

  BY THE END OF THE YEAR, the Board of Miseducation…

  10

  “RAUL’S BACK,” Yakoob announced as Sidarra stepped into the truck.

  11

  MONEY CAN BUY HAPPINESS, but it can’t aim at hurts.

  12

  JACK EAGLETON, THE FIFTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD CHANCELLOR of the New York City…

  13

  THE MAN IN THE SECOND-FLOOR APARTMENT wanted eight, but was…

  14

  WHEN SIDARRA WAS A LITTLE GIRL, it was always clear…

  15

  SIDARRA’S FATHER WAS RIGHT about the unconscious cause of her…

  16

  IT MUST HAVE BEEN MUCH LATER that night when Sidarra…

  17

  THE FIDELITY INVESTMENTS BRANCH OFFICE on lower Broadway was smack…

  18

  THAT TUESDAY NIGHT, by the time Sidarra arrived, Raul had…

  19

  EVEN IF SIDARRA SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BEFOREHAND, there was no…

  20

  THE FACT THAT AUNT CHICKIE’S REACTION to Sidarra’s confession of…

  21

  FOR THE SUN, the crisp early February wind, and an…

  22

  FOR RAUL, being dangerous had not always been such a…

  23

  EVERY GAME BEGETS ITS WINNERS, and every winner deserves a…

  24

  ONE NIGHT OUT OF NOWHERE, but just as Griff once…

  25

  THEY HAD TO GET AWAY TOGETHER. While Michael waited for…

  26

  BY THE EARLY SUMMER OF 1998, there were still two…

  27

  IN NEW YORK CITY, the newspapers had been silent about…

  28

  EVEN THOUGH JEFF GEIGER HAD HEARD WATERCOOLER RUMORS about his…

  29

  RAQUEL WAS TRYING OUT A NEW ATTITUDE at day camp,…

  30

  THEY HAD BREAKFAST brought up from a restaurant nearby and…

  31

  SIDARRA’S MOTHER HAD A PHRASE she applied mostly to food…

  32

  ORIGINALLY, THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES versus Griffin Haley…

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  BEFORE SHE WAS A BODACIOUS QUEEN of the game, and two years before her fortieth birthday surprise, there were often days when Sidarra wished she had the skills to bargain at least one parent back from death for a visit. She had lost them both at Easter-time, and she could feel the second anniversary approaching. Maybe years later the ability to communicate by postcard or prayer would do. But in 1996, the wound still fresh, she needed a little time with their faces, to laugh into their eyes, or cry into their arms.

  Sidarra got off the subway in Harlem, still distracted by what had just happened that day at work in Brooklyn. Once again, life proved to be pretty cheap at her job, the New York City Board of Miseducation, as she called it. Sidarra climbed the steps up to the street sure in her thoughts that her boss, Clayborne Reed, was finally going to pull the trigger on her section. Given her long rejection of his advances and her own advancing years, she figured he would at least retire her. For three months straight, he and most of the male management had been fixated on age, specifically the twenty-four-year-old white phenom named Desiree Kronitz. Clearly she made his dick too hard with her tight polyester skirts and red-lipstick-dripping talk of “downsizing” and “administrative waste,” which was all Clay needed to hear anyway. He was already getting pressure from his boss, the city schools chancellor. This Long Island chick with the blond dye job, midnight pumps, and aggressive push-up bras had opened his nose wide enough to make him want to fire everybody who hadn’t finished St. John’s University with a bachelor’s degree in public management. Sidarra had no proof of course, but she was sure from the looks of the man that he regularly fantasized being together with Desiree’s little tight ass. Over time, signs here and there told her that the obsession was directing his judgment: people like her were being demoted. Pressure was building in his pants and from his boss. Soon, while Miss Chick moaned in mock delight, Sidarra would be standing in the unemployment line, waiting for some idiot to say “Next!”

  She didn’t even see Tyrell following her down the first street. Nineteen, lean, long, and just stupid enough, Tyrell was always trying to be the trouble not seen. He was smart enough to make himself invisible, had she ever thought to look back at him. He side-winded into corners and phone booths like a snake, following the flex of her calves after the click of each heel on the sidewalk. His loping, uneven strides began to quicken and doubled the pace of hers as he gradually caught up. Sidarra kept thinking about what would happen to her if Miss Chick won the undeclared competition between them. She and Raquel were alone. Sidarra couldn’t let anything happen to her daughter. She couldn’t lose the apartment they shared on the third floor of a brownstone. Tyrell’s longer strides loped faster, homing in on Sidarra’s brown leather purse as it swung in slow motion from her slightly slumped shoulder. Just before she turned onto her block on 136th Street, Tyrell was right up on her, close enough to grab her ass.

  Suddenly a spider sense ten thousand years old sprang up in her chest, and Sidarra whirled around two steps before reaching her stoop. “Don’t do it,” she whispered.

  Tyrell stepped real close in front of her. “What?” he said, three inches from her face. She could feel his breath heavy on her cheek and she knew his body was already aroused by something. She also knew what his darting eyes knew: that there was no one out on 136th Street right then. Five fifty-two in the evening, yet no one. She smelled the bad mix of cigarettes, a blunt, malt liquor, and bad gums with each quickening breath.

  “I need to talk to you about something, Miss Sid.” He looked all the way around. She felt his long, thin arm make contact with her body. He tried to distract her. “Where’s your pretty little girl?”

  “Upstairs waiting for me, Tyrell.”

  He leaned on her just slightly, urging her up the brownstone stoop. “Then I’ll walk you upstairs—”

  “With her daddy, who’s about to beat my ass for coming late,” she said, trying to hide any fear. While he thought about that, Sidarra got a step’s worth of separation, but couldn’t get her key out without opening her purse to him. She lifted her eyes over his shoulder, pretending to say hello to someone passing on the street. That got her another step away from him. When Tyrell looked back to see, she slipped her hand into her purse, got the key out and a folded-up five-dollar bill. When Tyrell turned back to her, she knew he wasn’t going to wait anymore.

  “Look here, Tyrell. I’m glad I saw you today, because I’ve been meaning to give you this carfare.” Sidarra looked deep into his eyes and mustered all of her twenty extra years on earth to tell him, �
��Don’t think I forgot about getting you that job down at 110 Livingston. I can’t remember the man’s name I want you to see down there, but here’s some money. I’ll get you the name next time I see you. You’re a good man, Tyrell. Don’t think I don’t know that. I’ve known you a long time. I’ll do what I can. Now, this ends right here, ’cause I got a baby to take care of, okay?”

  Tyrell stopped, took the money quickly in his fingers, paused long enough to stare at her breasts, and turned back down the stairs. “A’ight,” he said. “Thanks.”

  And that was all there was to it this time. As Sidarra stepped safely into the vestibule, she let out a long breath. Her hand trembled furiously as she turned the key inside the second door. The mailman had slipped two pieces of mail for her onto the floor under the crack. Her mailbox was broken again. She stooped to the dusty tiled floor and picked up the letters, but before she could read the address another man appeared in her face.

  “Wha—” she gasped in the near-darkness.

  “Just who I was looking for,” said the male voice. The man stepped out of the darkness at the foot of the stairwell.

  It was her landlord. “Oh. You, uh, startled me, Mr. Simms.”

  Mr. Simms was a tall older man with glasses and a strong frame who left Harlem years ago and had not smiled since. “How are you, Sidarra?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m on my way out. I came into the city today to see you, ’cause your rent is late and I’m not having it this month.”

  “I know, Mr. Simms. I tried to leave you a message on your answering machine.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She smiled with whatever loveliness Tyrell hadn’t scared out of her. “Raquel had a problem with her teeth last week. Her father said he would cover it, and when he didn’t, well, I had to—”

  Mr. Simms searched her face for truth. “Look, we can’t keep playing this game. You know I like you, Sid. I’m sorry about Raquel. You’ve been good, quiet tenants since before she was born. But I can’t do this with you. Harlem is changing. You’re a smart woman. You know and I know both that I could get twice what you’re paying for them four rooms.”

  She didn’t want him to go on much longer, because he might work himself into evicting her if he thought enough about it. “I tell you what, Mr. Simms. I’ll write you a check right now for half and get you the rest by, well, Tuesday, given the Easter mails, okay?”

  When she finished writing the check, she waited at the bottom step for him to disappear down the street. Before starting the walk upstairs, Sidarra craned her neck to look up the narrow rectangular gap between the handrails to make sure no other surprises were making their way down to her. She could hear loud music playing as she passed the apartment on the second floor. Once she made it to the landing on her own floor, she found the courage to check who the mail was from. The first letter was from the cable company; her service was being disconnected and it would cost an additional $75 to restore. The second was from the IRS. She owed another $250 from an error in last year’s taxes. This year’s were due in about two weeks.

  “Mommy!”

  “I’m home, baby.” Sidarra dropped her purse on the hardwood floor along with her keys and the bad news, and grabbed up her daughter. Just moments ago she couldn’t be sure she would hold this eight-year-old body again. Sidarra stroked her fingers across Raquel’s plaited hair and kissed again and again at the soft brown skin of her cheek. “Why was the door unlocked?” she asked Raquel.

  “I made you a picture at school. Want to see it?”

  “Of course I do. Where is Mrs. Thomas? Why was the door unlocked?” She looked around the foyer, expecting Mrs. Thomas finally to appear. “Mrs. Thomas?” she called out. She heard nothing in return.

  Sidarra wanted to think only about leftover Kentucky Fried Chicken and getting out of her dress. A bath after dinner would be nice, too. But she looked around the house with no lights on and only the weak evening sun trying its last to make it to the hallway through the kitchen windows. No one in the kitchen. She walked to the doorway of the large front room and saw Mrs. Thomas, all eighty years of her, fast asleep in a chair while Jeopardy! played on the TV.

  “Mrs. Thomas! Mrs. Thomas, I’m home.”

  The old woman shook herself out of a snore, grabbed at her skirt above the knees, and lifted her groggy head. “Mm-hmm. You’re back. That’s good. How are you, Sidarra?”

  Sidarra stood in the doorway for a few seconds, too pissed off for words, Raquel’s long, skinny frame still hanging from her hip. What could she say that she wouldn’t regret? She had lied to Mr. Simms, just as she’d lied to Tyrell. There was no father for Raquel at the end of the day. There was just Mrs. Thomas, who lived on the first floor, and she looked after Raquel in exchange for favors.

  “Why is it so warm in the house?” she asked no one in particular. Raquel slid down her mother’s body and looked up like she hadn’t noticed.

  “I think the oven was on.”

  “The oven doesn’t work, Raquel. You know that. It’s got to be fixed. Who turned the oven on?”

  Raquel put a guilty finger to her lips and twisted her body back and forth. “Want to see the picture I made you?”

  “In a minute, baby. Mrs. Thomas?” Mrs. Thomas had fallen back to sleep. “How long has Mrs. Thomas been asleep, Raquel?”

  “Since the news came on.” That was over an hour ago.

  “Mrs. Thomas, let me walk you back downstairs, please. Thank you again for watching Raquel.”

  Down they went in slow motion, two steep flights of creaky old stairs that slanted to one side. At any moment it seemed the old woman would give out for good, and Sidarra was glad she hadn’t said anything in anger.

  Once she had seen Mrs. Thomas safely into her musty apartment, Sidarra and Raquel went back upstairs and turned on lights. “How was your day, Mommy?”

  “Pretty damned awful, sweetie. How was yours?”

  “Good. I had a good day. We had a spelling test, and I only got one word wrong.”

  “That’s wonderful. Mommy’s very proud of you.” Sidarra took off her heels and walked into the drab, light green kitchen in her pantyhose. On her way to the stove, she nearly slipped on something greasy and had to catch herself on the back of a metal chair. When she caught her balance, she looked down in disgust to see what almost killed her. “What is that?”

  “Chicken,” Raquel mumbled.

  “Chicken? What chicken? Why is there chicken on the kitchen floor, Raquel?”

  “Galore.”

  “Galore?” Sidarra almost bit her top lip in half. “Raquel, you’d better stop playing with me this second. Now, what the hell has Galore got to do with this chicken? Whose chicken is this, anyway? This better be Mrs. Thomas’s chicken.”

  Raquel fidgeted badly under her mother’s angry glare. “Mommy, she was hungry. She kept crying all over the place. I asked Mrs. Thomas what I could do, but she couldn’t hear me.”

  A gray cat considerably fatter than the one Sidarra remembered seeing that morning sauntered slowly under the kitchen chairs. Sidarra named her Pussy Galore because she was a big James Bond fan. Having an inactive cat with an action-packed name was as close as Sidarra would likely come to an action movie life. “Raquel, don’t tell me that’s why this oven is on.”

  “The chicken was cold, Mommy. But I kept it in the tinfoil just like you do.”

  “And you fed it to the cat?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Raquel! Dammit! First of all, you must never go near the stove. You know better than that. It’s broken. That’s probably why Mrs. Thomas wouldn’t wake up. It’s probably leaking gas! You both could have gotten poisoned to death, or burned up in a fire. What were you thinking?” Raquel stared at the scuff marks, holes, and deep cracks in the old linoleum floor. “And second of all, that chicken was your dinner. That’s all we have tonight. Mommy doesn’t even have any money. I just spent my last five dollars…”

  “We could look in the pockets of your coats.”


  “Stay out of my goddamned pockets, Raquel! Jesus Christ.”

  Sidarra suddenly felt too heavy to stand and collapsed in a chair. She put her head in her hands and stared into the tabletop for five solid minutes. Raquel timidly moved beside her and stroked her mother’s arm with her hand. “Sorry, Mom.”

  “Okay, baby. Now you know.”

  It wasn’t really okay that evening. Sidarra went into her bedroom and got undressed in front of the mirror on the wooden dresser. She locked in a stare-down contest with herself for a while, but lost when the sight of a hole in her new bra distracted her. When she tried pulling out a drawer, it wouldn’t budge. When she tugged angrily at it, the little round handles finally broke off in her hands. If her father were alive, he would have fixed that. The stove would work, too. She could call her brothers for long-distance advice, but even that would mean a favor. Favors from them meant drama she didn’t need. While Raquel drew pictures on a pad across the bed, Sidarra put her hair up in a scarf. She was hungry. She was out of red wine. Somehow she was broke again, but she wouldn’t have gone back out into that street to buy some anyway. If her mother were alive, she wouldn’t need wine. She would be fed on a day like this. Of course, this day was the two-year anniversary, she suddenly realized, the day before Good Friday, when her parents were killed together on a curb. Since then, she’d become acutely aware of her disappointments, wearing cheap drawers with holes in them, surrounded by cheap furniture with bad handles, the stuff she’d bought on layaway at one of the Arab stores on 125th Street. And she had their furniture, most of it stowed away in the junkiest room of a junky apartment. The apartment was so addicted to its junkiness, no amount of love or time or good taste could get it in shape for more than a minute.