Lemmon's Journey

Chapter Ten

“I want you to know, Mr. Grandee, what I’m about to tell you might shock you, but it’s the God-honest truth. Truth is we were going to tell you, but didn’t know how. What with all you’ve being through already. Right now, I don’t know if you’ve got the stomach to hear everything—”

“Just tell me what you know and let me be the judge of that,” Lemmon interrupted. The tremor was again building in his chest, and all the stall tactics they’d being giving him wasn’t doing him any good. He felt he was an inch close from losing his mind. “Just tell me everything, leave nothing out. Please.”

Shontelle clasped her hands between her knees. “Gloria was a junkie,” she said. “A coke fiend. She was a working girl, too—a hooker. I know this ‘cos I too was one. We met four years ago. We walked the same beat in the city around Eight Avenue and Harlem, and sometimes went tricking at night in the park. Always at night—other hoes worked the beat during the daytime. Wilkes was our pimp.”

“Reggie mentioned something about you being in a culinary school.”

“That happened a little later. I hid some of my tricking money to pay for the tuition. Gloria and I bumped off each other and got into the program.”

“This Wilkes fellow, how did he stumble onto Gloria?”

Shontelle shook her head. “I don’t know. Wilkes has a way of finding girls, especially lost girls, to do whatever he wants. Once morning I went to give him my earnings for the past week and there she was in his office. She looked kinda beat-up and hungry, like she’d being out in the cold all day. Wilkes told me she was a new horse in his stable-that’s what he calls his girls—he wanted her bunking with me and asked me to teach her the trade.”

“And you did,” Lemmon murmured. In his mind, he conjured a picture of his daughter looking scared and frail, forced against her will to do stuff no decent woman should be forced to do. Listening to Shontelle, he felt sorry for sounding pretty upset to her.

“When Wilkes tells you to do something, there no talking it over. There’s no negotiating, no nothing. You either do what he says or he gets mad. And Wilkes ain’t the type of thug you want to see getting mad. Not to you.”

“She’s right, old man,” Reggie chimed in.

Lemmon nodded his head. “Go on.”

“I wasn’t living here at the time. I didn’t stumble on this place until last year. Back then I was putting up with other hoes in some old claptrap apartment Wilkes paid for us, on the east side of Brooklyn. I brought Gloria there, introduced her to the other girls and we bunked together like college roommates. Other girls didn’t like her off the bat ‘cos she was a white girl, and had on that voice they figured she was putting on airs. But Gloria wasn’t like that. Little time after we met, we became friends. She brought her son along, too. The place was always filthy; most of the other hoes there lived like pigs.”

“How long did she stay with you?”

“Six months, I think. Being a hoe on the streets ain’t exactly the best thing for any girl. We got sick of staying at the apartment, and saved up some money to get our own place. I returned to culinary school, and Gloria got involved, too. She didn’t want me leaving her alone by herself, and neither did I. We weren’t tricking a lot anymore. The streets were dangerous, and the cops harassed us night and day. A time came when we both wanted out, but Wilkes wasn’t hearing none of that. He sold drugs too; plenty of the girls scored off him, same with Gloria. I don’t know when she started doing it, and later I found out she was trying to hide it from me, but I knew something was wrong. She told me she sold it to make extra money to feed her kid. She wanted to get him new clothes, and put him in a new school. She talked to Wilkes about it and things went downhill from there.”

“How bad did it go?”

Shontelle gazed down on her hands again. She waited almost a minute before continuing.

“She became a mule,” Shontelle said. Her voice was so low it was hardly above a whisper.

“I don’t understand.”

Reggie chipped in again. “What she means is your little girl turned herself into a carrier pigeon. She combed the streets running eight balls for Wilkes’s distributors and whoever else wanted his shit.”

Lemmon listened to him, unable to comprehend everything he said, but he got the picture. He urged Shontelle to continue. He saw the hurt look on her face as she talked more about her best friend; it ached him picturing everything she’d mentioned happen to his daughter.

“Her life got messed up, and she stopped listening to me each time I tried talking to her.” Shontelle was crying again, talking between sniffles. “I told her it was dangerous and she was killing herself, but she kept saying it was all for her boy, Randall. I think she was scared of pissing off Wilkes. A point came when I couldn’t sit and watch her destroy herself. I quit the game, and with Reggie’s help, I quit Wilkes too.”

Her crying burst like a dam when she finished. Lemmon murmured that it was all right. He gave her time to pull herself together and picked up the letters on the table.

“Something else I want to know. How did she get to writing to her mom? She must have mentioned it to you while she was doing it.”

Shontelle dried her eyes before speaking. “She talked a lot about the both of you. It was one of the few things she loved talking about: how sweet you both were, and your mom’s cooking. She told me about her running away and how she missed you guys. I knew she was really sorry about it. She talked about going back home, and I don’t know why she didn’t. The drugs messed her up. She fell sick a lot, coughed up blood lots of times. I told her to get herself tested, but she was always putting it off. She begged me to write those letters.”

This came as a shocking surprise to Lemmon. For a minute he didn’t know what to say or respond to this new development. He looked at the envelope of letters in his hand, then at her. His breath felt hard coming off his nose.

“You’re saying these letters, these words . . . they all came from you?”

“Yeah,” she said, then added quickly, “But the words weren’t exactly mine. Gloria told me what to write and that was what I did. She told me to address it to her mom. She wanted to talk with her first, I don’t know why. That’s the truth.”

“You mailed them for her?”

“Yes, I did. She never really worked at Starbucks. That was a gig I got while I was doing my culinary stuff part time.”

Lemmon’s head throbbed with a headache. He raised a hand to the side of his head, fatigued by everything he’d just heard and didn’t think he wanted to listen anymore—this was enough bad news for one day. He picked up his coat and got up and threw the letters into his pocket after he’d worn it. Neither Shontelle nor Reggie said anything as he wore his hat.

“I think I’m going to need leave you both for now,” Lemmon spoke with a tired voice. “If you both don’t mind, I’d like us to meet later so you can tell me more about all of this.”

“Sure thing,” said Reggie, leaving the window. “Where you staying at? Hope it ain’t someplace fancy in the city.”

“It’s called the Pennyview hotel down on Lenox Avenue. You know where that is?”

They looked at each other and nodded.

“That’s where I’m staying. I don’t have a cell phone, but I won’t be going anywhere. My God, this is all just too much.” He picked up the urn. His heart coiled with despair as he lifted the urn. “This is all I have left of my little girl. This is all I have left of her life.”

Neither Reggie nor Shontelle said anything; there was nothing neither could have said.

“I’ll take my leave now,” Lemmon headed for the door.

The world appeared different as he walked out of the building and went in the direction he’d come from. He made frequent stops along the way to ask street directions on how to get to Lennox Avenue. Snapshots of his daughter’s face flashed before his eyes as he walked. His eyes kept getting misty with tears and he fought with his handkerchief to wipe them clean as he walked.

Lemmon arrived at the hotel pretty much looking like a weary wreck. His feet felt weak from his long walk and it wasn’t until he entered the hotel that he realized his mistake—he ought to have taken a cab instead of walking the distance.

He was heading up to his room when he thought of his friend back home, Marley. He looked at his watch and knew his friend would be at his shop. Lemmon returned to the lobby and caught the clerk asleep behind the counter, surprised he hadn’t noticed him when he hurried the building. Lemmon tapped the bell several times to get his attention. The man blubbered awake and fixed Lemmon with a grumpy look.

“Yeah, whatya want?” he grumbled.

“Is there a phone around here I can use?” asked Lemmon. “I’d like to make a call.”

Annoyance lingered in the man’s eyes as it took him some seconds before answering. “What? You ain’t got no cell phone yourself?”

“No, I don’t,” Lemmon replied, fighting to conserve his patience. “You know where I can make a call?”

“Head on down the hallway upstairs, there’s a payphone at the end. Cost you two bucks in quarters.”

Lemmon searched in his coat pockets for change. All he had was a dollar and some cents. He fished a dollar bill out of his wallet and asked if the clerk could make change for him. The man swiped both notes from his hand and out came a bundle of quarters from his pocket. He counted off Lemmon’s change and gave them to him in a manner that said get lost and don’t bother me no more. Lemmon got to the first floor with the elevator and went searching for the pay phone.

He found it at the end of the hallway. There was a window next to it that faced the street. Lemmon dropped the urn beside his feet and got out his notebook. He flipped through the pages till he found his friend’s number, then inserted his quarters into the payphone’s slot and dialed. The phone rang thrice before a voice answered.

“Hullo?”

“Hi Marley,” he said. “It’s Lem calling.”

“Hi, Lem. Happy hearing from you. How goes your trip?”

“So much to say, Marley. I arrived here safe yesterday. I’m staying at a hotel here in Harlem, it’s where I’m calling you from right now.”

“That’s good, I’m glad you made the trip safe. You found Gloria yet?”

“Yeah . . . I found her.” His eyes looked down at the urn. The sobbing knocked at his chest terribly. “I found what’s left of her,” he said.

“I don’t follow. What you talking about?”

Lemmon couldn’t hold it back. He was blubbering with tears gushing from his eyes. He removed his glasses as the tears grew too much to stop.

“She’s dead, Marley!” he exclaimed. “She’s dead.”

Marley was saying something but Lemmon barely heard him as he was suddenly lost to his grief. He lowered himself to the ground, still clutching the phone and crying. He lowered himself in a crouch and let go of the phone, letting it dangle on its cord, swinging. The sound of his friend’s voice kept screaming at him from afar.

* * *

Kiara stepped out of her room and flung the door shut. She was mad at her oldest daughter and couldn’t help letting loose a string of curse words as she fought to contain her anger. She’d come close to back-handing the snippy brat but with all she had going on in her life since her miserable hubby passed away, she didn’t want to allow her anger get the best of her. Her best bet was to leave the room and head down to the lounge room for a smoke or two. She’d left with her handbag and her pack of smokes was inside. Wanting to take the exit stairs, she saw a vending machine at the end of the corridor and stopped for a moment. The thought of a soda was suddenly replacing that of a smoke. She walked to the machine and cursed it when she realized it was broken. Kiara was still cursing it as she marched down the stairs to see if there was another machine down on the first floor.

She was in luck finding one there, and happy too to see it was working just fine. Kiara was rifling inside her handbag for some quarters when she thought she heard what sounded like someone sobbing. She walked to the end of the corridor and saw the man crouched on the floor beside the phone booth, with his back against the wall. Her first thought was that he was drunk. It wasn’t until she drew closer that Kiara recognized who it was to her amazement.

“My God, Lemmon!” She shook his arm, but Lemmon didn’t budge from his position. She hung the dangling phone back in its place then tried shaking his arm harder. “My God, Lemmon, The f**k happened? What’s going on?”

Lemmon’s sobs patterned out to stuttering whimpers. He looked at her from his curled position with his glasses hanging askance over his teary face. Kiara leaned closer to catch what he was saying to her.

“She’s dead,” he moaned. “She’s dead . . . she’s dead.”

Kiara frowned. “Who you talking ‘bout, Lemmon? Who’s dead?”

She came to his side and unhinged his locked arms. Kiara dropped one of his arm over her shoulder and struggled to pull him to his feet. They left the phone booth area with Lemmon hanging on to her like a victim who’d survived a natural disaster. She asked where his room was and he pointed a finger at the other end of the corridor. Kiara spat out curse words as she hobbled toward his room, dragging him along. Lemmon clutched his daughter’s urn to his chest, praying not to let go. He gave her his key when they got to his door and she unlocked it and led him inside.

* * *

The room was dark when Lemmon opened his eyes; the only light in the room filtered through the curtains from the street outside. He raised his head from the bed and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The bed springs groaned as he sat up.

He held his breath when he heard a scratching-type sound in the room. He blinked as a match flared alight, revealing Kiara who sat by the table with her leg crossed over the other. Lemmon reached for the bedside lamp and switched it on. Kiara wore a sweater and jeans shorts; she had her bundle of scarf tied around her head. She brought the lit match to the tip of her cigarette then blew it off.

“Hi there,” she said.

Lemmon turned to look out the window beside his bed and realized the sky was dark. He was baffled that he had slept in his clothes, minus his coat, jacket and shoes. He thought of how that happened, but then it came to him and he blushed with embarrassment that Kiara had found him curled under the phone booth and managed to lie him here.

“You better now?” she asked him.

Lemmon nodded. “Yeah, I think so. I know so. Thank you.”

“You gave me a scare lying out there. Wasn’t easy dragging your old ass in here. You’re pretty heavy for a man your age.”

“Thanks to you, I feel a lot younger already.”

He felt for his glasses but it wasn’t on the bedside cabinet. Kiara picked up his glasses which she’d kept on the table and gave it to him. Lemmon thanked her for it and went to wash his face in the bathroom. He thought back on what he’d being doing before his grief consumed him and remembered he’d been on the phone talking to Marley. He was mulling over everything as he dried his face with a towel, and then he remembered the urn.

“Did you see the urn?” Lemmon asked her when he was done washing his face.

“What, you mean this?”

Kiara picked up the urn standing beside her foot and gave it to him. Lemmon ran his finger over his daughter’s inscription then placed it on the table. His grief was egging toward his throat, wanting to have another round at him. This time he grounded his feet and held down his emotions from breaking through.

“She was your daughter?”

Lemmon nodded.

“I thought so,” said Kiara. “I’m sorry for your lose.”

“Thanks. I too am just as sorry that I never got to see her before . . . whatever happened to her. Until now.”

“What happened to her? Do you know?”

Lemmon sat on the bed. “It was seven years ago. Gloria, my daughter, got pregnant then ran from home. My wife and I never heard from her again. My wife then passed away, and a couple of weeks ago I was cleaning out my daughter’s closet and found letters she’d written to her mother, my wife. I figured I’d travel down here and convince her to come back home. It turns out she’s been dead since last December.”

Kaira ground her cigarette. She left the chair, came and sat beside him. She took his hand in hers. “That’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks. I found out about it this afternoon, before you saw me curled out in the corridor. She was our only child, and I’ve got nothing else that’s left of her. Nothing else except what’s in there,” he indicated at the urn.

“Do you know how she died?”

Lemmon looked at her. No, he didn’t know how his daughter died. But he was going to find out. He curled his right knuckle into a fist, determined.

He wasgoing to find out.

* * *

It was getting close to midnight. Lemmon was back at Shontelle’s apartment, banging on her door. It wasn’t his intention to be loud, but he wanted to get noticed above the racket of loud Hip-Hop music coming from another apartment door. He was gasping as he pounded on the door harder and had to stop for a moment. He did a slow count to five then resumed banging again. An irate voice cursed out from behind one of the apartment doors cursing at him to stop. Lemmon kept on without a care in the world.

Then he thought he heard someone sounding like Reggie yell from within that he was coming. Lemmon stood back as a lock was turned. The door came open seconds later and he stared at Reggie’s scowling feature. Reggie wasted no time spiting an epithet of profanity at him; he was wearing a pair of shorts and an undershirt.

“Gaddamnit, what the f**k! The hell you doing here this late, old man?”

“Don’t call me that,” Lemmon snapped.

He barged past him into the apartment. Reggie was still cursing as he shut the door and switched on the light. Lemmon dropped his hat on the couch before facing him. He was puffing with anger and looking for a reason to explode.

“What happened to her?” He was livid with boiling rage. He took off his glasses and stabbed it at Reggie’s chest. “I want you to tell me right now. I want to know how she died.”

Reggie fended him off, still snapping at him. “s**t, man! The f**k’s that goin’ to do for you? She dead as a rusted nail, ain’t she? You got the urn, ain’t you? Can’t your old ass just leave enough alone and skirt back to wherever farm house you live?”

“Shut up, you young punk!” Lemmon roared and lunged himself at him. He shoved Reggie against the door and pinned him with his arm pressed against his throat. Lemmon’s feature snarled at him. “I want to know how my daughter died, you hear me. I want to know who’s responsible for her being in an urn, and I’m not leaving here until you tell me.”

“STOP IT!”

Lemmon turned his head and saw Shontelle behind him, tying the sash of her robe. “Please, just stop.”

Her presence seemed to neutralize Lemmon’s yearning rage. He let go of her boyfriend and turned to face her. He was still gasping, huffing for breath while Reggie was massaging his throat. Lemmon swiped spite off his mouth with the back of his hand before wearing back his glasses.

“Who killed her, Shontelle? That’s what I want to know.”

“Would you do you any good to know, Mr. Grandee?” she asked him. “Really, what good would it do for you to know?”

Lemmon realized from the pleading sound of her voice and the look in her eyes that she was afraid. She was trying to spare him from knowing more, but that was what he wanted. He had walked all the way from his hotel seething with anger, and it won’t be sated until he got what he wanted.

“You and Reggie haven’t told me what happened to Randall, or who he’s with and where. I want answers, Shontelle. I don’t care what you think or how long you keep hiding it from me. Either tell me now, or I’m going to the police in the morning.”

“The po-po?” Reggie hissed at him, rubbing his neck. “The f**k you think the cops are goin’ do for your ass?”

“A lot better than what you’ve told me so far,” Lemmon shot back. “I’ve spent all afternoon and this evening crying my eyes out for a daughter I haven’t seen in years. Everything you told me happened prior to her being alive. I want you to come clean with me right now, or there’s going to be all hell to pay. What’s it going to be?”

Reggie was about saying something but Shontelle shushed him before responding.

“She was strangled,” she said to him. “At least that’s what the cops told us. I was at work when I got a summons from them. I went to the station and identified her body. That wasn’t easy for me to do, if you want to know.”

“Was it the Wilkes guy? Was he the one that did it?”

Shontelle and Reggie looked at him but didn’t say anything. The look in their eyes was enough answer for Lemmon.

“What about Randall? What did they say about him?”

“Nothing. He’s probably with Wilkes.”

Lemmon walked around the room scratching his head, thinking. He stopped and turned to her again. “About those letters you wrote, there’s something else I want to know. How come you never wrote to my wife to tell her about Gloria’s death? Or did you do that?”

“No, I never did.”

“Well then why in God’s name didn’t you?” Lemmon shouted the question. “My God, all these months she’s being dead and neither I or her mom ever knew!”

“I didn’t have the address with me anymore; I couldn’t remember where I’d wrote them down. Gloria kept her mom’s letters to herself. I wrote the letters and I mailed them for her, but those were her envelopes. The cops never found any letters amongst her stuff, and really they didn’t care. To them, she was just another hooker. That sort of trade don’t get no love from cops. They cremated her a week later, and that was it.”

“That’s the f*****g truth, old man,” Reggie glowered. “Cops in this city don’t give a rat’s ass who you are or where you’re from unless you’re rich n’ f*****g famous. With Gloria, she was just another white gutter thrash wasted no juke drugs. Just another Jane motherfuckin’ Doe. Cased closed.”

Lemmon felt deflated now devoid of an angry wind. He settled down on the couch and rolled his hat in his hand, thinking of what to do next.

“This Wilkes fellow,” he said. “Did the cops ever go after him? Did you mention his name to the cops?”

Shontelle shook her head. “Wilkes ain’t exactly the type of guy you want to mess around with, I already told you that. Besides, the cops know of him, and there ain’t nothing they can do about it.”

Lemmon thought for a moment, then: “Maybe there’s something I can do about it.”

Shontelle and Reggie looked at him incredulously.

“Old man, that’s going to be one of the stupidest mistake you want to make,” said Reggie.

“Then let it be my mistake. And I already told you, stop calling me old man.”

“Whatever, pops,” Reggie said dismissively. “Look, I’m hitting the sack. Shon, don’t forget to lock his ass out when he’s done. I’ve got an early rise tomorrow.” He left both of them and returned to the bedroom.

“You have the address of the police station?” Lemmon asked her. “Maybe I can drop by there in the morning.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you? With everything I’ve told you, you still want to get involved in this?”

“Let me enlighten you, Shontelle. I’ve got a grandson that’s out there and I don’t know what’s happening to him right now. What do you expect me to do, leave him for the wolves?”

Shontelle had nothing to say to that. “I’ll go get it for you.”

She went into the bedroom and returned minutes later holding a piece of paper which she then gave to him.

“I wrote down the station’s address and the name of the detective involved in the case,” she said. “Possibly she’s the right person you ought to speak with when you head over there.”

“Thanks.” Lemmon folded the paper into his coat pocket then got up. “I apologize for banging on your door the way I did. I hope you understand.”

“Forget it. If I had a Dad just like you, I’d be proud. I know Gloria would be, too.”

“Goodnight.”

He wore his hat and left the apartment as fast as he could, not wanting the tears to return to his eyes again.