Puzzling Pieces

Chapter 13

“You don’t want to mess with this guy Sia.” Viv is sitting on that 5th stair with his hand trying to reach out to me from my left. I glance at it with the slanting of my neck. It’s the sort of gesture that says still. Be still. The whole foyer is waiting for me to respond to his homophobic comment. All 10 of them, which included Rodney and Carl in the kitchen who came to catch the African standoff. The reggae is still blaring with some still enjoying their beer and snacks.

I stick to the bottom stair. I see Nate in the background throwing up the ring and middle finger to say he could two-up and back me. I slightly give that a no-no-head-shake. And Nate nods with an understanding.

“Sidney tells me that I have you to thank for that brilliant piece of brain-work you did on those rings?”

“She might’ve looked into it.” Viv gets up. –

“Sit down!” But for the first time in my life, he’s obedient to this man and sits. “I thought we were friends, man? No invite. No word of mouth. I find out because I happened to be passing by and I see that your front door is wide open for guests.”

“I didn’t think it would be your scene.”-

“What is my scene?”

“Not a reunion filled with old farts.” I’m sure a few want to tell Viv to speak for himself!

“I always got to keep my eye on you, Viv. Because I hear things that tell me you have plans to do this … and that … and then I see all these people here who wanted to be where you were.” He peers back at Rodney and Carl. “And lookie here Marlon, of all the people to show up.” Rodney and Carl walk out as everybody else pushes to the side of the walls: some hit the radiator.

I’m looking at Marlon waiting for him to say another word. It’s clinging to him. He wants to throw some more garbage my way like I’m a dumping station. But Rodney and Carl have the front row with Viv who came down the steps and dummies me to sit up there. I do as Viv says, and walk backward until I sit on the same step that he did.

“Not in front of all these dedicated servicemen, Henry. Not here. Not now. I’ll leave a friend in charge and we can go somewhere and discuss what you want.”

“Vivian, all these dedicated servicemen that you speak of would’ve been you if it wasn’t for your hunger and drive to be the man! To be shaft! You come back here unannounced when I thought the idea was for you to hit the big apple with your boy over there.”

This is what had me playing the guessing game when Henry said that. I would run to Rodney or Carl as the obvious but neither seemed to know what Henry was talking about. I peered through the gaps in the stairs to see if anybody had an inkling of anxiety or fear at not doing what they promised, but none gave it away as I sat and watched Henry walk further into the foyer and nobody uttered a word.

I could see Viv was stressing when he took a turn into the living room and the DJ gradually stopped when he fully went inside. Everybody cleared the middle of the living room as well. “I want everybody out there to come inside this living room!” Marlon says this as he takes his eyes off me and joins the pile of bodies that are now overcrowding and filling Viv’s main tub.

It just about gets everybody in. Me being the last with Nate by my side as we stay close to the front room entrance as possible. It’s a tight squeeze. And I’m not tall enough to see over a few shoulders. But I hear Henry’s roar from that mediocre thorax of his; “no man or woman here can tell me that they’re unaware of what we did?”

Nate whispers over to me, “whose we?”

I shrug and try to become a slippery worm to get some x-ray vision on this. The room is tenser than avoiding the paparazzi. Some of those people were nervously perspiring and glared starry-eyed at Henry. They won’t let me wiggle through. There are no passable gaps.

“With Viv back here, he’s confidently telling me that he doesn’t care. That what we did was nothing. I can’t have promises broken. You served and fought for me! And we made the oath. Marlon, remind these fine men and women of that oath.”

It’s Marlon’s turn to tune-in the epic, “I earnestly declare, that by raising my hand to that bastard flag and swearing on a bible written by Henry, that whatever is agreed, discussed, ordered, or promised, will be taken with the notion that if failed, will lead to an untimely death. And with you all here, you’re pretty much failing that oath!”

The room comes to life! Me and Nate hurl to the foyer because it becomes an auction ground with each bidding on their lives. It was momentous to see grown men and women yielding to the words of a man who stood in the center like a judge of the law. The roof was rising higher and higher, and me and Nate sensed that something may kick off.

Nate urged me to get in there and see what’s good? But Rodney and Carl were standing by the main door like two bodyguards and that was intriguing to me at the time. Because I thought they were amongst that mob in there. Somebody almost knocked over the bowl of punch as it hit the flattened black rug - and a couple of people bounced out the way.

“Let’s all relax in here now! Vivian really has to elevate his voice to be heard. It takes the 3rd attempt to quiet them all down. “Henry wants me. Not you all. Ain’t that what you want to hear?”

Marlon and Henry chortle at the same time. But it’s Henry who manages to create a circle in a room where there isn’t space for one.

Nate yelps silently to me, “he’s pointing a gun at Viv!” The make was a Beretta 85 cheetah. And I gave up on the worming my way in and straight-up charging inside with my elbows and no manners. I have the blade that was given to me by … not yet. But my swiss knife is out as I stand in front of Viv like a protector. Nate got it wrong, there are two guns faced at Viv.

“Are you going to shoot a man down in cold blood and in front of these people? No matter if you can get to them all. You might miss one or two. They could slip off and let the cops know. Too many to take out at once.”

A nasty scoff from Marlon, “the cops are lower primates then your kind.”

“There isn’t much of my kind who would stand up for a man like him behind me. You might not like me Marlon, but you can’t stand there and tell me that my point isn’t valid?”

“You think you can just butt-into a business that has no affiliation with you?” Henry speaks amused by my guardianship over Viv. “Look at you. Standing there with that little blade of yours ready to stab in his honor. I had that old hog by my side. On that terrace roof, doing exactly what I did, only he hadn’t the balls to give it one last Y.O.M.”

“No more Y.O.M!” I remember now. It was here when I first heard that. s**t. Yes. Hairball in my throat s**t! But back to Viv who sounded like he lost it. “No more! No more! We made a mistake that day! All 3 of us! All 3, Henry!” He yells. The room becomes compressed to the point of Vivian suffocating us all to death. Viv’s emotion was tearing away at too many in there. But Marlon and Henry stand untried by it.

“I’ll shoot a motherfucking bullet through this roof! Unless you tell me where he is?” Both guns point up to the white painted ceiling. It might not be a threat to human lives, but it rings an alarm that these two weren’t afraid of the impact their shots would make.

“I don’t know Henry. I truly don’t.”

“I do!” Henry pretends to click the trigger and a few subconsciously raise their hands to their ears. “Because the last I heard, you were meant to be traveling out with him to the big apple in June. But if you’re here Vivian, then that means that son of a b***h is where I can’t find him. But I will. I will. And when I do. You’ll be getting a visiting order.”