Nightcrawling(62)
Marcus is shaking his head, his tears flowing, squeezing my hand so tight the fingers are turning yellow. “It don’t matter no more what you meant to do, this what you did.” Marcus slams his free hand down on the table, the vibrations shooting Uncle Ty back into an upright position.
“I’m sorry.” He glances toward me, then back to Marcus. “What I gotta do to make it better?”
I still don’t trust him or his apology, but I can sense the desperation in him, the desire to be forgiven.
“You can’t.” Marcus’s voice shatters.
The guard standing closest to us gives a five-minute warning and Uncle Ty leans farther across the table, toward Marcus. “I’ll do anything.”
Marcus nods slowly. “Take Ki back to L.A. with you.”
Uncle Ty looks at me fully, like he’s assessing whether or not Marcus is worth it.
“You know I can’t do that, Marcus. I got a family out there, can’t take neither of you back.”
Marcus’s lips tilt into a smile that is actually more of a wince, more like the face Trevor makes when he loses a game. “Then I guess we done here.”
Marcus starts to stand, letting go of my hand.
“Wait.” Uncle Ty stands too, almost Marcus’s height. “At least let me pay your bail. They set it at a hundred thousand, yeah? I can pay the ten percent.”
I watch as Marcus shakes his head, looks back down at me, and returns his gaze to Uncle Ty. “Pay Cole McKay’s bail, not mine. I spent too long not doing right by no one. Least I can do is give his baby her daddy back.”
Cole’s child’s eyes come back to me again and this time I see Cole in them, when he bursts into laughter and they glitter. I don’t know if Marcus does this for me or for Cole or for his daughter, but I don’t think I’ve ever been that proud of him, ever looked at him and thought, That is a good man. He’s still got a lot to make up for and I don’t know if I’ll ever really forgive him for what he’s done this past year, but seeing a glimmer of the person I know my brother to be gives me hope where I thought I didn’t have any.
The guard approaches Marcus to take him back to his cell, back inside the tunnels of this place, and, for the first time, he doesn’t look at Uncle Ty or any of the other faces in this room but mine, leaves me with a last glimpse of a smile I recognize from back when we didn’t know how lonely we would be, before he is pulled beyond the table, a flash of my fingerprint disappearing down the hallway.
* * *
Uncle Ty pulls into a parking spot right in front of the Regal-Hi and stops the car, turning to look at me for the first time since we were at that table with Marcus. He didn’t play his music on the drive back, didn’t talk either, but now he opens his mouth to speak again.
“I know I made my choice years ago, when I got in that car and didn’t even leave y’all my number. I know that.” His eyes are still red, no tears, not that I expect them. “And y’all made your choices too, but I want you to know that I’m still living with the consequences.”
“You got more than one car and a fucking mansion, Uncle Ty. You don’t know nothing about no consequences.”
“I got one car and a house big enough for my wife and kids, aight? I don’t know where y’all got the idea I was rich, but I’m about to spend money I would’ve spent on a vacation on your friend’s bail, so don’t go talking to me about money. Biggest consequences ain’t about no money anyway.” He looks past me to the Regal-Hi. “Last time I saw your mama she was locked up and it was like she was a whole different person than the woman I knew. The kind of shit she went through, the kind of shit we all did, changes a person and I couldn’t handle that, aight? I still don’t know how to handle that. Instead of hating your mama for not being who she used to be, I should’ve just figured out who she turned into, but I decided to leave and now I don’t know none of you, not really. That’s my consequence.”
“So now you just gonna get on a plane and leave? Never see us again? You out here talking about Daddy being disappointed when you’re the only one who really would’ve disappointed him.”
Uncle Ty turns back to the steering wheel. “I made my choice. You made yours.”
He doesn’t even glance back at me or say goodbye or nothing, just waits for me to get out of his car before gliding away, back down to where the sand is warm and he doesn’t have to think about Marcus, about all the things we should’ve done different, about what it means to have a life you can’t drive away from.
I open the door to my apartment and Trevor is there, standing on the mattress in only his boxers, dancing to some Backstreet Boys song on the radio. He glances at me and does that nod, a little boy masquerading as a man.
“What you doin’ here?” I ask. “Where Alé at?”
“She brought me back here ’bout an hour ago. Said she’d call you.”
I pull my phone out of my pocket and a missed call from Alé flashes. She must have called while we were with Marcus.
“Lemme call her back,” I tell Trevor, retreating into the kitchen and raising the phone to my ear. Alé answers on the second ring and I can hear it in her voice: how her heart is pulled taut.