. (afrit) wrote in repose, @ 2016-12-27 21:07:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | *log, cris martin, louis donovan, sam martin |
[NJ/NY: Sam, Cris, Lou (+Joey)]
Who: Sam, Cris, Lou (+Joey)
What: A visit
Where: Elizabeth, NJ, to start
When: Fuzzy, after Christmas
Warnings/Rating: Language, slums, etc.
It was in the 50s, but Sam wasn't feeling the cold for once. Nah, she was too nervous about this bullshit she'd set into motion. And she was embarrassed, yeah? Worried, sure, but embarrassed too, and she was wondering if it was too fucking late to just call this shit off entirely. They could go home, yeah? Go spend time with Cris' people, and not expose Lou to this shitty life that was so different from what he'd grown up with. And she was nervous about Cris too, yeah? Not that he didn't know what a tenement was, but it was different, yeah? To see it in person. It was like until this moment, she could be something different than what she was. It was fucked up, and she knew this shit was fucked up. But she'd started this, and there wasn't any going back now.
She was twitching as she sat in the front seat of the car Cris had rented for the stay. Overalls, a bright yellow sweatshirt, thermals and bright yellow boots worn thin, and she tapped her feet on the floor and yearned bad for a hit.
They left Newark and the taller city behind, and the air got nastier as they drove. The scenery, which was already grimy and smoggy in a chill winter that felt inexplicably dirty, turned filthier. And it would be easy to believe this was abandoned shit, that no one could live like this, but these places weren't dead, yeah? Sound filtered in, hip hop and Cuban beat, and children cried from inside brick homes with cardboard windows. Further, and Sam twitched more and fucking more, and the life in the bare city became more evident. Kids threw deflated balls in the streets, and sounds came loud from the basketball court behind the buildings, the net long gone on the rusted frame the ball sailed into. The smell of puerco and congris sputtered through the purified car air, and Sam pointed at the street her 'rents called home.
She hopped out of the car fast, letting Cris worry about the baby and Lou, and she looked up at the bare window that had been such a fucking upgrade for her family. "This way, yeah?" she finally said, and she walked beyond the cardboard and bright green of a kid's toy, and pulled open the door to the tall and dirty building next door. Inside, the halls were dark, and the walls were dirty, and Sam didn't look back as she started climbing the five narrow sets of stairs that led to her 'rents' place. The music was loud in these halls and on these staircases. Girls with huge hoop earrings leaned against walls, and boys with dark curls and killer edges leaned against them and smiled trouble through their teeth. 'Rents called from doors propped open with old phonebooks, and oldtimers played cards and dominoes and laughed as they talked about memories in thick accents that hadn't left old bones. This place was hella alive, and Sam felt at home walking the dark halls, but she was hella aware of Lou walking behind her, blond and clean and appalled, yeah? She knew how the Donovans lived, and it wasn't like this.
An old woman, dark skin and an accent from somewhere warm and Caribbean, called her name. Sammy-gal, not Sam, not Samantha, and the woman sounded like creole and patties cooked spiced. She was so old that her front teeth were all gone, and Sam ALMOST pretended she didn't know her. But she veered at the end of the landing, and she walked slow to the old woman, GramMa. The old woman was smoking her ganja, and Sam took the old pipe when offered, because that was the polite shit to do. The woman's voice was leather and old cracklin,' and she wore no shoes on her dark, dark feet. She sat on an old lawnchair, the place her throne in that dark hall, and Sam assured GramMa she brought no obeah. The word was an old one, and Sam tripped hard over it, before motioning back to Cris, Lou and the baby. "My babydaddy and my brother," she explained, and the old woman peered around yellow and overalls and looked the men over with dark, dark Jamaican eyes. And Sam, she just hoped this old woman couldn't sense old deities or some shit. "We're late to see my moms and pops," she explained.