I didn’t say anything, I let the silence hang. I started to think about Trina the other night in the office. Now that was fun and in a sense more real than this bullshit. It was sex between two people who like each other a lot. No Hallmark bullshit, but no lying about “intimacy” and closeness. It was a hell of a good time.
“Uh, Lisa,” I said. “I think you’re panicking because you’re lonely. I don’t want to play the ‘go away, come closer’ game. Not now, anyway. I think you should go with your first instincts.”
I could have said it a lot harsher or a lot meaner, but I didn’t want to do that.
“You’re an asshole,” she said. “You know that-you don’t know how good you had it with me.” There were no tears this time. This was the ranting of a little girl who didn’t get her way. I’d seen it before and sadly, I’d probably see it again. I’ve learned over the years that it’s best not to engage in it.
“Good night, Lisa,” I said and headed toward the Blue.
“Fuck you!” she screamed at me. It was getting ugly and honestly, a little hurtful. There wasn’t anything left to say.
I heard her car accelerate on the gravel of my makeshift driveway. It had been a long day and I sat with Al on what was left of the couch watching the E! True Hollywood Story about how a bunch of childhood movie stars were now tortured by drug addiction. I had a Schlitz and thought about Lisa and a bit about Trina.
Something told me that life wasn’t supposed to be about a bunch of shit that you couldn’t figure out. That maybe life was simpler than we made it and maybe that was the best way to live it.
That’s as complicated as my thinking got. Next thing I knew, it was morning, Al was barking, and the TV had something on that was guaranteeing to rid your body of unwanted hair forever.
16
It was time to go back to high school, literally. I knew very little about Shony, and even though I suspected that her kidnapping had very little to do with anything she had done, I felt that it would make some sense to get to know what the kid was about. Shony went to McDonough High School, Crawford’s public school, which was located four blocks east of the county jail. That put it six or so blocks from The Hill, which meant it was pretty much a ghetto high school.
I had gone to McDonough as did most kids who grew up within city limits back then. Today, the school was predominantly black and Latino, with various other minorities and the white kids making up the balance. Just about anyone with kids who could afford to headed for the “burbs” a long time ago. Most of the white kids with money either went to Central Catholic or to Crawford Academy, which built a new school just a hair within the city lines eight years ago.
My high school years were marked by intense bouts of both anxiety and acne, though the two are probably not mutually exclusive. It was in high school that I found my way first to the karate academy and then to the boxing gym. I think I signed up for karate the day after the sixtieth time I got my ass kicked in a fight after somebody called me “pizza face” or said that it looked like I had an acid fire on my face and my mom put it out with my dad’s golf shoe. Today, I still carry a few acne scars on my cheeks that people just assume came from the ring, and if someone comments on them I don’t bother to correct them. Funny thing was that by the time I could kick somebody’s ass, I learned it wasn’t necessary to. That was the kind of effect Smitty had had on me.
With twelve hundred students, McDonough was almost a city unto itself. Its gray bricks looked tired and dirty and the place always seemed to have a cloud over it. It was three floors and the classrooms had those tall windows divided by many panes. Graffiti was left to fade on the sides and back of the building because the city only really put an effort into cleaning off the front unless the writing was particularly vulgar. The first floor on top of the main staircase had the large suite of administrative offices where you were supposed to go and sign in and get some sort of badge before you visited. I didn’t feel like doing that so I hung out on the side of the building and waited for some truant to slip out around lunchtime so I could go in and trespass around school by myself.
A friend of mine from the gym, Jamal, worked as a hall monitor and I thought he would be my first stop. Jamal was also a former member of the Nation of Islam, even serving in their elite Fruit of Islam paramilitary outfit. The FOI was sort of a force within the Nation and they provided security and bodyguards and stuff like that. Jamal left the Nation after a few years and though we never talked about it, I got the sense that he got to the point where he didn’t buy everything they were selling.
I had to walk up to the third floor and go down the corridor a bit until I ran him down. He was in the process of throwing some sophomores out of the boy’s room for smoking.
“Duffy.” Jamal smiled when he saw me. “What brings you here to my prestigious domain?”
“I wanted to see the football coach. I still have four years of eligibility,” I said.
“Shit, Duff, you know the Wind needs some speed on the gridiron. How you going to help with that?”
“There you go with your racial profiling.”
“No kidding, man, what’ya doin’ here?”
“You know a girl named Shony?” I said. “Probably a freshman or sophomore. Her stepmom, Walanda, was one of my clients.”
“Walanda Frazier, the woman who just got murdered in lockup?”
“Yeah.”
“She was a Muslim sister for a short period. I think her mental issues kept her from fully embracing Allah,” Jamal said.
“That and the crack.”
“Yeah, there was that,” Jamal said.
“I got her dog now, Allah-King.”
“Ol’ AK, huh.” Jamal smiled. “Dog as crazy as she was. You know he flunked out of the bomb-sniffing program?”
“What?”
“Oh yeah, for a while the Nation was training canines to sniff out explosives.”
“How’d Al do?”
“Not bad sniffing explosives.” Jamal paused and rubbed his chin. “Al’s problem was pissin’ and shittin’ on everything.”
“Still is,” I said. “What about Walanda? Did you know about her relationship with Shony?”
“Another Crawford tragedy. Shondeneisha Wright lived with her on and off. She’s a freshman, but she hasn’t been around in a while.”
“What kind of kid is she?”
“She’s one of the good ones, Duff,” Jamal said. “Respectful, don’t curse, don’t wear foolish-lookin’ belly shirts and having all her business fallin’ out of her blouse. That girl is proper, like a throwback.”
“Any idea what she was into?”
“She’s quiet. I think she was church-goin’. She liked to sing, and I think she was even in one of the civic groups. Not sure how she got that way-that Walanda was a trip.”
“Tell me about it. How’d you know about her mom?”
“A couple times she came down here all raggedy-assed, cracked-up, making a scene. The kid was mortified. She was ashamed that she lived with her and made a big deal about saying she’d never be like that. It was the only time I heard the kid make a lot of noise.”
“You know where I could find a teacher who really new her?”
“Miss Hippenbecker was her homeroom teacher. She’s free this period. She’s in 206.”
I thanked Jamal and headed to 206. I knocked lightly on the door’s opaque glass and let myself in. Behind an old wooden desk sat a fifty-something, rather fat woman in half glasses, reading an Oprah magazine and eating a Snickers bar.
“Miss Hippenbecker?”
“You’re supposed to have your guest badge. Have you stopped at administration?”
“I-”
“I don’t have time right now to go over any student report cards.” She laid the Oprah magazine down and continued to speak while she waved the half-eaten Snickers in her hand. “You really should make an appointment for a parent-teacher conference.”
“I’m not a parent. My name is Duffy Dombrowski. I’m a counselor at Jewish Unified Services. Was Shondeneisha Wright in this homeroom?”