Shut Up & Listen - Chapter 81: Chapter 81

August 2011
"Aye." Lonnie called up to the window of the two story brick home. "Aye!" He yelled louder this time, "Kwabena!"
"Whatchu want with Kwabena?" He heard a voice from the front of the house. He walked around from the side, meeting where he heard someone's voice. "How do you know where his room is?" A man asked, somewhere in his thirties. His face was slim, a beard covered the bottom, lightly. And his eyes were big and droopy. He wore a knitted kufi hat over his short, buzzed hair.
Lonnie walked up the stairs, "Is he home?"
The man nodded.
"Can he come out?"
The man shrugged, "If he wants to."
"How come he haven't been at school lately?"
"He's a little under the weather." He looked over Lonnie's appearance. He was tall-ish, a light caramel color with long unkempt hair forming a medium sized uneven afro. He wore a white wifebeater and an unzipped red zipper hoodie paired with dark blue jeans and white adidas. "You his friend?"
Lonnie nodded. The man went inside and Lonnie waited on the porch. He came back out a couple seconds later as if he'd forgotten something, "What's your name?" He asked.
"Lonnie."
"I'm Oz." He nodded, closing the door behind him as he went back in.
"You still out here?"
"He have the flu or something?"
Oz shook his head. He sat on the chair beside Lonnie. "You live around here?"
Lonnie shrugged. "Like a 15 minute walk."
"That's how you got here?"
Lonnie nodded.
August 25, (present day)
"You know it's alright if you wanna come in." Lonnie heard Oz's voice. He'd been sitting on the porch for a few minutes, hoping that somehow Cobe would be pulling up soon or opening the door to welcome him in. Nothing of the sort happened and he had begun to tear himself apart at the silliness of his imagination. Wondering why he even thought it would be a good idea to come to the home where he was ambushed and nearly killed at his last visit, he looked back and still finding nobody there. Feeling as if his unrested brain was beginning to play tricks on him, he stood, readying to leave the property.
"I'm around back." He realized the voice was coming from the security device on the door.
"I didn't know anybody was home." Lonnie said, speaking back to the voice coming from the camera he was now standing in front of, "My bad." He began to walk down the steps to leave.
"Come on around here." Oz offered again. He obeyed and walked around to the back of the big house.
"I wish you were at Kwabena's homegoing." Oz shook his head, reminiscent, "All of his friends were there. And I was like, damn, there's the one friend who was there when his mom passed. I couldn't remember your name for the life of me. Even though I never saw you around after that, I just knew that you were still around. And I could tell whenever you weren't."
Lonnie scoffed, "I wasn't a good friend." He looked away, scratching his head. "I wish he knew how much I loved him."
"He knew."
"Well, I wish..." he sniffed, holding back tears, "I wish I knew how much I loved him."
It was a moment of silence between the two. A silence that grew upon their their mutual feeling.
"I can't remember anything that happened that day." Lonnie spoke, frustration and fear mixed into his words. "I can't remember. They keep telling me I was in the hospital, but I don't remember being in no hospital. I can't remember that day and I wish..."
"Sometimes our brains protect us that way. It may be best that you don't remember certain things."
Lonnie shakes his head.
"Happen to to you alot?"
He nodded, "Blank spaces."
"Blank spaces?"
"Yeah."
Oz nodded his head, understanding. "I had a few of those myself. Finally decided to try filling them in."
"How did you do that?"
"Had to start paying attention to my dreams. You know the ones. They don't make sense but they kind of do too; you think about them long after you're awake. But the more you try to remember details, the quicker the memories slip away."
"I don't have dreams."
"You just don't remember them. Everybody has dreams."
Lonnie rested his hands in his lap, staring at the glass table that separated himself from Kwabena's father. He looked, to Oz, as if he were deep in thought; but his mind was aimless, wandering— disorganized. The silence between them grew, unnoticed, as silence does for these two individuals who spend most of their time in solitude. The quiet was comforting. Normal.
Oz observed the young man before him. Just a couple of years older than his recently deceased son; he looked for similarities. The loudest, he found, were the eyes. Like Cobe, he noted, Lonnie's eyes lacked depth. Not that there was nothing to see. He could see. Those eyes hid nothing, like shallow water, anyone who looked could see the trouble clear as day. Those eyes were but a sheer curtain to Lonnie's soul. And boy was his soul screaming, crying and throwing up. It unnerved the elder man so much he had to avert his own eyes.
"What do you dream about?" Lonnie asked the man sitting on the other side of the table on the patio of the old brick home. He'd brought his hand up to his mouth, sticking the nail of his ring finger between his teeth, biting down as he looked at Oz in anticipation. Oz shrugged.
"Lots of things."
Lonnie nodded.
Oz cleared his throat. "I started writing what I could remember as soon as I open my eyes."
"The last time I had a dream was when I was like nine years old. I remember telling my brother about it and I remember his reaction, but I don't remember the dream."
Oz smiled, "You should ask him if he remembers."
"He prolly do. He got a good mind." Lonnie smiled, rubbing his face. "I haven't seen him in a minute. Maybe I should go see what he's up to. He just had a baby. A girl."
"A new baby." Oz smiled softly, "New babies bring together family just like funerals do. Birth and death." He said so profoundly, "The only things guaranteed in this life."
"I keep wondering if she will be anything like Cobe. She was born around the same time that he passed."
Oz side eyed the young man, squintilly. He turned his head away, thinking to himself. "Lonnie?" He asked aloud, but to himself. Wondering. Calculating. Adding together one and one, making two. "Are you Damon's brother? Lonnie?"
Lonnie nodded. "Yes."
"I know Damon. He's like my son." He patted his chest with his fingertips, a wide smile spreading across his face. "I remember how ecstatic he was to know that his brother; his blood brother— was back in his life. You caused such a shift, my brother."
Lonnie chuckled shyly, "A good shift?"
"A phenomenal shift." He nodded. "You know you have a big energy, son. Impactful. Make sure you use it in a way that is fruitful."
"Why you say that?" He asked, skeptical. "I'm not what you think I am. I'm a background kind of dude. Quiet. I don't be around a whole lot of people. I don't impact anything."
"I can see it now. The reason you have blank spaces, no dreams, botched memories; somebody don't want you to know who you are. I think you know who you are though. What you're capable of. You're." He stopped, realizing he may be going further than what Lonnie would be willing to take in. "I just remembered that I have to get ready for rehearsal. Can I show you out?"
"Nah, I know the way. Thank you for letting me sit with you, sir."
"Likewise. I hope to see you around."
"Yes sir." He walked down the path to the driveway where he exited the property, walking back the way he came. The sun was at it's peak, tanning his ecru skin a half of a shade darker. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his joggers as he walked, looking every which way without moving his neck. A ways away, as he crossed the intersection of 3rd and Chicago ave, he clocked the familiar tan Ford pickup. Unconsciously, his back teeth ground into one another, clenching his jaw shut.
The thing haunting him, causing the sensitive skin around his eyes to darken was coming closer to him every time he breathed which is constant. His anxiety, stifling his appetite for both food and sleep, now threw him into fight or flight as his heartbeat quickened. He stood still on the sidewalk. Indecisive on what should occur. His shaky hand reached up to grab the cigarette tucked neatly behind his ear. Lit it, not taking his eyes off of the pick up. He inhaled the nicotine, saturating his lungs. Smoke spilled from his nostrils as he stood in the sun waiting for the truck as it grew closer to his stagnant frame. He decided he needed to face it head on.
Holding the cigarette between his lips, he freed his good hand to hold onto his protection tucked discretely in the band of his pants. He pulled it out baby inch by baby inch as the truck inched closer. His heart beat faster and faster the closer the Ford came to him, music growing louder as the truck approached— the bass shook the ground to the same rhythm of his heart until it came right in front of him. He made eye contact with the pale pink driver of the vehicle as he passed him by.
At the realization that this was not Mohammed's truck, he breathed deep forgetting the cigarette, choking on the smoke he mistakenly inhaled. He released his grip on the gun, still not taking his eyes off of the truck as it traveled down the road. He tried desperately to catch his breath as he squatted down to the ground, smashing the hot ended stick onto the cement until the fire turned to solid ash.
"He's dead, nigga." He mumbled to himself, still righteously unconvinced. He couldn't settle for that 'truth'. "He's fucking dead." He repeated. Continuously mumbling to himself until he made it to his parent's house just a few blocks from Oz's house. He knocked on the door, hoping he'd be welcomed in by his father whom he desperately needed to talk to.