Nash
Roan had a limp, something I knew had gotten worse since I first met him as a punk kid at Howard trying to pass Chem 101. He’d taken time from his teaching duties to tutor me and something had clicked. He became the cool cat too old for students to notice, but to me, he was a man without limits. The kind of man I wanted to be. I kept in touch with him even after he retired, and he stayed my mentor through the years. It was Roan, in fact, who given me the push to plant roots in New York. “Opportunity,” he’d said, “lives with the masses.”
I’d listened and while I waited for Nations to make a little noise, Roan kept his birds, spending most of his time on top of the pre-war building he owned downtown. It was a run down, shabby place that he hoarded, didn’t want company or tenants, preferring some quiet and solitude after years in academia, so I knew where to find him when my life was turning to hell.
The pigeons cooed and sang like it was Showtime at the Apollo and Roan was Steve Harvey, laughing at their noise like it was the sweetest music he’d ever heard. He was somewhere upwards of 6’2, a wiry old man who wore his salt and pepper beard a little long, a little unkempt, but his clothes, which reminded me of some once-was player still keeping himself sharp and his swag on point, were pristine, ironed jeans with starched creases and a designer sweater, wool pea coat and a page boy pulled low over his busy eyebrows.
“Nephew,” Roan said, laugh low, amused at the small tease he’d shot my way. I wasn’t his kin but he still liked to call me that and when he did, the word always made him laugh. Roan waved me onto the roof when I peeked out of the stairwell door. “Come on.”
“My man.” I greeted him with a quick slap of our palms touching before he gave me a one arm hug. “How those feathery rats of yours?”
“Watch your tongue.” He still smiled despite my insult, those light eyes of his, almost green, lighting up as he messed with one of the cages; two pigeons jumped on the railing in the center, flying closer to the other side. “What’s up? You lost? Haven’t seen you in going on two months.”
“Been trying to perfect the code. Duncan is getting restless.”
Roan nodded, one corner of his mouth twitching up as he continued to adjust the broken side of the pigeons’ cage. “Seems to me, from what you say, that Duncan is always restless.”
“He’s ready to start making money.” This time Roan shook his head, nibbling on his bottom lip like he had to fight to keep something rude from coming out of his mouth. That never lasted for long. “Go on,” I told him, laughing as he shrugged.
“It’s not my business…”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
He smiled outright then, pulling off the gloves he wore so he could push his hands into the pockets of his coat. Roan leaned against the low brick ledge that divided the roof into sections. All around us that brick was covered in graffiti, artwork from gang members or punk kids he’d scared off some years back when he bought the building. He’d never bothered fixing the place up and now, if I came here to see him and that paint was gone, it wouldn’t seem like Roan’s place at all.
“This Duncan cat, you’ve mentioned him a few times and seems to me, every time you have, it’s to say something about how he wants to make money.”
It was the truth, but that had more to do with Duncan and what he always wanted to talk about than me projecting when I complained to my old tutor. “Well, that's kind of his job, I guess. After all, money makes the world go round, man.”
“No.” Roan pulled all expression from his face and the deep wrinkles around his mouth and eyes hardened just then. “Greedy men, sad men, that’s what they think. Money don’t rule the world, Nash. At least, not a world worth living in anyway.”
The air was cooler than it had been the day before and I tugged up my collar as Roan pulled out another pair of gloves, these leather, not fit for messing with dirty birds or the mess they made. “I guess you got a point.” I hated the sound of my own voice, how the missing sleep had turned it to gravel, how the dreams and Willow had distracted me so that I couldn’t focus, couldn’t relax.
My mind buzzed and simpered. It felt woolen and sharp with so much chaos, so many things twirling in my conscience thought, it was hard to quiet it enough to rest. And even when I did, my attention got split between the life of the girl who was so familiar, so comfortable and the echoes of images I didn’t recognize at all. Something with libraries. And the scent of sandalwood... and a hint of bleach.
Whatever I felt must have been written on my face. Roan stop messing with his gloves and tilted his head, sizing me up like he thought I might be sick. “Boy, what is wrong with you? You look dog tired.”
“I am.” That confession came out with a sigh and I closed my eyes, stretching my neck and shoulders. When I looked back at Roan, he was smiling. Never a good sign. “What?”
“It’s a woman.” He nodded, that stupid, smug smile taking over his whole face. “Don’t I know it. Man, just looking at you I can see that much.”
“You’re wrong, man. I got no time for females.” But even as I denied it, Roan’s laughter got loud, loud enough that the pigeons stopped their cooing.
“The hell you talking about? Everyone has time for women and if they don’t, then they damn well should find the time.”
I shook my head, not bothering to watch him laugh like a fool at my expense. Roan had never had a wife as far as I knew, though the secretaries in the Science Department sure liked to flirt with him. But that was Roan. He’d been a college professor, a scientist his entire adult life. He had no idea what it was like to build something that could go global.
“In case you forgot, I’m trying to build a company…get funding so I can leave Brooklyn and move on up.”
“Okay, Mr. Jefferson,” his laughter still showed up in his tone. It was the first time I’d seen him look so pleased with my worries. “Whatever you say, but just remember, money won’t keep you warm at night and it won’t give you a family.”
“I got a family.”
“A sister you see once maybe twice a year?”
“And you, old man.”
“Ha!” He leaned back, hand over his stomach as though the idea of him being my family was ridiculous. “Then you are in a world of trouble. I’d be a piss poor family member, Nash. You know that.”
But what I’d had of family hadn’t been much better. A father who got drunk and destroyed our lives; aunts and uncles who took care of us because they got a check from the state to do it. I hadn’t seen much in the way of families at all, but what I had, hadn’t impressed me much. “No worse than what I had.”
With a sigh, Roan dropped the teasing smile. He’d never asked for any details on what had gone down between my parents, but I’d told him anyway. I’d probably told him more about my life than anyone else.
He bent forward, elbows on his knees and I swore I could make out what he’d say before he opened his mouth. Roan was wise. He’d lived a life I’d probably never understand and every second of it showed up on his face, in the haunted touch that made his eyes shine. “You can’t keep reliving the past, son. You’ve got to let that go.”
“Easier to say, old man.”
“It’s simple.” He sat up, not smiling, not doing much more than giving me a cool glance that told me he wouldn’t argue with me. “If you want a life, a real good life, you gotta earn it.”
“The hell do you think I’m trying to do?”
“Taking over the world with money isn’t what I mean. Money, hell that comes and goes. You make it, you lose it, but at the end of the day, when you’re old and ornery it’s not money or the things it buys you that will make you happy. It’s the people who are at your side, the ones that are because they are yours and you are theirs. That’s real, Nash. That’s the realest you’ll ever hear from me.” He paused, moving his jaw a little as he watched me and it seemed to me it was Roan’s looks, the things he didn’t have to say that kept me silent. It was his expression and what it told me that kept me quiet. “Your woman, what’s her name?”
“I told you you I don’t…” It was pointless to deny. She might not be mine. She might not be what I told myself I wanted, but Roan could read me. Even if I didn’t admit it, she had infected every part of my life. I didn’t bother lying to him. “Willow. Crazy white chick with hair that goes on forever and ass like you wouldn’t believe.” I took a breath, knowing I couldn’t pretend that was all that drew Willow to me. “She also is funny and weird as hell and I can’t get her out of my head.”
Roan nodded, working his fingers over his beard like he needed a minute to decide what advice to give me. Finally, when he nodded again, some silent decision that seemed to satisfy him, the smile returned to his face. “Good. You go to her and you tell her all the things you think make sense. You tell her you’ll do whatever she wants to keep her. You tell her you’re no good without her.”
“I never said I was sprung.”
The laughter was loud again and I hated that it was me and my miserable life that seemed so funny to him. “Hell, Nash you are. Maybe not bad, but you’re getting there.” Roan stood, slapping me on the shoulder. “There’s worse things in life than been all sprung over a woman.”
“Like?” I asked because I couldn’t imagine anything worse.
Roan’s eyes sparkled then, lit with something that brightened his dark skin. “Not being with one at all.”