My Name is Anil Baptiste
Liberty City
Miami, FL
Monday Morning
F or some people, life was a bed of roses from the moment they were born until the day that they turned to dust; for him, life was a bed of thorns full of heartbreaking experiences and strife, but even though his prickly disposition had made him rough around the edges, his inner man was still willing to believe in the hope of tomorrow.
Before dawn could breach the muggy Miami horizon, Anil Baptiste was already up and moving, preparing for the long arduous day ahead. He wasn’t like most twenty-one-year-old men, enjoying their youth and living for themselves. He had responsibilities, bills, and someone depending on him. The strain of such obligations made him feel older than his age, and at times, like giving up, but he never did. Instead, he met each day with the same tenacity as the last, because that is what real men did, according to his mother.
Turning up the volume on his small television, hoisted up on two blue milk crates, he sipped on a cup of coffee and plopped down on the edge of his tattered mattress. The local weather man was angling against the backdrop of an image showing a menacing storm cell. Evidently, there was a hurricane looming out in the Atlantic that was threatening South Miami, if it kept its course, but it was too early to tell.
His only hope was that it missed them all together. A catastrophic natural disaster for Miami would mean a catastrophic man-made situation for him. He didn’t have renter’s insurance and damn sure didn’t have any place else to go. Evacuation was for people with money or family. He had no money to speak of and only a mother in the entire country. Unfortunately, she was in the last stages of a losing battle with cancer, which meant one thing for him – he had to hope that nothing happened.
Stretching out his long hairy legs on the hardwood floor, he rubbed his shins absently and groaned. Kneading the hard muscles with his deft fingers, he closed his eyes and worked his lower leg. The dull ache only meant one thing – rain was coming. He had suffered an injury while playing soccer in high school that acted up whenever bad weather was on the way. Plus, standing on his feet all day was causing his arch to fall. He’d have to squirrel away some money and invest in better shoes this month.
When the news broadcast broke into a commercial, he stood up and meandered into the spotless little dated bathroom from a bygone era that consisted of a tiny toilet so low to the floor it could have been for a child, an even smaller sink and a walk-in shower tucked away in the corner. It smelled of bleach and Lysol from his OCD cleaning, a habit he had picked up while caring for his mother, but what it gained in points for cleanliness it lost in equal points for mint-colored tile that stretched from the floor to the ceiling.
Yawning to the point of trembling, Anil stripped out of his black pajama bottoms and white T-shirt, revealing long corded muscles that stretched from his broad capped shoulders down to his concrete calves. His body was a masterful work of art, free of tattoos and carefully sculpted from hard work. Nothing about him average, he had lived his entire life as the spectacle of strangers’ admiration, but had never truly experienced it on a personal and intimate level.
Moving around a lot as a child had unavoidable consequences on his social skills. He never had time to get close to anyone and when he did feel the beginnings of a budding relationship, he cut it off. Scared, he supposed, that he’d just end up wasting his time and getting hurt.
His mother was never in one place too long, and sometimes, just when he would get settled and learn his classmates’ names, she’d move him again in the middle of the night. When he asked her why, it was always the same answer. “For your protection.” As ominous and mysterious as that answer was, she never gave him more than that.
Brushing his teeth, he reached into the shower, grabbed the plastic knob and turned on the water. The sound of old pipes rumbled through the room before the brown rusty water shot out of the shower head. He waited for a few seconds until clean water finally started to come out, and then stepped inside.
An inconsistent stream washed over his gigantic body as he crouched in the tiled shower, rubbing a bar of Dial soap over his golden-bronze skin. Just when the flow started to pick up, it puttered loudly and more brown water shot out on him.
Damn rusty pipes.
If the shower wasn’t on the fritz all together, it was skittish. He had spoken to his landlord about it a hundred times since he moved in, but it was like talking to a concrete wall. All he ever heard from the man was that he’d check on it soon – whatever that meant.
The shower was just one of the less-than-luxurious amenities of his one-bedroom crappy studio apartment over Conner’s Corner Grocery store. There was also the bad wiring and leaky ceilings to contend with, but at the present he couldn’t exactly afford much else.
Man, being poor sucked.
What he wouldn’t give for real hot water that didn’t go cold before he could finish cleaning himself. That had not happened since the first week he moved into this hell hole. When he was really hard pressed for a hot shower, he’d hit the gym showers, but otherwise he settled for this. It was less than exemplary, but at least it was close to habitable, and for a man his size, that was saying a lot.
Glancing out of the window, wondering why anyone would put a window in a shower area in the first place, he watched the next-door neighbor drug dealer standing on the corner make a quick exchange with an old man in rags and then a runner jet out of the broken-down house beside him to deliver the product. He wasn’t a criminal, but even with laymen eyes, he thought their operation amateur and clumsy.
Without warning the water went cold. He stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel to wipe his body dry. Gazing down into the mirror above his sink, he looked at his reflection.
Blue eyes stared back at him, and in that moment, he wondered about the man his mother had told him about. Dmitry Medlov. That was all he knew of his father. A name. The rest was a mystery. His mother had told him no stories of how they met or even how he came to be, but every day that he looked in the mirror, he saw a man that he didn’t know. Over the years, he had Googled the name, saw various stories and a few pictures about a mob boss billionaire, but there was no way that was the man his mother was talking about. Had to be someone else. Sure, they had some similarities – height, hair color, eyes. But his mother was from a distant exotic island that while rich in culture was not a billionaire hang out. Or maybe it was…what did he know? All he had was a freaking name.
His mother was a dark-skinned black woman, and in her youth before the sickness came, an angelic muse, but Anil had a fair complexion with only a slight tan, curly dirty blonde hair that the kids in school back in Cuba had mocked him for, a wide set mouth that seemed to only get him in trouble.
Women thought him to be handsome. Everywhere he went, he drew attention from the fairer sex because of his unorthodox features. He, on the other hand, found himself odd and resented looking like a stranger.
Standing seven feet and carrying over three hundred pounds of muscle, he considered his height and size a curse instead of a blessing. Being poor and tall had only meant one thing growing up as a boy – high water pants, too short shirts and out-of-style shoes.
Of course, the coaches wanted him. They dangled their sports programs, promising a future of a better existence. But what they had not considered was that on top of being unusually big, he was also smart. So instead of taking the jock route in life – a thing that could be taken away at any time with an injury - he opted for something far more dependable – an education.
His goal was to finish undergrad, go to medical school and finally become a doctor. It was just a shame that he wouldn’t be able to do it fast enough to take care of his mother better. He gave her everything that he had now, but it was barely enough. Being a waiter and a bouncer didn’t cut the mustard in Miami. The cost of living was extremely high, and the constant worry of being fired weighed on him, which was why he always woke up early and got started before the crack of dawn. Poor people couldn’t afford to be late, lest they be unemployed.
Throwing on gray sweat pants and a black hoodie, he darted down the backstairs of his apartment and began his daily run.
As soon as his foot hit the last step, he sprinted off in the darkness, without bothering to stretch his muscles. Moving with incredible speed, he shot down the street like someone was after him. It was the only outlet he had to get rid of the frustration that boiled inside of him. Most days, he ran until his mind stopped racing or until he tired out.
After yesterday at the home, he was still reeling over his dying mother’s care. Those people at that facility didn’t give a damn about their patients. They let them wallow in their shit and piss, go without proper meds for hours and fed them cheap food. It was unacceptable, apprehensible truly. And he had told them, so without hesitation, leading to him being escorted off the property by five-armed security guards.
They were pissed, because he had demanded better care. His mother was not a dog, and he wouldn’t let them treat her like one. In his anger, he had thrown the bed pan nearly full of urine at the mouthy orderly and cast the cold slush they had served her as dinner on the floor. Fuck those people. He was working two jobs to keep her there on top of going to school full time, and he wasn’t going to let them get away with subpar treatment. After his complaints went unheard, he lashed out. And after he was escorted out, he came to his senses and got even the right way. He reported them to their governing board and started to look for an attorney.
What he needed now was a release, and running was the only thing that he could think of that would give him a reprieve.
Crickets chirped around him and the early morning dew glistened off the grass as he ran down the winding roads of his impoverished community. The moon was still out, fat and bright in the cloudless night. There was something eerie about the sound of dogs barking around him from all directions. Once before on an early morning run, he had fought off a stray Doberman Pincher with a tree limb to keep the dog from maiming him, but it hadn’t stopped his need to put some miles on his worn-out Nike gym shoes. Now, he just never put in earbuds. After all, he couldn’t be ready, if he didn’t hear them coming.
With each powerful stride, he moved faster, pushing himself to the point of exhaustion to make his five-mile journey. It was a daily routine that assisted his ability to focus. Without it, he felt lost and by the end of the day, stressed, but with it, he felt like he was doing something constructive. Running was the one thing that the world couldn’t take from him. When he was out here in the darkness, he was in control.
Today’s meditation was about his impending test at nine o’clock this morning in Dr. Kumar’s class. He was a pre-med major at the University of Miami., hanging on by a threat not because he didn’t know the subject matter, but because he was always exhausted. He envied the other students that took their education for granted and came into class each day rested and refreshed.
On a Presidential scholarship, he knew that failing would be the difference between him getting out of the hell hole he had been relegated to or advancement into a circle of scholars who were bound for prosperity.
Despite his low-born life, Anil wanted to be great, but it wasn’t about an ego or a need to be accepted. Acceptance was shit. He needed to fulfil the internal need that nagged him to study even when he was tired, and to show up to class even when he was sick.
“Hey, baby, why don’t you let momma take that stress off you,” a woman screamed mockingly, wearing a crooked blonde wig and hot pink lipstick. She licked her lips and chuckled. “Damn, you fine enough to give it to you for free, or at least a discount.”
Ignoring the woman and the howls from her friends, he kept running, eyes focused on the road and ears perked up to listen to everything around him. He moved through the neighborhood and all its inglorious citizens like they weren’t even there, because to him, while he was running, they weren’t.
When he got to one of the major intersections about a mile from his apartment, he paused by the stop sign to let the cars passed. Taking a deep breath, he looked at his watch to check his time and heard faint footfalls behind him. Instantly, he froze.
“Hey, man, you got a light on you?” a voice asked from behind him.
His senses went into overdrive, but he kept his voice low and even. “No. Don’t smoke,” Anil said without turning around.
The distinct snap of a blade popping open caught his attention. He wasn’t born yesterday. This was a stick up.
“What else you got on you then,” the voice asked as he moved closer.
Slowly, Anil turned around and looked down at the Haitian man standing under the street light in a baggy pair of jeans that hung below his underwear and a dirty white T-shirt. If the guy had a gun, then he might have a chance, but a knife wasn’t going to be nearly enough.
“I don’t have shit on me,” Anil said, as another man stepped out of the tall unkempt bushes lining the house on the corner. “Look, I don’t want any trouble.” He made one careful step back.
“Ain’t gone be no trouble. Just give me your wallet, and we’ll be on our way,” the man insisted.
Anil kept his wallet on him just in case he was stopped by the cops, which was a normal occurrence in this neighborhood. But he never kept any cash, just in case someone tried to rob him. However, to tell the cocky little shit that wouldn’t have made any difference.
“Look, I’m not giving you my wallet,” Anil said, hearing footsteps behind him. Evidently, he had run right into an early morning ambush. These poor schleps thought he had something. But he knew better. All the money he had from his paycheck had gone to his landlord yesterday. So, if they wanted something from him, they were barking up the wrong tree. “Why don’t you and your friends just fuck off, already?”
Anil’s heart raced and again he fought with a raging anger that started to build to a crescendo. He might have been poor, but he’d be damned if he was going to be a victim too.
The ring leader flashed the blade of his knife toward Anil. “You got two choices, my man. Give me your wallet or give me your fucking liver.” The threat had worked a hundred times before, and he used it now with a certain amount of arrogant ease.
Anil heard the person behind him step closer. “How many times do I have to say it. I don’t have any money. You’re wasting your time.” Anil tried to reason with the robber, but at the same time, he knew his temper was starting to flare. What these men didn’t know is that this wasn’t the first time someone had tried to rob him. They also didn’t know that the man who tried last time was still in a hospital eating through a tube.
“I ain’t gone ask you again,” the ring leader said, sucking his gold-covered front teeth. “Nigga, it’s them ends or your ass.”
“I’m not going to tell you again.” Anil’s eyes darted around, assessing the situation. He counted three, but there could be more lurking.
Just then, Anil felt the person behind him push a blade against his lower back. Grabbing the man’s flimsy arm quickly, he slung him around to the front of him and kicked the man as hard as he could dead square in his bird chest. The echo of the thud danced across the street. The stunned man hit the concrete and bounced.
Seeing his friend was out of commission, the ring leader darted toward Anil with the knife pointed, but Anil dodged the edge of the blade while at the same time, grabbing him by his dreadlocks.
“Motherfucker,” Anil growled. With a fist of the man’s hair, he snatched him backward to the ground, punched him in his throat, then took his little knife. Anil’s hands were shaking, fighting the desire to run the knife across the idiot’s sweaty skin and rid the world of one more thief. He wanted to do it…right then and there, he wanted so badly to kill the man he could taste it.
The man’s eyes were wide with gripping fear, seeing something in Anil’s face that was nearly psychotic. He knew that he was at death’s door. The only thing standing between him and the afterlife was the will of giant looming over him.
“Don’t do it,” the man begged. He could feel Anil’s breath on his skin. Raising his hands to show his palms, he felt the tears rush down the sides of his face.
Anil pursed his lips together and clenched his jaw. “I told you not to fuck with me,” he seethed, gripping the man’s hair tighter. Pointing the blade at the man’s right eye, he flared his nostrils. “People like you just don’t know when to quit.”
“I’m quitting, man. I’m done. Just let me go,” the man said, voice cracking. He swallowed hard but kept his eyes on the blade. “We fucked up.”
“Yeah, you did.” Anil raised a blonde brow. “You fucked up big time.”
Anil snapped his head toward the third man, who had come out of the bushes earlier, wondering if he was going to be a threat also. But the man was paralyzed with shock, standing by his friend, who was still on the ground cradling broken ribs. It was obvious that whatever his role was before, he had abandoned it for self-preservation.
Anil glanced back down at the ring leader. “I see you again, I’m going to take this blade and cut your heart out with it,” he promised, slicing across the man’s skin right below his eye to make his point. “Am I making myself clear?”
The blood rushed down the side of his face. “Crystal,” the man answered, feeling completely defeated. “Just let me go. You’ll never see me again.” He tried to keep his voice low to stave off any unnecessary embarrassment, in the event the man did spare his life.
After the anger inside of him started to give way to reason, Anil rose slowly to his seven feet of pure dominance with the knife still in hand. “I’m keeping this, just for you.” He looked down at the man one last time and put the knife in his pants pocket, before carefully backing away.
Certain he had made his point, Anil turned on his heels and headed in a moderate jog across the intersection. It was then that he saw a police car approaching from the opposite direction. For most people in other neighborhoods, their presence would have been celebrated at that moment, but in Liberty City, it only meant more trouble. Cops weren’t here to serve the public. They were here to rough up the indigenous population and breed illegitimate children.
Running across the street, Anil averted his eyes from the two patrolmen in the car. The last thing he needed was a run in with them too. He just wanted to finish his run and get back to his apartment to dress for class. Was that too much to ask?
As soon as his foot hit the other side of the street, he heard the familiar howl of a police siren. Shit! He stopped immediately and put his hands up in the air.
The police cruiser pulled up to the curb and stopped. Blue lights flashed against the small houses behind him and curtains pulled open to see what was going on. Of course, they could all be nosy about the cops, but no one had jumped in to stop the mugging.
A short, balding Cuban man stepped out of the passenger side, followed by his partner. The cop already looked aggravated before he said one word to Anil.
“Good morning, officers,” Anil said, clenching his jaw. “What seems to be the problem?” He would have assumed it was because he was running while Black, but officers around here didn’t care about race. Everyone in this community was a suspect, because they were poor.
“You got some ID on you,” the Cuban officer asked, glancing at Anil’s larger-than-life build. This guy could be trouble for him, if he wanted to be. He glanced over at his partner to make sure he was at the ready, just in case.
Anil lowered his hands, used to the reaction to his size. He knew the drill. “I’m going in my pocket to get my wallet. Is that okay?” He waited for the officer to give his approval.
“Do it slow,” the police officer ordered, hand resting on his gun holster.
Slowly, Anil reached in his pocket, passed the knife, and pulled out his wallet. Fishing out his ID, he passed it to the officer and glanced across the street to see the would-be robbers had disappeared. Why was he not surprised? Those assholes try to jack him, and the police pull the victim over. What a start to the day.
“What’s your name, son?” the man asked, even though he had it right in front of him. He glared at the ID and then looked back up at Anil, making sure it was the same person.
I’m not your fucking son, Anil thought quietly. “My name is Anil Baptiste,” he replied with obvious frustration.
The officer gave him a warning glare. “You need to watch the tone, son. I won’t tell you again.”
“I guess you didn’t happen to see the three guys who tried to rob me,” Anil said, pointing toward the site of the fight. “It just happened a few seconds ago.”
“We only saw you, sir,” the man said, not bothering to even glance across the street. “Where are you headed?” The officer passed Anil’s ID off to the other officer, who went to the car to run his name and license for warrants.
He knew that he didn’t have to answer the man’s question, but to make things easier, he complied. “I’m running,” Anil said, watching the other officer inside the car. “Why did you stop me?”
“Running where?” the Cuban officer asked more sternly.
Anil ran a hand through his curly blonde hair and tapped his foot. “I’m just trying to make my daily run before class.” What did these guys want from him? A breeze zipped past him, cooling his sweaty brow. He exhaled audibly and put his hands in the pockets of his sweat pants.
“Keep your hands where we can see them,” the officer ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Anil said, pulling his hands back out. He moderated his tone. “I’m a student, alright. I’m not a criminal. I’ve passed two prostitutes, one drug dealer and been held a knife-point this morning by three wanna be thugs. I just want to get on about my day.”
“What school are you at?” the officer asked.
“Have I done something wrong, here?” Anil asked again.
“Let me ask the questions,” the Cuban man said, raising a finger.
The other officer came back around the squad car and passed Anil’s driver’s license to Anil. He rolled his eyes in frustration at his partner’s antics. “He’s clean,” he said with a huff. “Let him go, man. We’ve got a call.”
The Cuban officer glanced over Anil one more time before he nodded. “You have a nice day, sir.” He passed Anil his identification.
“You too,” Anil said, not bothering to hide his scowl.
Anil put his identification back in his pocket and watched both officers get back into the car. He didn’t believe all cops were bad, but that asshole gave everyone a bad rap.
As they drove off, he stood on the corner watching the sun peak out from the fog and felt completely unmotivated. What was the sense of finishing his run at this point? It could only get worse from here. Turning back around, he headed toward his apartment.
There was no question about it. He had to get the hell out of here one way or another.