SIX IS THE magic number.
After my mother died in her bed last week, I set up the funeral for a week later. I’m not really sure what I was expecting, and I didn’t even know who to call to tell that Whitney had died, but something deep down must’ve expected better than this.
Six people have shown up to lay my mother to her final resting place. Six. That’s all she could muster up in death. She only managed to touch six lives in her lifetime. Only six people cared enough to show up to this rainy, gray, sad, depressing display of bullshit being put on by this preacher. Six. People.
Allow me to set the scene. Farthest away from me is the preacher—an old white man in the usual black attire, a clean shaven face, and an old bible he’s probably had for longer than I’ve been alive. His eyes are glued to the pages of what people call the good book, although I’m not sure how it’s labeled as good with all that condoning of murder, slavery, and rape in there, but I guess people choose to ignore the things that contradict what they hope and wish to be true. The old preacher is probably sixty or so, and he has no clue who the hell Whitney was. He’s never seen her before in his life, but he’s here, doing what he’s done for countless other people he didn’t know, reading in the same monotone voice others have surely been annoyed by. Obviously uncomfortable, he won’t dare look up from the words in that book.
Next to him are three people I don’t know, but I’ve seen them around at some point in my life. They must’ve heard in the streets that Whitney died, or read it in the paper. At some point in time they’ve passed through the house, or we’ve walked past them, or I just recognize them from some faded memory of my childhood. I don’t know anything about them, and they don’t know anything about me. We’re strangers, but I still think higher of them than I do the preacher. At least they knew Whitney.
Next to them and on the other side of Nix are two women who I know for a fact knew my mother. I recognize them without question. Both of them are tall and slender with brown hair and dark blue eyes that remind me so much of my mother’s I can barely look at them. They’re draped in nearly identical black dresses and share the same solemn faces. They’re my aunts Theresa and Vanessa. Both of them are older than Whitney was, and they cut off communication with my mother so long ago that in this moment they have no idea that their now eighteen-year-old nephew is standing next to them, staring at them and wondering why the hell they aren’t even crying. I don’t remember when the last time I saw them was, but it’s obviously been so long that they can’t bring themselves to share one single tear between the two of them for their dead sister.
My mother’s addiction drew a line between herself and her family. After failing to make it through rehab on multiple occasions, they just gave up on her, and she fell apart all by herself—well, with me, I guess. My mother was thirty-five years old, meaning she had me when she was eighteen, and she was an addict before I was ever born. Addiction can become unbearable to watch, and her family chose to leave her to fend for herself rather than help her any longer. They couldn’t take her resistance and constant relapses. Don’t get me wrong, no one in my mother’s family has very much money, but standing next to my two aunts now, I can’t help but wonder what it would’ve been like if one of them had birthed me. Would I still be this broken and cold inside? Would I still be so confused about everything, wondering how my life could’ve taken such a drastic turn so quickly? Who knows?
As the rain falls on us in a weak drizzle, making small puddles in the mud beneath our feet, I stare down at the ground while the preacher rambles on. I don’t even know what I’m feeling right now. After I called the cops and told them my mother had died, the coroner came and picked up her cold, lifeless body and took her away, leaving me in the house all alone for the very first time. I’m eighteen years old, so I don’t have to worry about being placed in foster care or anything crazy like that, but I am on my own now, and I don’t know if I’m happy or sad about it.
On one hand, Whitney is gone! There’s no more extra drama in the house. No more dealers coming through for a blowjob in exchange for drugs. No more psychotic outbursts or mind-numbing scratching. There’s no more spoons or needles lying around the house, and I’m no longer living in the basement. The day after the coroner took her away, I moved all of my stuff into her bedroom, including all of the new stuff I’ve purchased since Cash N Check. I don’t have to hide anymore, I don’t have to sneak through the outside door to go straight to the basement just to hide a damn shopping bag from Whitney. I’m free to do whatever I want now. I should be thrilled. Right?
But my mother is dead. No matter what else happened over the years, Whitney King was still my mother, and even though I hated the very sight of her, I’ve never been on my own before. The house is annoyingly quiet, and I can’t figure out why that bothers me so much, because the house was always quiet when Whitney was locked in her room on one of her heroin-induced stupors. When it’s quiet now, I’m reminded that Whitney isn’t locked in her room. She’s gone. I spent eighteen years with Whitney, and no matter how much I try to ignore it, I miss her. Isn’t that insane? I hated her when she was here, and miss her now that she’s gone. Life is really a bitch, isn’t it?
Maybe I’d feel a little bit better if I had heard from Reina recently, but it’s been three weeks since the day she left my house, and I haven’t spoken to her one single time. I’ve texted more times than I can count, and I’ve gotten nothing back. I even built up the nerve to drive to Center City to look for her. I managed to make it into the city and was halfway to her suburb before I realized the people driving next to me where staring into the car. My mother’s car must’ve stuck out like a sore thumb, because I swear everybody I passed was giving me a second look, but I didn’t let that stop me. They could look all the wanted, because I was determined to find Reina. I drove onto her street and parked Whitney’s car three houses down from the house Reina and I had gone into on prom night. I waited there for four hours, watching the house, avoiding eye contact from nose people passing by, and I never saw Reina come out, nor did I see anyone go in. After the fourth hour, the owner of the house I was parked in front of came home in a shiny black Jaguar, and as he pulled into his driveway, he noticed me sitting there. The last thing I wanted to do was get the cops called on me or make more trouble for Reina if it got back to her, so before the guy could approach my car, I put it in gear and drove away. I haven’t been back since, and now it feels like she’s really gone.
It’s like Reina has fallen off the face of the planet, and with Whitney being put into the ground today, I’ve never felt more alone. How could Reina just leave me without saying a word? Who does that to someone? Who the hell makes someone like me love them, only to leave me more broken than ever before? I need her more than ever right now, and she’s gone. How could she do this to me? Not a single text!
Every day I feel my heart growing darker. The money in the footlocker, the clothes in my mother’s closet and dresser drawers isn’t enough to make me happy now. I’m empty. I have no love in my life, and every day the desire to do something horrible grows within me. I knew I wasn’t normal before Whitney died and before I ever saw Reina in that alley. It’s all coming full circle now, though. The rage in me is growing, and it’s going to come out. It’s going to rush out like water from a fire hose, and someone is going to drown. Maybe it’ll be me. Maybe it’ll be someone else. Either way, someone is going to suffer.
The preacher stops talking and the rain quits at the same time. The six people next to Nix and I start to slowly walk away without giving me their condolences, and as Nix places a hand on my shoulder to lead me back to his new Honda Civic, his touch snaps my train of thought and startles me.
“You alright?” I hear him ask. Nix seems to have stopped caring about hiding the money he’s made, because his new car is a beauty and the long, gray trench coat he’s wearing makes him look like a character from a mob movie.
“Just peachy,” I reply with a smile. Nix frowns at the response, then turns on his heel and heads for the car parked on the road.
“For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry, Solomon,” Nix says. “Things have taken a bad turn, and I know it’s tough on you. I’m here if you need me.”
“I do need you, Nix,” I snip back. “I need you to help me rob another place.”
Nix stops walking to look around, making sure nobody heard me. “What?”
“I know you heard me, Nix. Now that Whitney is gone and I don’t have to hide, I want more.”
“You think you’re ready for that right now? After all that’s happened?”
“Of course I’m ready!” I hear myself bark. The sound of my voice travels and echoes around us, but so few people showed up to my mother’s funeral, there’s no one around to hear me anyway. “You think because Whitney died and Reina left that I want to sit around Strawberry Mansion waiting to die? It’s not over, Nix. I still live in the house I grew up in with Whitney. We’re still stuck in hell! There’s still liquor stores on every other block. There’s still crack houses on every damn corner. There’s still drug dealers living at the end of my street, and . . .”
A thought makes me cut the sentence in half. Suddenly, all I can think about is something my mother said a couple of weeks before she overdosed.
“What’s up, man? Are you okay? I think all of this has you losing it a little more than usual,” I hear Nix say, but I ignore his words and focus on the words I heard two weeks ago.
The memory of the last time I saw Reina flashes in my mind, and I suddenly feel like I’m right back in that day. Nix and I had gone shopping at King of Prussia Mall. I bought a royal blue shirt, and I was so focused on Reina not answering my calls or texts that I forgot to go through the outside door with my shopping bag when I got back to the house. I came in the front door and Whitney was on the couch. She immediately honed in on the bag and started asking questions about money. I responded with some smart-ass comment about her sucking dick to get more drug money, and as I walked down the stairs to my room, she shouted something to me that I ignored in the moment.
“Don’t disrespect me, Solomon. I’m still your mother. And if Nix got a job, I need you to ask him for some money. He’s a nice kid, I’m sure he’ll give it to you if you just ask nicely. Davon says I have to pay with real money now, and I need my medicine, Solomon! You hear me?”
The words meant nothing then, but they mean everything now.
“Davon says I have to pay with real money now, and I need my medicine, Solomon!”
I don’t know how I didn’t catch it when she said it, but from the goddamn grave my mother has told me what my next move needs to be. She’d asked if I heard her, and the answer is yes. Yes, I heard you, Whitney.
“Solomon, talk to me, man. You good?” Nix asks, leaning over to try to look me in the eye.
“I’ve got something I need to take care of, Nix,” I reply, staring over at my mother’s brown and black coffin, remembering her words. “I’ve got to pay a special someone a visit.”