Christmas in the Hood (6 page)

Gigi tried not to groan. She was looking forward to spending the day alone with Grandma, but she knew if Andrew decided he wanted to come, her grandmother wouldn’t stop him.

“Out,” she said with an attitude.

Andrew didn’t bother to ask any more questions. “See ya,” he said, heading toward the kitchen, where Grandma had left him a plate in the microwave.

“Andrew, don’t get in any trouble,” Grandma said.

Smirking, Andrew didn’t bother to respond.

By the time they made it to the shopping strip on Third Avenue in the Bronx, the streets were already bustling with people headed to work. Gigi took in all the activity and the Christmas decorations and smiled. She loved this time of year. She looked over at Grandma, whose thin arm was wrapped around hers, and patted her gloved hand.

“Where to?” she asked.

Grandma pointed to a clothing store, and they headed inside.

They spent hours trying on clothes and buying so much that Gigi knew they would have to catch a cab back to the block. They bought gifts for the entire family: Andrew; her younger sister, Lulu; her mother, Carmen; and Andrew’s mother, Maria.

By the time they were done, Gigi was exhausted, and although Grandma looked exhausted, too, Gigi had never seen her look happier.

People were getting off work as they were headed home, so it took them a while to catch a cab. They finally decided to stop at a bodega, where they both ordered hot chocolate.

“So you got everything you wanted?” Grandma asked after taking a sip.

Gigi grabbed a napkin from the dispenser and wiped whipped cream off Grandma’s upper lip.

“Yep,” she said.

“What about your tuition?” Grandma asked, looking down as she stomped snow off one of her Timberland boots. “How do you plan to pay it?”

“With the money from my job,” Gigi said, shrugging as she took another sip of her hot chocolate. “The school lets me make deferred payments.”

“I’ll get the money for your tuition,” Grandma insisted.

Gigi knew that if her grandmother said it, it was just as good as done. She felt bad because her grandma always put them first. “But what about your operation?” she asked.

Grandma just smiled, patting her hand. “Now, baby, you just let me worry about that,” she said.

Gigi sighed. Grandma did everything possible to make sure her family was all right. Still, Gigi couldn’t help but feel guilty.

“What you want for Christmas, Grandma?” she asked as she gathered their bags so they could catch a cab.

“I just wanna see both y’all happy,” she said simply.

Gigi smiled. “Come on,” she said. “There’s gotta be something.”

Grandma thought for a minute. “It would be nice to get these old kidneys fixed,” she admitted.

Gigi felt like crying. Her grandmother never complained about her condition, and to hear her admit that she was bothered by it made Gigi more determined than ever to find a way to get Grandma the one thing she wanted for Christmas.

*  *  *

Back on the block, residents braved the cold weather even though over two inches of snow had fallen earlier. The freezing wind carried with it the rotten stench from the garbage bags piled at the curb in front of the six-story tenement building.

Sporting a bubble North Face jacket, Andrew chilled in the lobby, awaiting the night rush. He watched as a cab dropped Grandma and Gigi off in front of the building.

Two pimped-out BMW 525s, one red, one black, pulled up. The Diaz brothers hopped out like they owned the block. Though they didn’t hold the deed, in the drug game, 141st Street was their prized possession. Their deadly crew had the area on lock. Chico was the head, and naturally Joe fell second in command. Everybody on the block stayed on point when the Diaz brothers came through.

Grandma knew the siblings well. She had babysat both brothers when they were toddlers. As a result, both men treated Grandma and her two grandkids as if they were family.

Tall, rail thin, with a baby face, Chico definitely didn’t look like the monster people knew him to be. Greeting them with a warm smile, Chico planted a kiss on Grandma’s cheek and tossed Gigi a nod. “Hey, ma.”

“Let me help you wit’ that, Grandma,” Chico insisted, taking the bags from Grandma’s hand. The trio disappeared into the building while Joe waited on the stoop, chatting it up with Andrew.

Upstairs in the apartment, Gigi watched as Chico followed Grandma into the bedroom and closed the door. A few minutes later, Chico emerged from the room, waved at Gigi, and left the apartment.

“He dropped off more bundles?” Gigi asked.

Grandma nodded. She had been working for the Diaz brothers for the last five months.

Gigi could remember the day Grandma first told her she needed to have surgery. Soon after, Gigi noticed things started to change. Grandma seemed to have way too much money. At first she told Gigi she had gotten an increase in her disability check.

Gigi also noticed Chico and Joe had started stopping by more frequently than ever before, and they always went into Grandma’s room and closed the door. And right around that time, fiends from the neighborhood started popping up at the apartment looking for Grandma. Gigi knew the disability story wasn’t adding up. Grandma was definitely hiding something.

The more Gigi questioned her grandmother about the strange visits, the more evasive Grandma became. Finally one day she broke down and told Gigi what Gigi had already figured out: Grandma was selling crack for the Diaz brothers. With Medicare covering only half the cost of the operation, Grandma had approached the two brothers about working for them, and they’d accepted her with open arms.

*  *  *

The next evening Gigi arrived home from work to find she had the house to herself. Figuring Grandma was still out for her dialysis treatment and her cousin Andrew was running the streets, she decided to give her new boyfriend, Mel, a call.

“Hey, papi,” she said the minute he picked up.

“What up, ma?” he asked.

“Just thinking about you. I thought I’d call to see what you’re up to. I miss you,” she said.

Final exams were the next week, and Gigi had spent the last few days studying.

“You wanna get together tonight?” Mel asked.

“That sounds good,” she said, realizing she needed a break. “You want me to come over to your place?”

“Most definitely,” Mel said in his deep, sexy voice, and Gigi felt a tingle go down her spine. “I’ll come scoop you.”

“Don’t be speeding,” she said. “You already have more than enough tickets.”

Mel laughed. “See you in a minute,” he said before hanging up.

Gigi was just about to change clothes when the phone rang. Sighing, she went to answer it and tried not to groan when she heard the familiar greeting: “You have a call from a prison inmate, Rasheed Hall. To accept the charges, press one….”

Gigi reluctantly accepted the call and settled on the sofa. She hadn’t talked to her ex in a while. He was a drug dealer who had been sentenced to forty-five years in prison for murdering a set of twins, and she realized she hadn’t missed him.

“Hey, mami,” Rasheed greeted.

“Hey,” she said drily, studying her nails before she grabbed the television remote and began flipping through the channels.

“You miss me?” he asked.

“Why you always ask me that?” she said, avoiding the question. He laughed. “Yo, ma, I just wanted to check on you … make sure you didn’t need anything. You all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“My boy, Big Ben, tell me you’re still refusing the love I’m sending you,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, being as vague as he was about the money he sent her.

Although he was in jail, he was still making as much as he had when he was out, if not more.

“You need anything, let me know,” he said.

“I gotta go,” she said suddenly, realizing she had no desire to talk to him.

“Wait,” he screamed before she hung up.

She put the phone back to her ear. “What?” she said.

“When you coming to see me?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Now isn’t a good time. I’m getting ready for finals, and you know the holidays are coming up.”

“Can’t you come this week? My cousin has a package for me, and she can’t bring it because the doctor put her on bed rest.”

“Get someone else to do it,” she said.

“Gigi, can you do this one thing for me?” he pleaded.

She sighed, mentally kicking herself for agreeing to what he was asking. She couldn’t believe that he still had that effect on her after being in prison for almost three years.

“I’ll come after the holiday,” she said.

“No, I need you to come this week,” he insisted.

“Can’t she mail it?” she asked.

“No, it’s too important. Just do me this one favor. I promise I won’t ask you for anything else,” he said.

She snorted, knowing that wasn’t true.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said before hanging up.

After relaxing for a little while, Gigi decided to fix dinner since she knew Grandma would be tired after her dialysis treatment. Just as she got the food started, her cousin Andrew walked in.

“What’s up?” he said, heading straight to the refrigerator.
He grabbed a forty and took a huge swallow before turning to her.

“Hey, Andrew,” she said, getting up to check the steaks.

“Where’s Grandma?” he asked.

“She had dialysis today,” Gigi said, flipping the sizzling meat. Sometimes she went with Grandma to keep her company, but Grandma preferred for her to stay home and keep the sales rolling in.

Andrew didn’t respond. He had never said it, but Gigi knew he couldn’t stand to see their grandmother in pain.

As Grandma grew sicker, reluctantly she started depending on Gigi and Andrew to hold her down whenever she was too tired to serve the fiends. She made them promise they would never sell drugs outside of the apartment and for no one else but her. Gigi took pride in helping her grandma.

Suddenly, someone knocked on the apartment door. At six-thirty in the evening Gigi figured it had to be a crackhead. Throughout the day and night a steady flow of fiends came through. Most were straight-up junkies; others were truckers and blue-collar workers.

Gigi loved the truck drivers because they were more likely to buy one or more bundles in a single transaction. Sometimes they copped the entire stash, leaving Grandma sold out for the night.

Gigi made a beeline for the closet in Grandma’s room. She grabbed an open bundle from the stash and hightailed it to the front door.

Removing a .45 from his waistband, Andrew followed Gigi. He always held her down during transactions. Positioning himself
behind the door, Andrew racked the slide, ready to blast if anything jumped off. Then he signaled Gigi to open up.

Clutching a wrinkled twenty-dollar bill, a Hispanic fiend stuck his bony hand through the crack in the door.

“One or two?” Gigi asked. The price of each crack vial was ten dollars.

“Two … let me get two.”

Gigi dropped two white-top vials into the fiend’s open palm and shut the door, locking both dead bolts.

Thank God nothing ever pops off
, Gigi thought as she watched her cousin kiss the barrel.
Andrew’s way too trigger happy.
Thanks to the Diaz brothers, Grandma had the building on lock. They put word out on the block that no one but Grandma and her grandkids could move work out of the building.

“Have you thought about what you’re getting Grandma for Christmas?” she asked as they returned to the kitchen.

Andrew shrugged and took another sip of his drink. “Nah,” he said nonchalantly.

Gigi threw down the fork she was using to turn the meat and stared at him. “How can you be so selfish?” she asked. “Grandma went out and spent hundreds—maybe thousands—of dollars on you for Christmas, and you haven’t thought of one measly thing you can get her?”

“Yo, what’s your problem?” Andrew asked, looking at her like she was crazy.

Gigi sighed and took a seat at the table. “I’m sorry,” she finally said softly.

Andrew took a seat across from her. “What’s going on?” he asked.

Although they were cousins, Grandma had raised them both, so in a lot of ways they were closer than most brothers and sisters.

“Grandma told me the only thing she really wants for Christmas is new kidneys,” she said, finding herself near tears again.

“So we’ll make the money back,” Andrew said. It was the closest he had ever come to admitting that Grandma was sick.

“How?” Gigi asked. “How the hell we gonna make twenty-five thousand dollars in, like, three weeks?”

“I don’t care. I’ll make the money,” Andrew said, getting up from the table. He pulled up his jeans, which were sagging around his butt, tucked the gun on his waist, and headed toward the front door.

Gigi ran over to stop him. “What you gonna do?” she asked.

“I’ma get some paper,” he said, trying to step around her. “How?” she asked.

Andrew looked her in the eye. “Trust me, you don’t wanna know,” he said.

“You promised Grandma you were gonna stop robbing people, Andrew,” she said sharply.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said as the front door opened. Grandma walked in, looking tired, and Gigi hurried over to help her.

“How was dialysis, Grandma?” she asked, kissing her on the cheek before helping her out of her coat.

“It was fine, baby,” her grandma said, giving her a tight smile. Gigi helped her over to the sofa then went to get her a glass of water. When she came back, Andrew was gone, and she made a mental note to talk to him about his thieving ways. There had to be another way to help Grandma.

Gigi got dressed for her date with Mel, although she really wasn’t in the mood to go out.

Chapter Three

B
y the time Gigi returned home the next morning from spending the night at Mel’s place, Grandma was still asleep, and it looked as though Andrew hadn’t been home.

After checking on Grandma, Gigi thought about going to bed, but she realized she wasn’t sleepy, so she studied instead. It was around nine o’clock in the morning when she finally heard Andrew come in. “Where have you been?” she asked before the front door could even close.