Family Business Read online

  “That’s because you never wanted anyone in your house. So, why you all of a sudden trust this girl?”

  Demetrius didn’t want to explain his reasoning, because in truth, helping Angel felt more to him like he was helping his own mama. He had finally put his foot down and not allowed some man to send a woman somewhere that might get her killed. Demetrius didn’t want Angel’s son to carry the pain of missing his mother, because he knew how that felt. “She’s cool people. I can deal with her and her son for a little while.”

  They arrived at the first house. Demetrius knocked on the door as Mo said, “Be careful, that girl will have you over there playing daddy to her son in no time.”

  “Who?” Demetrius laughed at that. “I ain’t got no kids and ain’t trying to have any no time soon.”

  ~~~~

  Angel had written out a grocery list the night before and handed it to Demetrius before she and DeMarcus went to bed for the night. The next morning the refrigerator and the cabinets were fully stocked. Angel got down to the business of cleaning, and from what she could see, Demetrius truly needed her services. Humming as she worked, Angel even smiled as she took out the trash. Housekeeping might not pay much, but it was an honest day’s work and wasn’t nobody asking her to ‘take it all off, baby’.

  Just as Angel thought of her short lived life as a stripper, DeMarcus started crying in his sleep. Angel put the broom down and picked her baby up. Rocking him as she kissed his forehead, Angel told him, “Don’t you worry little fellow, I’m not going back to that place ever again. I promise you that.”

  Some days Angel wished she had never left home... never met Frankie and then stupidly fell for all his lies. And some days Angel held onto the anger she felt for her cousin who had worked at Frankie’s club, and told Angel how wonderful the life of a stripper was... and how much money she was making. She hadn’t bothered to mention how much shame she would feel each time she took her clothes off in front of strangers.

  She had been stupid. Angel had no business being around street people, because she hadn’t known anything about the lifestyle before she ran away from home. Frankie had been so smooth that she hadn’t recognized him for the devil he was. Angel wished she could go home and see her mother and brother, she missed them so much. But how could she explain that she now had a son with no husband?

  She put her son back down and then went into the kitchen to start dinner. She’d decided that meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans sounded good. Once she put her food on, Angel started on the bathrooms. Demetrius had two. One in the hallway and the other in his bedroom. Angel was a bit leery about going into his bedroom at first. But she didn’t want Demetrius thinking that she was slacking on any part of her job. She stepped into his bedroom and was immediately surprised by what she saw. The bed was a mess of course, so she stripped it and put his sheets in the washing machine.

  However, the thing that left her in awe was the huge black and white pictures that hung on his walls. She doubted these men were family members because they were all dressed in baseball gear. The pictures reminded her of Demetrius swinging that bat in the alley and then Frankie holding his arm as if it was broken. “The boy likes his baseball,” she said to herself as she went into the bathroom and cleaned until it shined.

  As she closed his bedroom door, Angel smiled at how nice the home was beginning to look. She doubted that cooking and cleaning would be enough to pay Demetrius everything that she owed. But, she was still going to do the best job possible. She also planned to look for another job, so she could earn money to pay this debt. But this time she wouldn’t settle for a job that required her to take her clothes off.

  The thing Angel didn’t understand was how she had fallen so hard, so fast. One day she was a little girl dreaming about following in her father’s footsteps and the next thing she knew, she was running away from home, having a baby, and then becoming a stripper. How she wished things had turned out differently, but they hadn’t and Angel blamed her parents for that.

  They were the ones who’d given up and caused her to lose her faith and the feeling that all was right with the world. Now, Angel not only knew that there was evil in this world... she had slept with the devil.

  Trying to get her mind off of her baby’s daddy, Angel went back to the kitchen. She turned off the mashed potatoes and opened a box of Jiffy corn muffins. It was smelling good in the kitchen and Angel smiled as she tasted her meatloaf... delicious as usual. The secret, her mother taught her, was in the parmesan cheese and Italian sausage added to the meat mixture.Not to mention, the barbecue sauce rather than tomato sauce as the outer glaze.

  The front door opened just as Angel was turning off the oven. She hollered to him, “Dinner’s ready.”

  ~~~~

  “Mmmm, it smells good in here.” Demetrius closed the door and made his way to the kitchen. Taking his jacket off, he slung it across the back of the chair. But Angel quickly snatched it off of the chair.

  “You do have a hall closet, you know.” She put his jacket on a hanger and hung it in his closet. “Wash your hands,” she hollered at him as she walked back into the kitchen to fix his plate.

  “Girl, you acting like my mama, rather than a housekeeper.”

  As Angel put the food on his plate she retorted, “I might not be your mama, but I still want you to wash your hands.”

  Rolling up his sleeves, Demetrius went to the sink and washed his hands. Angel put the plate in front of him as he sat back down.

  She stood watching as Demetrius put his fork in the meatloaf, and then brought the fork to his mouth. She held her breath as he bit into it, and didn’t release it until she heard him sigh.

  “This is some good eats.” Demetrius’ cheeks puffed out as he stuffed his mouth with food. He swallowed the food on his plate and then asked for a second helping. As she was getting his plate, he asked, “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  “Not right now. I’m going to check on DeMarcus and then we’ll eat something later.”

  She put the plate in front of him and then Demetrius said, “I can’t eat all this good food alone. Why don’t you get DeMarcus and the two of you can eat with me.”

  But Angel backed away from the table. “I didn’t know that being your dinner companion was going to be a part of my job duties.”

  Putting his fork down, Demetrius glared at her. “There you go with that mess. I got plenty of people I can eat with, so don’t worry about me.” His beeper went off, Demetrius glanced at the number, then went to the wall phone in the kitchen and dialed the number.

  “Hey man, what’s up... Nothing, just eating.”

  Demetrius switched the phone from one ear to the next. He answered the caller’s question by saying, “Sounds good. I don’t have anything else to do tonight. Might as well go clubbing.”

  Demetrius listened a few moments, then he cut his eyes in Angel’s direction as he said, “Instead of meeting me at the club, won’t you come through. My housekeeper made dinner, and it is good.”

  Her back was to him when he called her a housekeeper, so he couldn’t see her face, but he saw those shoulders tighten. Serves her right, Demetrius thought. If she wanted to be treated like an employee, he would do just that.

  Four

  From that night on, Demetrius brought one or two of his friends home with him for dinner. Angel didn’t mind though. While Demetrius and his friends ate dinner, she would play with DeMarcus or wash clothes. She kept the house together and they stayed out of each other’s way. But one night, after a long day of cleaning, washing and folding clothes, Angel fell asleep on the sofa.

  She didn’t know how long she had been out, but when she woke up, a pillow was under her head and a blanket was thrown across her body. She was rubbing her eyes, trying to get her bearings, when she heard DeMarcus say, “Dadda, Dadda.”

  DeMarcus had been sound asleep in their bedroom when she sat down to fold a load of clothes, but now it sounded as if he was in this very room with her. He
was sixteen months, so he was in that scrawl-walk phase. Angel tried her best to keep an eye on him, because it only took one wrong move for a baby to get hurt. Her mother had experienced that with Ronny. The boy had always been curious, always getting into things. One day he decided to climb the wooden fence in the back yard. If she hadn’t found him when she did, Ronny would have discovered that the fence had been erected to keep children from falling into the steep, rocky creek below.

  As if coming out of a nightmare, Angel’s eyes darted around the room. That’s when she saw DeMarcus climbing all over Demetrius as he sat on the love seat. “I must have fallen asleep,” she said as she leaned over and grabbed DeMarcus.

  “Daddy,” DeMarcus said again as he reached for Demetrius.

  “Sorry about that, he’s just confused,” she said of DeMarcus calling him daddy.

  “No worries,” Demetrius told her. “Oh, and I gave him a bottle when he woke up.”

  She looked around the room. “What happened to the clothes I folded?”

  “I figured you needed a rest, so I put them in my dresser. Then DeMarcus and I sat down and started watching the game.”

  She thought it was odd that Demetrius would be doing her job when that was supposed to be her way of paying back the money she owed him. She was just about to tell him that, when a baseball player slid into home base. Demetrius jumped out of his seat and started whooping and hollering, as if he was seated in the stands rather than watching the game on the television in his living room. “What’s the deal with you and baseball anyway?”

  “I love the sport,” he answered as he sat back down.

  “Plenty of folks love the sport, but that don’t mean they gon’ put life size pictures of people playing baseball in their bedroom.” Angel didn’t get it. Could a person really be that much of a fan?

  “Those people you’re referring to are Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays; only the best ever players to come out of the Negro leagues.” When she gave him a look that showed she still didn’t get it, he said, “These Cats were fearless. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier when he became the first black man to sign with a national baseball team.

  “He practically led the way for Hank Aaron to break Babe Ruth’s home run record. And Willie Mays is just Mr. MVP as far as I’m concerned.”

  Angel shook her head as she laughed at him. “Look how excited you get talking about baseball. It’s a wonder you didn’t play yourself.”

  That’s when the laughter stopped, because as soon as the words were out of her mouth, Angel saw the look of sadness creep up his face. He looked so wounded that she wanted to put DeMarcus down and go to him. But she didn’t want things to get weird or to have Demetrius thinking that she was offering anything more than her sympathy. So, she remained seated as she asked, “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

  He got up and turned off the television. “I’m going back out for a while. I’ll see you and DeMarcus tomorrow.”

  “You’re going to be gone all night?” Angel sounded outraged, as if she had a right to question Demetrius concerning his comings and goings.

  “What’s it to you? You’ve made it clear that I need to keep my distance. You don’t even want me to touch your son.”

  “I never said I had a problem with you holding DeMarcus.”

  “Then why did you snatch him away from me the moment you woke up? Acting like I’m going to harm him or something, when I’m the one who gave y’all a place to stay. Where’s his daddy anyway? Why didn’t he come to your rescue?”

  “You already know DeMarcus’s daddy.” She was embarrassed to have to admit that she had been with a man who didn’t care about her, so she lowered her head as she added, “And that low-life wanted me to come to his rescue. He never once thought about doing anything to help me or his son, that didn’t first help him.”

  Demetrius’ eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean, I already know him? Who is this guy? Does he know that you were stripping in order to make ends meet?”

  “I can’t believe you haven’t figured this out already.” She stood up, with DeMarcus on her hip and walked over to him. “Why do you think Frankie’s sister was babysitting DeMarcus for me? Do you really think Frankie is providing babysitting services for all of his strippers?”

  He looked puzzled for another moment, then blurted out. “You mean to tell me that this is Frankie’s kid?”

  “I wish I didn’t have to admit to that. But it’s true. The love of my life was trying to prostitute me, even though he knew that our son was at his sister’s waiting on me.”

  Demetrius shook his head. “I knew Frankie Day was a piece of garbage, but I never would have pegged him like that.” He grabbed Angel’s free hand, walked her back towards the sofa and then sat down with her.

  After a long moment of staring into her eyes, as if he was trying to read all of her secrets, he finally said, “I just don’t get it.”

  Angel was confused. She had no clue where this was going. “Get what?”

  “You seem like a smart girl, you sure don’t have a problem letting a brother know what’s on your mind... and you are really beautiful. I just don’t understand how you could get hooked up with Frankie... were you already stripping when you met him, or what?”

  She was slightly insulted by the question. But since Demetrius was responsible for the roof that was currently over her son’s head, she felt that she owed him the truth, as painful as it was. “No, I didn’t know anything about this sort of life when I met Frankie. I was as green as green could be.”

  “I left home at sixteen because I couldn’t deal with all the drama my parents were going through. My cousin, Ramona, convinced me that she was living the high life out here, so I hopped on a Greyhound and met up with her. But I was only here a little over a month when Ramona got herself arrested for holding drugs for her low-life boyfriend.”

  DeMarcus climbed off the sofa and used a jar of lotion as a ball as he rolled it around on the floor.

  Angel continued. “Before Ramona got arrested, she’d introduced me to Frankie... told me he was a nice guy who owned a gentlemen’s club downtown.” Angel laughed at the memory. “I had pictured well-dressed men going to a private club to smoke cigars and drink brandy. I honestly had no clue what she was talking about.”

  “And of course Frankie didn’t explain it to you,” Demetrius said, knowing full well how the game was played.

  “When I first met Frankie, he kept promising to take care of me and to give me some so-called good life. I fell for his whole line, because I really had no choice once Ramona left. But after a while, I started catching on. I caught him cheating on me, and demanded that he stop. But that’s when he had a surprise for me. He said that since I wasn’t happy being his number one woman, that I would have to earn my keep like all the rest of ‘em..”

  “Why didn’t you just go back home? I’m sure your parents would have let you come back. Wouldn’t they?”

  “My parents are divorced. They were too busy fighting and blaming each other to care about what happened to me and my brother.” She shook her head as she added, “And they messed me up more than Frankie ever could. Because when I was young, my parents had me believing that life was this wonderful thing, and God was good all the time, and then they just snatched all of that away from me. I couldn’t see any more goodness in our lives after they divorced.” And even after being away from home for three years now, tears still floated around her eyes as she thought about what used to be.

  “Sounds like things are bad for you no matter which way you turn.”

  Angel agreed.

  “Well, I can promise you this, Angel,” Demetrius stood up. “I ain’t no wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’m not going to make you do nothing around here but what we’ve already agreed on. And you and DeMarcus can stay as long as you need to.” After those words he grabbed his keys and left.

  ~~~~

  Don Shepherd called a meeting that night. Demetrius was still smarting ov
er the way he had been treated, so he originally planned to skip it. But after sitting there staring into Angel’s eyes, Demetrius knew he had to get out of the house. He wanted to kiss that girl so bad that he ached. But he would never let Angel know how he was feeling. He didn’t want to scare her off. It was obvious that she needed someone in her corner who wasn’t out to take something from her.

  “Demetrius, do you want to join us over here?” Don asked his son.

  No, he didn’t want to join them anywhere, he wanted to be out on a baseball field hitting homers and hearing the crowd go wild as he made his way to home base. But even after all these years, his ankle still wasn’t flexible enough for him to run on the baseball field without it kinking up on him. So, here he was at another one of his father’s meetings and still doing nothing about the promise he made to his mother.

  “It’s some real serious stuff going down,” Don told the group of five, who were all considered his lieutenants. “Leo Wilson and his boys have just been indicted. They wouldn’t even set a bail for Leo. So he won’t be running numbers or taking bets on the fights. Business has to keep rolling though, so Leo has asked for our help.”

  Don Shepherd was notorious in these parts and didn’t nobody even think about messing with him. Because everybody on these streets knew that Don wasn’t just the meanest hustler out there, he also had a little bit of crazy in him.

  Even with all Don’s crazy, Leo Wilson had remained the Head Negro in Charge. Don hadn’t contested that fact, because Leo had been running the streets of Dayton, ten years before Don Shepherd came on the scene. Don respected the man; but that didn’t mean that Don wasn't biding his time until he could take over, and once and for all, take his rightful place. So, it surprised Demetrius that Leo had turned to his father for help in his time of need.

  “Joe Frazier’s and Ali’s fights both take place in December. With Leo gone, we have no competition and if we play are cards right, we can make a killing.” Don clasped his hands together as if feeling the money as he continued, “Leo is handing over his contacts, so we need to get busy. As we all know, the government is running us out of the number running business. They’re even proposing that the lottery proceeds help fund education. Now how can we compete with that?”