Philadelphia Noir

“That’s your brother?” Jess gestured with her head to Dahani, who stood with his hands in his pockets while Roger pantomimed wildly.

“You know him?” I asked.

“He’s down with my boys,” she said. I tried not to wince. “Speaking of which, hey, Adam! Can you bring Nzingha something to drink?”

We looked toward the end of the pool with the boys and the boombox. One of them, with a sharp-looking nose and a mop of wet blond hair sweeping over his eyes, yelled back: “Get it for her yourself!”

Jess’s face erupted in pink splotches. “He’s an incredible asshole,” she said.

“And this is news?” said one of the other girls. She had huge breasts, a smashed-in face, and a flat voice. Suddenly I remembered the name Adam. Aja had a flaming crush on him for nearly a year, and then Jess had started going out with him on and off. Last I heard they were off, but now Aja liked to pretend she’d never mentioned liking him.

“I don’t want anything to drink anyway,” I said.

Aja asked if I was going to swim and I don’t remember what I said because I was watching my brother walk down to the end of the pool where the boys were, trading pounds with wet hands. He reached into a red cooler and pulled out a 40. Roger stayed at the tall wooden gate.

“They think they’re gangsters,” Jess said, rolling her eyes in their general direction. “They call themselves the Gutter Boys. All they do is come here and smoke weed.”

“That’s not all,” the girl with the smashed-in face said with a smirk.

“Is my brother here a lot?” I asked.

“I’ve only seen him once. But this is only the third time I’ve been here, you know, after hours.”

My brother didn’t seem interested in swimming. I didn’t even know if he was wearing trunks. Instead he walked with a stocky swaggering boy toward the darkness of the locker room. Don’t go back there, I wanted to scream. But all I did was stand there in my street clothes at the water’s edge.

Adam cried out, “Chickenfight!”

“Not again,” said smashed-in face. “I’m way too fucked up.”

Adam swam over to us. “Look, Tanya, you’ll do it again if you wanna get high later.”

Tanya’s friend murmured something to her quietly. Tanya laughed and said, “Hey, Adam, what about this?” Then she and her friend began kissing. At first just their lips seemed to brush lightly, and then the quiet girl pulled her in fiercely. I stepped back, feeling an unpleasant arousal. The boys became a cursing, splashing creature moving toward us. “Dayummm!” called Roger, who began running over.

“Keep your eye on the gate, dude!” yelled one of the boys.

“Okay, you big lesbians get a pass,” said Adam when they finally broke apart. Then he turned to Jess. “What can you girls do for me?”

“I think we’re going to stick with the chickenfight,” said Aja, giggling. She still liked him. I could not relate.

While they sorted out who would carry whom, my brother emerged from the locker room. I waited until he and the stocky boy had parted ways before I began walking over.

“Dahani,” I called in a sharp voice.

“You ready to go?” he asked. I examined him. He didn’t seem jittery and he wasn’t sweating. This was what I knew of smoking crack from the movies.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

I glanced back at the pool, where Adam, laughing, held Jess under the water. Aja sat forlornly on the shoulders of a round boy with flame-colored hair waiting for the fight to start. “I’m ready to go,” I said.

When Roger closed the gate the pool disappeared, and though “Looking at the Front Door” sounded raucous bouncing off the water, I couldn’t hear anything at all.

“Are you smoking crack?” I blurted.

Dahani came to a full stop and looked at me. “This is the last time I think I’m going to answer that dumb-ass question. No.”

“Are you selling it?”

He sighed in annoyance. “Nzingha. No.”

“But something isn’t right.”

“No, nothing is right,” Dahani said. “But this is where I get off.” We had reached my mother’s house. He kept walking up the dark street.

It wasn’t until a couple of nights later that Dahani didn’t show up for dinner. My mother, who barely touched the pizza I ordered, kept walking to the front window and peering out.

When it began getting dark, I slapped my forehead. “Oh my God!” I said.

My mother looked at me with wild round eyes. “What?”

Without biting the inside of my cheek, I said, “I totally forgot. He said to tell you he wouldn’t be home until really late.”

“Where is he?”

“Don’t know.”

My mother folded her arms. “Thanks for almost letting me have a heart attack.”

“Mom, he’s a grown man.”

“Nzingha,” she said, “what is this thing with you and your brother?”

I didn’t answer.

“You don’t seem to realize that he’s having a really hard time. I mean I’m the one stuck with loans from his year at college. I’m the one supporting his grown-ass now and I’m the one who’s going to have to take out more loans to send him back. So what’s your issue?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Can I go upstairs?”

“You really need to change your attitude. And not just about this.”

“Can I go upstairs?” I said again.

My mother and I sometimes had strained conversations. It was she and Dahani who had fireworks. But now she looked so angry she almost shook. “Go ahead and get the hell out of my sight!” And I did, hating this.

That night I wasn’t sure if I was sleeping or not. I kept imagining the nightmare bright scene at the pool, those girls kissing, my brother disappearing into the back. Night logic urged me that I had to go back there. After my mother was in bed with her TV timer on, I climbed out of bed and dressed. Then excruciatingly, silently, I closed the front door. I plunged into darkness and walked the three blocks as fast as I could.

“Roger,” I called at the gate, trying to imitate my brother’s masculine whisper. I tapped the wood. There was a pause and then the tall gate wrenched open.

“Where’s Dahani?” Roger said, waving me inside. His clothes were soaked and he was in stocking feet. “Oh God. You didn’t bring Dahani?”

I felt my legs buckle, and only because Roger’s sweaty hand clamped over my mouth was I able to swallow a scream. I had seen only one dead body in real life, at my great-grandmother’s wake. Though with her papery skin and tiny doll’s limbs, she’d never seemed quite alive. I’d never seen a dead body floating in water, but I knew what I was seeing when I saw Jess’s naked corpse bob up and down peacefully. I ran to the water’s edge near the diving board. There was a wet spot of something on the edge of the pool that looked black in the light.

Roger began pacing a tiny circle, moaning.

“Did you call 911?” I asked him.

“It was an accident. They’re gonna think-”

“What if she’s alive?” I said.

Roger suddenly loomed in front of me with clenched fists. “No cops! And she’s not alive! Why didn’t you bring Dahani?”

In the same way I knew things in dreams, I knew he hadn’t done it. Not even in a Lenny in Of Mice and Men way. But I needed to get away from his panic. I spoke slowly. “It’s okay. I’ll go get him.”

“You’ll bring him here?”

Before I let myself out through the tall gate, I watched Roger slump to the side of the pool and sit Indian style