“I’m writing my cell phone number on here, so you can contact me if you needanything,” he said with a wink.
“You both have to take care of each other.” Chobo said as he leaned against his caneand stood upright.
I rushed to the closet and got his coat and hat for him. He placed it on his head andjust stared at me for a brief moment. I walked him to the door and watched him get intoan old Buick. He drove off. I missed him before his car got halfway down the street; hebrought a certain feeling of peace to an otherwise cold and empty house. I took a longbreath and realized that he had brought something that I missed so very much, love.
I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about Ali. I had new information on him, and like acop with a suspect on the prowl, I just wanted to hunt him down and bring him in. Iflipped the covers off of me, counted the bills again and decided that I needed to go andlook for him. I needed to understand why he did what he did. I needed to understand whyhe chose to stay away. Most importantly, I needed him because he was my brother whomI loved. There were butterflies in my stomach and my heart began to flutter; yes itseemed that emotions that had been cloaked in darkness for so long were now beginningto reveal themselves. I soon recognized the feeling inside of me was hope. I was hopingthat I could bring Ali home, so we could all be a family again.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Nineteen
I had to admit that I was more rebellious in theory than I was in practice. I hadenvisioned myself as a tough guy, as a bonafide female gangster, but the truth of thematter was, I was scared as shit. I shivered in the cold while I waited for the bus to arrive.I kept looking over at a gaggle of boys who were incredibly loud and annoying. I crossedmy fingers and stuffed them deep into my pockets, hoping that they weren’t going to doanything to me. All four of them hunched down in a huddle, whispering. I saw themshake their heads, and I watched one boy’s mouth move. I wished that I could read lips. Icould tell that the conversation was getting heated. One boy pulled away and started towalk over to me.
“Hey, aren’t you Ali’s sister?” he questioned. I eyed him skeptically before I shookmy head.
“See man, I told you,” he yelled over his shoulder.
“What? You looking for him or something?” another boy asked, making his wayover to me.
I didn’t want to speak, out of fear that they would see that I was completely terrified.So I just shook my head.
“We’re going that way. You can roll with us,” one of the boys said with a half-smile.I looked at all the boys and realized that they were about the same age as Ali. We allstood outside on the platform waiting for the number twenty-seven bus. The bus driverpulled up. He eyed me and looked over to scorn the batch of boys that were standingbehind me.
“You boys better not be looking for no trouble.” He warned with an old man’ssmoky voice.
The boys began to laugh. One boy, who I learned was called Diablo, walked to theentrance of the bus, swaggering like a seventies pimp. He reached into the crevice of hisjacket and began to fumble around like he was unhooking a gun from a holster. Hequickly pulled his arm out and everyone, including the bus driver jumped as he pointedhis finger and then flexed his hand in the shape of a pistol.
“Bam, Bam, you’re dead motherfucka,” he screamed with zeal.
Everyone thought that it was funny, except for the bus driver and me. I knew how itfelt to be scared for your life. He moved with top speed as he pulled his lever, slammingthe bus doors shut. I watched him shove his foot down on the gas pedal. The engineroared and the bus sped off, the tires squealed while leaving dark tracks on the asphaltpavement.
“That was funny as shit man.” One of the boys said this while he walked over to givehis friend a pound.
“Yeah, did you see the look on that bastard’s face?” said the second one.
“That shit was crazy, nobody saw that coming,” the third one said, egging him on.
The boys continued to laugh while rehashing the event. Fifteen minutes later, anotherbus pulled up. This time, the driver was a tiny Spanish woman. I watched her pull out herblack rosary beads from around her neck and rest her thin lips on the small cross. Thefour boys climbed on. Diablo was right behind me. He kneeled and seemed to bewhispering something to her in Spanish. I had no idea what he said to her, but her facelightened up. Diablo climbed on the bus and sat next to me.
“What did you say?” I asked. He looked over at the other three boys who wereleaning over the chairs and cursing loudly at each other. He then answered me in a loudwhisper.
“I told her that you are going to be okay,” he said smiling.
At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about. But then I realized that peopledidn’t think too highly of a girl with a swollen jaw and busted lip, hanging out with abunch of rowdy boys. I suppose that the bus driver did not want the displeasure of havingto identify me in a morgue, or cocooned in a body bag or worse yet, on the back of a milkcarton. The bus stopped and I followed the boys out the back door. I looked around andrealized that we weren’t far from the building were Ali and I lived as squatters. Wewalked down the sidewalk and stopped in front of a gang of men who were shootingcraps.
