Saint's Sacrament - Sins of the Father (8 page)

“
He ganders a lot of attention, too. Despite his race, the man is hood.” He cackled. “He sounds intelligent, I’ll give him that, but I can
see
it in him.”

“Oh, you’ve met him?” Xenia asked sarcastically.

“I had to study who my competition was. I hurt, but I had to see who pulled this shit off. The man is straight out of the gutter, Xenia! He’s from New York, right? He reminds me of an Asian, one-man Wu Tang Clan, dressed in a suit! But, he is
hood
...” he repeated, as if that would have some ill effect on her. “Straight out the damn projects!”

“I’m from the projects originally, too, Sinclair. Watch your
damn mouth. It isn’t where you’ve been, it’s where you are going.”

“I know, but...this is different.
I even think he might be dangerous. I’m worried for you.”

Xenia burst out laughing
. “I’ve been married for a while now, Sinclair. I have three beautiful children with this man. He has never hurt me, never laid a hand on me! He has never verbally abused me or treated me like a second class citizen. The only danger here is your lies and paranoia. I can see in all of this time, you haven’t changed one bit. Just playing games as usual. How pathetic!”

“Listen to me, Xenia, please. I’m only saying this because I care.
He is an enigma. I’ve never heard of an Asian hood guy… oh, that’s right, he is half Egyptian, too.” He laughed, as if Saint’s ethnicity was somehow funny. “No one can turn that on and off, like that. I see we sort of favor, too. You always had a type.”

Xenia burst out laughing.
“Sinclair, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“No, I mean, I know we don’t look ali
ke. I’m talking about the eyes.” He pointed to his own. “We both have light eyes. You were always a sucker for that.”

“So now we are talking about eye color? Look, I have things to do
and I am serious, we are finished discussing this.” She turned to walk away once again.

“
He has a past, doesn’t he? A checkered one,” he went on. “Saint Aknaten is not trustworthy, Xenia. I just don’t want to see you get bit.”

Xenia paused and pivoted. She stared at the man,
her eyes narrowed in disgust.

“You
are a devious, shifty, filthy scumbag. So stay the hell out of my
way,” she snapped, only causing him to laugh in her face.

“Well, yeah,
But, like I said, all is forgiven. Let’s just get ready for the show. This doesn’t have to be hard.” He made one final ditch to turn the conversation back in his favor.

“You’re right, it doesn’t
,” she said calmly as she continued to walk away. “Because I won’t be working with the likes of you. I signed an agreement and didn’t know about you. That’s unfair and I won’t have it. I quit, motherfucker!” She hastened her steps, leaving him there, but not daring to look back at him as she made her grand exit…

~***~

“And that is exactly why Donna told you that!” Jagger taunted Lawrence as he waved a thick finger at his long time buddy. Saint sat across from them in the rounded high posh booth wrapped in faux black leather. Empty, finger-print smudged glasses with the remnants of dark, intoxicating drinks piled up along with messy plates with streaks of steak sauce and stumps of asparagus tips, empty wooden salad bowls and bread baskets. A waitress approached and within seconds, the table in the bustling contemporary Friday night eatery, ‘Food Jones’, was cleared.

Saint leaned back, still savoring the pink salmon steak he’d devoured. He extended his arm across the seat railing, taking
the scene in. For a rare treat, he was able to relax on a weekend with some of his favorite people. Raphael had to make a trip to Vegas on business, and there was no way Saint could be that close and not stop by to see his best friend in the entire world. The two chums sat close together, laughing and vibing. Saint enjoyed how Raphael interacted with Jagger and Lawrence—one would think the three had known each other their entire lives. Raphael was the only non-Angel Child sitting amongst them, but he didn’t appear to feel the least bit awkward or out of place. Saint had briefed him on the situation, letting him know that Jagger was a lot of man with a heart of gold and that Lawrence was their peace-pipe—he kept them in check and grounded. Saint glanced at Raphael as the man burst into fits of laughter at Lawrence telling a familiar story of his close call with an angry ram with a horn to grind. A story the Angel Child trio had heard several times over, but it still rang funny each and every time it was shared. Saint appreciated his friend now more than the man realized. Raphael was Saint’s link to the
old
him, the ‘him’ that had existed before he knew of his gifts, accepted them and searched for them. He also was his future—reminding him that with a good support system, anything was manageable.

Jagger glanced at Raphael, offering a smile. “Raphael, can I talk to you about something in private later?
Something I think you can help me with?”

Saint’s curiosity jumped. He shot a look between the two, not liking the sound of this.

“Of course, man.” Raphael smiled back. Saint knew it was none of his business, but he wanted to know what Jagger was cooking up. Before he could launch into a line of questioning, Raphael broke the silence.

“Did Saint tell y’all the time we were running from NYC’s finest in the subway?” Raphael’s eyes
narrowed to slits and a naughty grin creased his brown face. He ran his hand over his baldhead, cocked his head to the side proudly, the diamond earring in his right ear glowing in the dimness of the establishment, and exposed the gleaming teeth he was so very proud of.

“No, he didn’t.” Lawrence shot
Saint an artificial look of disapproval, crossed his arms over his light blue perfectly ironed shirt and looked back at Raphael. “Do tell...”

“Why’d you want to tell them this shit, Raphael?” Saint asked, laughing lightly as he waved to a waitress that wasn’t their own to come to the table.

“Because your new friends here need to know what type of man you were.” He grinned, taunting his best friend, knowingly making him squirm.

“They already know...” Saint slumped back into the
seat as the waitress smiled at him and put her finger up for him to wait one moment.

Raphael ignored him and started
in again. “We had been hopping trains for weeks. We weren’t going to pay any fares anymore, we decided. We saw our homeboys gettin’ away with it, so,” he shrugged his shoulders, “we thought we’d do it too. We were two poor inner-city kids and the little bit of money we had was spent on—”

“Kicks, weed, blunts,
chicken hoagies, movie tickets, rubbers, tapes and CDs, bootleg porn tapes, custom jewelry, oversized t-shirts and wife beaters, jackets with fur and other miscellaneous bullshit,” Saint interjected, running his fingers along the table. He laughed at the resurfaced memory of his common teenage grocery list comprising what he deemed adolescent boy essentials and commodities.

“That’s right!” Raphael
said. “So, they’d started crackin’ down, you know, on people doing that. We always knew where they were, so we’d avoid that time of day if we could and we knew how to slip over real fast, so that it
almost
looked natural. We were two skinny mothafuckas, so it was nothin’.”

Saint nodded in agreement, catching the gleam in Jagger’s eyes. He knew the man relished stories like this about Saint. Though they were friends, there was still an air of competition between them and
the discovery of any weakness or frailty in Saint, Jagger enjoyed just a bit too much, though he wouldn’t dare admit it. Regardless, they trusted each other as brothers would, so the man’s quirks rolled off Saint like water off a greased duck.

“This one time, the police had changed up everything. We came through, as we always did, and did our thing, you know,” Raphael grinned even wider, slicking his tongue over his bottom lip. “And just then, we heard, ‘Hey! Stop!’ Shit man!”
His husky, deep voice soaked in his B-Boy New York dialect cut through the surrounding semi-annoying banter from intoxicated patrons.

Saint burst out laughing and nodded as he ran
a hand over his face.

“Saint and I looked at each other
—Saint’s eyes were huge! Looked like two big gold platters!”

Lawrence and Jagger laughed then turned and looked at the waitress that approached the table.

“Hey.” Saint leaned in closer, coming out of his dark recessed corner of the booth, now enveloped in muted light. “Can we get another round of beer? Our waitress, I think her name was Katie, didn’t come back so...”

“Oh sure, no problem! She might be on her smoke break. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you and you tell
Katie
that you will be getting her tip.” Saint grinned as the waitress laughed and walked away. “I’m not kidding! She hasn’t been here in a long ass time. That cigarette must be a foot long,” he called out after her, annoyance brewing inside of him like a slow simmering potion.

“What’s wrong, man?” Jagger asked
, leaning back. The light drew striped rays across his dark buzzed hair, showcasing his almost white scalp. The man’s blue eyes glowed a bit too brightly—he was tuning in to Saint, trying to dig deep.

“Smoke break
my ass...we been sittin’ here for damn near thirty minutes, no mothafuckin’ drinks. Some other person came and cleared this junky ass table, and her ass keeps disappearing,” Saint complained. “Ahhh.” He sighed and briefly closed his eyes, ran a hand over his face once again, as if fighting sleep. “I’m just tired and need to relax. It’s been a stressful week is all.”

Lawrence and Jagger nodded.

“Agreed,” Jagger said, running a finger up and down the protruding edge of a soiled napkin. “You’ve been on edge lately but anyway, I want to hear the rest of this story and then we’ll get to that.”

Saint smirked
, knowing what Jagger was doing. The man was trying to worm his way in, press him, find out what was
really
making him tick. He looked back at Raphael. He appeared to be taking it all in, processing the shit.

“You know, y’all are really cool but I have to admit, it is a little weird to be sitting at a damn table with Superman, Spiderman and Batman.”

The three looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“I’m serious...y’all are some serious bad asses. I knew Saint was different, I knew he had something special and I think it is really important that he has y’all, too
—someone he can identify with. But, before all of this saving the day shit, Saint was jumpin’ trains.”

“Yes! Tell the rest of the story Raphael since you seem so hell-bent on embarrassing me tonight
,” Saint taunted, laughing heartily and smiling appreciatively at the waitress who dropped off their new round of beers. He took a sip, the foam tickling his upper lip, and leaned back again into his shadowy dark corner of the booth.

“I will!” Raphael laughed
. “Okay, so the police called after us. Saint was like scared shitless because we had no idea they were there, so we took the hell off! I mean, we were bookin’ it. Those dudes, back then, you didn’t see a lot of fat cops like you do now. These mothafuckas were in shape, just like us.” He imbued his voice with drama like a master storyteller. “We hadn’t had to run from the police or anyone in months and in the subway, things are much harder. No open areas to dart out in, no stores to race around, walls to climb—none of that shit. You just had a left and right, and people all over the fuckin’ place. Trains goin’ by, and if you were lucky, you’d see some of your boys and they’d help, you know, cause a distraction like yelling and screaming or forming a human wall by clustering together, forcing the cops to slow down.

“
Nah.” Raphael shook his head as he grasped the memory with both fists and retold the tale. “It was just us, and the cops. In times like that, you might get shot, but you prayed you didn’t because there were so many people, you know? No need for the police to take a chance like that with a crowd that thick. So anyway, Saint was a little ahead of me and I felt my chest burning we were running so damned hard and fast. There was a cop ahead of us, coming from a different direction and man! We shot each other a quick look, turned toward an approaching train and we didn’t have to say a damn word, it was understood. We weren’t going to juvey, hell no...”

“This
was where lives could’ve been lost; all over a damned dollar didn’t we pay.” Saint shook his head in disbelief. “We did some stupid shit, Raphael,” he said, grinning.

“Yes
, indeed! So the train is approachin’, right? It’s not our damn train, not the one back to the Brooklyn, but—”

“Brooklyn? Were you two going home?” Jagger asked.

“Yeah.”  Raphael nodded, seemingly confused by the line of questioning.

“I thought you two grew up in the Bronx?”

“We did,” Saint interjected. “This was
after
that; we were like sixteen at this point—had moved years before.”

“Ahhh, okay, I see.
I remember now.”