"He's a man in his glory a boy in his dreams
And he's living his life in between
Tomorrow will answer yesterdays Dreams
While today he is living in between
Beware oh brother beware don't you listen to the words
The tender lies
Beware oh brother beware don't you listen to the words
He rejoices in wedlock with a lover unseen
And he's living his life in between
He thinks of the sorrow his conscience will bring
And he's living his life in between…"
Loggins and Messina – "Pathway to Glory"
Her face was radiant. Even amid sorrow, pain, and fear, Erik's mother smiled when he stepped into the small visitor's room with his grandfather and Uncle Bakari.
"Hey baby boy, come here," Califia said.
Erik's face scrunched up and the tears he tried to will away flowed against his weak struggle to hold them in for her. He wanted to appear brave. Strong. A big boy. He failed, and he ran into her arms and wailed.
"Oh, JaJa… baby, I know, I know."
She rocked him, even as he climbed onto her lap like he was a toddler again, and she babied him with the months of tender affection that he had missed while she was in prison. With no father at home and living with a struggling extended family, Erik's world was a tattered disaster.
"I want you to come home!" he shouted.
He shocked himself with the loss of control that came over him. The heaving shakes in his body and the surge of panic that overcame him made him collapse into her arms. Califia kissed him, stroked his hair, and held him close to her chest. He wiped his eyes when he could look at her. Her hair had been cut short, and it made her face look more powerful. Stress ate away at her weight. She was thinner, but still looked visibly healthy.
"Tell me about home. How are Auntie Rolita and Nevaeh? Is Walter doing well in school?" she asked.
He didn't want to talk about home as some faraway place. Home was with her, wherever she was.
"When can you come home?"
His lips trembled, and she kissed his forehead.
"As soon as this trial is over and they acquit me, I can come home."
Her lips said the words, but in his gut, he knew the truth. She was scared. Full of doubt. Erik grew accustomed to seeing his mother on television and tried to keep up with the news, but Grandpop and Uncle Bakari monitored what he saw or read. Whenever he left his family townhome, they made him cover up his face with a large hoodie or a neck gaiter. He was homeschooled to keep him away from other children who might tease or question him about his mother or father. Life had come to a rotten standstill.
He was grateful that Grandpop had got it into his head to move them both down to Sao Paulo for the rest of the trial. Erik could visit his Mom regularly because of her status and the support of the people there. Everyone knew he and Marisol were the children of the Sao Paulo 4. He felt better being with his play cousin because Marisol understand exactly what he was going through. She had to survive with the same fears of having both of her mothers locked up with Califia. Uncle Bakari threatened to sue the authorities there until he and Marisol could have some visits together.
Erik shared all his fears with his Mom. He spoke of his father and they cried together over their loss. He remembered when his grandfather had to inform Califia of N'Jobu's death right before they shipped her out of the country. Erik never wanted to hear a woman cry like that ever again in his life. It was a death rattle, an ache that would never go away for the both of them. But like the soldier she was, his mother shifted her pain to the side to focus all of her concern on him. He was the seed that she needed to see grow up fast now that his father was gone. For a time, they both hoped that the rebels would come through and pluck them away. There was the anticipation of feeling that low hum and the tickle coming from his vibrum tattoo. But they didn't come for them. There was no battle cruiser rescue at the top of the jail like they had been rescued in Brazil. Where was Captain Yoneli? All the soldiers that pledged their lives for him and his mother? Why didn't they follow through on his father's plans? Someone should've stepped up and filled the void that his father left.
Erik felt betrayed by the Wakandan people. What kind of family killed their own like that? Even within his mother's kin, they fought, but they always came together to help those cut low. It burned him deep inside that his father was murdered, and the rebels sat on their hands. Like the street thugs he started hanging around to keep his mind off of his troubles, when the captain was cut down, the lieutenants were supposed to step up and carry on.
"I love you," she said.
Sitting on Califa's lap, Erik soaked up all the affection she gave him.
"I love you too."
He snuggled under her chin as she spoke to his grandfather and Bakari. It didn't matter what they spoke of, Erik just tuned into the sound of her voice.
He also tuned in to all the surrounding guards. They were mean. The men and the women. They hated the Sao Paulo 4 and what they represented. One male guard, in particular, roughly handled his mother when it was time for her to leave. After Erik's fifth visit, that guard, Samo, was burned into his brain. He became the second person on Erik's hit list. The Black cop who ratted out his mother and got her scooped up back in Oakland… he was the first on that list too. The woman prosecutor that lied in court about his mother and aunts… she was listed. In his eleven-year-old heart, he planned on executing those people when he grew up. Just like the Black Panther would die by his hand. He slid his own cousin T'Challa on that list, too. One day, he would grow up to be a big man like his father and take out every single person who did his family wrong.
Erik fell asleep listening to his mother's heartbeat until it was time to go. It was then that she finally broke down, clinging to him and bawling her eyes out until they were raw, red, and swollen. When she finally released him and hugged her father, he caught her whispering to the old man, "Please, don't bring him here to see me like this again. I know why you did what you did when you were locked up, Daddy. Erik shouldn't be in here."
He ran to her and hugged her waist tight. Uncle Bakari had to pull him off of her as the mean guard dragged her away. The echo of her cries haunted him days after. After a few more comforting visits, Erik wasn't allowed to go to the prison for a short time. Neither was Marisol.
When he went to see her again for what became his last time, she was hospitalized. Her hair had thinned, and she looked so weak and frail. No one had to tell Erik that her spirit was broken. There were talks of a mistrial or an acquittal, but the damage had already been done. His mother was beaten by the guard. That's what they knew for sure, but the prison officials denied it. They claimed other prisoners had jumped her, but the family knew it was a lie. The women inside that brutal cage supported the Sao Paulo 4.
The beating must've weakened her immune system. She caught a virus. His last time hugging her, he pressed his ear against her breast and felt the weak beats of her heart.
"You'll be home soon," he whispered in her ear.
She nodded, her voice too weak.
Later that day, she slipped into a coma.
For two weeks it was touch and go.
"Let's go beat Klebar and Lucas!" Marisol shouted.
Erik ran after her long, flying hair as they raced out onto the street with the new soccer ball Andres had bought them. He should've known something was up. The air smelled different. The sun didn't look as bright high in the sky. He had dreamed of his father the night before, and for once, Erik didn't wake up crying about it. Baba simply held his hand and sang "Lullaby Little One" to him as he used to when he was anxious about anything. His father sang, and Erik could smell his father's scent, savored the closeness of feeling his body heat next to him once more.
"JaJa, you will grow up to be a great man. You will be loved, cherished, and have a big family of your own one day. We love you. We love you, son…"
N'Jobu had turned his head, and Erik glimpsed someone walking toward them, but then his father smiled. The beaming of love radiated out like a source of immense power.
"Baba?"
"Go my son. She is fine now. We are always here for you…"
The dream faded. Erik ate breakfast with Marisol the next morning, and when he ran outside, the shift had occurred. It moved through his body even as he kicked the ball and ran up and down the narrow street.
"Erik. Come here…"
He knew Califia was gone once he saw his Brazilian clan walk out into the street looking for him and Marisol. He knew then, too, that his father had tried to prepare him for his mother's transition from the night before. Mom had gone to Baba on another plane of existence, and now Erik had to fend for himself.
He couldn't even cry. The words, "Your mother passed last night," floated over his head and he remembered looking at Grandpop and then Uncle Bakari as if they weren't real. Nothing was real. He turned away from them and kicked the soccer ball so hard that it flew over into the next block. Erik ran after it and then he ran past it. He kept running and running until his chest burned. He ran and stared up at the sky with red rage.
"Where are you?!" he screamed at the white clouds.
"You fuckers left us!"
Erik worked his legs until he collapsed in the middle of the street. A stranger had to pull him onto the sidewalk to prevent him from being run over by a jitney van.
No more tears came.
He was done with crying. Only rage lived behind his eyes. His fists clenched and unclenched until his people found him and brought him to Soliel's house. They must've seen the fire in his belly and his stare because, later that night, they took him and Marisol to a private Candomble gathering. Marisol's grandmother tried to call on the old gods to set him straight. He remembered nothing of the secret gathering. The days after his mother's death was an empty blur. There was a memorial held for her in the city, and then her body and Erik were shipped back to Oakland. They buried Califia next to his father in a sad little cemetery. Life soon after was him becoming a wild child. Juvie. Group Home. Life with Uncle Bakari.
Erik couldn't honestly tell anyone what life was like between the age of eleven up until he was fourteen. He blocked much of it out. Life with Uncle Bakari brought in a little light again. It probably helped that he discovered girls again. Puberty roared through him and all he could think about was feeling on titties and getting his young dick sucked by whoever was willing.
Soft fingers floated down and ran through his hair.
Erik looked up into sensual, dark brown eyes.
Disa.
In between telling the tale of his mother and his memories of that awful time, Disa cradled his head on her lap. His body stretched out on the couch and her soft breasts cushioned his cheek. He wiped the pools of water from his cheeks until she reached over for some tissue on the end table and dabbed his eyes for him.
"It's okay, Erik. I'm here. It's good to cry," she soothed.
"Sometimes things come back so vividly, and I hate it. I don't want to live it again. But when it gets bad, sometimes they come back to me in my dreams. My parents… I carry them around with me. I think if my mother had lived, things could've been different. I'd have someone in my life who really knew my father the way I did."
"No one from his family came to see about him?"
Erik closed his eyes. He gave Disa the sanitized version of his father's murder. Some hood shit gone bad.
"They don't care. They didn't want him here."
"That's messed up. Their child gets killed in another country, and they don't even check on you or your mother?"
"One of these days, I'm gonna go over there and tear their shit up."
"What will that do, Erik?"
"Make me feel better."
"Your parents would be proud of the wonderful young man you've become."
"That doesn't feel like enough."
The last tear ran down his face, and she wiped it away, then kissed his forehead.
"You are enough. More than enough. The best revenge is living well."
She balled up the tissue and sat it on the end table.
"I'll order us some pizza. You must be starving—"
Erik grabbed her arm to stop her from moving.
"I'm not hungry. Can we just stay like this? Just a little longer."
"I see you like me babying you."
"I do. I mean… I enjoy being close to you like this. It makes me feel calm. Reminds me of my Mom. How she used to let me lay on her and just relax."
Disa's eyes became shiny.
"Life really wasn't no crystal stair for you, Erik…"
"Don't you cry, Disa."
He reached up and tried to keep the tears falling from her eyes. She held onto his hand for a moment, then rested it against her chest. He lifted his head closer to her face, and she leaned back.
"Can I please kiss you, Disa?"
"Erik, that's not cool. You have a girlfriend."
"Not like that. Just a thank you."
"Words work fine."
He looked down at her hand, then looked back up at her. The yearning for closeness made him appear desperate. That was not how he wanted his ask to appear. A tremor in his body made her wrap arms around him. He sat up from her all the way, wanting to give her space. He didn't want to be a creep. The gratitude was in her listening to his long sad tale about Califia.
"Thank you, Disa."
She ordered pizza, and he showed her the first journal from his father so she could laugh with him as he shared Baba's words about his mother. It changed the sad mood to one of humorous admiration. Erik mimicked his father's voice as he read snippets of his conversations with his Mom, and the way he over-exaggerated his Baba's Wakandan accent had her cracking up.
They ate hot slices and drank sodas on her couch. He read to her and discussed happier times in his parent's life. They talked late into the night and as he walked to his bed with a full belly, he realized Disa was his one genuine friend in Cambridge. Friends were something he lacked around him.
As he pulled covers up to his chin and tucked in good and tight for the rest of the night, Erik started drifting off to sleep thinking of Disa and how she turned his sadness into happiness by just listening to his pain.
She was his friend.
That's what he needed her to be.
His cell vibrated on the nightstand. Chloe.
"Hey," he said, sounding cheery.
"Will I see you this week?"
"Yeah."
"Really?"
"I'm sorry I've been a drag. Been in a major funk and I think I see the light now."
"That's good to hear."
"Disa's back, but she's leaving on a red-eye tomorrow night. Do you want to spend the night when she leaves? We can get some Thai takeout and stream some flicks."
"I'd like that."
"I'm in bed, about to knock out. I'll call you tomorrow."
He bid her goodnight. There was some growing anticipation of seeing her. He texted her back and suggested that they go clubbing instead. He wanted to dance and cut up a bit. Drink a lot. Enjoy being twenty-one and young enough to appreciate it from where he came from. Chloe sent him heart emojis, and he curled up on his bed. Peace prevailed in his heart. He had one good friend and one good girlfriend. That was enough for the moment.
Until it wasn't.
