Criss Cross

Chapter 97

I was well into the whiskey bottle but not yet into the darkness when I began to feel claustrophobic, and then I was simply unable to stay inside. Weaving slightly, I went to Nana Mama’s pantry and found a go-cup.

I poured the cup full, put on the lid, slurped a little, and then a lot. I set the cup down, my mouth open to soothe the caramel burn in my throat, my hand on my belly to calm the nausea and cool the fire.

I left the kitchen but had to grab at the wall with my free hand before going out onto the porch. April coming on, and the night air was warm, thick, and breezy; somewhere upwind, azaleas were blooming.

A good night for walking drunk, I decided.

I did not want lights. I wanted shadows. So I headed not toward Capitol Hill but deeper into Southeast DC, toward the Navy Yard and eventually Anacostia.

In general, Southeast wasn’t as dangerous as it was back when crack cocaine was king and violence erupted at all hours on every corner. But parts of Southeast remained mean streets by anyone’s definition.

I should have been swiveling my head, on the lookout for potential threats. Instead, I drank the whiskey and wandered aimlessly.

Shortly before eleven that night, I went into a liquor store and bought a pint to refresh my go-cup. That’s when things started to go hazy for me.

I walked through one dark, nameless alley, stumbled into another, and then went down a third. At one point in one of those alleys, I tripped and fell. I almost stayed down, but then I heard voices, people arguing.

I got up, drank more, and moved toward the voices, but they soon stopped. I finally came to a halt by a dumpster, and I held on to it, barely able to stand. I hallucinated Ali ahead of me in the shadows, and M menacing behind him, faceless, soulless.

“C’mon,” I slurred. “C’mon, M. I’m not armed, and I’m the one you really want. I’m right here. You don’t have to hurt Ali. He’s just a little boy, like you once were. Take me instead. Get it over with. Right here. Right now. Take me instead.”

But nothing moved in the shadows. And no one spoke.

Enraged, I lumbered toward the spot and swung wild haymakers at the night.

“C’mon,” I shouted. “Be a man.”

But there was nothing, and I felt more lost and hopeless than I had when I’d gotten home earlier in the evening. I wasn’t helping Ali. Unable to cope with the threat of losing my youngest child, I was numbing myself. I was a fraction of what I’d once been.

“That’s it,” I said. “I’m done.”

I pressed my back against a chain-link fence, slid down, and sat in trash, uncaring.

“You win, M,” I mumbled as my mind fell into a dark void. “I am a broken man.”