“Uncle Zach!” the eldest of the boys cried out through the glass, managing the locks and then flinging open the heavy door.
Two smaller versions of Junior dashed out and barreled right into Zach’s midsection, and he rewarded them with a grunt as though they’d knocked the wind out of him.
“Whatcha got?” Junior said expectantly, trying to glimpse in the bags as Zach elbowed his younger brothers off him, making them giggle as they play fought.
“Groceries for your mom,” Zach said laughing. “That’s all. And my suit bag— hey, watch the threads!”
“Aw . . . maaaan.”
“Here,” Zach said, thrusting a plastic grocery bag at Junior and then roughhousing him a little. “You carry the bag; I’ll carry you— c’mon up, but don’t damage the suit.”
He gave the two smaller boys a bag each as he stooped down to allow Junior to scramble up his back and then laughed as their faces grew long.
“Oh, you think I can’t handle you two small fries with the bags, huh? Here, one of y’all hold my bag carefully and I’ll show you what time it is.”
His smile widened as their faces lit up.
“I told you Uncle Zach was stronger than The Rock!” Terrence exclaimed.
“I bet he’s stronger than—”
“All of ‘em,” Zach said laughing as he scooped up LaVon, making him giggle. “And don’t drop your mom’s groceries or my suit, small fry— drop the bag, and I drop you, got it?” he said, releasing the five-year-old for a second and then catching him before his feet touched the marble flooring. Zach jerked LaVon up close in a bicep curl and then snatched Terrence who’d tried to run, but had allowed himself to get caught. “That goes for you, too, pipsqueak.”
“Who you calling a pipsqueak?” Terrence said, laughing hard, struggling to no avail. “I’m a monster— a wrestling maniac.”
“Uh, huh,” Zach said, “we’ll see,” and then let out a big roar as he dashed down the hall and bounded up the first flight of steps.
“Lord have mercy!” Anne Marie shouted from the stairwell. “Zachary Mitchell, put those boys down— y’all get away from your uncle beating up on him like that! They’ll give you a hernia, man— they aren’t babies anymore.”
“Arrrrgggghhhh!” Zachary growled, laughing and stomping up the stairs like a trapped monster, allowing the boys to think they were finally getting the better of him. “Anne Marie, they almost got me this time, I think I’m going down!”
He staggered, making the boys think he was falling backward down the steps and then all of a sudden started running, taking the steps two at a time.
“You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days, Mitchell,” she said, covering her heart with her palm, and then swatting her boys as they fell off their uncle onto the hall floor. “Go in the house and keep the noise down, your father is asleep!”
“I thought I told you guys if you dropped your mother’s groceries, I was gonna drop you? Hang up my suit bag, would ya?”
Kids ran and little boy voices hit a decibel that could have awakened the dead. Zach leaped over the fallen groceries and tackled three children who whooped in utter delight.
“Sorry, Anne!” he yelled over his shoulder as the boys piled on top of him, showing off every move they’d seen on television. His suit was in a luggage heap on the floor.
She just chuckled and shook her head, collecting up the grocery bags and picking up his suit bag as she re-entered the apartment.
“You didn’t have to do this.” Anne stood in the doorway and then looked down into one grocery bag that had produce on the top of it, disguising Wrestlemania figures from Toys “R” Us. “You spoil them rotten.”
Instantly the children sprung up off the pile they’d been in on the floor to run to their mother.
“Oooohhh, ooohhh, lemme see!” LaVon shouted, making it to his mom first.
“I told you Uncle Zach always brings cool stuff!” Terrence said, elbowing his younger brother.
“Wish you could be here all the time, Uncle Zach,” Junior said, running to see what was in the bag.
“Hold it, guys!” Zach said, getting up off the floor with a grunt. “Two conditions of getting those,” he said, eyeing the boys. “One— you listen to your mother and keep it down . . . your dad doesn’t feel good, all right?” He waited until they nodded, watching Anne swish the bag behind her back with relish and then hold her head up high. “Two— you help around the house and pick up all your stuff until your dad is feeling better, so everything isn’t all on your poor mom. Deal?”
“Deal!” Junior shouted and then covered his mouth with his hand.
The two smaller kids giggled and covered their mouths, mimicking their older brother, simply nodding. But everyone laughed when the littlest in the group whispered “deal” and then made the sign of a zipper going across his lips.
“In this house hold, bribery will get you everywhere,” Anne said, giving the boys the bag, but yanking out her lettuce first to save it.
Zach swept up the rest of the groceries and followed her into the kitchen, setting the bags down on the table.
“But, seriously, you really didn’t have to do all of this.” She kept her back to him, slowly putting away the food, and he watched her open half-empty cabinets, knowing that he did.
“It was nothing,” Zach said, leaning against the wall.
“Yeah, it was,” she said quietly. “God bless you.”
Doris Mitchell would have said that, if someone had cared enough about her to do something as simple for his mother and her brood. There was no comment he could make and nowhere comfortable for him to rest his eyes. He soon found his gaze drifting to where the boys played in the clean but modest apartment. For a moment déjà vu rendered him mute. The holidays always conjured up the past, being on leave was a hardship that he admitted to no one, and coming to what he now considered his brother and sister-in-law’s home was the only thing that jettisoned the eerie loneliness of it all.
He had a decision to make, whether or not to re-up and stay in for several more years . . . if he had something like this of his own, the decision would have been clearer. Sad truth was, he didn’t. Reenlistment papers were calling his name. It was easier than trying to figure out what to do with his life beyond the military family.
His mother had once had a small, clean home like this one in Detroit and had kept it up even after their father died, until the mortgage fell too far behind. Yet even having to move them to New York to be near her sister and into the projects, she had rules, church, and clean floors . . . just like Anne Marie did.
Zachary started taking canned goods and pasta out of the bags and lining the items up on the table, lost in his own thoughts. Who looked after widows and women in need, women with children, women with men who’ve fallen on hard times, or have fallen into disrepute? he wondered. He would never allow that to happen to his best friend’s family, not as long as there was breath in his body. But there was no doubt in his mind that Lowell Johnson was a lucky man indeed, wealthy beyond mea sure. Zach watched his best friend’s pretty wife with her thick-bodied curves and good soul unpacking groceries in an immaculate kitchen. This was a home and his buddy was generous enough to share it with him whenever he needed a taste of one.
Watching the mêlée of happy children, the television blaring, a good woman putting up food so reminded him of what had been long ago . . . long before drugs and the streets took his elder brothers, and that loss broke his mother’s heart till it gave out. If he’d had this, he would have maybe come home like Lowell— retired when his commission ended. He smiled as Anne Marie smoothed the front of her hair back toward the synthetic ponytail she wore and walked into the living room with her hands on her hips. The volume of boys roughhousing instantly lowered.
“Don’t make me come in here again,” she said, not even having to raise her voice.
Chuckling, Zach winked at the boys behind their mother’s back. The boys were wild but well-mannered
in public— Anne Marie had the same laser beam “eye” that his mother used to have, and it tickled him as he watched her employ it on her brood.
“Toys and food,” she said in a weary tone, coming into the kitchen and stopping in front of the sink to stare at him in disbelief. A combination of appreciation and worry haunted her dark brown eyes and creased her normally smooth, walnut-hued brow. Anne Marie lowered her gaze and went to the fridge to put away apple juice and butter and then sighed at the gallon jug of milk.
“I don’t have a bunch of growing boys to feed, and it wasn’t much . . . the way they eat, this little bit will be gone in two days anyway.” He tried to make a joke but was confused when she turned and glanced at him, tears in her eyes, holding boxes of cereal in each hand.
“Lowell . . . he’ll be upset if he thinks you’re . . . he’s so proud, Zach. I don’t have to tell you that.”
For a moment, silence eclipsed the sounds of kids’ laughter coming from the other room. He understood what she was trying to say; his buddy was proud and stubborn, no less than he was himself.
“Then don’t tell him,” Zach finally said. “He’s in bed with the flu, and the kids are just interested in the action figures that came in the bags.”
Anne Marie held up a roast. “Zach . . . a ten-pound pot roast, chicken, a ham, burgers, hot dogs, a Butterball turkey, collard greens?” She set the roast down on the counter, turned away, and sucked in a huge inhale that sounded like it contained a repressed sob.
“Okay, maybe I overstepped my boundaries a little . . . but I’m a single guy, I don’t know how to family food shop, so I was following this old lady around the store putting in my cart the kinds of stuff she put in hers. Then I just ran through the aisles like I was on a game show, because I really didn’t have a lot of time.”
Anne Marie wiped her face and then allowed a laugh to escape. “Stop lying, Zach.”
“Well, I did.” He shrugged and leaned against the wall. “I’m a bachelor and normally do takeout.”
“It’s almost Memorial Day . . . she was probably shopping for her entire extended family or a family reunion, man.”
He was glad to see the strain slip away from Anne Marie’s expression to be replaced by her warm smile. “Oh, well, I hadn’t thought of that— I’m just glad the old lady didn’t think I was stalking her and try to cut me or something.”
That made Anne Marie laugh in earnest and it took a ten-pound weight off his shoulders.
“But what are you doing here?” she finally said, glimpsing him over her shoulder. “Not that you aren’t always welcome, but . . .”
“I was in the neighborhood.” He took a toothpick out of the holder on the table and popped it in his mouth.
“You live in Detroit.”
He pushed off the wall and went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. “Technically, I live all over the world, wherever they send me— Detroit is just an address I use to vote, pay bills, and file taxes.”
She watched him turn the beer up and guzzle it. “I just spoke to you yesterday and you were in Detroit.” She placed her hands on her hips and smiled when he smiled around the bottle.
Zach swallowed with a wince. “Yesterday I didn’t know that my boy was down hard with the flu and had been battling it for the last week until we talked. I followed my gut and got on a plane to put my eyes on him for myself . . . and to see if I could talk some sense into him about going to the hospital like you’d asked me. This morning he called me and asked me to do a simple driving job— so it’s all good.”
“Lowell actually called you and told you he was too sick to do a driving job . . .” she said carefully, her smile fading.
“Ain’t it a little late in the season for the flu, the regular kind, anyway?” Zach rubbed his palms down his face. “This isn’t like Lowell to call me with something like this— but I want you to know that I’ve got his six . . . and he needs to go to the hospital. That’s the primary reason I’m here, to make sure he does.”
Again quiet stood between them as a silent observer.
“He’s been going through . . . a lot of changes, right now, Zach. The business isn’t doing as well as he’d imagined it would, not a lot of people are hiring unless you already have an in . . . and he swears it isn’t that bad— he just needs some rest. I’ve tried to get him to go, but you know Lowell.”
“Yeah, I know Lowell. That’s why I came to see what was going on with him for myself. You guys are the only family I’ve got,” Zach said in a quiet tone. “The man saved my life, least a brother can do is put his eye on the man, make sure his family is straight while he’s going through a lil’ something . . . make sure his boys are okay, you know? But I will get him to the hospital if I have to carry his ornery behind there myself.”
“Thank you for that,” Anne Marie said softly and then looked down at the floor. “I don’t know if it’s physical or emotional or a combination of both? After he came back, I never could be sure.” She looked up at Zach and then toward the kitchen door as though making sure the children were out of earshot. “He just won a major contract . . . one that could set him and his business partners straight for a long time. He got the bodyguard job for Queen B when she goes on her USO Tour this weekend— so I know it has to be the flu. She called this morning, and when that didn’t get him out of bed I knew he was bad.”
“You mean he just got the overseas tour contract, too, for Anita Brown?” Zach said, shocked.
“The one and only Miss Scandalous herself.”
Zach opened his mouth and closed it, and then smoothed his palm across his close-cropped hair. What could he say? It was clear that Anne Marie had the same opinion as ninety percent of the general public, thinking of Anita Brown as an off-the-hook music vixen who was notoriously in the news. Her family was wild and word in the media was that the woman was as crazy as a bedbug. Everything that was ever written about her portrayed her as a waste of raw beauty— that seemed to coincide with her fleeting rap career. After meeting her it was impossible to think of her that way. He now wondered if it was all PR hype.
But he tried to keep a poker face after the initial outburst while Anne Marie went back to her task of stashing groceries.
“You know, Zach, the ‘B’ in Queen B’s name isn’t just for her surname Brown. I know this contract pays good money, but I swear I wish Lowell didn’t have to take it from her. By that hussy’s own admission and even in her lyrics, the so-called ‘B’ was substituted for a very unflattering term for a female dog. Lowell is supposed to guard her? Puh-lease. That chile is straight ghetto, and now she’s trying to crawl back to R&B on her hands and knees and hope folks forget about her wildness.” Anne Marie shook her head.
“Maybe she isn’t as bad as she seems,” Zach offered, not wanting to get in the middle of an obvious husband-and-wife dispute over a pretty woman. “Maybe it was all for publicity that went very badly.”
“Yeah, that would be the hopeful thought, I doubt it though,” Anne Marie said, sighing. “But I didn’t fight him on it because it could change all of our lives. Lowell worked so hard on getting the right in, greasing the right palms, meeting the right people . . . and this is their big chance for SWAT International. If this tour goes well, and they get high-profile paparazzi coverage with it, then maybe other entertainers will also ask for them by name. The only way he’d been able to convince Queen B’s people to let them have this one tour was because she was visiting U.S. military bases over where you guys have been . . . Iraq, Kuwait, Dubai, Oman, Yemen . . .”
Anne Marie blew out a long breath. “He’s sick and even sicker that he can’t personally oversee this ten-day mission— or what ever you call it. The whole deal could unravel for something stupid like the bug. I think that’s half of why he’s refusing to go to the hospital, afraid that they’ll confirm that he has to lie down and take meds.”
She put a fist to her mouth and turned away from Zach for a moment. “It would have been a thirty-thousand-dollar-a-day job for t
hem, with all expenses paid. Each of the ten hired security men were supposed to get five hundred dollars a day, plus meals, flights, lodging, all covered by Queen B’s label. Lowell was supposed to be the logistics man, the boots on the ground— whereas his other two partners handle the marketing of the firm and the administration of it . . . but Mike Epps and Vernon Knox aren’t ex-Delta Force like Lowell. They don’t know squat about anything like that and can’t do what has to be done.”
“It’s gonna be all right, Anne,” Zachary heard himself say without allowing the thought to consult his brain first. He downed his cold beer and set the bottle on the kitchen table.
What was there to think about, really? Each partner, after expenses, would have a little over eighty thousand dollars at his disposal. After taxes, who knows what would be left, but it had to be a far cry better than doing some mall security detail or trying to get a contract to do security for corporations that were falling by the wayside like dominoes.
Anne Marie turned and stared at Zach for a moment. “It has to be all right,” she said quietly. “We’re real late on the rent . . . Lowell sunk everything into this business venture and how could I argue with him after all he’s given and all he’s lost?”
Zach just nodded. There were no words. He knew better than anyone how much his buddy had given in the line of duty to his nation, so a little latitude to start up his own business was well in order.
“You’re a good woman, Anne . . . to have his back like that without any drama— even though I know it’s gotta be hard sometimes.”
“I love the ground he walks on,” she said quietly. “But I’m scared. He’s getting so desperate for work that he’s thinking of trying to get contracts with the large mercantile shipping companies— the ones that make sweeps from Saudi Arabia around the horn of Africa . . . or—”