Read Online Apple Brown Betty by Phillip Thomas Duck - Free Book Online

and Daddy both would be proud of me.

CHAPTER 4
    S lay curbed his BMW outside his mother’s apartment tower. He stayed with her from time to time, but not often. He couldn’t stomach George, but now that he was dead, Slay would probably spend more time at his mother’s. Most nights, Slay worked into the morning and then dropped his head wherever, usually some fine young thing’s Section 8 apartment.
    Slay nodded to the young boys playing kickball with a deflated soccer ball on the sidewalk in front of the apartment tower. The boys scurried over to him like rats to cheese. Slay peeled off a couple bills, gave each of them one. They knew the routine. Anyone even think about going near Slay’s car, the boys were to chase them off with rocks or the ragged pieces of red brick that fell from the front of the building and collected on the lawn where flowers should have been planted. The boys, all in the eleven- to thirteen-year-old range, thanked him and watched with adoration as Slay moved into the building.
    Slay stood by the elevator waiting for that slow bucket to come carry him up his mother’s apartment on the thirteenth floor. He looked down the hall at the apartments on the ground level, looked over by the stairwell and considered climbing the stairs for a fleeting second. The ding of the elevator saved him from having to move up those steps.
    The elevator door opened and he was about to step on when the door of the nearest apartment swung open. Kenya, who had Pam Grier’s nose and bosom, but was darker than the night in skin tone, peeked her head out. Slay held his hand in the elevator opening.
    â€œI could feel you out here, Slay. I had to stick my head out,” Kenya said. “Sorry about Mr. George.”
    Slay smiled at her. “What’s going on, baby?”
    â€œNuttin’ much. You know Boom got locked up again?” Boom was her on-again, off-again boyfriend. When Boom was off, Slay usually was on.
    â€œNah, word?”
    â€œYup.” She stepped out a little farther; a man’s dress shirt with the buttons opened from her navel up hung off her slender frame. She bent down and picked up a half-full bottle of beer someone had left in the hall by her apartment.
    â€œWhen he coming home?” Slay asked, peeking at Kenya’s breasts.
    Kenya held the bottle to her leg, swirled the butter-brown liquid inside the bottle around. “Not sure this time. His moms said she ain’t bailing his black ass out no more.”
    â€œYou and the kids cool?” Slay asked. “Y’all got food and everything you need?”
    Kenya’s eyes dropped as she thought about her two little boys. “We tryin’.”
    Slay moved his hand from the elevator, let the doors close on him, walked to Kenya. He’d pulled out a wad of bills by the time he reached her, placed them in her free hand. Kenya leaned into him. He hugged her with just his one arm.
    â€œI’d be willin’ to do work for you,” she said, her voice dropping. “You think I fit the bill, I bet I could make you some money.”
    Slay had grown up with Kenya; had seen her through much. She’d seen him through even more. She was the one constant in his life. No way was he getting her involved in that life. He shook his head. “Take care those kids, you need anything, hit me off. I got the same celly number. Aiight?”
    She nodded, grateful. “’Preciate it, Slay.”
    He smiled. “Right, right.”
    â€œYou goin’ up to see Miss Nancy?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œHow she doin’?”
    Slay managed a smile. “Mama? She doing good.”
    Kenya nodded. She knew it wasn’t so from what she’d heard from others in the building. She looked down at her feet again. “You can come down, hang out after you done upstairs…”
    Slay touched her shoulder. “Got some things to attend to. You just take care of yourself and them