MENTAL CHEMISTRY

This was it… Tennessee Red was in the hospital on his deathbed. He was sixty-nine years old. That is considered old in his circle of trust, which consisted of three people beside himself. Roskoe Jenkins and Tennessee’s twin boys Peter and Paul. Tennessee had been a mentor of Roskoe for many years and now he was about to make his exit from the physical world as we know it.

Tennessee had been a pimp for many years. He was smarter than the average hustler. Instead of blowing his bread on habits he was wise enough to invest in real estate. He had got some of his money cleaned and had invested in a bar and a building on a hundred and forty-fifth street in Harlem. The building was actually Roskoe’s. Tennessee put it in his name for laundering purposes.

Roskoe Jenkins was like a son to him. Tennessee had hipped Roskoe to many of the rules of the streets. How to utilize them and make them – and people – work in his favor. Now… the dice were about to fall on an ‘Ace’ on Tennessee’s behalf. He was about to push daisies somewhere in the tri-state area and he knew it. Roskoe knew it too.

Roskoe was there beside the old man, waiting for him to take the last breaths of his physical life. Tennessee didn’t appear to be in any pain. He was his old man self, there on that bed. His goatee was clipped sharp as a shark fin and his long grey perm rested long side by side with his shoulders. Cancer had eaten him alive.

Roskoe traveled inward to where in his mind he could see himself from an Ariel perspective, beside Paul and Peter. The con artist twins that were thirteen years old and headed to wherever it was they were headed, without Tennessee directing them. Tennessee had known the twins from the time they were spat out feet first, for he was still plugging away at sixty-one years old. He was their father.

Neither one of them could read or write a lick. But they knew how to make money. They knew how to convince a mother fucker to get up off a bank roll with faith that he would get back twice as much. They got around the literary barriers like Henry Ford. They would convince people to write up whatever it was that they needed to get in where they fit in. One would have thought they were too young to pull the jux’s they did.

Roskoe kept clear of the twins. He wasn’t one to mix up with dishonest mother fuckers at all. Unless they had a pussy. No matter what the age of the bastards. He was a clean cut clear to the point pimp – whom was about his business and one could tell just by looking at him, in that smoking grey suit with black pinstripes with hat and shoes matching. The dark colors were partially because it was snowed outside and freezing rain bumped shoulders and overtook the night. The freezing rain beat on the hospital room windows. It was mid February. The coldest month of the year. The four males in the room were there. Quiet. The twins stood beside each other at the foot of the bed. They were in suits like Roskoe wore when he was their age. On a borderline of conservative. Roskoe was on a chair to Tennessee’s left.

“Boys get out”, said Tennessee in a cold, heavy tone. He was about to lay down some shit that was not for their ears. And he knew not to ask Roskoe to follow his trail with the never made fatherhood plan. The boys would be all right raising themselves. Their mother whom was out of the game for six years and was dead as a doornail. She was a hooker to heart though. The shit they had seen, as little boys would hold them steady when it came to growing up. And what Tennessee had already taught them was enough to last more than the two lifetimes they possessed in twins’ unison. The two of them exited the room without saying a word.

“Ten man….” Roskoe took his fedora in his hand and set it on his knee. He went into his breast pocket and pulled a pack of menthol cigarettes and lighted one. Drew in and let the smoke out slow through his nose. The doctors knew there were pimps in the room and they were liable to do whatever they saw fit, outside of what the law permitted. They left them alone during visiting hours. Roskoe drew heavily on the smoke. “I already know you got some shit up your sleeve man. But tell me this…”

Tennessee tightened his jaw line. He was on his mother fucking deathbed and wasn’t up for answering annoying questions. “What? Roskoe I’m headed out the damn door. Don’t go asking me some bullshit you know fucking well I ain’t up to be answering!” Tennessee coughed several times and took a tissue from the box on the night table to remove the blood that slid down out of his narrow lips. His voice was low and tired. What he was about to say had been known from the beginning of time to man. Roskoe had gotten only part of the story, which helped his pimp hand grow strong and cold like hot ice.

Whether or not he would get the rest of the puzzle depended on if Tennessee could spill it all before he departed.

“I’m all ears Tennessee. Go on and let it out with your bloody mouth partner!”

The two men laughed for a couple seconds.

“I know – you know… what I have taught you about who you really are throughout all these years. And about the power of visualization. How to get things, situations and circumstances to work in your favor. Made you a well off cat ain’t it?”

“Sure,” Roskoe answered, “You damn sure waited long enough to spill it all though. But I’m glad you did”.

Tennessee had given Roskoe a few books that have been kept secret. Available in secret societies and in books stores if a mother fucker knew they existed and to ask for them. Books that changed his perspective, as times change. Books that helped him make a shipload of scratch, to the point where he didn’t have to pimp no more. But… he still had not retired. He was in it for sport.

“Roskoe you gone have to free yourself man”. Tennessee coughed up more blood and wiped it away with the same tissue.

“What the hell you talking about?! Do I look like I’m in chains?! You fixed to die in this mother fucker and…”

“You not getting it youngster!” Roskoe was well into his forties. Tennessee had him by an age grip so calling him youngster didn’t matter.

Tennessee coughed four times and rested his head on the pillow with his eyes wide open. He let out the death breath a person exhales before relying on a dirt nap to travel out of physical form.

Roskoe stamped the cigarette out on the hospital floor and lighted another one. “Tennessee! You have to be kidding me bruzz! You gone skip out on a pimp like that? I don’t believe this shit!” He slammed his fedora on the floor then picked it up and put it on his head and opened the room door. “Yo! Get somebody in here! My main man just died on me!”

The night nurse rushed into the room. She was a short woman of Indian descent with large bi-focal glasses bouncing on her nose. She must have just gotten the gig, for She did not to know what to do. She rushed back out the door past Roskoe. He went over and smoothed his palm over Tennessee’s face, shutting the eyes of his mentors’ corpse for the last time. He went out past the receptionist desk and pressed the down button for the elevator.

Someone put a hand on the arm of his long grey coat. The night nurse handed him a cell phone. “Tennessee said he wanted you to have this. I’m sorry”.

Roskoe took the phone from her hand, looked at it and dropped it in his coat pocket.

“It’s all right sweetie. Every one has their dooms day. You know what I’m saying doll?”

She nodded yes and went back to work. Roskoe’s deceased mother crossed his mind. Her dark complexion and her wavy hair. She was a good woman. She had passed away when he was twenty – five years old and Livingroom Johnston was twelve. They rarely ever spoke about death. There was something about the brothers that they kept things to themselves. It might have been a sacred pact between the two or it could have been denial. A way to avoid dealing with the pain that came with it. It took them some time to mention the death of their cousin Jerome to each other, let alone in front of a friend they considered as close as a sibling.

Outside the freezing rain came to a halt as Roskoe stood in front of the electric sliding doors. He went out to the curb across the street and unlocked the door of his hog and got in. He sat letting the car warm for about a half an hour. When he hit the button for the windshield wipers they smeared the cold water back and forth. The street lamps accompanied by the passing cars were blurs like tears through sorrow filled eyes. He wasn’t one to cry. He was a stone cold cat in his own right.

Roskoe pulled into an empty parking spot on fifty-seventh street in Mid Town Manhattan. Tennessee Red owned a bar there. Roskoe would collect the bread after closing and bring it to him the mornings after. When Tennessee got ill to where he was hospitalized he stated that Roskoe keep the bar running the way it was and keep the bread he copped from there. Roskoe didn’t ask about the paperwork of the joint, for that would have meant he was expecting the death of Tennessee.

Roskoe had dealt with a little situation there in the past. A cat by the name of Tango had called himself copping one of his ribs. Only thing was Tango knew nothing about pimping. He was a two sevens made by a palm of hands resembling a square. What kept Tango from being an absolute square was the fact that Tennessee had given him the job managing a joint. It was a hang out for hustlers, Johns, hookers, pimps, coke heads and drunks. But mostly drunks.

Roskoe entered into the bar. Roberta Freeway was sitting with her wide ass on the bar watching the large flat screen television set up in the corner above a rack that held majority of the glasses. She had been instructed to close the joint at ten p.m. Roskoe already had it in his head that Tennessee was going to die. He drank very little. Most of the time he went without it. He knew what road the liquor takes a mother fucker when he doesn’t have the common sense or balls to deal without it. This was an occasion that called for a few sips regardless of the cold hard facts.

Roberta stretched out her legs and slid over the bar to the side Roskoe had entered on. He took his lid of his head and smoothed out his finger waves and glanced from his left to his right. The joint was empty. Roberta tugged at the hips of her tight strapless pink dress. There was a line of silk dragon prints down the sides of it. Her wig was black and long. Red at the tips like her finger and toenails.

“Damn baby. You look like you just looked death in the eyes. Hope you ain’t kill nobody else. You know you got to live with that shit, right?”

“Yeah… I know… only thing is I didn’t smoke nobody tonight Roberta”.

Roberta combed her hair to the side with her fingers. “What can I get you to drink babe?” She walked around the bar. Her high heels slapped the floor loud with each step.

“Give me a Cutty Sark on the rocks”. Roskoe sat on a stool at the center of the bar. He placed his lid on the stool beside him.

Roberta knew instantly Tennessee Red had passed away. She had known Roskoe since they were kids. A year ago he had her chauffeur him around in his Cadillac for a while. Just to put a few dollars in her pocket and not have her feel like it was charity. After the shit went down with the Tango cat Roskoe put her on as the main manager of Tennessee’s joint. Things ran a lot smoother. The pimps that hung out there called her ‘THAT BITCH FOR PRESIDENT’. She didn’t give a shit. So long as her bread was right and not wrong.

Roskoe sipped on his drink and folded his arms on the bar. He stared into his eyes in the mirror. Roberta left him alone. She climbed back up and got back to her television show.