The Retirement Plan

Chapter 11

With the metal tongs, DeShawn lifted the last slice of sizzling bacon from the pan with and laid it on the bed of lettuce atop the wholewheat bread. Fried for ten seconds on both sides, so the meat wasn't cremated to a crisp. He never could understand how folks could eat food like that. If he wanted crunchy food, he'd eat potato chips. Meat is supposed to be tender.

Savoring that first bite, when a guy in a pink kimono strolled into the kitchen like he owned the place. Couldn't be over twenty. The kid had a lame-assed goatee, not a hint of stubble on those smooth, sallow cheeks. Had a bit of muscle on him, probably from lifting barbells in his bedroom. Wore an entitled air, like he still living rent-free in mom's and pop's place, and expected life would be all about people waiting hand and foot on his spoilt ass.

The kid said, "Chico," looking at DeShawn through sleep encrusted eyes, calling him boy, DeShawn forty-three years of age. No danger of a Millennial with Snapchat and TikTok accounts mistaking him for a boy. Forty-three was geriatric to these kids. Condescending little punk had the nerve to demand DeShawn rustle up breakfast.

DeShawn said nothing. Let his eyes deliver the message, Long Beach style.

The kid, trying to look tough, stood there in Elana's kimono, all studied insolence. His attitude disappearing along with his presence when he espied DeShawn's crude blue jailhouse tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of his white tee. This punk not from the streets. The first rule of the streets, you never back down. Front it out. The closest that wannabe came to the streets was playing 50 Cent: Bulletproof on his x-box.

DeShawn shook his head.

Jesus, DeShawn thought, hearing his pop's voice in his head. The way his pops would walk into his bedroom while DeShawn and his friends playing Driver on the PlayStation. DeShawn would whack the fire button, his on-screen character bouncing a baseball bat off a ho's head. His pops would stand there, giving the disgusted head-shake, before launching into some story of when he was a kid in the old neighborhood. Always called it the old neighborhood, like the 'hood had changed irrevocably in twenty years. Telling DeShawn's friends about the fights he'd gotten into when he was their age. Talking about fist-fights like it was some long-forgotten art, how kids today ain't nothing but little thugs hiding behind big guns. The very attitude that got him killed.

Two days after DeShawn's thirteenth birthday, his pops got shot coming out of a liquor store. Pipe-head by the name of Russell tried to gank him for his change. Stubborn bastard refused to part with the thirty dollars in his pocket, so Russell popped him twice in the chest. Russell doing life, now, while DeShawn's mom visited the cemetery on the first of every month. Streetlife, that's how it goes. The only way you win is to get out while you can. Exactly what DeShawn did when the opportunity presented itself.

DeShawn chewing the last bite of his BLT when Elana waltzed into the kitchen, the fresh scent of her zesty citrus perfume wafting past his nostrils. Wearing a plain white tee that floated over the tops of her tan thighs like cream on latte.

"Naughty boy," she said with a smile that added extra piquancy to her words. "Scaring away my marital-aid like that." Marital-aids, what she called her bedroom partners.

"Best you plug your marital-aid into the cultural zeitgeist," DeShawn said. "Asking me to fix him breakfast. I ain't no house-boy. Thought these Millennials supposed to be woke. Seems to me they only woke when they sat at their keyboards. Soon as they outside the internet bubble, they asleep again."

"Oh honey, you know what the Spaniards are like, prey to old prejudices. They still haven't gotten over the Moors' invading."

"That was thirteen hundred years ago," DeShawn said, not buying it. White folks always looking for any excuse to justify their prejudice. "Even the Irish don't have memories that long. Othello's boys must have left quite an impression."