Sapphire Speaks (complete)

Chapter 4

Brandon sat in a stunned silence as he processed Crash's words. He wanted to take offense and feel disrespected, but he couldn't. He heard the truth in them. It was something that had been told to him in rehab as well. Addiction was a disease, but staying addicted was a choice. And he chosen the needle time and time again. Crash's assessment was fair, but harsh to hear. Especially from a stranger. He resisted the urge to scratch, but he swore that he could fill the remnants of his last hit crawling through his veins and tickling his arteries. He groaned in protest.
Crash recognized the signs of withdrawal before he recognized the demon of addiction. The young brother had clearly lived a hard life and his twenty-five or twenty-six years. He wasn't judging, but there was clearly an ancient power residing deep within he brother that the demons wanted to depress and eliminate. He'd meditated on it as he waiting in the hallway. It was the only thing that made sense. He'd asked the ancestors for a hint, help, anything to help him discern the young brother's spirit and intent, but they hadn't given him anything. In all of his years, he'd never not received an answer from them. It was alarming.
"But that's all in the past, now," Crash declared. "You got something great inside of you, Brandon. I don't know what it is, but whatever it it, it was scary enough that someone cursed you."
Brandon felt his eyes buck at Crash's words. The man was crazy. "You gotta be an addict, too. You're talking nonsense. You're fucking crazy."
Crash shook his head. "I'm completely sober. You can't tell me that in all of your years in the dark, deep within your addiction, that you didn't feel like someone or something had taken over your life. Like it wasn't just happenstance that that needle and drug came into your life."
Brandon scoffed and rubbed his left arm. "I thought you was an on the up and up type nigga. A woke nigga. You a looney tune. All that stuff you just said about words having power and me not being strong enough to quit was just some period of lucidity, huh? What's your drug of choice? Crack? Weed? Meth? You a pill-popper? Lean sipper?"
Crash laughed. "Neither. I'm beyond all of that shit. I recognized my divinity at a young age. I was forced to." He shook his head as the memories of that dreadful summer crept from the moonlight into the sun.
"Your divinity? You a five percenter?" Brandon leaned forward looking for a flag.
"I'm beyond that, too. Although we are the original people," Crash informed him.
"Her-ron ain't shit but a drug. Ain't nobody curse me. I made that choice and I'm dealing with the
consequences. You just said to manifest my thoughts. I thought about getting high and I did...for years. That's it. No curse."
Crash stretched out his arms and pulled at the neck of his shirt. He wasn't a speaker. He was all action. He had no clue how to proceed. He just shrugged and dropped his arms. "I see you ain't ready for all that yet. It's cool. Just enjoy your juice and sandwich."
Yonna walked back over to their table with their juices and his sandwich on a black tray. He smiled as he received his food. "Thank you," Brandon told her.
Yonna smiled again. "I didn't know Crash had a little brother. It's nice to meet you."
"You, too. He keep me in the cut. I've had a few rough years, you know. Just getting back on my feet. You understand."
Yonna nodded and placed the tray under her arm. "I do. I apologize for earlier. I have my own issues with...um..."
"Addicts?" Brandon finished for her.
"Yeah. Addicts. I think I just projected that on you. That wasn't fair."
Crash sipped from his cup as he watched the two interact. He'd never seen Yonna so talkative. He himself only got a few words out of her. On many occasions, he'd seen other patrons try to engage her. They would only get a few words out of her before she walked away. She engaged only long enough to ensure herself a decent tip before she moved on. He didn't know why. If she was an introvert, being a server at a semi-popular local hangout was not the place for her. She was a pretty girl. He knew from their interactions that she was a sophomore in college and majored in biology. She was the color of coffee with too much creamer and had deep brown soulful eyes. As he looked closer at her, her aura began to glow as the conversation continued. Hers was a deep orange color.
Yonna didn't know why she was yammering on so much. She was never this talkative. Not even with family. But talking to Brandon was easy and the words seemed to flow like water off of the back of a duck between them. A tap on her shoulder stole the rest of her words before she could speak them.
"You have other tables," her coworker quipped before walking away.
"I'm sorry," she said shyly before walking away.
Brandon cleared his throat before picking up his cup and taking a sip. He gagged, literally gagged as the liquid touched the back of his throat.
Blech! "What the fuck is this?" he exclaimed as he eyed the green liquid through the clear cup.
"Something you need. Don't worry about the taste," Crash said as he took a leisurely sip of his drink.
Brandon eyed the pink drink with envy. "Yours look good. Why I couldn't get that?"
"Because I need to be rejuvenated and you need to be healed. The stuff in there will help you." He took another sip of his drink.
Brandon took the top off of his drink and downed it in three large gulps. He'd had worse. Truthfully, the aftertaste was worse than the actual taste. He reached for his sandwich next. It was gone in two bites.
"Guess you were hungry," Crash told him as he waved Yonna over. "Can we get some water and another sandwich for my brother?"
Yonna nodded quickly before rushing off. She didn't want to get caught in another conversation.
Brandon pounded his chest lightly as he burped. "Excuse me."
"Better out than in."
Brandon laughed. It was the first genuine laugh he'd produced in years. "Sounding like somebody's white daddy."
Crash smirked. "I guess. You know something? I been coming here for years and that girl barely talk to me or anyone else in here. But with you, she Chatty Cathy."
"My people used to say that I could charm the pants off a pants salesman and sell salt to a slug."
"You got the gift of gab." It was a statement not a question. Yeah everything was starting to fall into place.
"If that's what you want to call it."
"What were you doing before your first hit?"
Brandon let his mind drift back to that time. He was nineteen and a sophomore in college. He was active on campus. Close with the head of the black student union. He had his whole life ahead of him. "I was organizing this protest," he started wistfully.
Brandon looked over the paperwork in front of him in disgust. The investors and developers were buying up land left and right. Buying people that had been in their homes for thirty plus years out. They were destroying the neighborhood in the name of capitalism, consumerism, and greed.
"These crackers don't play fair," Brandon told his partner, Cedric. "They done petitioned the courts and staked claim on half the neighborhood already. They done already ripped up the park. Aint nowhere for the kids to be, but in the street. They turned the rec center into a fucking Starbucks. They want us dead or in jail," he said as he crumpled the papers up in his hands.
"But you already knew that," Cedric told him. "What you wanna do? You know whatever you say, we go do. We're behind you. All the way."
And he wasn't lying. Every meeting that Brandon had called, the people had showed up. Every petition he'd circulated, they'd signed. Now it was time for his biggest move yet. He was going to take on City Hall and the mayor. He was trying to have the neighborhood designated as a historical landmark. Several houses on the street had been safehouses along the underground railroad. He was also going to move to have the park and rec center rebuilt bigger and better than ever.
He was going to argue that the developers were being racist and acting with wanton disregard for the people and children of the neighborhood. With the park and rec center gone, they had forced the children onto the streets: into the clutches of the hood: drugs, gangs, and crime. The Mayor had promised to lower crime on the Northside and Brandon had a sinking feeling that he was working with the developers to do just that. By pushing people out of the neighborhood, it would lower crime on the Northside. In doing so, it would push the crime into other parts of the city which would cause for an increased police presence which would lead to criminal law reform. All in all, the mayor was aiming for governor and then a seat on the senate. And he was planning on doing it all on the backs of the poor and disenfranchised.
Not on his watch. Call him Peg Leg Joe cause he was going to make sure his people made it.
Crash listened with an intense look on his face. There was no doubt in his mind now. The young brother had been cursed. One would think that it was the white man, the mayor, or the developers, but the kind of magic that had tormented Brandon could only have been called upon by someone with the blood of the ancestors and the slaves in them. Brandon had been betrayed by someone close to him.
"I was so tense. I was on edge all the time. My girl was threatening to leave me. I was falling behind in class. They were threatening my family. My car was set on fire. They did everything to stop me. I wasn't stopping though. I was they head." He took the cup of water from Yonna and thanked her. He took a gracious sip and bit the sandwich. He felt better than he had in years.
Crash saw the Brandon's aura begin to glow stronger and stronger. His vibrations shook the table, but he was so caught up in his tale that he didn't notice. Crash placed his palms on the table. His calm balanced out Brandon's excitement and the table stilled.
"Then one night, after planning, it was two days before the rally. I was hype. I couldn't sleep. I was trying to get caught up in schoolwork. My professors understood. I was a political science major, so they would give me some leeway. I just felt this pressure. One of people invited me out. My girl was like, 'you need to stay in and work.'" He said it with a mock feminine voice.
"I aint listen. I went out. I don't even remember who all was there. I just remember Ced. He kept telling me to go back to the room, but some other dude. I knew him by sight. He used to be at all the rallies, meetings, everything. This dude kept buying me drinks and passing me the blunt. I wasn't a drinker nor a smoker, for real. Just socially. But I was getting down like Bad Boy in the 90s, you heard me?" He let out a soft, sad chuckle. "And my dumb ass kept it going. Ced left. Ol' boy said he would give me a ride back to the dorm. I don't know why I ain't go with Ced. I ain't even know bruh like that. I can't even call up his face. His name. Nothing. But he was like 'Here, this will take the edge off.'"
Crash finished up his drink and sighed. Brandon was someone special. Something special. He knew it after knowing him less than twenty-four hours. It was something in him that counseled people, allowed him to lead people, and it was that something that made him a threat. THe fact that he couldn't remember the man's face that had offered him the needle was just confirmation. Demons swear to protect the identity of their human as part of the bargain. To protect them against recoil. He just had to do what the demon asked and he would be given all of his heart's desires...at a price.
Crash didn't doubt that the host had lived a nice life before his too, took a turn for the worst. It was karma.
"You don't want to believe me, but you have to. Your divinity was just starting to show itself. That's why you were attacked. Demons can't just attack you. You have to allow them to. That's why the drug was offered. You were doing too much. Too much good." Crash rubbed the moonstone around his neck absently. "Giving in to that temptation threw all that off course. But if you want, we can get it back on course. And give you a chance to whoop whoever cursed you ass. It's on you."