Marcus had a policy from the Neptune Society. A nonprofit organization that provided low-cost cremations. Isaiah got Carlos to call the Society’s 800 number and make the arrangements. They moved the body from the morgue and took it to the crematorium. They handled the death certificate, the disposition permit, and the rest of the paperwork. A few days later, Carlos came by and slipped Marcus’s last paycheck and a note under the door. The note said UPS would deliver the ashes.
Isaiah stayed in the corner under the spider plant, his world reduced to sounds: TV chatter, doors opening and closing, sirens, crows squabbling, somebody yelling at their kids. At some point he began to tremble. The last thing he’d eaten was a Snickers bar just before the game with Carlos and Corey. He ate a can of tuna, got a bottle of water, and went back to his corner. He lost track of time. Dozing, waking up with a start, wondering where he was, where Marcus was. He’d stand up like an arthritic old man, crying and cursing, trudging to the bathroom or the kitchen, and back again. He ran out of food, nothing left in the kitchen but condiments. He forced himself to go to the store, the wheels of his brain turning in sludge as thick as his heartache.
School. He’d been absent eight days and the maximum number of excused absences permitted in a school year was ten. After that, a note wouldn’t be acceptable. The school would want to talk to Marcus and if they found out he’d died they’d send a social worker and Isaiah would get shipped off to a foster home. Isaiah wrote himself a note and went back to school but it was impossible to act normal, his friends coming up to him. Where you been, Isaiah? What happened to you? You got stuff all in your hair. Are you high? You look high. He told them he was getting over the flu.
Some things were impossible. Eating lunch in the noisy cafeteria or hanging with Dante and his friends or working in the computer lab with the other kids who had great futures. The note said he had laryngitis. That got him out of PE and speaking in class. He sent Dante a text saying he was quitting the academic decathlon team and told the kids he tutored to find somebody else.
The prospect of leaving the apartment terrified him. Sharing a room with kids he didn’t know, strange adults telling him what to do. Out there in the world without Marcus backing him up. Without Marcus. The apartment was all he had left of him. His brother was in the air and embedded in the walls, his smell in the bedsheets, his sneakers on the floor, blue blobs of his shaving gel still on the sink. Whatever happened, Isaiah wasn’t leaving.
Money. Marcus worked for Carlos exterminating termites when he couldn’t find other work. The check Carlos slipped under the door was for fifteen hundred dollars, more than Carlos cleared in a week and he owned the business. That plus the eight hundred dollars in the checking account wouldn’t last long. There was rent to pay. He remembered what Marcus said, to take the initiative, dictate the action, not let his emotions call the shots. If he wanted to stay in the apartment he had to get a job.
Marcus was a jack-of-all-trades, master of everything. Plumbing, electrical, tile, drywall, masonry, cabinetmaking, and fine carpentry; he could do it all as well as any professional. He’d crafted a cherry wood rocking chair for Harley Barnes, assistant director at the Long Beach Public Library. The rocking chair was a present for Harley’s mother who was turning eighty. She said it was too beautiful to sit on and kept it in her living room like a Christmas tree. Harley got Isaiah a part-time job checking out books and reshelving the returns. It paid minimum wage and that wouldn’t be enough. Marcus had also worked at Manny’s Deli. He installed new plumbing in the men’s room, replaced the locking mechanism on the walk-in freezer, reglazed the windows, stopped the leaks under the steam table, and basically kept the place from falling apart.
“Marcus was a good guy,” Manny said. “He had a good heart. The best.” Isaiah bowed his head and cried. “You need help?” Manny said, putting his hands on Isaiah’s shoulders. “I’ll help you, but working, right? No charity. Your brother would kill me.” Manny put Isaiah to work on weekends, busing tables, mopping floors, and washing the mountains of dishes.
Isaiah calculated his take-home pay from both jobs would be about seven hundred and eighty dollars after taxes. Six hundred and seventy for the rent left thirty dollars a week for groceries, cell phone, DSL, bus fare, and everything else. Dictating the action was easier said than done.
It was luck how he met Dodson. Both of them were waiting in the admin office, Isaiah for the guidance counselor, Dodson for the vice principal. Dodson had worn his gold chain to school and bling wasn’t allowed. When he was told to remove it he refused, saying the two Jewish kids wore those beanies and it was the same thing. Dodson sat in an orange plastic chair with his feet stuck straight out and talking on his cell. He was wearing jeans, Pumas, and a white T-shirt but somehow looked slick. You could tell he was short, even sitting down.
“My Auntie May kicked me out, you believe that shit?” Dodson said. “Talkin’ ’bout she knew I was selling drugs and didn’t want the devil’s minion in her house. Shit. I ain’t no minion, I’m her goddamn nephew.”
The receptionist, Mrs. Sakamoto, was glaring at him. She had short gray hair, a dark blue dress with yellow trapezoids on it, and a bunch of gold hoop bracelets that sounded tinny when they clinked. “Put the phone away, please, or you’ll get detention,” she said.
Dodson ignored her and dialed another call. “It’s me,” he said. “What? I was at Omari’s but not in his house. I was sleeping in that shed, yeah, in the backyard, one of them plastic things you get at Home Depot, couldn’t even stand up inside, in there with the flowerpots and fertili-hey, that shit ain’t funny.”
“Young man,” Mrs. Sakamoto said, “put that phone away.”
Dodson ended the call and dialed another. “Well?” he said. “Yeah, I can pay some rent. Where do I sleep? In the same room with who? Your grandmother? Fuck you, Freddie, and fuck your grandmother too.”
“Did you hear me?” Mrs. Sakamoto said as Dodson dialed another call. “Put the phone down immediately or you’ll get detention!”
Isaiah felt sorry for her. No leverage except something the guy didn’t care about. Like threatening a stone with water.
“Your daddy don’t want a gangsta in the house?” Dodson said, his voice going up an octave. “You a gangsta!”
“I’m going to get Mr. Johnson,” Mrs. Sakamoto said, her bracelets clinking as she walked away.
“Tell him I’m not giving up my chain,” Dodson said.
Isaiah talked to Mr. Avery, the guidance counselor. Avery wore black socks and sandals and wanted Isaiah to call him Seth. Isaiah told him he was quitting the team because Marcus was out of work and he had to get a job.
“Yeah, it’s a tough economy,” Mr. Avery said. “Tell Marcus it’ll be okay. When one door closes another one opens.”
What a bunch of bullshit, Isaiah thought. There are no doors without Marcus.
“You’re one of my favorite people,” Mr. Avery said, “and I have to be honest with you. We need you on the team. We’re not going to win the sectionals without your help. Now don’t take this the wrong way, but when I write recommendations for your college apps, well-just sayin’.”
He’s threatening me? This prick is holding college over my head if I don’t stay on the team? Like college means anything without Marcus?
“I don’t give a shit about college, the team, or you,” Isaiah said as he got up and walked out. “Just sayin’.”
Dodson was at his locker when Isaiah caught up with him. The inside of the locker door was plastered with pictures of Tupac and oiled-up naked women. Isaiah wondered if he was making a mistake but his brain was sizzling with static and he was in a near panic about losing the apartment.