A Trap Within A Trap

Chapter 20

Omari was back in one of her soccer mom roles this time the good Latina wife. Jaquez sat in the kitchen pulled up to the island oven setup admiring his wife, who was sweating while cooking her family's breakfast in her stained apron. She turned to the counter and began cutting the plantains with a knowing smile (she knew her husband so well). She wiped the sweat from her brow with her wrist, knife in hand, just to give him a nice pose before she continued her work. "You lucky I love you. Coming in whenever the fuck you want, got me cooking twice in the same morning just for you." She made sure she said it with a smile, she brightened even more "But you good mi amore, I don't get to cook breakfast for my husband often enough." Which is just what she explained to Maria that morning, when she let her know to take a paid day off.

She was humming Celia Cruz's "La Guagua", gyrating and dancing as she cooked, so Jaquez snuck over to the stereo to play Cruz's big 80's hit they both grew up too. He turned it up so loud the wall began to shake. Omari turned up the sexy looking at him with her soft brown eyes as she moved to the faster Creole-African style of salsa. Jaquez began to set the table and Omari pulled the original plate of breakfast she had previously made for Jaquez out of the microwave. Now that his need for her body was replaced with his need for her cooking he would consume that plate, they were both raised not to waste food. She placed the steamy taste of home neither of them had ever really visited on to the table. The stir of little feet stomping down the stairs could be felt along with the African bongos of the music. "Mama? MAMA!? WE'RE LATE! Where's Maria!? I can't do my hair right!"

The best Kodak moment occurred when Jaquez's little mamacita came around from the stairwell and brightened like a small woman who's won a million dollars, surprised by the first man of her life being home. Alyssisa barreled full speed arms wide and tackled her daddy as best she could with her 45 pound body, and it felt amazing to them both. So amazing he closed his eyes and breathed in his one and only little girl.

A painful blast of his daymare in Miami. The little girls jumping rope out in front of the bodega, gunned down. The terrible song of gun shots, with the second track of screaming both from small and grown bodies alike. The bloody girls layed about. The one on her stomach, skirt up exposing her baby panties and back side. Two shots blown hole chunks off her little body, her left rib, and right shoulder. Angelic face, dead eyes, starring, from the side of her planted face into the sidewalk. Starring as best as they could, seeming still to fight, to hold on to that glorious wish filled sky. To hold on to life, yet that ship had already sailed long ago. It was too late, her new destination for the afterlife had already been set.

He fought off a shudder that chilled him to the bone. He had never looked out that door way that day. He tells himself it was on the side of caution, that he had a "feeling", that "they" were waiting for him right outside from inside their trucks, just waiting to blow his fuckin blood-clot head off. Yet he felt a teasing thought as well, that he was avoiding the scene of dead children. That he was just avoiding living with that on his conscious, and so his subconscious decided to do him a favor and make a scene for him to now live with the rest of his life, whether it happened or not, and now with no way to ever know ... know.

Opening his eyes and looking up from his baby girls shoulder in his view was his first born. Greg standing at the stairway rail, facing the dining room doorway hands in his pockets already dressed for school. Greg was a big teddy bear, 12 years old and as tall and big as the stockiest of 16 year olds. Carmel skinned, he choose to sport his low cut fade. He looked sheepish being over joyed to see his father home, yet embarrassed to show it. His sensitive boy was at the point where he'd have to be toughened up, Jaquez thought. Though he was never sure of just how tough. He didn't want him to go through the trials (or to be real trauma) he did. That's why they moved out of the hood in the first place, yet how could he expect him to be as strong, and independent as his daddy. A conundrum of the streets. Escape to make things easier for your children, but then fear them coming up weak among victims.