5
Gazing at the gap in the skyline left by the World Trade Center, I thought about Twill. Not of my blood, he was tall and lithe, handsome and quick to smile. The only thing we had somewhat in common was our dark coloring but even there our skins were different hues. I had more brown to my blackness.
But blood relations are overrated. Twill had a way of making you feel good. His greeting—morning or night, being picked up at the police station or after a schoill„ol function—was always friendly and sincere. His head was cool and his heart warm. Twilliam was one of the finest people I had ever met. And so it was my self-appointed duty to make sure that he wasn’t pulled down in the wake of his own superiority.
A solitary seagull cried. That was the sound I had Tiny program into the stolen cell phone he sold me.
“Hello?”
“Who the hell is this?” an angry voice demanded.
“You called me, young man,” I said trying to sound pleasant.
“Are you Arnold DuBois?” he asked, pronouncing the last name in French fashion.
“Du Boys,” I said, correcting him on the pronunciation of my alias.
“Why are you trying to get in touch with me, Mr. Du Boys?” Roger said, maybe hearing some of the iron in my jaw and moderating his tone appropriately.
“Are you the Roger Brown that they used to call B-Brain back in the day?”
“Who are you, man?”
“My real name is Ambrose Thurman,” I said.