“So why he not the one calling me?” Uncle Ty’s voice is softer, the mention of Marcus cushioning him.
“He’s in Santa Rita.”
“This family got some kind of death wish? I told your mama I didn’t want no part after the trial.”
I remember the day Uncle Ty left, how he didn’t even bother telling us he was leaving and instead just stopped picking up his phone, got a new number, told Mama to tell us the next time we visited her, but Mama was so far gone at that point that she didn’t even remember the conversation. At first, Marcus was convinced that Uncle Ty had been killed or kidnapped, but I knew better. Uncle Ty’s voice showed up in that club and then I listened to it on the radio later and it was unmistakably him, with a beat drowning out half his words. We looked him up and he suddenly had a Wikipedia page and was signed with a record label when before he was a blank page, untraceable.
Marcus kept looking him up for months, watching as new articles came out about him, photos of him on red carpets. I didn’t expect to feel so angry, but hearing Uncle Ty on the other end of the phone, so righteous, makes me want to rage, want to tell him he doesn’t get to judge a family he’s not a part of anymore.
“I don’t really give a shit why you left, I just know Marcus needs you and he said you gotta come back out here and visit him at Santa Rita. This ain’t me asking, you know I never wanted nothing from you, but he needs this.”
Uncle Ty doesn’t say anything, but he breathes loud, like he’s swishing his breath around in his mouth before letting it out. “Okay. I’ll fly up there tomorrow, but I ain’t staying, I got a life out here to come back to. You still at the Regal-Hi?”
“Still here.”
Uncle Ty says he’ll get a car and meet me at the Regal-Hi in the morning, take us to visit Marcus because he doesn’t want to see him alone. He sounds like he wants to hang up, but I don’t let him.
“I don’t get it. Why don’t you wanna see him? Thought he was the only one you liked.”
Uncle Ty clears his throat. “I told you, I made something of myself out here.”
“So? You ain’t care about him?” I don’t even know why I give him the time of day to explain, but I need to hear it.
“Course I do, I just don’t wanna see him like that, aight?”
His voice is still too cold and for some reason I don’t believe him. It ain’t about watching Marcus locked up or hurt, it’s about him, about how he doesn’t want to feel remorse for his life or hold on to his regrets. After we hang up, and my anger evaporates into empty air, I can’t help but wonder if Uncle Ty might do the thing we stopped hoping he’d do and save us. Take us back with him to L.A. or even just start calling every week, buy Marcus his very own microphone and a soundboard worth dreaming about so he wouldn’t need Cole, help us live out a life we never chose. But I’m not stupid and I don’t trust Uncle Ty enough to let myself hope for him to change who he is.
* * *
I’m pacing inside the gate to the Regal-Hi, watching the shit pool glimmer in the morning light. Uncle Ty is on his way, texted me a half hour ago that he had landed and would pick me up out front. He doesn’t even get out of the car, just honks the horn of the black sedan and I unlatch the gate, step off the curb, and pull open the door to another face I never expected to reappear in my life.
Uncle Ty’s grown his hair out into these short locs that hang down like a crown and I can tell his white T-shirt cost more than his shoes because it’s got pre-ripped holes in it. Uncle Ty smiles with his teeth, like they’re the most important part of the grin, pats the passenger seat, and then, when I’m fully in the car, touches my shoulder. This might even be the first time I remember Uncle Ty touching me at all and I can tell he’s only doing it to dissipate the awkwardness of this car ride, this world he’s stepping back into for only a moment.
“You all grown up.” He pulls back out onto the road, speeds up the ramp and into the stream of freeway cars.
“Been a while,” I say.
Uncle Ty still doesn’t look like he’s aged a day, but I can tell that something in him has. He’s got his phone plugged into the stereo system and he’s blasting a song he features on, a flurry of ego filling up the car. His face can’t trick me, though, not with how his eyes dart across the road, his lips squeezing together.
Uncle Ty clears his throat. “I just want you to know that I read the articles about the cops and put it all together and I know it’s you.” He coughs again. “I think someone’s gotta tell you this, so I guess it’s gonna have to be me. Your daddy would’ve been real disappointed.”