Lloydie called me sometime in December and asked if I could meet him over at Clarendon Collision that evening.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Well, there is a bit of a situation,” he admitted, “but it’s nothing that will affect you in the negative.
That evening was another quiet time at Prentiss’s garage. He must’ve had all of the kids clear out early. Prentiss, Lloydie and myself were the only ones on the premises. We all sat down in Prentiss’s little back office.
Lloydie looked grim.
“They caught up to me,” he said. “I’m getting deported.”
“Whaaaa?” I asked. “After all this time?”
“Hopeton, bredren,” Lloydie replied, “I don’t want to get too deep into it, but someone made a call. I’m getting thirty days to wrap it up here, then they’re shipping me back to May Pen.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked, dumbly. “You going to be okay?”
“Yeah, man. I’ll be fine,” Lloydie assured me. “I spent the first thirty-five years of my life in Jamaica and I did it broke-broke! Now at least I can go back with enough money to live like a Marley.”
“Which is why we’re here now,” Prentiss interjected. “Lloydie wants to make sure you’re squared away before he has to leave, but cash is low at the moment.”
I nodded, and said nothing.
“Everything’s in my sister’s name- every single thing I own,” Lloydie explained. “I told her to start selling off my properties as quickly as possible, but I don’t want her to take a loss. This is my retirement.”
I nodded again. I continued to hold my silence.
“So, we can get you paid out in cash once she makes a sale,” Lloydie said. “But I might have something better to offer, and this one would get you closed out immediately.”
“And what is that?” I asked.
“I have a house on Lincoln Road between Bedford & Flatbush. I own it outright, no mortgage. I’ll have my sister transfer the deed to you, straight up. All you need to do is give her $50,000. Cashier’s check. You can look the deed up online- it’s in her name.”
“You know what,” I said, smiling. “You never did tell me your sister’s name.”
“I’ll tell it to you now,” he replied. No smiling on his end, however. “The house is worth around tree hundred kay right now. And if you fix it up, it’ll be worth at least five hundred in the next five years.”
I gave the smallest possible glance in Prentiss’s direction.
