Married to a Brownsville Bully 2

by Jahquel J

  “Where the fuck is everybody?”

  “Working,” he nonchalantly replied.

  “Working? This is one of the busiest trap houses, what the fuck you mean they working?”

  “Your brother had the traps moved.” He finally stopped beating around the bush and told me what I had already confirmed with his nonchalant attitude and empty trap house.

  “What the fuck for?”

  “You already know you need to take that shit up with him. I don’t get involved in y’all shit, and you know that.”

  “For someone who doesn’t get involved, you seem to know every fucking thing that happens before I do.”

  “You already know why I know. That shit don’t mean I’m involved in y’all shit.”

  Rolling my eyes. “Yeah, what the fuck ever.”

  “Go talk to your brother.” Was what he said and all he ever said.

  Anytime I came to his ass; he always sent me back to my brother. If I wanted to talk to Yoshon’s big headed ass, I would have. Except, I knew my brother and all he wanted to do was try to get me to slow down on working and be in touch with my feelings. This nigga was more emotional than I was. Just because he wore his heart on his sleeve didn’t mean he wouldn’t murk a nigga at the drop of a dime. Yoshon used to be more ruthless before Ashleigh passed. It was like that nigga’s ruthless soul left his body when she was buried into the ground.

  “Yeah, what the fuck ever!” I barked and stood up from the table in the house. It was the only piece of furniture in that bitch and I was just noticing that.

  Grape never called behind me or try to calm me down. He truly didn’t give a fuck about the situation and I never expected him to. “Yo,” he called behind me.

  Shocked, he called behind me, I turned around curious as to what he had to say. “Big Ben is getting out next week.”

  “How the fuck that happened?” My heart was beating fast as fuck.

  “Technicality,” he responded.

  Turning around, I walked out the trap and didn’t bother to say a damn thing. Big Ben was someone that I respected more than anyone, except my brother. Big Ben was my first love and the first man who took my virginity. If I didn’t like women, Big Ben would have been the nigga I ended up with. We were friends before anything and been through a bunch of shit together. My family didn’t even know I had gotten pregnant, had a son and gave him up for adoption to Big Ben’s oldest sister. If I knew I was pregnant, I would have gotten an abortion instead of going through the pain of having a damn baby. The way I found out was crazy as fuck. I was admitted to the hospital for the flu and found out I was six months pregnant. I wasn’t even showing or had no kind of fucking clue that I was pregnant with a baby. Big Ben wanted to be a family and raise this baby, and I had other plans.

  Women were what I was interested in and wanted to be with. The only man that ever turned me on was Big Ben. I didn’t even think he turned me on; it was more our friendship and his loyalty that did that. I didn’t want no damn kids and I damn sure wasn’t about to be someone’s baby mama. Yoshon was showing me the ropes to the business and I couldn’t come with him talking about I was pregnant. Not to mention, it was when I transitioned to wearing men’s clothing and getting tattooed up. The fuck I look like being pregnant. For the remainder of my pregnancy, I hid out in my apartment and chilled the fuck out. When it was time for me to have the baby, my ass went to Staten Island, had the baby and signed the papers over to Big Ben’s sister. I cried for a few weeks because I didn’t think that this shit would be emotional for me. I thought it would be like a damn drug deal.

  The fucked-up part was that Big Ben got knocked soon after, so we never got to deal with the shit. After the hospital, I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I cut my family out, and Big Ben was just a reminder of the son that resembled him. His sister took over raising our son and now he was ten years old now. The crazy shit was that he lived three blocks down from one of the trap houses. Big Ben’s sister kept me informed and I made sure she always had some money. The little nigga ran past me one day and I had to go in the bathroom at my trap and shed a tear or four. He looked just like me and Big Ben; the shit was crazy.

  Hearing that Big Ben was coming home meant I was going to be forced to deal with all the skeletons that I had buried. He was never a fan of giving his seed up to his sister. His hands were tied because he couldn’t raise a child alone. How the fuck was he going to run the streets, and take care of a child? It wasn’t part of my plan and I damn sure wasn’t about to be raising a child I knew I didn’t want. My mouth said one thing and then my heart said another. It pained me to know I had a son out there and he knew nothing about me. I made Big Ben’s sister promise that she would never tell him. He looked nothing like her, and everything like his supposed uncle, which was really his father. I knew one thing, and that was that I needed to avoid Big Ben’s ass like the fucking plague.

  5

  Yoshon

  “What’s good, family?” I greeted everyone as I came into the kitchen. Pit Pat was sitting for once at the table with Gyan while Golden prepared breakfast. She held out a mug of coffee and pointed to the empty seat next to Gyan. “Thank you.” I grabbed the cup and made my way over to the table.

  Golden maneuvered around the kitchen with ease while Pit Pat sat with the newspaper and a mug filled with peppermint tea. “How did you sleep last night?” Golden broke her silence.

  Since our talk the other day, we both had been focusing on work and not so much on each other. When I walked by her bedroom at night, it took everything in me not to go in there, pin her against the wall and suck on her lips for the rest of the night. Since shit had been about business, I kept it about business and didn’t blur the lines until she was ready to.

  “I tossed and turned for a bit, got a little sleep. You?”

  “I was up reading most of the night. Don’t get too much sleep these days.” She flipped a pancake onto a plate and brought it to Pit Pat.

  The reason she didn’t sleep was because she was constantly worried about Grand. I watched how she checked all the locks when it was time for bed, or how she didn’t take the same way to Gyan’s school in the morning. Seeing her worried like this had me pissed that a nigga had all this power over her. It was the main reason I had agreed to meet up with Grand today to talk. I wanted to hear his side and see what the fuck he had to say. Golden placed everyone’s food in front of them and then sat down with a breakfast cereal bar for her meal.

  “That’s all you gonna eat? With all that ass and body, your ass ain't eating no damn cereal bar,” I joked and she rolled her eyes at me with a smirk.

  “Mom has a big booty. She told me she got it from her mama,” Gyan repeated something his mother had told him. Pit Pat shook her head and laughed.

  “Lil boy, didn’t we say what you need to stop repeating?”

  “Yes, Pit Pat,” he nodded his head.

  “Finish up your breakfast and then get washed up for school. And you better ace that math test because we went over it last night a million times,” Pit Pat told Gyan.

  The way Gyan took to Pit Pat, I could tell he needed someone in his life like this besides Golden. Golden was always the person to discipline him and make sure that he was doing what he should have, but Pit Pat had given her a break and took over with Gyan, and Golden didn’t mind. Shit, Gyan didn’t even mind because he ate up everything my grandmother taught him.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He shoved some pancakes into his mouth and continued to eat until he finished his food.

  When Pit Pat finished, she looked over at Golden. “Look at the bags under your eyes, chile. Why aren’t you getting any sleep? You’re safe here; you don’t need to worry about that man any longer.”

  “Y’all just don’t understand,” she shook her head and bit into her cereal bar. “He has hurt me and he will do it again. Somebody won’t let me leave.” She cut her eyes at me.

  “You said you trusted me, right?” I asked her calmly. She rolled her eyes an
d went to finish her cereal bar like I hadn’t asked her a question. “You heard me, Golden.”

  “I do trust you, Yoshon. Listen, I don’t want to talk about this shit right now,” she snapped and got up from the table.

  Gyan watched his mama leave the table and continued to eat. Pit Pat turned her attention to me. “I thought I told the both of you to fix this?”

  “We did. Don’t worry about it. I want to know what’s going on with you?” Shit with Pit Pat hadn’t been the same since she returned from Yolani’s crib. She was quiet, kept to herself and I could tell she wasn’t telling me something.

  “I’m old. Change in my mood and attitude comes with the territory.” She tried to bypass what I was asking her.

  “Pit, I know you more than I know myself.”

  “Boy, I know me more than I know anybody else. I’ve been with myself since I came busting out my mama’s love below,” she chuckled. “I am fine, okay.” She stood up and grabbed both her and Gyan’s empty plates.

  “When you’re ready, will you tell me?” Knowing my grandmother, she wouldn’t tell me. She was the type of woman that handled things herself and barely boggled us down with her issues.

  “Soon as I have some issues, I’ll be the first to bring it to you, Yosho,” she called me the childhood nickname that she had given me.

  “Gyan, let’s get up and get your backpack,” she told Gyan and he jumped up to go do what she said. “You go talk to Golden, that’s the only woman you should be concerned about right now,” she told me.

  It didn’t make sense for me to go and speak to Golden right now. The person that she was so scared of was living in the next state over, and she was worried. Grand raped and beat her like she wasn’t nothing and she was scared of that happening again. I wished she knew that I would protect the shit out of her and he would never get close to her again. After I finished my pancakes, I grabbed my keys and headed out. Grand wanted me to meet him at his rental in the city. Part of me just wanted to put the word in and kill this nigga myself, then the other half of me wanted to just hear what the fuck he had to say. I believed everything Golden told me, but it wouldn’t have been fair if I didn’t listen to both sides before I started laying bodies down.

  I pulled up to a luxury building in the Queens and had the valet park my whip for me. The doorman held the door open for me, and I made my way up to the apartment number that he had sent me to. There was a bunch of shit I would have rather been doing today than going to have a conversation with this nigga. To make matters worse, my sister was fucking avoiding the shit out of me. When I called, she dubbed my calls and sent me some bullshit text message. I had something for her ass, and she would find out tonight when she thought she would be in the streets all night. I moved all the trap houses and told everybody to ignore her calls and tell her nothing. While Yolani liked to believe she was a bully in the streets, every once in a while, I had to remind her who the fuck was the real bully in the streets.

  Knocking on the mahogany door with the brass trim, I waited until I heard the locks being unlocked. A woman with light skin, brown short bob and glasses opened the door. She smiled and stared at me waiting for me to speak.

  “Grand here?”

  “Yes, come in,” she smiled and held the door open wider for me. Upon walking in, I could this was a woman’s crib. She had buddha heads strategically placed all over the crib and the apartment was painted in light hues of lavender. “He’s in the living room,” she told me and disappeared down the hall.

  When I made it into the living room, Grand was sitting with his feet kicked up with a cigarette placed between his fingers. The balcony doors were ajar, and he was too into the video game he was playing to know I had entered the living room.

  “You still out here playing boy games, huh?”

  “The fuck is that supposed to mean?” he chuckled and put his controller on the coffee table. “What’s good, man? I’ve been hitting your sister up and still haven’t heard shit.”

  “You and me both. I mean, I’m sure she got some shit she got going on right now,” I told him. The fuck he wanted me to do about it? The rule me and Yolani had was that we didn’t mix business with our own clients. I had my clients, and she had hers, so I wasn’t about to make this nigga a fucking client because Yolani couldn’t handle her shit.

  “Fuck all the personal; this is business.” He put his cigarette out and then lit another one right after the other one. Who the fuck knew this nigga was a damn chain smoker?

  I knew Grand and we went way back before he started calling himself fucking Fear. He kept in contact with Grape more than he did with me. When Ashleigh died, I stopped fucking with a lot of people and didn’t give a fuck anybody. If it wasn’t my family or Grape, I didn’t fuck with you.

  “Yeah, so take that business out on Yolani, not me. I’m here because of the shit that happened at my crib a week ago. The fuck is up with that?”

  He pulled on his cigarette and then stared at me through squinted eyes. “You came here for that? Nigga, what’s between me and my wife is between me and my wife, why you so concerned?”

  “You came in my fucking crib and decided to air dirty laundry out. I think I got every fucking right to come and hear what the fuck is going with the woman staying in my crib.”

  He let his guard down when I released those words. To him, that meant I wasn’t on Golden’s side, which I was. The way I worded shit I made him feel at ease, easy enough to talk to me without feeling judged.

  “That bi… woman is a fucking lying lunatic. She’s lucky I don’t go and get her murdered. Lying about me raping and beating on her. You know what the fuck that did to my reputation? My own family looked at me sideways after I was convicted on that shit. Know what’s worse, she dipped and left town without even fucking coming to telling me. She’s my fucking wife and just dipped after accusing me of some shit like that.”

  “The way she stared at you and shook, that shit don’t seem like she was lying on you. My nigga, I’ve been around liars my entire life, but shorty couldn’t fake that shit. She was damn near about to shake out her damn skin.”

  “Golden is a fucking actress. She’s always been one and good with her emotions, actions, and words. Since she left her mother’s crib, she been trying to find a nigga with money. You know how many niggas she went through in Virginia until she landed me?”

  “Grandmother?”

  “Huh?”

  “Since she left her grandmother’s crib. She doesn’t have a relationship with her mother.”

  “Yeah, that evil ass bitch.” He sat there silently pulling on his cigarette. I could see the guilt all over his face as he reminisced about the shit he did to Golden. “Yoshon, I got the utmost respect for you, but this here isn’t your place.”

  “See, if you had any respect for me, then you would know not to fuck with anything that’s mine. You’re right, I don’t know what y’all got going on, but I know what’s going on now and that shit ain't gonna happen under my watch.”

  “Baby, we have to get ready to go meet my aunt and uncle. You promised you would meet them the next time you came into town, so I arranged dinner at their home.”

  “Babe, I got you. Let me finish up here and we’ll get ready to go.”

  “Okay,” she agreed and floated out the room. This chick had to be some young, dumb bitch attracted to this nigga because of the money.

  “Look, what me and my wife got going on isn’t your business. We’re legally married so if I need to reach out to my wife and handle this situation, then this is what the fuck I’m gonna do. She dipped after getting me arrested; she fucking owes me an apology or something. I could have had her fucking killed for the shit she did to me.”

  “You didn’t.” I stood up. “The thing about doing fucked up shit is guilt. My nigga, that guilt eating the shit out of you. I can see the shit all in your face. I’m in retirement, Fear, don’t pull me out and make me show you what real fear is,” I told him and headed toward the ent
rance of the living room.

  “Yeah ight.” He nodded his head and put out his cigarette.

  As I turned around, I turned back around and stared at him closing the pack of cigarettes back. “You mentioned everything except your son.”

  “That bitch took him and ran. That lil’ nigga hates me because of his mother’s words.”

  “Or maybe it’s his father’s actions. Leave Golden and Gyan alone. Anything you need from her, ask me, nigga. Tread lightly, Fear,” I chuckled and left the apartment. This nigga had me fucked up if he thought I was going to sit back and act like my Golden wasn’t my business.

  I hopped in my whip and dialed Golden’s number. She answered after a few rings which pissed my ass off. “Why it take you so long to answer the phone?”

  “Because I was getting some sleep, Yoshon. Pit Pat has me locked in the room taking a damn nap like a child.”

  “Don’t blame her; you need to fucking sleep. Anyway, put something on tonight because I’m taking you out.”

  “Taking me where? I’m not leaving Gyan alone,” she protested immediately.

  “I’ll have Grape come to the crib while we’re good. Gyan will be straight.”

  She sighed. “Fine. What should I wear?”

  “We’re going somewhere laid back. I’m not into nothing fancy. Eva always made me do shit like that.”

  “Oh, so I’m not good enough for fancy restaurants, but Eva is?”

  “Sto—”

  “I’m joking. I’ll be ready,” she giggled.

  “Bet. I have a few more things to handle, and then I’m gonna swing by to come and scoop you.”

  “Bet.”

  “Why you trying to be like me and shit?”

  “Oh please. See you later,” she ended the call.

  I had to stop at the traps to make sure shit was running smooth. Yolani wasn’t handling it because she didn’t know where the fuck they were, I needed to make sure they were running smoothly. After, I planned on heading home to change and then go out to dinner with Golden. I needed her to understand that I had her and she didn’t need to worry about Grand. The easiest thing would have been to kill that nigga, but if he took his ass back to Virginia, that would be in his best interest.