Down With the King of the South

by Diamond Johnson

  I was told that I had a hard head like my ole boy, so if Taylor wasn’t the one for me, then I would just have to figure that shit out on my own. So far, shorty hasn’t done anything to me that would have me looking at her sideways.

  “Shorty, my ole girl is not going to let me drive her new car without her in it with me. I at least got to give it another month or two. Besides, she’s in one of her moods tonight. She got into it with my ole boy last night over the phone, so she’s in a bad mood. She’s going to tell me no off rip,” I explained to Taylor.

  Everyone knew that when my mama got into it with Trip, she would get into one of her moods. I wasn’t even sure what he said to her last night that set her off because she took the phone off the Bluetooth, but whatever it was, it had her waking up at six in the morning, blasting all those hurt love songs that she liked to listen to and cleaning this entire house from top to bottom. The house didn’t even need cleaning because my ole girl was a neat freak, always having the house spotless. Shit, she still cleaned my room. Not that I couldn’t, but she swore that I couldn’t clean it the way she would.

  My ole boy called this morning, but he called my cellphone, only wanting to speak to me. Truth be told, I felt like having a father behind them walls was far worse than from having a nonexistent father. To me, it felt like putting candy in front of a kid’s face and waving it around in front of them, teasing them, but they couldn’t have it.

  It was a tease with the relationship that I had with my ole boy is how I saw it. Like, I had him, but I didn’t have him fully. I saw him once out of the week for a good forty-five minutes. Our relationship was honestly just an over the phone relationship. I had to tell my ole boy over the phone the type of grades I got, how I did in a basketball game, shit even that I loved him. When I turned thirteen, and my ole boy started talking to me about sex, he did it over the phone.

  I loved the fuck out of Trip, but I’ll be a lie to say that I’m not holding a grudge against him. That man left me and my ole girl. Put my mama in a situation to have to do all this shit by herself. I gotta give it to her, though. She made this shit look so fuckin’ easy, although I knew it was not easy raising a man on her own. I’m expensive too. Not that I asked my ole girl for expensive shit because I don’t, but with me playing basketball, it was always something that I needed. Whether it be new shoes, the team getting new uniforms, whatever it was, and she made it possible. That’s why I couldn’t understand for the life of me how Trip could get mad at my ole girl for saying that she was tired. At the end of the day, it wasn’t my place to say anything, so I stayed out of it.

  “Baby, come on. Ask her for me. I want to get out of the house tonight. I’m just trying to spend as much time as I can with you these days because once you go off to college, our relationship is going to be long distance,” Taylor whined into the phone.

  I paused the game and looked at her. She was on the screen in only her sports bra and some boy shorts. Taylor was seventeen like me. We shared the same birthday, but shorty didn’t look her age. She could pass for a twenty-four-year-old, and to me, that was a good thing. She had a young mama, just like my ole girl was young, but her mama was thirty-four. Her mama, Allison, let Taylor do whatever the fuck she wanted. Her mama would let me spend the night and all. My ole girl didn’t play that shit, though. She’ll tell me in a minute that I wasn’t about to play house with a bitch in her house. I found myself laughing because my ole girl stayed on top of me the same way that a father would stay on top of his daughter. Although she had me very young, my ole girl didn’t play that shit.

  “Hold on. Let me go and ask her,” I said, and then I dropped the phone on the bed.

  We lived in a two-story house, and my ole girl’s master suite was downstairs. I left my room and jogged down the steps to her room. When I walked in, I saw that she was underneath the covers, a glass of Pink Moscato was sitting on her nightstand that was half empty, and she was watching her favorite movie, Love Jones. When she saw that I entered the room, she paused the TV and looked up at me.

  My ole girl was beautiful. Trip called her a black Barbie doll when the two of them were on good terms because that’s exactly what she looked like. She had this nice, chocolate skin, and then her eyes were a light brown color. My mom had long, straight hair that went all down her back. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her wear weave a day in her life. When we were out together, people just automatically assumed that she was my big sister. People would damn near want to see proof that I was her seventeen-year-old son. That’s because my ole girl had a youthful face. She could pass for some of the seniors that I went to school with.

  “What’s wrong?” was the first thing she asked me.

  “Why something got to be wrong? I can’t just come in here with the most beautiful woman in the world?” I asked, climbing in the bed and lying next to her.

  “Now I know you want something. What do you want, Giovonte?” she asked, calling me by my full name, so I knew she was serious. I was usually Vonte to her.

  I released a sigh and ran my hands through my little chin hair that were sprouting.

  “Can I hold your car to take Taylor to the movies tonight? I have been in and out of practice and school all week, Ma. I just want to be able to kick my feet up tonight, you know?”

  She looked at me long and hard, and I could tell she was mentally trying to weigh her options. I was a good driver, never even tapped anyone else’s car when I drove. At least, I drove like I had some sense when I had my ole girl in the car with me. Aside from that, I had the windows down, music blasting, seat laid back, all that.

  “You can kick your feet up here. Tell her to come over here, and y’all can watch a movie in the den,” she voiced.

  “You know you don’t want that girl over here,” I said, looking down at her.

  “At least you know. Giovonte, if you so much as get a scratch on my car, I’m killing you. Don’t eat in my car, don’t put it in sport and start driving all fast, none of that. The keys are on the hook,” she let me know, and I pulled her into me then kissed her on her cheek.

  “Thank you, Mama,” I said before I stood up.

  “You have money?” she asked and reached over to get her wallet that was in her nightstand drawer.

  “I got money, ma,” I let her know before I closed her door and jogged back up the stairs.

  When I retrieved my phone, Taylor was still on the line.

  “She said I can drive it. I got to take another shower and get dressed. I’ll text you when I’m on the way,” I told her.

  “Okay, baby. I love you,” she announced.

  “I love you more,” and just like that, I hung up the phone.

  Two and a half hours later

  “Yo, you can’t pick no more movies! That movie was dumb as fuck!” I voiced the moment Taylor and I walked out of the movie theater.

  We were in the parking lot, and she was in front of me, while I stood behind her with my arms wrapped around her from the back as we walked to the car together. Her laugh was contagious, so when she laughed, I did the same. She looked nice tonight. Not that she always didn’t look good, though. Tonight, she was in a gold maxi dress that was pretty long on her, so she had to hold the bottom of it when she walked. Because she had gotten cold inside the theater, I’d taken off my jean jacket, and she was still wearing it although it was too big on her.

  Taylor knew how to do her own make-up, so she wore light make-up tonight. She had long, thick hair like my ole girl, and tonight she wore it pulled back into a low ponytail. From the moment I picked her up, I kept giving her compliments. I didn’t know what the fuck it was, but her beauty was on another level tonight. I wasn’t even giving her compliments because I wanted some pussy either. I was saying it because it was the truth.

  “What? Baby, the movie was good. It was funny as hell,” she said, referring to Tyler Perry’s: A Madea Family Funeral.

  I didn’t like it. The shit was corny as hell to me. I removed one arm from around h
er, so I could reach inside my pocket and pull out the keys to the car. Once the car was unlocked, we walked over to the passenger side door, which I pulled open for Taylor. I lifted her up from under her arms and sat her in the seat. Her legs were hanging outside the car, and I opened them a little bit so I could stand between them.

  “You felt heavier tonight, shorty,” I said with my lips close up on her to the point where I could almost kiss her.

  “Heavier? Which means that in the past I was heavy?” she asked me.

  I don’t even know why I said that shit. I regretted it the moment it came out of my mouth.

  “I’m playing, shorty,” I said, and there were about five minutes of silence.

  “I gotta tell you something, Giovonte,” she said, and my eyes instantly shot to hers because just like my ole girl, she rarely called me by my first name.

  With my hands on the hood of the car as I stood between her legs, I looked down at her.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She took a while, but then she reached up and grabbed one of my hands. She held it in hers for a few seconds before she brought it down and placed it on her stomach.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said, and I snatched my hand away from her stomach like her shit was on fire.

  I backed away from her and began to pace back and forth. My hands were on my head as I walked up and down the parking lot where we were standing. Truth be told, I almost wanted to cry. My ole girl was going to fuckin’ kill me. She preached that shit in my head a million times a fuckin’ day how I better not make her a grandmother yet. She kept my drawer filled with condoms, making sure that I was protected at all times. I wasn’t even thinking about myself or my future in this situation; instead, I was thinking about how this shit was going to hurt my mama. Trip even preached to me about wrapping my dick up.

  Taylor was my girl, and I knew this was an immature thing to say, shit even risky, but sometimes I wanted to feel her without the rubber. Even with that, I thought we were safe because she’d been on birth control for almost a year, which is what she told me.

  “I thought you was on the pill, shorty,” I finally found my voice and said.

  She looked at me as if I had offended her or something.

  “I am! I was, for that matter, but there were days when I would forget to take them. I was doing it all wrong. If I would skip a day, I would just take the pill for the next day, and—”

  “Don’t you think you should have told me that you were skipping days? If I knew that, I would have wrapped my dick up, yo! Fuck, man!” I yelled and punched the air.

  “Giovonte, why are you mad about this? I thought you would be happy,” she said.

  For the first time, I really had to look at her like she was slow or some shit. I’m talking short, yellow bus type of slow.

  “Fuck you mean why I’m mad? I’m seventeen years old, on my fuckin’ way to college in a few months to play ball. This shit just set me back like a motha fucka. Why would I be happy? I want kids, but not right now, shorty. Something as big as that has to happen when everything falls into place. Let me at least make it out of college first. What about you, shorty? You got accepted into UCF, or did you forget about that? Man, my mama is going to fuckin’ kill me, yo!” I said, and I was back to pacing.

  “Ohhhh, this is what this is really about. Your mama, right? Are you sure you’re not fuckin’ your mama because sometimes you act like you are! You care too much about that bitch!” she spat.

  My ole girl had been teaching me since I was like two to never put my hands on a woman, but hearing Taylor talk down on my ole girl made me snap. I quickly walked over to her, and my hands wrapped around her neck. I didn’t apply much pressure, just enough to let her know not to fuckin’ play with me!

  “Yo, watch your fuckin’ mouth! I’m sorry if I’m not one of those niggas who goes around disrespecting their ole girl. If that’s what the fuck you want, then go look for one of them lame ass niggas, but you sure as hell won’t find that shit in me. I was raised by a beautiful, black queen, and you or any woman that I deal with will accept that shit. I care too much about her because she raised me all by her fuckin’ self, and she brought me into this world, so I’m going to always respect her more than I respect anyone else. Fuck out of here with that bullshit, man!” I spat, pushing her back a little bit, and then I let go off her neck.

  “I’m sorry, Vonte. I just didn’t expect for this to be your reaction,” she cried.

  This was the first time I had ever really seen Taylor cry. For whatever reason, her tears moved me. It calmed me down a little bit.

  “Come here, man,” I said and opened my arms.

  She quickly got up and walked over to me. Her head went crashing down into my chest, and I held the back of it. She would never know this because she wasn’t looking at me, but I shed a few tears my damn self. We weren’t ready. I damn sure wasn’t ready. I had a future. I would never have had unprotected sex with Taylor if I knew that she wasn’t taking her pills the way she was supposed to.

  “I love you, shorty, but I’m not ready for a baby. Neither are you. I’ll give you the money for the abortion when I drop you off,” I let her know, and she snatched away from me.

  Taylor went and sat back in the passenger seat then she slammed the fuck out of the door. For her sake, she better be lucky that she didn’t break my mama’s window. She could be mad all she wanted. I said what I said. I wasn’t ready for a baby right now.

  Jashae Johnson

  Love Jones had gone off an hour ago, and instead of changing the channel to something else, I ended up rewinding it and starting it over from the beginning. I could watch this movie all day long if given the chance. I loved everything about that movie. My lonely ass loved the sex scenes even more. As much as I loved this movie, I couldn’t help but become overly emotional every time I watched it. This was one of Trip’s and my favorite movies. Back when he was home with me, this was something that we would watch together every chance we got. I missed those days.

  I hated what Trip and I had been reduced to. Yesterday’s argument had put a lot of shit in perspective for me, and it kind of made me realize that I deserved better. Hell, my grandmother, my daddy, Trip’s mother, even Mahogany had all been telling me for years not to sit around and wait for a man who was never going to get released from prison. I loved Trip more than I would probably love any other man aside from my daddy and my son, but I wanted more. I could see if he was understanding and at least trying to make this relationship work, but these days, it was constant arguing.

  I was actually glad that I declined his offer to marry him a year ago when he’d asked. I didn’t want that. I wanted a beautiful white gown. I wanted my father to walk me down the aisle, and I wanted my husband to be dressed up in a suit and waiting for me at the altar. I didn’t want Trip to marry me in his jail uniform. My son thought that I was in my feelings all day today because of Trip cursing me out over the phone last night, but I was actually in my feelings today because I could feel me removing myself from this situation with Trip. At least, that’s how I felt right now. He could get on the phone with me tomorrow, tell me a whole bunch of sweet nothings, and my dumb ass will be running right back to him.

  I paused the movie before it could start over again and climbed out of my bed. My cheetah print house shoes were sitting right by my bed, so I quickly slid my feet into them and walked down the hallway heading toward the kitchen. I needed to refill my wine glass, and I was in the mood for some ice cream. Giovonte had just texted me maybe twenty minutes ago, letting me know that he’d arrived at the movies, so I knew that he wouldn’t be home any time soon. Maybe it was the little buzz that I had, that made me let his ass drive my car. That or the fact that my son rarely asked me for anything and because he was a good kid. As much as I wanted to tell him that I didn’t want him to have his hoochie girlfriend in my car, I had to be the adult in this situation.

  My bowl was almost filled with butter pecan ice cream when there wa
s a knock at my door. I knew it wasn’t Mahogany knocking because we spoke earlier, and she told me that she had a date tonight. My son was at the movies, and I knew for a fact that my grandmother wasn’t coming over at this time of the night. It was oldies night at my daddy’s favorite club, so he was more than likely there.

  The drawer in the kitchen was already opened since I had to get a spoon to scoop the ice cream, so I grabbed a big, butcher knife, held it in my hands, and headed for the door. There was a window on the side of the door, so I quickly looked through it and found myself smiling as I saw who was on the other side of the door. It was a face that I hadn’t seen in about three years since his mother died, and my son and I attended the funeral. I believe that was three years ago.

  It was Toddrick, but everybody knew him as “Miami.” I met him in my teen years through Trip. They were friends, but they weren’t that close. I’ve always thought Miami was fine. Hell, any woman with a pair of eyes thought that he was God’s gift to Earth. For me, Miami was like that forbidden fruit. It was like an unwritten rule that I couldn’t mess with him since he was friends with Trip. In the ghetto rule book, you just didn’t do shit like that. You get people killed from passing your pussy around like that, especially with friends.

  While Trip was busy creating gangs and being a part of them, Miami was a boxer. I’m not talking about some underground fighter who got the shit beat out of them and were paid maybe two hundred dollars a fight. I’m talking big shit, like coming on FOX at night and boxing with some of the greats. His name was Miami for a reason because he’d definitely held his city down.

  Miami was great at what he did. In my eyes, he could have been the next Floyd Mayweather if he had kept going, but when his mother died, he just stopped. The way I went so hard for my son when it came to his basketball games is the same way that his mother went hard for him. Now that he wasn’t boxing anymore, he did more beneficial things. He’d opened a few rec centers here in Miami for future boxers. When it was time for the first day of school, this same man would pull up in the hood in a big U-Haul truck and give back a shit load of things for the kids. He did that same thing around the holidays as well. I was shocked to see him knocking on my door, but more than likely, he was looking for Giovonte.