Down With the King of the South

by Diamond Johnson

  Although Giovonte’s father was locked up, he had a couple of male figures in his life to school him, which was my daddy and this man standing on the other side of my door. I ended up opening the drawer on the small table that sat in the foyer and placing the knife inside because I didn’t want him to think that I was crazy for standing there and holding a butcher knife.

  “What’s up, Choc?” his deep voice called out.

  He called me by a name that he’d given to me years ago within seconds of meeting me. Like always, I found myself smiling when he called me that. I wanted to say that it was the wine I’d been drinking that had me secretly crushing on Miami, but truth be told, his ass was just that fine. Hmmm, and he smelled even better. I hadn’t been with a man in years so I couldn’t tell you the brand of his cologne. All my son liked to wear was Versace cologne, so that was really the only scent that I knew these days on a man. I didn’t know what Miami was wearing, but I liked it.

  He had a light skin complexion; the kind that if he were a woman, he would be called a redbone. Beautiful, greenish-hazel like eyes, with a long beard and facial hair that would make the perfect seat for any woman’s face. He had a good texture of hair that held the most perfect waves on a man that I’ve ever seen in my life. When he saw me, he licked those big, almost pink colored lips. I’m not sure why, but my panties had become wet just from looking at him. There was a big, diamond-shaped tattoo right in the middle of his neck that was surrounded by flames. This man knew he was fine, and as he pulled down on his beard, I saw the letters M-I-A-M-I spelled out on each of his fingers right below his knuckles.

  If I had to guess, I would say that he stood at least 6’5” and had to weigh a good 245 pounds of pure muscle. I’m not sure where he was coming from, but he was dressed up in a white, silk short-sleeved shirt with the first two buttons undone, showing off not only his neck tattoo but the top of the tattoos that were on his chest as well. White jeans hung from his waist, making him sag just a little bit. A pair of white Fendi sneakers were on his feet, and a big Cuban link with diamonds that were flashing in the night light was around his neck.

  “Toddrick King. To what do I owe this pleasure? I don’t know whether I should ask for a hug or for your autograph,” I called him out on his first and last name.

  I thought about Miami from time to time, but it was just based on me wanting to know how he was doing or anything of that nature.

  “Don’t do me like that, Choc. Damn, what’s it been? About three years? Your ass still ain’t going to get no fuckin’ taller. Let me get a hug, yo,” he called out.

  He’d opened his arms a little bit, and I slowly walked into his embrace. If he were my lover, my arms would have gone around my neck, but since we were just friends, I opted to wrap my arms around his waist, and he did the same thing to me. Now that I was closer to him, I got to smell his cologne for what it really was, and it smelled even better than before. We hugged each other in a way that proved that we hadn’t seen each other in years.

  When he pulled away from me, he looked down at me for a few seconds, shook his head, and then turned his attention to the driveway. He’d come in a beautiful, royal blue Maserati Levante SUV, and I didn’t know if he was sexier or the car.

  “I almost didn’t get out the car and knock when I didn’t see a car in the driveway, then I figured that you must have parked it in the garage,” he called out.

  “Vonte has it for the night. He went on a date with his little girlfriend,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

  He laughed at my facial expression when I mentioned my son’s girlfriend.

  “Damn, I been gone for that long that this lil nigga done got himself a girlfriend now? I hit him up a few weeks ago and told him that when I come back in town, I was going to come scoop him and take him out. I’m back for good now, so I’ll get him whenever he’s free,” Miami said.

  I don’t know why, but I found myself getting happy when I heard him say that he was back in Miami for good. After he stopped boxing, he was back and forth from Miami to Los Angeles because that’s where he’d moved.

  “Come inside and wait for him. He’ll be back within the next hour or so,” I said and stepped aside so he could walk past me and into the house.

  I closed the door behind him once he was in and watched him as he stared at the pictures that were hanging up on the wall in the foyer of the house. The picture that he stared at the longest was of Giovonte and me when he was a year old, and I was fourteen. It was Easter Sunday, and my grandmother had taken the picture of us on the porch. I wore a yellow dress, and I had a suit on Giovonte. If anyone didn’t know me, they would probably just assume that Giovonte was my little brother instead of my son.

  “I swear it feels like just yesterday that your ole boy came outside and beat the shit out of Trip when he found out that you were pregnant. That day will go down in history. Look at you and Vonte now. Lil nigga going to be eighteen in a few months. You can’t tell me that time don’t be flying,” Miami said after he finished looking at the pictures.

  “Yep, almost eighteen, and in a few months, he will be on his way to college. My baby isn’t much of a baby anymore,” I said.

  The two of us were now in the den. I was sitting on one couch, and he was sitting on the other one.

  “I know it’s going to break your little heart when he leaves you too. Y’all really all each other got, but you got to think of it for the positive. Let that man go out there and do greatness. I’m sure when he graduates and makes it to the NBA, he’s going to move you to wherever he ends up moving,” he let me know.

  “We were just talking about that in the car last night. I know it’s going to be hard on me at first, but I’ll live,” I said.

  “You stronger than me, Choc. My baby girl just turned three a couple of months ago, and I don’t be wanting her ass out of my sight. It kills me every time I get her for that one little week, and I have to take her back to her mama. Everything be telling me to stay in LA, but Miami is home for me, so I’d much rather be here. My baby mama does a damn good job of raising my daughter in my absence, though. I’ll be able to get her the entire summer, and we alternate between different holidays, so that’s fine. When that time does around, and she turns eighteen, I know I’m not going to want her to go away for college,” he said.

  “Oh my God! Three? Already? I remember when everybody found out that you had a daughter. You hid that entire pregnancy. Taniya, right? She was so cute, with her little chunky self. I haven’t seen her since the last picture you posted on your Instagram page, and that was when she was a few months old,” I remembered.

  “Yeah, you know a nigga wasn’t trying to be a daddy, at least at the time I wasn’t. I hid that because of the circumstances. That wasn’t my girl or nothing like that, just a little shorty I was fuckin’ on, and she got pregnant by me failing to protect myself. Hell, I didn’t even know she was pregnant until it was time for her to give birth, but that’s a story for another day.

  “People on Instagram are too fuckin’ ruthless, so I don’t be posting my baby on there. One of them miserable ass bitches will fuck around and call my baby ugly because I didn’t want to fuck them or I did fuck them and left them high and dry, and they’ll use that and create a fake page and talk down on my child. So, to avoid knocking a bitch’s head clean off her shoulders, I hide my daughter from all that shit. Here she is right here, though,” he said and pulled his phone out to show me the wallpaper that was on his phone of his daughter.

  Baby fever hit me like a ton of bricks when I saw his beautiful daughter on the screen. She was the spitting image of her father. She had those same hazel eyes that he did, and she had a bunch of curly, brown hair, with big cheeks that I just wanted to bite.

  “She’s so beautiful,” I cooed, and then I passed him back his phone.

  “Thank you, Choc. That’s my baby right there.” He beamed, and I could tell how much he loved his daughter, just from his smile alone. I’m not sure why, but his smile ma
de me smile.

  “Saturday night and Trip got you in the house again?” he asked me, and I waved him off.

  Everybody swore up and down that Trip had me on a leash, when actually, if I wanted to go out, I could. It was me who liked to be boring and relax on the weekend, knowing that Monday would come around too damn quick.

  “Trip don’t got me doing nothing! This is how I enjoy spending my Saturday nights,” I shot back at him and playfully rolled my eyes.

  “You a damn lie! What’s shorty’s name again? Your best friend? Mahogany, right? I bet she out somewhere in the club, listening to the City Girls with a bottle in her hand, screaming out the lyrics to their song word for word. Ain’t that how she do it? You ain’t with her because you know Trip will call your ass first thing in the morning, talking about who told you that you could go to the club,” he joked.

  I laughed because that was definitely some shit that he would do. He’d done it way too many times in the past.

  “If you must know, Mahogany is on a date tonight,” I let him know.

  “And what about you?” he said, his voice turning serious.

  “What do you mean what about me?”

  “A date. Do you be letting these niggas take you out on dates?”

  “No. Now, when I think about it, I have never really been on a date. Trip and I got together when we were young. We didn’t have any money to do anything or go anywhere. When we got older, and Vonte was here, it was mainly about Vonte. Then, when we moved in together, it was like in his head, he already had me, so he didn’t have to do all the date nights and stuff like that. You know, all the stuff that a guy does to a woman to try to win her over? On top of that, I was working, going to school, and raising my son, so I didn’t have the time,” I let him know.

  “Swear I didn’t even come over here to talk about no shit like this. I haven’t seen you in years, so I just wanted to pop up on you and Vonte. His lil ass always talking shit, going around boasting that he the best in NBA 2K, so I wanted to come over, beat him in a couple of games, and go on about my night. But since we on the topic, Choc, let’s talk about it. So, what, you supposed to have a happily ever after with Trip while he’s doing time for the rest of his life and you in the outside world? Shorty, I know that shit gotta get lonely.

  “We had to bypass the kitchen to get in here, and I saw the ice cream and wine. That’s like code for a woman saying she lonely. Not to cross the line in our friendship or no shit like that, but Jashae, you fine, and you know that. You been fine since a teenager. Any man would be happy to have you on his arm. Why you depriving yourself of love like that?” he asked me.

  God, he sounded just like everybody else in my life aside from Vonte because he swore he was the parent and I was the child and told me every chance he got that I couldn’t have a boyfriend.

  “I don’t want to hurt Trip like that. It’s bad enough he has to spend the rest of his life in there, so I can only imagine the way that I would hurt him if I moved on. I done got so used to it being this way that I don’t even feel like I’m missing out on anything,” I voiced.

  “Shorty, you missing out on a gang of shit! Trip and I go way back, but you know me and the nigga fell out years ago when he started being on a bunch of shit that I wasn’t on. I’d sell a dime bag here and there, hell I’d even kick a door in and steal from a motha fucka if I had to, but I was only doing that shit to help pay for some of the shit that I needed to box. Although I was raised in a two-parent household, my parents weren’t banking in money like that. All they money went to fuckin’ bills, and because I wanted to box, I did what I had to do to be able to get what I needed.

  “I’m not proud of that part of my past, but at the same time, I wasn’t on that gang banging shit and running down on niggas and beating them up just because I had fists and knew how to use them. That’s the type of shit that Trip was on, and once I knew that, I removed myself from that situation. I’m not here to change your beliefs or nothing like that, I just want to give you another opinion and let you ponder on that shit. You talking about you don’t want to hurt Trip, but Choc, what do you call the shit that nigga did to you and Vonte? He had a choice to run down on that nigga or let it go.

  “Not to make myself sound better than the next man, but if I had a baby mama at home and a seven-year-old son, it’s fuck whatever beef I got with a nigga because I wouldn’t give another motha fucka on this earth the power to be the reason I lost my freedom. If that nigga loves you like he claims, then he wouldn’t confine you to some ghetto, ‘Ima hold my man down’ type of love. The moment that judge banged that gavel, I would have set you free, shorty. I would have gladly let you go. Only job you would have had was to keep me updated when it came to my son,” Miami said.

  I didn’t know what to say next, so I didn’t say anything. I also never knew the real reason why Miami and Trip had fallen out. Trip told me years ago that they’d stopped talking because Miami started thinking that he was better than everybody, especially after high school when he’d moved away and went to box in college. Not to side with another man over my baby daddy, but Miami’s story sounded more accurate.

  For at least another hour or so, Miami and I sat on the couch just talking about pretty much everything. I bragged on my son for his basketball skills, and Miami promised me that he was going to make it to the next game. In the middle of us talking, I heard the door turn. I knew it was Vonte coming back home from the movies. When he didn’t come in the den where we were, and I heard him heading up the steps, I called his name out. He had to have known that we were in the den because Miami’s car was in the driveway, plus he could see the light on.

  “Giovonte!” I called his name out.

  A few seconds had gone by before he made his presence in the den where we were.

  “My bad, Ma, I’m tired. What’s up, Miami?” Vonte called out.

  His face lit up a little bit when he saw Miami, but as a mother, I could still see that something was wrong with him.

  “Look at you! Why you got this pissed off look on your face? Shorty didn’t give you any pussy tonight?” he playfully asked as he pulled Vonte in for a quick hug.

  “Toddrick!” I called out, going straight into mommy mode.

  I knew that my son was having sex because we had the talk. I also knew that his ass had better be using condoms too!

  “I’m fuckin’ with him, Choc. What’s up, nephew? What you benching now? You in the two hundreds yet?” Miami asked him.

  “Yet? Ma, tell this man that I been in the two hundreds,” Vonte said and turned around to look at me so that I could co-sign, and I had no problem doing just that.

  They talked with each other for about fifteen minutes before Miami stood up to leave. He promised Vonte that he was going to pick him up next weekend so the two of them could hang out. Miami hugged my son then came over and gave me one last hug before he walked out the door.

  Vonte walked him outside while I went back into the kitchen to toss out the ice cream that I didn’t even eat. In the middle of me washing the bowl, Vonte walked back into the kitchen. He lifted himself up and hopped onto the kitchen counter then looked down at me.

  “Why Miami was over here, Ma?” he went ahead and asked.

  “He said he came over to see you,” I let him know.

  “Alright, but I wasn’t here, so he could have left. You all laughing and stuff with that nigga, Ma. I like Miami. He another one who stepped up when Trip went away, but at the same time, I don’t need the nigga liking my mama,” Giovonte said.

  He had a pissed off look on his face, looking just like Trip.

  “What? Vonte, you’re talking crazy! That’s my friend. I’ve known Miami since before you were even born. What? I can’t laugh with a friend?” I asked.

  “Alright, when Trip calls me in the morning, I’ll let him know that you were laughing with a friend, and you’ll see that you were wrong. You a lot of things to Miami, Ma, but he doesn’t think of you as a friend. He was looking at
you the same way that I look at my shorty. I saw the way you were looking at that nigga too. I’m telling Trip on your ass in the morning!” he said and jumped off the counter.

  I threw the dishcloth in the sink and got all in my son’s face. I didn’t care that he was twice my weight or even taller than me for that matter, I could still get with his ass.

  “I know you done lost your fuckin’ mind cursing at me! Tell Trip! That’s your daddy, not mine! Giovonte, I am grown! I may look your age, but I am a grown ass woman. Toddrick is my friend, that’s all. You can be just like your damn daddy sometimes, so overbearing and doing too much.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Yeah, alright. I’m still telling,” he said.

  “What’s wrong with you? What happened on your date tonight? You been in a bad mood since you walked through the door,” I said, trying to sneakily change the subject.

  I didn’t need him telling Trip that I was hanging out in the house with Miami by myself tonight. I guess if I had to hide it, then it was wrong. There was no way that it would make sense in Trip’s head that me and someone who used to be a friend of his were in the den at my house chilling. Trip would swear up and down that I’d fucked Miami.

  In the past, when Miami would come over, Trip would always say stuff to me like, ‘Go in the house’ or ‘Why you always staring at that nigga?’, so it’s been in his head for a while now that I liked Miami, which really wasn’t true. I just always thought that he was handsome.

  “Nothing. I got into it with Taylor after the movies, but it’s fine,” he said, right before he pulled out a rubber band that was stacked with hundreds and set it on the counter.