We were now by the island and were basically running around it. The fact that I was so angry about this and I had to chase his ass around the house just to get to him wasn’t doing anything but further infuriating me.
“Ma, I was going to tell you! I swear I was going to tell you. Damn, why you going through my clothes?” he had the nerve to ask me.
I was still trying to catch up with his ass.
“Because I buy your fuckin’ clothes so I can go through them. When I get you, I’m fuckin’ you up! Why the hell would you do this? Did you not think about your future, Giovonte? Come here right fuckin’ now!” I yelled again, still trying to catch him.
I tripped over the legs on the bar stool that we’d managed to push away from the island with all that running that we were doing. I fell flat on my ass, and this boy had the nerve to smirk. I knew he wanted to laugh, but he wouldn’t dare do it in my face. I was crying. Not because of the fall, but because the one thing that I prayed my son wouldn’t do, he went ahead and did it anyway. He finally stopped running, and when he made his way over to me, I lost it. Hits and slaps were landing everywhere.
“Why the hell would you do this? Why? What is wrong with you?” I cried.
When I was thirteen years old, and I’d gotten pregnant, I couldn’t for the life of me understand why it had made my grandmother so emotional. For years, I questioned that. Now, that I was put into that same situation, the only difference is it was my seventeen-year-old son, so I knew exactly how she felt.
“I’m sorry, Mama. Damn, I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, but I was going to wait until after the championship. She said she was on the pill, man,” he yelled in his defense.
I could hear my grandmother off in the distance suck her teeth.
“So fuckin’ what? I told you to protect yourself at all fuckin’ times. What about diseases? Her being on the pill can’t keep your dick from falling the fuck off! You just witnessed last night what having a baby at a young age can deprive you of. At thirty years old, I went to my first homecoming dance last night. Giovonte, you know firsthand how I struggled with you. Just get away from me right now. Go!” I yelled.
“I’m sorry, Ma,” he said again.
“Go, Giovonte! Right now!” I yelled.
I was an emotional wreck; crying, yelling, all of that. I’ve never in my life been so damn disappointed in Giovonte. I really thought he would be the one to stop the cycle of having babies at a young age in this family, but I was wrong. For weeks, I’ve been questioning why the hell he’s been acting so damn distant, and the truth finally came out tonight. Wow!
“That’s still your son at the end of the day, Jashae. As pissed off as I was with you, you were still my granddaughter,” my grandma said, coming over and sitting next to me on this cold ass floor.
The ultrasound was still in my hands, and I was still crying.
“I know that, Ma. Damn, I’m so angry with him. I was trying to avoid this. He knows better. Trip and I preach this shit to him all the damn time,” I said with my head in my hands, feeling like I’d failed as a mother.
My grandmother wasn’t saying anything; she just allowed me this time to get my emotions out and speak on the way that I was feeling. We must have sat on that kitchen floor for at least an hour. Every time I would stop crying, I would look back down at the ultrasound in my hands, and I would be crying yet again. I had no words. As disappointed as I was with Giovonte, that was still my son, so I had no choice but to continue loving him despite what we now had to face.
9:35 P.M.
That had to have been the best shower that I’d ever taken in my entire life. I stood under some scorching hot water that probably would have burned the hell out of anyone else who didn’t too much care for hot water, and I let the water just run down my body until it turned cold. I washed my hair while I showered, and now I felt refreshed. I had a red, terry cloth wrapped around my body, another towel wrapped around my head, since my hair was still wet, and a face mask on my face, as I did my nightly skin routine. I couldn’t stomach any food right now, so I didn’t even bother to cook anything tonight, let alone order.
The fact that the secret was now out of the bag and my son knew how angry I was, it must have taken away his appetite as well. Before my shower, I’d gone into his room just to see if he wanted anything for dinner, and he let it be known that he was fine. There was nothing that I could do to change the situation because that girl was almost eleven weeks pregnant with my grandchild, so there wasn’t a point in holding a grudge against him. Listen to me, talking about a damn grandchild! I was thirty years young, and pretty soon, someone was going to be walking around here calling me grandma.
What I did have in mind though was getting Taylor’s number from my son because I wanted to have a woman to woman conversation with her ass. I wanted to know her motives in this entire ordeal. From what my son had told me, she was supposed to be going away for college after she graduated as well, so I wanted to know her plans. I wasn’t her mother, so it wasn’t my place to tell her to get an abortion. Plus, when I was thirteen years old, my grandmother didn’t tell me to get an abortion so it would be pretty silly of me to be a hypocrite in this situation.
Shaking those thoughts out of my head, I continued to sing along to the Lyfe Jennings song that I had playing softly through the Alexa speakers that I had in my bedroom. The music wasn’t up too loud, so I was able to hear my phone when it started buzzing on the nightstand. It was Trip, and he was video calling me from the Imo app that he had me download on my phone. He didn’t have an iPhone, so, therefore, he couldn’t Facetime. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to Trip. I felt like these days, all we ever did was argue when we either spoke to each other over the phone or when we saw each other in person.
I wasn’t sure if he even knew about the baby that our son had on the way, but I was sure that he’d talked to Vonte today because the two of them never went a day without speaking. Against my better judgment, I ended up flopping down on the bed, and I answered the phone for him. He was inside his cell, lying down on his bottom bunk, and it was dark. It wasn’t too dark that I couldn’t see his face, though.
“What’s up, beautiful?” was the first thing he said when my face appeared on the screen.
I’ll admit, it moved my heart a little bit to hear him calling me something that held some level of affection to it.
“Nothing, I just got out the shower. Did you talk to your son today?” I asked.
“If you asking me if I know that he got his lil shorty pregnant, then yes, I know. I told him when I see him again, Ima fuck his ass up! Hard headed ass lil nigga. You need to take his fuckin’ phone too,” Trip said.
He was always the one who was tough on Vonte. Granted, I could be a hard ass too, but Trip was far worse than me when it came to punishment.
“Trip, take his phone, seriously? He’ll be eighteen soon, I’m not about to take his phone. I’m sure we can come up with something far worse than that,” I went on to say.
He was grilling me so hard on the screen, but I wasn’t changing what I’d said.
“Swear if this wasn’t his senior year, I would have told his ass to sit the rest of the season out. What type of parent would I be to do that, though? If I do it now, I’m fuckin’ with his future, and I don’t want to do that. I looked that lil nigga in his eyes the other day and told him that he wasn’t ready to be nobody’s daddy, and instead of speaking up on the fact that he already had a baby on the way, he chose not to say shit. Who the fuck is this girl any fuckin’ way? You know her?” Trip asked.
“Vonte brought her around a couple months ago. I see her all the time at the basketball games. She’s not the poster board picture for the girl that I would want my son to be dating, but Vonte likes her. Once he has his mind made up about something, you already know that there really isn’t much that you can do to change it. He gets that stubbornness from your ass,” I let him know.
“Shit like this always has me regretting doing that shit that I did ye
ars ago because I wouldn’t have to be away from my family while something like this is happening. I’m about to be a whole fuckin’ grandad, and the only way that my grandchild will know me is behind these walls. What a fuckin’ way to meet somebody, right?”
I hated when he started talking like this. It’s like I could hear it in his voice that he was giving up or something. I could feel myself becoming emotional, and I fought so hard not to break down over the phone because if I cried, I knew that he wouldn’t sleep well tonight since he would be so worried about my wellbeing.
“Ima let you go, baby, because it’s too quiet, and I don’t want these motha fuckas to hear me on the phone talking to you. I want to ask you something first, though,” he said.
“Okay, what is it?”
“Miami was over there a few nights ago?” he asked, but something told me that he already knew the answer to the question.
I swallowed hard and sat up in the bed. I could feel myself beginning to sweat, and I wanted to remove the towel from over my head, but I didn’t want my sudden body language or movements to tell my truth. I couldn’t lie to Trip. Not that I physically couldn’t, but I wasn’t dumb enough to do it, especially when I knew that he already knew the answer.
“Yes, but he was only here to see Vonte. They text and talk to each other from time to time, so he came over to play the game with him,” I said, technically telling the truth because that is what he’d come over for.
“When he got there, Vonte wasn’t there, was he? He was out that night,” he said as if he was here when all of this happened.
“No, but—”
“But, fuckin’ what? If Vonte wasn’t there, fuck you let the nigga in the house for? You fucked him, Jashae?” he barked.
I wasn’t sure if he didn’t care that he was talking to me on a phone that he wasn’t supposed to have, but all this yelling that he was doing was going to have his dumb ass thrown in solitary confinement once they saw that he had a phone on him.
“No, I didn’t fuck him, Giovonni! I told you why he came over here. He was coming to see Vonte. We talked until Vonte got back. That’s my friend, Trip! Damn, you be tripping for no reason,” I yelled. I was now standing up on my feet.
“If he’s just your friend and whatever y’all did was innocent, why you didn’t tell me? You tell me every fuckin’ thing else. You didn’t tell me because you knew not to fuckin’ play with me like that, and you knew I would knock you in your fuckin’ mouth. Shorty, let me put a birdie in your ear. That ain’t no fuckin’ friend of yours. That lame ass nigga calls you Choc. Any nigga giving a bitch a nickname, it’s obvious that he likes her and he trying to fuck something. If I hear about that nigga coming over there again, it’s going to be a sad day for our son because I swear, I’ll get one of my niggas to do you and him dirty,” he said.
Granted, Trip had said a lot of fucked up things to me over the years out of anger, but this right here had to have been the icing on the cake.
“Who even says something like that to the mother of their child? Whatever problems you have with Miami aren’t my problems! Did you forget that while your ass is locked away, Miami happens to be one of the male figures in Vonte’s life who is putting some motivating shit in his head, and telling him things so that he doesn’t get involved in doing the wrong things? You must have forgotten that he would take Vonte with him on the weekends and buy him clothes and shoes. What about a few years ago when he took Vonte to look at colleges? You were okay with it then, so why is it all of a sudden a problem now?
“Listen, I’m hanging up now. I will not be the cause of that phone getting confiscated and your stupid ass getting thrown in the hole and you can’t talk to your son for weeks. Goodbye, asshole!” and like that, I quickly turned off the phone, so he couldn’t call me back.
I was so fuckin’ sick of this shit! I knew I should have never answered the phone in the first place.
Toddrick “Miami” King
“What you getting into tonight? I’m sick of the whole strip club scene. I’m trying to do some new shit. Let’s call up a jet and go to Vegas to gamble,” Jabari said.
It was five in the evening, and he and I were in my home gym. I loved working out; it helped to alleviate a lot of the stress that a nigga be dealing with. Sweat was dripping from just about every part of my body, and it looked like someone had just taken a bucket of water and thrown it on me. I’d lifted so many weights tonight that the veins in my arms were showing more than they usually did. A gallon of water sat on the floor right next to my feet. All I needed to do was take a few more swigs, and I would have finished the entire thing. I was sitting down on the bench that went with the bench press as I used the hand towel to wipe away the sweat from my face.
“Shit, I got four tickets to see a fight tonight at the Hardrock, but I don’t know if Ima go, though. It’s supposed to start at ten. Jimbo, a little nigga who grew up right here in Miami, is supposed to be fighting somebody tonight from Colorado. He came to the rec center last week and personally handed me the tickets. I’m not really in the mood to step out tonight like that,” I said.
“Nahhh, if dude from Miami, you have to go off rip. You gotta show bruh some support. He handed you them tickets for a reason, which means he wants your ass to be there. You like the king of boxing nationwide, Miami, so just go because it’s a whole bunch of other shit that his ass could be doing with his life, but he’s doing something productive. I’ll go with you. Call up your girl and see if she wants to go. Tell her to bring her shit talking ass friend too,” he said.
It took me a little minute to figure out who he was talking about, then it clicked that he was talking about Jashae and Mahogany.
“Why you want Mahogany to come? Just so you could fuck with her ass again. Take her crazy ass lightly if you want to. Shorty missing a few screws for real,” I warned him.
“I’m missing a few myself, so what? Let me find out you being a pussy and don’t want to call Jashae,” he told me.
“Fuck you, nigga! Ain’t nothing pussy about me! I’ll call her right now,” I said then stood and went to the counter where my phone was.
It was hooked up to the Bluetooth speakers that I had inside the gym, and some old school JT money was blasting through the walls. I hadn’t talked to Jashae on the phone in years, so I honestly didn’t know if her number was still the same. I’m not going to lie, I was hoping that I had deleted it so I could have that as an excuse not to call. I let Jabari’s ass hype me up to call her, and now I was a little nervous to do the shit. I guess I was thinking about the fact that she could possibly say no and clown me while I had her on the phone, right in front of this shit talking ass nigga.
I found her name and number then went ahead and called it, placing the phone on speaker. Almost four rings had gone by, and she still hadn’t answered the phone. Just when I was getting ready to hang up, it picked up, and I heard some shuffling around. I could hear the wind blowing as if she was either standing outside or she was in the car with her windows rolled down.
“Hello?” she answered. Her hello was basically her in confusion of about who was calling her.
That right there proved to me that she didn’t even have my number saved in her phone.
“What’s up, Choc?” I asked.
“Miami? Hey, what’s going on? Hold on, I’m walking to the car. I just left the hair salon,” she said.
I waited another minute or so and then I heard her soft voice come back on the phone.
“Hey. Everything alright? If you tried calling Vonte, he’s in practice right now. They won’t get out for another hour or so,” she went on to say.
“Nah, I actually called to talk to you. What you got planned for tonight? I have tickets to watch a fight, and I wanted to see if you and Mahogany wanted to roll. I’m going to bring my cousin, Jabari, with me,” I said.
“Mahogany doesn’t like your cousin,” she said, followed by a beautiful ass laugh. “If I tell her that he’ll be there, she won’t want t
o come,” she let me know.
“Then don’t tell her that he’s coming. What about you, though?” I asked.
There was a forty-second pause before I heard her voice on the phone again.
“Ummm, as long as Mahogany agrees to come with me, and you bring your cousin for sure. It can’t be just you and me because ummm, you know? I don’t want it to look like it’s a date and people get the wrong impression,” she said, and I nodded, agreeing with her.
“Yeah, Jabari definitely is going to be there, so you don’t have to worry about that. Just four friends going out. It’s not a date, Choc. If I had to take you on a date, just know that it wouldn’t be in a room filled with a bunch of motha fuckas because I would want to be able to hear you when you speak. Besides, a boxing match is not my ideal place for a date. Call your girl up, let her know the plans, and y’all can meet us there tonight. I’ll text you over the address when we hang up,” I let her know.
“Okay,” and just like that, she hung up the phone.
In the middle of me texting her the address, I heard Jabari in the background laughing.
“A boxing match is not my ideal place for a date,” he mocked me, followed by a laugh.
“Fuck you! It’s not! If I’m feeling somebody, Ima take her somewhere nice, where it’s a nice little ambiance, where the two of us could just sit and talk. More than likely that’ll get done over dinner. I ain’t trying to take it there with Choc yet. That’s my friend,” I went on to say.
“Keep telling yourself that. Your eyes light up like a motha fucka when you talk about shorty. You look similar to the way that I look when I light up a fat ass blunt whenever anybody says the name Jashae. I know I play a lot of games, but like I told you before, you better get her before another nigga do. Keep playing that friend bullshit if you want to, and you going to hit the corner and see her holding hands with another nigga. By then, it’s going to be too late,” Jabari said, having the fuckin’ nerve to give me some advice.
Down With the King of the South Page 9
