Down With the King of the South

by Diamond Johnson

  I couldn’t sit down. I was up, pacing the floor. I’d managed to bite off all the gel acrylic nails that were on all ten of my fingers. I just kept wondering if my son was back there scared and if the doctors were giving it their all. I needed answers. I felt like an eternity had gone by before someone finally walked into the room. It was a doctor with green scrubs on and a look of… I don’t even know what. I can’t tell you what I saw. I didn’t know if his facial expression bore happiness or sadness.

  “Family of Giovonte Young,” he said, and everyone stood up.

  At the same time, Taylor and my son’s basketball coach walked into the waiting room. I was standing directly in front of the doctor because I was just that anxious to know what he was going to say. Crazy how I was anticipating his answer, but at the same time, I didn’t know if I wanted to hear it because what if he told me something that I didn’t want to hear? Then what?

  “We tried. It had gotten too difficult for him to breathe. He had a severe asthma attack, which progressed and sent him into cardiac arrest both on the ambulance and once he made it to the back, and—”

  “What the fuck do you mean you tried? Where’s my son? Where the fuck is my son?” I yelled and lunged for the doctor, but Miami swept me up so that I wouldn’t hit him.

  “Noooo! Put me down. Toddrick, put me down! Where’s my son? Where’s my babyyyy? Where’s my baby?” I was screaming and crying to the top of my lungs.

  The doctor came over, and his eyes were watery. It was obvious that he didn’t find any pleasure in having to be the one to come down here and tell this to us, especially to have to tell it to me.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Giovonte didn’t make it—”

  “Noooo… Noooo,” I screamed, trying to break loose from Miami’s arms, but he wouldn’t let me.

  “Stopppp. Todrrickkkkk, let me go. Let me goooo,” I cried.

  Everyone was crying at this point. I even looked up in Miami’s eyes, and his face was drenched with tears. The doctor said what he had to say, and he left. I fell to the floor with Miami, and I lost it. I screamed for my son. I screamed for me because I had just become a mom who had lost her baby. I saw stuff like this all the time on the news where parents lost their kids to gun violence, natural causes, or whatever else, and I said that I don’t know what the hell I would do if I were to lose my baby. Look at me. My baby boy was gone. A month before his eighteenth birthday, and he was gone.

  I can’t tell you how I felt. There was a pain inside me that started from the top of my head and went all the way down to the bottom of my feet. I kept questioning how this was even possible. I had just made a big breakfast for Vonte this morning because today was a big day for him. I dropped him off at school, kissed him on his cheek like I did every morning before he got out of the car, and I let him know that I loved him. Now, this.

  “Shit! I’m sorry, Choc. Fuccckkkk!” Miami called out.

  All the while, he hadn’t let me go. I stayed on the ground for what felt like five minutes. I hadn’t stopped crying, but I managed to push my way out of Miami’s arms, and I stopped up. My grandmother tried to walk over and console me, but I ended up pushing away from her. Before the doctor left, I heard him say the room number that Vonte was in, so I walked out in search of it.

  The wateriness of my eyes was clouding my vision something serious, but I kept right on walking. I could feel eyes on me from the nurses and the other family members who were standing in the hallway. I was sure I had to look like something out of a horror movie the way I was staggering to get to my son, crying, and mumbling shit that I didn’t even know what I was saying.

  I finally made it to the room that he was in, and I weakly walked over to the bed. There he was. My baby boy was lying lifeless in the middle of the bed.

  “Vonteeee,” I cried, walking over to him.

  Yes, the doctor had come up front and announced that my son didn’t make it, but to actually stand there and witness it with my own eyes hurt far worse than to hear it. I didn’t see his stomach heaving up and down, which proved that he was gone.

  “Baby, why would you do thisss? Why would you leave me like thisss? Vonte, what the fuck am I supposed to do now? You were my life… my joy… my world… my everything, Vonte. Why are you doing thissss?” I released a cry that only a mother could make as I looked down at my son.

  He wasn’t answering me. He wasn’t squeezing my hand back. All I could do at this moment was stand here and hear those words replay over and over in my head from what he’d told me a few months ago. I just don’t want my asthma to be my downfall, you know? Those were his exact words to me. His asthma had gotten better, so I never thought that this day would happen. My son loved basketball more than anything in this world, and I felt like it had cost him his life.

  I was able to get myself together, only for a few seconds, and I used that moment to take a seat on the bed, but still hadn’t let go of his hand. Suddenly, I heard footsteps come inside the hospital room along with sniffling. I looked up and saw Taylor walking in. I wanted this moment alone with my son, but I didn’t even have it in me to tell her to leave. Her eyes were bloodshot red, more than likely resembling mine, and she released a heartbreaking cry as she walked over to the bed.

  “I’m sorry, Vonte. I’m sooo sorry,” she kept saying over and over. She came around, and I just sensed bad energy from her.

  “Taylor, if you don’t mind, I would just like to have these last few minutes with my son. Please,” I said with my voice cracking.

  She nodded her head as if she understood, and before she walked out of the room, she kissed Vonte on his cheek. Lying down on the bed next to my son, I soaked up these last few moments because this would be the last time in my life that I would ever get to do this with him.

  Taylor Owens

  I sat in the car, and I screamed, cried, even swung my arms wildly at the steering wheel, punching it over and over.

  This was all my fault. I did this to Vonte. I killed him. I didn’t think that this would happen. I was only acting on my emotions. These days, it’s was like Vonte couldn’t care less about this baby or me. Basketball was all he seemed to care about. I was going through this pregnancy on my own. He wasn’t attending doctor appointments with me, and it was as if my child and I didn’t exist. If he and I ever got on the topic of my pregnancy, he would always question whether it was too late for me to get the abortion.

  Hearing the man that I loved continue to tell me to get an abortion hurt more than anything in this world. Because he had been giving me the cold shoulder these days, and all he seemed to care about was these damn basketball games, I let my hurt feelings get in the way. I was part of the student union at my school, and when it came to the basketball players, we pretty much treated them like royalty.

  It was our job to gather all the players’ bags and line them up on their chairs so they could have them during game time. Everyone knew which bag belonged to Vonte because out of all the bags on the team, he was the only one to have his customized. I knew he kept his inhaler inside his bag, so I took it. It wasn’t often that he would have to use his inhaler during a game because his asthma was getting better, but if he did need it, I was being spiteful by taking it. If he couldn’t breathe his best, I knew that it would more than likely cause the coach to take him out of the game. Without the team’s starting player, I knew that they would lose the championship game.

  That’s all I was trying to do since this championship was all he cared about these days. I didn’t think that the same day I decided to take his bag, he would have a severe asthma attack on the court and die. I swear that wasn’t my intention. I’m not even a hateful person like that. I loved Vonte. I thought that there would be back up inhalers that he could use if he needed one. Now, his mother was in his hospital room crying her soul out for Vonte, and I was the cause of it. All of his family members were in the family room crying, and it was all because of me.

  “I didn’t think this would happpennnn. I didn�
�t think he would diee,” I continued to cry out loud.

  In the middle of me crying, my phone buzzed on the seat next to me. I wiped my eyes and picked the phone up. When I saw who was calling, all I could do was suck my teeth while rolling my eyes. I didn’t want to talk to him, but I knew that if I didn’t answer, he would just pop up like he always did.

  “Hey,” I answered the phone for him.

  “I know you not crying because that little nigga is dead? Where the fuck you at, shorty?” his deep voice boomed through the phone.

  I sucked my teeth, hating myself for even getting involved with a man like him. Of course, he knew who Vonte was. Who didn’t know Vonte? He was well known in Miami and pretty much all over due to his basketball skills. This idiot that I was on the phone with was just as much of a Vonte fan as anyone else but was just too jealous to ever admit it.

  “Yes, I’m crying because he passed. You are so fuckin’ insensitive,” I cried.

  “Fuck do you want me to say, shorty? I didn’t know the nigga, so I don’t have any sympathy for his ass. All of a sudden you care about that nigga when you was just fuckin’ me last night! Look, come over. I want to show you these new shoes I got for you and our baby. I got a few other things for you as well,” he said.

  This is what I meant by saying that I hated myself for putting myself in a situation like this. The baby that I was carrying in my stomach didn’t belong to Vonte, but at this moment, I was hoping it did because with him gone, at least I would still have a piece of him.

  The person who I was on the phone talking was named Reggie, short for Reginald. I loved Reggie, but I loved Vonte more. I’ve known Reggie for the past two years or so, but it wasn’t a title on what he and I had. He was older than me, twenty-three to be exact, and he wasn’t looking to settle down just yet. I didn’t mind because I had Vonte. The moment I went to the doctor for the first time and saw how many weeks pregnant I was, I knew that the baby didn’t belong to Vonte because the weeks just didn’t add up, but because Vonte always had something going on from basketball practice, games, and school, I knew he wouldn’t question the weeks. He wasn’t like me, where he would remember the days that he and I had sex.

  Reggie didn’t know that I was telling Vonte that this was his baby. If he did, he would have probably killed me. I didn’t have a plan on what I was going to do once the baby got here, and I was leading two men to believe that they were the father of my child. As hateful as this sounds and Lord knows that I didn’t even want to have to say it, but Vonte died for a reason. It would have been a dirty situation if he were to have lived through this situation.

  “What do you mean I all of a sudden care about him? I do care about him! I love him! That was my boyfriend,” I cried.

  “Yo, you sound stupid as fuck right now! How that’s your boyfriend and you carrying my baby? You coming over or what?” he asked, followed by him releasing a loud, horrendous cough.

  That right there let me know that his stupid ass was over there smoking. That’s all he ever did these days. Reggie was a good man; he just had some fucked-up ways about him. He gave me money, he had his own place, he was so fuckin’ handsome but other than that, he was an asshole maybe 99.8% of the time. I didn’t leave him because we had an understanding.

  “No, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I let him know.

  “Fuck you too then. I’ll be glad when you have this baby with your emotional ass. Don’t call me tomorrow when you want to talk, it’ll be too late then because I’ll be with my other bitch,” he spat and then he hung up the phone.

  I couldn’t care less about him dealing with another woman. I had just lost someone who meant the world to me, and it was all my fault. I couldn’t get Vonte’s mother’s cries out of my head. Even with me back in my car and far away from her, I could hear her crying, and it was tugging at my heart so much that it hurt. She would never get over that.

  I knew how much she loved Vonte, and I also knew how much he loved her. In fact, for the longest, I was so jealous of their relationship because I felt like he was always putting her before me. I took someone away from her that she will never be able to get back, and I was sick to my stomach about it. I couldn’t tell her what I’d done because she would more than likely kill my ass. For the rest of my life, I would have to live with this secret. This would forever be a monkey hanging on my back. My life wouldn’t be the same going forward.

  Reggie was always busy doing God knows what, so when I had doctor’s appointments, I would usually go to them alone. My mother worked during the day at the hospital, so she wasn’t available to go to the appointments with me. Plus, she was pretty upset with me for getting pregnant, so she really wasn’t being as supportive as I would have hoped her to be. With neither of them going with me, I was depending on Vonte and putting pressure on him to come with me. After all, I was telling him that this was his baby.

  The only thing that Reggie did was buy things. As far as just being there and supporting me with this pregnancy, I felt like he couldn’t care less. All he cared about was buying the baby name brand things that it would probably grow out of within a month.

  With Vonte gone, I really felt like I had no one. Yes, he was giving me the cold shoulder, but he had a good heart, so I knew that it was only a matter of time before he came around. With Reggie, there was absolutely no changing him. He would be an asshole ’till the day he died.

  Giovonni “Trip” Young

  You know this bitch ass warden denied my request to attend my son’s funeral. I couldn’t even be there to lay my own fuckin’ baby boy to rest. As if being in prison while he died wasn’t enough, then these fuck ass crackas going to deny me the chance to attend his funeral. The only reason I haven’t spazzed the fuck out in this bitch was that I needed to be there for Jashae. My baby mama wasn’t doing good at all. Granted, I wasn’t doing good my damn self, but I was the man in this shit, so I had to be strong where she was weak.

  Jashae didn’t know how I cried myself to sleep every fuckin’ night since I found out about Vonte’s passing. When Jashae called me that night hysterically crying on the phone, immediately I knew something bad had happened, but I didn’t think that it had shit to do with my baby boy. I couldn’t get Jashae’s screams and cries out of my head, and it had been a damn week. I felt so guilty in this entire situation because when I learned from my son a couple of weeks ago that he had a baby on the way, I was overly strict on him. I wonder if he died thinking that I didn’t love him or he was a disappointment to me because that’s how I made it seem. That’s why we had to work on the power of the tongue because that shit held so much, man.

  Here it was, almost two in the morning, and I couldn’t sleep. I was holding onto a picture in my hands of Vonte and me when he was six years old. We took this picture a year before I was incarcerated. Jashae was the one to actually take the picture. We were lying in bed together, shirts off, on our back, literally holding our head the same way, mouth hung wide open and everything. I would sell my soul to be able to go back to that day. I wouldn’t have been out there in the streets running wild, doing stupid ass drivebys, none of that shit. Instead, I would have been looking for something to do legit, so that I could provide for my family.

  I was smart enough to know not to dwell on the past so I wouldn’t start doing it now. Lying there, I swear I could feel what Jashae felt although she was four hours away from me. I was so in sync with that woman that I knew she was hurting right now and needed me, so I jumped out of my bunk just to make sure that none of the correctional officers were working the floor because I couldn’t get caught with the phone since Raynell wasn’t there. She wouldn’t be back until first thing tomorrow morning.

  After making sure that everything was clear outside, I walked back over to my bed and dug through the cushion that we slept on, which is where I hid the phone. Once I found it, I quickly turned it on, and I proceeded to video call Jashae. It took her a few rings, but eventually, the screen came up, and it was pitch black. She didn
’t say anything, but I knew she was there because I could hear her breathing.

  “You alright baby?” was the first thing that I asked.

  Granted, I knew she wasn’t alright, but I still chose to ask. If Jashae loved anybody in this fuckin’ world, she loved our son. That shit didn’t even have to be questioned because she proved it in everything she did. She showed the love that she had for Vonte when she was only thirteen and a baby her damn self. I was picturing her now at fourteen when Vonte was almost one. She would be standing up with him in her arms as she tried to calm him down to get him to go to sleep, all the while, a textbook would be on the table as she did homework.

  If Jashae could have brought Vonte to school with her, I’m sure she would because she didn’t like to ask anyone to watch him for her. She jumped into that motherhood shit head first with no life vest and had been holding shit down from the moment she pushed him out of her. Never complained about shit either. She made sure that our son didn’t want for a fuckin’ thing, and she raised the fuck out of him in my absence.

  “Nooo. Trip, I miss him. I miss him so much,” she cried.

  Her cries had my eyes getting watery too. I sniffed and wiped my eyes before a tear could even fall.

  “Cut the light on the room, Shae. I want to see you,” I told her.

  “Trip, I—”

  “Shorty, please. I’m begging you. Let a nigga have peace of mind in knowing that physically you’re alright,” I went on to say.

  Minutes went by before I heard her moving around, and another few minutes had gone by before the light finally came on in the room. She was in the same clothes that she wore yesterday when I video called her in the afternoon. Her hair was all over the place, dark circles were under her eyes, more than likely from her not getting any sleep, her lips were dry and cracked, and of course, her eyes were red, looking like mine used to look when I smoked weed every day. Jashae looked exactly like I expected her to look; like a mother who had just lost her damn son. Appearance wasn’t something that I expected her to have up to par at the moment.