by Tiana Laveen
“Look how you are speaking to me? Look at how you are behaving?! You are demon possessed, Brent! Demonically possessed, do you hear me?!”
“Perfect. What else am I? I am glad you can school me on exactly who I am when you don’t know much about me at all, never even cared to find out.”
“You were such a good boy, this breaks my heart! You had so much promise when you graduated high school. Why would you do this?! Why would you encourage women to sell their bodies to strange men?!”
“I’m not a little boy anymore, Mama. That’s what you seem to have forgotten. I’m a grown man, a totally different person than you saw many years ago.”
“No, I don’t believe that. I think this is an act, something destructive you’re doing. Regardless of what you say, I do know my own son, and this isn’t you.”
“Mama, let me explain a little something to you.” He scratched the tip of his ear as he prepared to lay her out flat. “…But before I do, I want to tell you that I love you and always will, and that’s just the damn truth.” He leisurely leaned back in his seat and propped his feet up on his desk, crossing his ankles. “Now, please don’t interrupt me, because I don’t want to lose my train of thought.” Plucking another grape from the bowl before him, he popped it in his mouth and continued. “You brought me into the world, and I believe you cared for me, though it was a twisted and misdirected love.” He swallowed the fruit. “Nevertheless, for years, I tried to be a part of your life, fit in with the family I was born into. I attempted to find someone to really love me and want me around. Come to find out, no one wanted Brent at all. And you know what, Mama? That’s cool, I understand it, shit happens.” He shrugged.
“You are an angry person, taking things out on me that I had nothing to do with.” She said coldly.
“Yeah, whatever. Back to what I was saying,” he dismissed. “I was a mishap. Well, at least on my father’s part. I was born from a woman that was crazy about a man that wasn’t crazy about her. That had to be a terrible feeling, Mama. You know, to give love and not receive it back. You thought I’d keep him in the picture, that he’d stay for a baby, but he didn’t. In fact, my existence probably made your fairytale burst into flames.
“So what did he do? He up and left. He didn’t call you. He didn’t stop by. He was done, completely over it. The older I got, the more I looked like him, and the more you hated me and loved me for it.”
“You’re on drugs, aren’t you, Brent?! That is the only way you would say such ridiculous things! You are trying to blame me for the poor choices in life you’ve made. You need to get some help!”
“Mama, look, I’m not a drug user or abuser. You may find me on occasion with a cigarette in my mouth, or a bottle of beer, and I’ll admit to you, a few times a year if I’m at a party with my friends, I might even have a cigar in my hand, but I dare you to try to find me getting high…just not my thing. And nothing I’ve said is ridiculous. You just can’t handle the truth. All of those years living with you, I loved you so much, was so afraid of hurting your damn feelings and rocking the boat! I walked on eggshells when I should have been trying to call someone to come help me get away from you!!!” he screamed as he seesawed back and forth in his large brown leather chair, fingers digging in his thighs. Fresh angry tears burst forth in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall.
“You don’t think I recall you sneaking into my goddamn bed when I was little, Mama?!” He laughed manically, then plucked another grape, this time almost squishing it to death in his grip.
He could hear her breathing grow ragged on the other end.
“Yeah…didn’t think I remembered, did you?! I told you to stop calling me after our last argument and you’ve gone and done it anyway, so since you’ve opened this damn door, I’m just going to walk on through! Here’s what you did—you’d kiss all over me, and your face would be all wet from crying tears over a man that didn’t love you.” His heart began to pound as he relived the revolting moment. “You’d snuggle close, your long, red hair draping all over my little damn face, but not how a mother does a son, no, it wasn’t that sort of embrace at all. It was more like how two people gravitate towards one another, draw in to one another, you know, right before they get ready to fuck.”
“Just stop it! Stop it! These are all lies! Why would you want to hurt me like this?! Make up these things?!”
“Mama, Mama….” He smiled and shook his head, his heart swelling with hatred and breaking all at once. “I’m not trying to hurt you, baby.” His eyes narrowed as he sucked his bottom lip for a second or two. “I like how you talk now; it is so much different than when you were raising me. It’s real polite, almost sweet. It’s one of your many characters, like a movie role…” He shook his head. “You see, Mama, after all of these years, I finally told someone else what happened to me, told ’er what you did to me. I told a woman that I care about a great deal, because it was important to her. Before that, it all stayed in my mind…festering. I’d never confronted you about this because well,” he said with a shrug, “I pushed it out of my mind for years, treated it as if it had never happened. It was such a fucked up thing, I had somehow separated it from my own memory…but believe me, I recall—Every. Damn. Detail. Now that I’m older, I can make sense of it all.”
“Nothing you’re saying makes sense! I never did anything like that to you!”
But he went right on, ignoring her. The truth was now out of the bag, and she was going to take what he was serving, whether she ordered it or not.
“You missed Dad so much, you tried to turn me into him. You didn’t want me to leave, and you knew that was what I was gearing up for, so you lied about him and covered your tracks. Now, trust and believe…” He smiled. “I know that man was no angel, either. Matter of fact, in some ways, he was the true demon that you keep talking about. But one thing I can say about Dad though, Mama, is that he never lied to me. Everything he told me was God’s honest truth; some of it I was even able to later verify with backed up facts, versus my own intuition. It’s amazing what you can find lying about the house when someone dies…like letters from my mother to my father, telling him she wanted X amount of dollars for him to have me and that he better stop calling to speak to his son or she’d get her number changed again…”
“How dare you make him out to be some saint when he is the one that taught you this sinful, evil mess! I know all about your father’s life now, Brent! You only know what he wanted you to see! He was a whoremonger, just like you! He took drugs, drank like a fish and there is no telling what else he was teaching you!”
“Mama, see that’s where you’re wrong. Dad didn’t teach me how to do this. He refused, actually. Now, he did some other shit to test me, to see if I was roadworthy at the time, and it looks as if I didn’t impress him enough in order to get my Y.P.I.T. card.”
“Y.P.I.T. card?”
“Yeah.” He smirked. “Young pimp in training.”
He wished he could see her expression right then.
“Mama, this is who I am,” he said solemnly. “I’ve been doing it so long now, I couldn’t do anything else if I tried. I’m in love with the lifestyle and that’s all there is to it.”
“Your father did this. I don’t care what you say, Brent.” She seethed. “And he will pay for it, even after death.”
“In a way, you’re right. Did you know his grandparents raised him? I imagine you did. His mother abandoned the family, ran off with some other man, and then his father left, too. He didn’t exactly have it easy now, did he? Did you know his grandfather was a damn pimp, too?! The tall, albino guy? I saw my great grandfather in a photo album of his after Dad died. What a strange looking man, very pale skin and white hair, with the oddest light blue eyes…just like mine. But it didn’t stop him from being business savvy, now did it? He was a pimp at a young age during the damn 1950s! Nothing like some illegal activities and sordid sex to put a smile on your face!” He laughed boisterously.
“…Yes, I knew yo
ur father’s family. Of course I knew what he’d been born into, but that wasn’t until after we were married.” She said it as if had she known, she’d have never let her ex-husband touch her with a ten foot pole. But Smoke knew better; if his father had of been the Devil himself, she still would have allowed the fucker inside of her heart and body, without a blink of an eye…
“When you rent out rooms in your house to whores and johns and then demand payment from the tricks afterward, that’s some pimping in ya life!” He grinned. “I know Dad told you, Mama. He was proud of it! Come on now, be a realist! This way of life is a tradition.” He lightly slapped his leg as he continued to swivel. “Have no worries. I don’t wear bright, gaudy clothes, hats with fur or big ass rings. No, I keep my shit tight, Mama. No one can look at me and tell me what I’m doing.” He bent far back, causing his seat to squeak as he rested easy on his laurels. “On top of that, I have some legit enterprises. I’m not as dumb as you thought I was!” He tasted her hurt through the phone, and kind of liked the flavor.
“The things…you’ve said to me tonight… The things you’ve done sicken me, Brent. You have no remorse. You’ve lied on me and to me!”
“Mama, I have to go.” He rolled his eyes. “I hate to cut this riveting phone call short, but I have some women that need my attention. Now, as I do every month, I will send you a check. If you need more than that, I’m sure you’ll let me know.” He waited for the woman to tell him she didn’t want his sinful money, that God would toss his wealth in the raging river along with his very soul, but he heard no such thing and didn’t expect to.
“Brent, before you hang up this phone, you hear me and you hear me good.” Her tone turned threatening, just like how he recalled as a little boy. “One day, I will be dead and gone, and you will realize when it is far too late, the harm you’ve caused me by your choices. One day, you won’t ever get to speak to me again, or see me. I wanted so much for you, and this is what you do. By the time you wise up, you’ll be dead or in prison, just mark my words…you disgust me!”
“Mama, now see.” He ran his hand over his forehead as he fought a budding vexation, and closed his eyes. “Your inability to accept who you are is what sickens me. I didn’t tell you about my profession because you never asked. Let me put this mirror up to your own goddamn face! You’re a con artist, and you pimped my emotions and manipulated me, okay? You’re so fucked up, you probably believe this bullshit you’re saying to me right now. You did shit to me that shouldn’t have happened, and I loved you in spite of it so don’t go judging me, waving your Bible in my face! Daughter of a Preacher man! Where in the Bible does it state you can try to screw your own son, huh?! Surely there has to be a passage in that thing about lying, making me touch your body and kiss you in the same place you pushed me out of! Yeeesss! Let’s talk about who is truly disgusted, Mama!”
“How dare you?! Filth! Nothing but filth coming out of your mouth!”
“Why don’t you quote me those scriptures, Mama? Huh, what’s wrong?! God got your tongue?! He put you on mute? No worries. I’m patient. Go ahead and read it from King James atop a mountain! I’ll wait, goddamn it!!!”
“Oh my God! I’m dropping to my knees in prayer for you right now!” And then the woman slammed the phone down.
He bit his lip so hard it almost bled. For years and years, he’d stuffed down the memories of what had happened. The repeated visits under his sheets, her begging him to tell her that he loved her—over and over again. Begging to be held and warmed by his small body. He was just a kid; he didn’t know what the hell was going on. Then the infamous night occurred where she’d been drinking. He could smell it on her breath when she’d leaned in close and pressed her lips against his own. But oh, it got so much worse. She made him lie down on top of her. She didn’t touch his penis that evening but her hold on him was damn near pornographic as she wrapped her thick thighs around his tiny waist. He mumbled he didn’t like it, wanted it to stop…
No more…Mama, please…no more…
He told her he wanted to get off, and then she looked up at him in surprise, as if suddenly aware of her contemptible actions.
She slinked out of his room, never to pull that shit again—the final time she tried to turn him into her lover. But what if he’d obliged? What would she have had him do next? The woman had been drunk, but he was certain she comprehended the situation. Maybe she felt guilt, remorse. It didn’t matter; she had no right to call him and point her fucking finger in his face when she’d done wrong in a form and fashion that would put many to shame until the end of time.
…You look just like your daddy…
Proved to be a curse. And for the longest, he didn’t understand why he hated when people would say that to him. Smoke hoped she never called him again and he sure as hell didn’t want her praying on his behalf.
“Pray for your damn self!” He picked up his planner and pitched it as far and hard across the room as he could. It smacked into the wall, the pages flung open here and there. He hadn’t allowed himself to get that angry and loud in a while, and something about it felt unnerving but liberating all at the same time.
He refused to take shit from anyone, even Mama. This was his life, and he had command of the ship, refusing to share the wheel with another damn soul. Should a motherfucker try to strong-arm him, their ass was going overboard with no life preserver—and he’d sail on, without ever looking back…
*
THE CONVERSATION WITH Mama proved to be far more contaminating to his inner peace than he realized. He could barely sleep that night, and tossed and turned in his bed. He relived portions of his upbringing, some good, some bad, as the minutes wove themselves into hours. One memory came to mind, his foundation, his start, his new beginning. He drifted into it and held tight, plaiting the old, worn events inside of his troubled mind…
After a few months of living in California with his father…
Brent’s fifteen-year-old self sank nose deep in a strange world filled with sunshine, sweet breezes and a new school that he’d only spent two months in before summer break erupted. But he actually enjoyed it, much to his surprise. He struggled a bit, but he soon discovered Brent Sr. was not only likable—he was lovable. His father had quickly become his idol. Calls to Mama became less and less frequent, and though he hadn’t been asked to keep any secrets, he’d gotten into his father’s beer stash one evening and decided to confront her about the bounty on his head. Liquid courage brought him to it and motherfucking through it. She denied everything, began to scream and wail that his father was turning him against her, just as she feared. The woman sounded so sincere, but how could he not believe her?
He honestly no longer knew who the hell was lying, who was exaggerating and who was telling God’s honest truth. Regardless, a fresh hatred for her planted itself within him, and this time, it didn’t leave so fucking quickly. It festered, like a never healing wound. The woman was bitter, calculating, that much was certain. He’d trusted her, never doubted her sincerity, and now, all of that was over. He’d officially been played. The woman that was supposed to protect him had put blinders over his face and painted pictures that never existed. What a fucked up thing to do. Regardless, the silver lining was this new life he was living, the one his father had rolled out for his view and utter enjoyment.
Most children witnessed their parents get up and get dressed for work in the mornings. On the television, mothers and fathers walked around in long, white robes smiling as they held big glasses of fresh orange juice, coffee ’nd shit. Their kids would skip out the damn house, giddy as fuck to go to a place filled with more smiling kids that were happy to see that A+ on a test and ramble on about absurd bullshit that most people in the world didn’t give two shits about. Oddly enough, Brent’s mornings weren’t much different now. His father would rise at five in the morning, cook both of them breakfast, and dress in the finest suits he’d ever laid eyes on. He showed him how to shave, especially since his facial hair was coming in
thicker and faster than ever. He showed him how to dress properly, how to put this and that together, just so. He even went over with him how to damn talk. Brent had a slight Southern accent, and his father did too, but he noticed the man could drop it like a damn dime when on the phone with others.
He taught him how to “fix” his hillbilly voice, and replace it with the one he really should have been born with. Every morning, he’d have him say a sentence or two, and then correct how he said it, smoothing the shit out like satin. Dad told him having a deep masculine voice like theirs would go to waste if they didn’t kick that hay out of it. They weren’t living in Dollywood, so there was no point in savoring that country drone.
Then, his old man would grab the keys to his money green Porsche, give him a hug and customary kiss on the forehead, and head out the door, his long black ponytail swinging behind him. Only on occasion would he see one of his father’s ‘employees’, and that irked the hell out him.
What did these women look like? Where exactly was Dad going? Why didn’t he dress wild and crazy like the pimps in the movies did? How did this man get women to sell their bodies for him and why in the hell had he not known that his very own family tree bore fruit to such a lifestyle, so many decades ago? He looked at the brand new curio cabinet in his room that his father purchased for him. It housed his entire model airplane collection on which a mellow yellow light shone, making them stand out as if they were being presented at an elite, members only museum. The sight relaxed and calmed him, made him feel okay in an odd situation.
The damn planes… How strange that they could create peace in an miserable existence. Inside, Brent knew that what his father was doing was wrong, but, he couldn’t help but gravitate towards it, love the notion. Who wouldn’t love sex, money, a nice pad, fancy clothes, fast cars and pretty women 24-7? His pride and joy, though, often dissipated, shoved aside by embarrassment. Sex. The topic had come up a time or two, and he’d managed to skirt around it like a hula dancer at a luau. He didn’t have the heart to tell his father he was virgin. What would someone as cool as Dad think of that? Here he was, almost sixteen, and he’d never made it past second base. Matter of fact, he was awkward, definitely no lady’s man. Girls back in Monroe would tell him he was cute, that his height and eyes drew them in, but he didn’t feel that way at all. He was more like his mother he supposed—a peeling wallflower, shrinking away into the distance. He wouldn’t call himself shy, just reserved.
