Down With the King of the South 2

by Diamond Johnson

  She probably hated my black ass, especially after the shit that Miami said took place between her and Dino, but I didn’t tell that nigga to put his hands on her. I told that nigga right on the phone to leave the fuckin’ house if Shae was there alone. I would kill that nigga for putting hands on my baby mama. The plan was to put a bullet between her eyes only if Miami was there and she was pleading for him not to kill her. I know I probably should have never told him to take his ass down there anyway, especially given the fact that I knew he was missing a few screws.

  “Rook time,” the inmates called out.

  I quickly buried the phone back in the mattress and set the letters down too. Me, including every other nigga in this prison, actually looked forward to when new niggas came in. It was comical because half the time, these niggas would be shaking like a bitch walking in here and holding onto the shit that they would need to put in their cell. I remember my first time walking in over ten years ago. I wasn’t scared because I’d been to jail a few times, so I thought it would have been similar.

  I tried to act all big and bad, knowing that I was fucked up inside because the day before, that’s when the judge sentenced a nigga to life. A gang of niggas walked through in a single file line, and one nigga, in particular, stood out to me. I was just talking about this fuckin’ devil, and here his ass was, just in disguise. His eyes landed on me for one second, and then he quickly turned away. The fact that he couldn’t even look me in my eyes spoke volumes.

  This was a nigga who I would easily take the shit off my back for and pass it to him if he needed it, and he violated my girl the first chance he got. That killing rate that had us on lockdown about a month ago had just gotten higher because I was definitely killing this pussy the first time I got him alone! On my kids, I was killing him!

  Mahogany Williams

  “Okay, hang on. I’m going to tell you what it is, rigghhttt now… It’s a… girl! That’s definitely a girl,” my doctor said as he sat in front of a screen moving buttons around and trying to figure out the gender.

  Immediately, I started crying because that’s exactly what I had been praying for. I couldn’t have a miniature Jabari; I was bound to kill myself if that was the case. Jabari was standing on the other side of me, and he had a look on his face as if he didn’t believe it. He, on the other hand, was begging God to give us a boy because just like me, he kept saying that he didn’t know what he would do with a miniature me.

  Jashae was standing on the other side of me with her phone in her hand, recording the whole thing, although the doctor had told her not to. She started jumping up and down and screaming when she found out that she was going to be the godmother to a little girl.

  “Nah, Doc, check that shit again. Check it again, man,” Jabari’ ass said, being so damn in denial.

  I couldn’t even say anything because I was too busy crying tears of joy that I couldn’t curse him out the way that I wanted to.

  “Young man, I have been doing this since before you were born. I’m telling you, it’s a little girl. Congratulations, you’re going to be a father to a little princess. I wish you the best of luck,” the doctor joked and placed his hand on Jabari’s shoulder with a smile on his face.

  For almost ten minutes more, the doctor probed around, just basically checking the baby’s size and things like that. I wanted to go to the mall right after this and buy everything. This was the same baby that a couple of months ago, I planned to get rid of. God, I was so lucky that I didn’t get rid of this blessing. Prior to being with Jabari, I never wanted children. I mean, never. Don’t get me wrong, I had no problem when it came to kids, I just always doubted that I wouldn’t be able to properly raise them and love them.

  My mama was a piece of work growing up. At ten years old, I was sitting around the table with her and her homegirls, listening to ‘grown people’s’ talk. There were no rules, no discipline, and because of that, I just didn’t feel like I was worthy of being a parent. Like Jabari said, I wouldn’t mind taking a few parenting classes because Lord knows I needed it.

  “She’s going to be so prettyyy. I can’t wait to hold her and kiss on her,” Jashae squealed and took a seat on the empty chair.

  It had been about two weeks since Jashae had spent those few hours in jail, and truth be told, I didn’t know if she was back to her normal self. When I got that call from Miami telling me what had happened, I was shocked. It’s so crazy because Jashae never liked Taylor from the beginning. I had listened to a lot of her rants, especially when Vonte and Taylor got together, and turns out, she was right about her from the start. I could only hope that God blessed me with that same mother’s intuition when it came to my baby.

  I still couldn’t believe that Shae had found Vonte’s bag in Taylor’s room. That was some sick ass shit, and to think that I actually cried when I saw on the news that she’d died in that car accident. Fucked up part about all of this is we’ll never really know why she took his bag. All I can say is the bitch was crazy.

  My relationship with God wasn’t as strong as it should have been, but these days, I found myself talking to Him more than usual. I was constantly praying for myself and my child but also praying for Shae. I prayed that she would catch a break on all the fucked up things that continued to happen to her. For her to be such a good person, I swear bad shit was constantly coming her way.

  “You not happy, baby?” I finally asked Jabari after the doctor had left the room.

  My stomach was wiped off from the ultrasound, and I stood up, pulled my shirt down, and buttoned my pants back up. I was holding the ultrasound pictures in my hands, which I couldn’t wait to get copies of while Jabari pulled me into him.

  “I’m happy, bae. I’m just fuckin’ around. I’ll take whatever you give me, but fuckkkkk, I wanted a son.” He groaned followed a laugh and a kiss on my lips.

  I was happy, so happy that my cheeks were hurting from smiling so damn much.

  “There’s always a next time,” I lied, knowing good and damn well that I didn’t even want to think about having another child.

  I was only at my fifteenth week, with a while to go, and I was already complaining. I didn’t necessarily get any morning sickness, which was a good thing, but I was getting migraines just about every other day, the simplest foods give me heartburn, and don’t even get me started on my damn emotions.

  Jabari smirked at what I said, not even giving it a comment, and then we all walked out of the room together.

  “When you going to give my man a son? Bruh said he already got his name picked out and everything,” Jabari said to Shae after we were all back out in the parking lot.

  “That’s because bruh is delusional. Like I told Miami, he has other things to be worried about than getting me pregnant,” Shae said while texting away on her phone.

  She was still in her work clothes because, after this, she was heading back to the office. Shae was such a good friend because she left the office just to come over with us to the doctor and find out the gender with us. Shae could talk all the shit she wanted, but a man as fine as Miami, if he told you that he wanted a son, best believe you were going to do that. I knew Shae well enough to know that that son Miami was dreaming about was getting worked on every night.

  “Yeah, aight, tell me anything. Where your security at? You know Miami doesn’t let you run the streets by yourself,” Jabari joked.

  Shae put her cell phone in her purse after she gave Jabari the finger, and he laughed.

  “He fired him after he let me get arrested on his watch,” she said.

  We stood in the parking lot for a few minutes until she jumped in her car and headed back to work. I got in the car with Jabari, with hopes of us going somewhere to get something to eat because I was starving.

  “Let me swing by my store right quick, and then we can go get something to eat,” he said and shot out of the parking lot.

  I nodded, although that’s not what I cared to do. I knew that whenever he went to his store to che
ck up on business, it was never something that would take just a few minutes.

  “Why you don’t call your mama and tell her the good news?” he asked, catching me off guard with his question.

  “Ummm, I didn’t see you pull your phone out and tell your mama either,” I smartly retorted.

  “Trust me, shorty, Ima tell her. I don’t really talk to her like that every day because she got her own shit going on back home in Atlanta, but this is big. She’s about to be a grandmother to my daughter, so Ima hit her up, and you should do the same with yours,” he said.

  “I’ll pass. My mom and I aren’t as close as we used to be, and I guess that was both of our faults, especially since the phone works both ways. We really haven’t been the same since years ago when I left for college. I still love her, you know. We’re just not close,” I spoke.

  I was ready for this conversation to end from the moment he even spoke on my mom. She was a sensitive topic for me. I had a lot of resentment toward her, especially since she lied to me about a lot of shit over the years. The main one being the lie she kept going for years, leaving me to believe that my daddy was in the army when he really wasn’t.

  “And add on the fact that you’re mad at her about something,” he said and sat up in the seat, switching lanes now that he was jumping on the turnpike.

  “Okay, Dr. Phil. Fuck is you trying to diagnose me with? As much pillow talking as we do, why are you bringing this shit up now? You act like I’m going around saying that I hate my mama. I just simply don’t deal with her like that. I’m around you every day. I don’t see you calling your mama, so why are you hounding me about calling mine?” I asked, getting annoyed with him.

  “Shorty, it was just a fuckin’ question, yo. Obviously, I hit a nerve, so Ima just leave you the fuck alone. If I don’t call my ole girl, it’s for a reason. She wasn’t always the best mother to my ass growing up, so—”

  “And mine was? Nigga, I was twelve, and she was still telling me that my daddy was in the army! Fuck outta here with that man! I didn’t find out until I was thirteen that her ass didn’t even have a clue who my real father was. Don’t speak on some shit that you don’t know about. Trust me, I don’t deal with her for a reason. Don’t try to tell me to fix my problems when you have yet to fix yours. You moved down to Miami for a reason, Jabari. You not even from here, you’re from Atlanta. Yeah, you left to open a business down here, but we both know that you left to get away from your mama too!” I snapped.

  Maybe I was keeping it too real with him because I could tell by the way that he was flexing his jaw that I’d hit a nerve. He didn’t say shit else to me, though. Instead, he just turned the music up in the car, basically preventing me from saying anything else to his ass. Not even a whole hour had passed since he and I found out that we had a daughter on the way, and we were already beefing. I really wanted to see if he and I could go a whole day without being at each other’s throats.

  Almost twenty minutes later, he pulled his car into his sneaker store and parked right in his reserved parking spot. He shut the car off and opened his door. I had yet to come out of my seat belt because I didn’t even want to get out anymore.

  “Get out of the car, Mahogany. I’m not about to leave you out here in this hot ass car, no matter how much I want to,” he snapped and then got out.

  I finally took the seat belt off, reached in the backseat for my purse, and I got out too. He was already at the front door and holding it open for me. When I walked through it, he slapped me hard as hell on my ass.

  “All that fuckin’ attitude!” he called out.

  I didn’t even bother to respond because we were at his place of business. I loved the inside of his shoe store, Kickz. It kind of had an old school, New York basketball court kind of feel to it from the graffiti that was on the wall down to the actual court that he did have inside. All the chairs in the room to try on shoes were made out of a basketball material. Every Jordan that was ever made along with every sneaker from Yeezy’s, Nike’s, and whatever else that people were wearing these days were in the store.

  I wasn’t a sneaker type of girl. I loved my heels and my sandals. Days when I had to run errands and things of that nature, I would throw on a pair of Yeezy’s or some Nike’s, but that’s as far as it went. Because it was the middle of the day, there weren’t many customers inside, but believe me, after five, I’ve seen this place so crowded that it would literally be standing room only.

  “Barriiiii,” one of his female cashier’s said and walked over to him with a big ass smile on her face.

  I read her name tag, and it said, Britain. I’d never seen her before, but that didn’t mean anything because I’d only come to the shop a few times. The first thing that I picked up on was the fact that she was wayyyy too happy about seeing Jabari. I mean, this bitch was showing all thirty-two of her damn teeth. I wouldn’t knock her and say that she was ugly because she was actually very pretty. She was light skinned like me, but that’s the only thing we had in common because physically, her body was thick as hell, her hair was cut into a nice, feathered bob, and she had pretty, light brown eyes.

  She wore the uniform like the rest of the women who worked there, which was a white tank top with the letters Kickz on it in blue, some short blue jean shorts like the ones they wore in hooters and a pair of Jordans were on her feet. She walked over and tried to hug Jabari, but he curved her.

  “Oh no, don’t stop now because I’m here. Why is this bitch comfortable enough to walk up on you and hug you? She obviously does the shit any other day. Go on,” I said, really wanting to slap the shit out of Jabari.

  “Whoooaaa, it’s not even like that. I have a boyfriend of my own. No need for the name calling,” she said.

  When she spoke a full sentence this time, I was able to remember her voice. I laughed in her face while shaking my head. I would never let another bitch see me shake, so I would address the shit with Jabari and not her. If I responded to her, I would look like one of those ghetto bitches who fights while pregnant, and I didn’t want to do that.

  I walked away and headed in the back where I knew Jabari’s office was. I let myself in and flicked on the light, pacing the floor while waiting for him to come inside. I was mumbling all type of shit under my breath the whole time that I waited for him to come.

  After almost five minutes, he came in, holding two bottles of water.

  “We need to switch out your prenatal pills. It’s obvious that something in that shit is making you act all crazy. What the fuck is your problem, Mahogany?” he asked, taking a seat at his desk while I stood over him. He had the nerve to blow out a breath of frustration as if I was annoying him.

  “You fucked that bitch?” I asked, disregarding everything that he’d just said to me.

  He released another sigh and then pulled down on the hairs from his beard.

  “Because she called me Bari, I fucked her, right?” he questioned.

  “No, nigga, because you butt dialed me a few months ago, and I heard your conversation. Remember her asking you if you were seeing somebody, and you told her no? If you trying to fuck, there’s a bathroom around the corner. Remember saying that, right? I hung up the phone because I had enough of the conversation, so I’m asking you now, did you fuck her?” I asked, pressing my arms on the edge of the desk and getting in his face.

  “Ohhhh, that’s why you blocked my number and went missing? You were mad because of that? Not even trying to sound inconsiderate toward your feelings, but even if I did fuck her at the time, Mahogany, we weren’t together, and you know that. Wasn’t like I fucked around on you if I did hit it, but to answer your question, I didn’t touch that bitch. Me telling her that it’s a bathroom in the back was just spitting game. She works for me. Never mix business with pleasure. That’s like the golden rule,” he said.

  I stood there for a few seconds, looking him in his eyes and trying to find any signs of him lying, but there weren’t any.

  “You want me to fire her? Say
the word, and I’ll do it,” he said, placing his hands on my lower back and pulling me into his lap.

  “No, because you’ll give her the satisfaction of making me look insecure. I hate that you used to be such a hoe,” I groaned with a serious expression on my face.

  “I wouldn’t say I was a hoe. I think friendly is a better choice of word. Don’t judge me on my past, though, bae. Look at a nigga for what he’s doing right now and for what I’ll one day be doing. I hate to say this shit, but I done fucked around with a lot of bitches. This how you gon’ act every time you come in contact with an old flame? Them bitches don’t mean a damn thing to me. You’re all that matters to me, yo. You and our daughter, that’s it. Keep that in mind the next time you let a bitch try to knock you off your square,” he voiced.

  Jabari moved me with his words. I never really had a nigga have me the way that Jabari had me. Listening to him remind me that I was all that mattered to him had me wrapping my arms around his neck and giving him a few kisses on his beautiful lips. When I tried to pull away from him, he cuffed my chin, giving me that lazy look.

  “Shorty, when I tell you that you’re crazy, I don’t be playing. A nigga be dead ass serious. You loony as fuck,” he said, making me laugh.

  “So! I’m loony about your big dick ass,” I called out and kissed his lips one more time.

  With a smirk on his face, all he could do was shake his head.

  Jashae Johnson

  “What you got a taste for? I’m trying to book the reservations now,” Miami said on the phone.

  I was in my office with the headset on, talking to him while I worked on an Excel document that I prayed to God I would able to finish by the time I was ready to clock out. If not, I would have to take it home with me. The reservations that Miami was referring to were for me to finally meet his baby mama, Tahira. It was supposed to have already happened, but it seemed like every day, something was happening which prevented the meetup.