by Anna J.
“Journey, what did I tell you about how life works?” I asked her as I took a seat on the windowsill and waited for her to recite the words I made her study from day one.
“You said you live then you die. But Uncle Vince, that doesn’t stop it from hurting,” she said through her tears.
“True, but does it bring that person back?” I asked her, so that she could see my point. People die every second of every day, and more than half of them aren’t even missed.
“No,” she said as she tried to dry her tears.
“So, there you have it. Go in the bathroom and wash your face, and stop being so weak. You wouldn’t be able to break down like that on the streets, so keep that in mind.”
Once she got herself together, I had her straighten up around the house and help me carry my stuff down to the first floor. Joey’s knucklehead son could help me take the shit to my Jeep, and then I would walk him home. I knew leaving her in the house alone was the wrong thing to do, but in the long run, it would make her a stronger person. I just hoped I didn’t create a monster.
I grabbed up the two duffle bags and gave Khalid one, and we made our way down the street to my Jeep that was parked in front of Choice’s crib. There were big piles of snow everywhere, and the street had some major slippery spots, making it a little difficult for Khalid to keep up with me, but he managed. He kept mean-mugging me on the way down, but I would lay his little ass out, along with his peoples, so I did my best not to let it faze me.
As we got closer to his house, I could hear Shanyce and Joey fighting like cats and dogs, but I didn’t hesitate to knock on the door so that they could take their seed and I could be gone. Joey opened the door like he was ready to kill somebody, but when he saw his son standing there, he calmed down and looked at his watch.
“Yo, Vince, my bad, dude. I didn’t know it got this late. Sorry he was around there for so long.”
“It’s cool. It was time for Journey to turn in, so I just walked him back. I’ll see you on the block tomorrow, right?” I asked him as I turned to walk away, leaving out the intimate detail that my sister-in-law had died. I would just leave it up to Khalid to fill his dad in on the details, and I would handle it accordingly afterwards. He confirmed that he would be out tomorrow, if not later on tonight, and I left it at that and made my way around to the spot.
When I walked in, I stepped into the cipher while we watched the events that took place at my sister-in-law’s house play out on the news. I knew I should be around there comforting Journey, but she had to grow up eventually.
I looked at my watch to check how much time I had, because I knew child protective services would be showing up to make sure she was cool. I knew I could trust Choice and Bird to run shit while I handled my business, because I figured I might have to stay around there for a couple of days.
I would make it more comfortable for her to be in there, though. Chicks liked to shop, so I figured if I showed her a few magazines and helped her remodel, she’d be over her mom in no time and we could get back to business. I would give her a few days to grieve—I’m not totally heartless—but afterwards, I didn’t want to hear shit else about it. Fiends don’t get funerals, so I hoped she had her chance to say her goodbyes before they took her mother’s body out of the house.
“Yo, you cool, dude?” Choice asked me as he passed a lit blunt my way. I didn’t feel any type of way about the situation, so it didn’t really matter to me.
“Yeah, I’m good, playa. Another one bites the dust,” I said, bringing a round of laughter from the crew. They already know how I felt about the death thing. I would just have to spend a little time down this end until the law felt like Journey was in a safe place. The crew would watch the spot when I was gone, so I wasn’t really worried about it. They would make sure Journey was safe, if for nothing else than to protect the product we were moving.
Joey Street
Get In Where You Fit In
“You a fuckin’ slut. The only reason I’m here is because of my son.”
“You know what? Fuck you, Joey. The only reason I’m keeping you here is because of our son. After all I’ve done for you, this is how you treat me?”
“All you’ve ever done for me was fuck all my friends and spend all my money, and I’m tired of this shit.”
We’d been arguing since I got back in the house, and of course, she tried to deny everything my son said. Why would my son have a reason to lie to me? Even the dude from the breakfast store hinted that he knew what her pussy looked like, so what was I supposed to do? I always knew Shanyce was a fast ass, but I figured if I wifed her and gave her everything she needed, she would calm down. Here we were nine and a half years later with a kid, and she was still on the same shit.
“I just told you he was fuckin’ lying. What else do you want me to do?”
“Do you want me to go get Vince so that he could tell me what my bedroom looks like? Or what about half of Bartram Village? Do they know how we living up in this bitch too? I knew you was a whore when I fucked you, and the only reason why I stayed was because you took the abortion money I gave you and bought summer clothes instead of getting your ass up on the table.”
That shit hurt her. I know it did. We’d been arguing that fact for years, even though I promised her years ago that I wouldn’t throw that up in her face again, and that I had forgiven her. She trapped me, though, and being the man that I was, I wasn’t going to let her ride out by herself, so we made it official. Or as official as it was going to get.
I put a ring on her finger, but we had yet to take the plunge, mostly because she was a damn whore and everybody knew it; so much so that I was thinking about getting a revolving door put on our bedroom to make access easier. Shit, you would think that she would want to do right in front of our son, so that he would have some morals. There was only so much that Christian school was going to teach him. He had to get the rest of his values from home, and the way shit was looking, if we had to depend on Shanyce, it wasn’t going to happen.
“That’s some hurtful shit to say, Joey. How could you really expect me to give up my son?”
“At the time, it was too early to even know we would have a son. You trapped me, and that’s just the way it is.”
She broke out in tears on me, and I tried to act like it wasn’t fazing me, but it had my chest tight on some real shit. It’s not like I didn’t care about Shanyce, because I’d definitely grown to love her over the years; but she was making me look real stupid out in the street, and eventually I would have to put more bodies up under my belt if these niggas was going to be thinking I was on nut status. That’s the shit she didn’t understand.
I started to apologize, but for what? She was giving out coochie credit cards all over the damn place, with no regard to how it would affect our household. Fuck her, man. I had other shit to worry about, especially when they finally found her brother down the park. I was glad it stormed the way it did, because that would give me some time to get my game face together, but it was inevitable. I murdered her brother so that he wouldn’t murder me. That’s the way the game is played. Kill or be killed.
A knock on the door interrupted our battle briefly. I started to ignore it, but then I remembered my boy was out there and Vince was probably dropping him off. My speculation was correct. I opened the door and saw them standing there.
“Everything cool, man?” Vince asked as he tried to look around me and into the house. I ushered my son into the crib and pulled the door tighter because I was hot with his ass anyway, and I hadn’t quite figured out how I would be dealing with him just yet.
“Yeah, everything good, playa. Thanks for walking Khalid home. I’ll be out in a little while.” I offered him the only explanation he needed. That was the problem: everybody in the neighborhood knew our damn business. I would be digging in Shanyce’s ass about that as well.
“Anytime, man. See you in a little while.”
He tried to steal one last glance around me, but I clos
ed the door in his damn face. I wanted to curse Shanyce’s ass out again, but when I got back to the living room, she was holding Khalid and crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her, not sure if she was crying because of what I just said to her or if something else had gone down.
“Journey’s mom died while Khalid was over there,” she said through her tears, causing my mouth to drop open for the second time today.
“What?”
“The ambulance was around there and everything. He said everything was cool, but when Journey went to check on her, she was dead.”
Vince ain’t bother to say a word to me about the shit. How fucked up is that? Yeah, I was gonna have to definitely step to dude about some shit, because apparently he thought he was untouchable. Why wouldn’t he say something? If some shit had gone down while his niece was here, I would have told him. That made me wonder how much he really cared about the little girl, because on some real shit, he just recently started looking out for her.
She was kept a little on the raggedy side for a long minute, but I guess he decided to step up her game. It made me wonder what she had to do to get put on, though, because Vince did nothing for free. I knew he had a thing for young girls, too, but after he got caught with that sixteen-year-old last summer, I assumed he learned his lesson. The young girl’s family whipped his ass for what seemed like hours, but when her mother tried to press charges, the girl denied being with him, and there was nothing they could do. The girl claimed she was in love with him. When she tried seeing him again and he brushed her off, it was too late. The judge wouldn’t believe her, and he walked away scot free.
Shanyce had Khalid in the bed tucked in, and it killed me to see my boy in tears, but what could I do? I knew him and Journey had gotten tight, so seeing her in pain surely did something to him. I would talk to him tomorrow, since this incident was still fresh and he was still hurting from it.
I thought briefly about Journey and who she had to comfort her, but that wasn’t my business to dip into. I just prayed that whatever hand she was dealt didn’t harden her heart, because when they were changed around at her age, there was no turning back.
“Shanyce, we’re not done talking,” I said to her at my son’s bedroom door, walking away to meet her in our bedroom. I couldn’t help but think how Vince probably had her up in here, ass out. I knew she was a snake charmer, so nine times out of ten, she blessed him. That was part of the reason why I stopped kissing her years ago. When I first started hearing the rumors back in the day about her getting around, I deaded all affection besides the dick-down I gave her. I don’t know whose nut was coating her tonsils at any given moment, and I preferred not to sample the shit to find out.
“Where did Khalid get the gun from, Joey?” she asked me when she came back into the room. I couldn’t tell her that I had a stash in my son’s closet, but that would be moved soon, because eventually she’d come across it and we would have yet another problem.
“I don’t know.”
“So, it wasn’t yours?” she asked with a hint of skepticism in her voice, letting me know up front that she didn’t believe me.
“No.”
“Just get rid of it,” she said in a defeated tone that said she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Neither did I, but our conversation was far from over.
I didn’t bother to respond; I just grabbed my coat and bounced. I stopped by my son’s room to check on him, and found him sitting in the window, crying. Stepping into the room completely, I closed the door behind me so that we could talk and not have his mom butt in.
“Dad, she just died out of nowhere,” my son said to me when I sat down on the bed. He was crying so hard he was practically hiccupping, and it tore me up on the inside.
“Khalid, I know that was a lot for you to deal with, and it’ll get better in time.”
“But what happens to Journey, Dad? Who is going to help her get through this?”
For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have an answer for him. I couldn’t reassure him that things would go right for her, because that little girl lost her mother, and was now out there to fend for herself. That could make her or break her, and I hoped she was a strong one.
I consoled my son as best as I could, and I sat there until he fell asleep. I didn’t even bother to check on Shanyce, because I was two steps from strangling her ass anyway.
When I got around the block, Vince, Bird, and Choice were sitting in a cipher on the porch, so I joined them, drowning my troubles in weed smoke. We were all silent for a while, I suppose just thinking about the events that took place this evening and what we had to do. I knew if nothing else, I had to stack my chips fast and bounce.
“So, you ready to get this money?” Vince asked me, eyeing me curiously.
“Never been more ready in my life.”
“Cool. We got some shit we need you to take care of, and we didn’t forget about that nigga Bunz, either. We gonna let him ride for a while since shit is quiet right now, but he gonna get his. Right now, it’s time to get that paper,” Vince said, speaking for the group.
It was time to step the game up, whether I was ready or not. I didn’t plan to stay in the game that much longer, but who ever does? All I knew was shit was about to change, but I doubted it would be for the better. I had to get in where I fit in, and if that meant bumping some soldiers out, then I guess that’s how it had to be.
Bird pulled out a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 and we took turns sipping from the bottle, trying to keep warm. It was sad that I would rather drink after my boys than tongue-kiss my girl, but that was the reality we lived in. All I could do was see where it took me. Right now, I was focused on getting this paper before this paper chase got the best of me.
Part Two
Thanks to the duffle bag, the brown paper bag, the Nike shoe
box for holding all this cash . . .
—Jay- Z
Five Years Later . . .
Journey Clayton
My How Time Flies
I barely know how I had survived since my mom died. I mean, so much had happened since then. Vince moved in for a little while so that I wouldn’t be forced into foster care, and it was like having the devil himself residing under this roof. The only thing that came out of it that was any good was that since he stayed here most nights, he kept food in the house. That was only because his simple ass had to eat too.
Surprisingly, he was a little more lenient as I got older, though. Like, where before he would drive me to Toya’s house to get my hair done, now he would let me walk over to the projects by myself, as long as I got my hair done early in the day and Toya didn’t take forever doing my hair. I was cool with that, though.
The only thing I hated was how the guys out there looked at me, like I was a piece of meat they were just waiting to pounce on. Especially this guy named Bunz. His look made my skin crawl, and not in a good way. He would always flick his tongue at me and blow me kisses. Yuck! All that did was make me walk faster.
I was starting to blossom as well, and my once boy-shaped body was turning into a round booty that jiggled in my sweat pants when I walked. My days of wearing a training bra were gone, going right into cute little pushup bras from La Perla.
I overheard my uncle and Mr. Joey talking out on the stoop one night about how they were going to kill Bunz from some beef they had back in the day. They had been on to Bunz for years, and a part of me thought Mr. Joey was just scared to do it. He was supposed to be so spectacular at his “job,” so I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t put Bunz in the ground by now. Or maybe Bunz was even better at not getting caught.
I cried and cried for what seemed like years after my mom passed, but never in front of Vince. If he saw me crying, he would go straight the hell off for hours, and I eventually learned to control my emotions around him. At first he would let me get off and cry and scream, but pretty soon, if I even looked like I might think about shedding a tear, he was on my neck. I can remember one time
when I cried, he made me squat down in the corner and hold three Yellow Pages phone books out in front of me. Every time I dropped the books, he added five minutes onto my time. It wasn’t until I could barely stand and only really had an hour to get rest before I had to get up for school that he let me lie down.
What pissed me off the most was when he punished me in that way and his friends were over at the house. They would be loud and obnoxious, and I could barely breathe through all the weed smoke. I was just a child, though, so there wasn’t really much I could do except what I was told.
Khalid helped me tremendously throughout everything I’d gone through, and he drilled in me all those Bible verses to help me stay strong and look forward to the day when I would be on my own and away from Vince. He was going to be the first black president and I’d be his wife, the first lady.
Our friendship grew and matured over the years, and we told each other everything—except what Vince did to me sometimes. I still couldn’t say it out loud to anyone. The only person I talked to about it was God, and more often than not, I wondered if He heard my prayers.
I learned in school that everything we did in life was a lesson learned, and we were supposed to grow from it and learn how to better deal with recurring situations. Nothing could be worse than this, though.
I did have another secret I couldn’t tell Khalid, only because that person swore me to secrecy. Also because I knew it would hurt him too bad, and I didn’t want him to feel the kind of pain I felt on a daily basis. To know that no one in your family loves you was heavy. Not one single person on my mother’s side or my dad’s. I was literally in the world by myself. Wow, I didn’t think it was possible, but this was the life I lived every single day.
So I did my job. I got up and went to school, came home, and cooked and bagged the coke, made sure Vince and whoever was over ate dinner; then, if I was allowed to go to sleep, I did that until the next day, when I started from scratch all over again.
