Millionaire Wives Club

by Tu-Shonda Whitaker

  “Karma,” she said, watching the phone vibrate as it rang on the nightstand.

  “Oh, you’re being smart?” he said, pissed, as her phone stopped ringing and quickly started again. “Answer the motherfucker, since it’s karma. What you waitin’ on?”

  “Jealousy is so unattractive.” She smiled as she answered the phone. “Hello?” There was a pregnant pause. “Hello?” she said again.

  “Hi, uhh,” an unfamiliar male voice said on the other end of the line. “What’s your mother’s name, son?” she heard the unfamiliar voice say in the background, and then he was talking to her again. “Hi, is this Mrs. Jaise Williams, or is she available?”

  “This is she,” Jaise said nervously. “Who is this?”

  “Ma’am, my apologies for bothering you so late, but I’m Officer Asante and we have your son, Jabril, in custody. He was pulled over and the officers found alcohol in the car.”

  “What?! Alcohol! He’s only sixteen, and he told me he was spending the night at a friend’s house!”

  “Spending the night at a friend’s house?” She could hear that the officer was put off. “Isn’t it a school night?”

  “Your point?” she said defensively.

  “I guess if you can ask that question I don’t have much of a point.”

  Trenton looked at Jaise. “Are you okay?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

  She shook head her no.

  “I know this is upsetting,” Officer Asante said, “but your son has been playing games and not giving me or any of the other officers your phone number, and it wasn’t until I told him he was about to catch a free ride down to juvey that he gave me what I needed.”

  Jaise’s stomach flipped. This was the second time Jabril had been arrested this month. “Please don’t send him anywhere.” She held tears back. “I’m on my way.”

  “You need to hurry, because the way he’s acting, he’s about to be on the next bus out of here.”

  The officer hung up and Jaise held the phone to her ear in shock. She’d never felt like such a failure. For the most part, although Jabril had his ways, he had always been a good kid. The problems started about a year ago, after she had practically moved Trenton in and Lawrence and his new wife had their own son. Jabril said that he felt like he was on the outside looking in. Jaise had tried to talk to Lawrence about it, but he accused her of jealousy, not liking his wife, and he took no account of his son’s feelings, treating Jabril as if he were simply being ridiculous. Which left Jaise stuck with a kid who was suddenly all over the place.

  She wiped the tears slipping from her eyes and onto her cheeks. “Look, ummm, Trenton, we need to go and get Jabril.”

  “We?” he said, surprised. “He doesn’t even speak to me, and now I have to go and get him? Where is he, in jail again?”

  Jaise hung her head. “He was arrested.”

  “You do realize,” Trenton said matter-of-factly, “that this is the second time this month?”

  “I can count, Trenton.”

  “Don’t get nasty with me. Shit, since you can count you better start tallying up how much bail money you’re about to spend on your l’il in-house gangstah.”

  “He’s not a gangstah, he’s a follower, and he’s following these damn no-good niggahs around!”

  “You better stop thinking that boy is perfect, ’cause he’s not. Believe me, from what I can tell and based on the way he acts around here, he’s the leader in his criminal activity.”

  “You can save your smart-ass comments,” Jaise snapped. “Furthermore, I didn’t ask you for analysis on my baby.”

  “Babies are not six feet tall and wear a size-twelve shoe. He’s sixteen years old.”

  “Trenton.” Jaise paused. “I don’t think you wanna go there.”

  “Go where?”

  “The way you’re talking about my son.”

  “I’m not talking about your son!” Trenton raised his voice. “I’m just saying that you make excuses for everything he does. If you really want to teach him a lesson, let his ass stay there. This isn’t the first time, and he’s always in something or another. Now I have to get up early in the morning for a business meeting. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”

  “So what am I supposed to do, leave my child there?”

  “He needs to be taught a lesson.” He pulled Jaise back to him, her firm breasts pressed against his chest. “Trust me on this.”

  Immediately there was a collision in Jaise’s head, and everything in the room, including Trenton, started to spin. Why was she in this dead-end relationship with him? Why? Was it the dick, the addiction to being rich? Or was she a slave to being mistreated?

  Jaise looked at Trenton and blinked in disbelief: As he rubbed his hard dick against her thigh, there was not one wrinkle of concern on his face to show that he gave a fuck about her son. She pushed him on his shoulder and sat up. “Are you crazy? Don’t you ever in your damn life think your bustin’ a nut in my pussy in any way comes before my son! When you have a kid, you dump that niggah in the trash, but let me inform you, Jabril Williams is not up for negotiation, so if you don’t give a fuck, stay not giving a fuck, but don’t ever give me no fucked-up advice about my son’s life. Be clear, that is not your damn place!”

  “Oh, but it’s my place to take you on trips, spend my money on you, refurnish your house and shit, so you can ball on TV. But it’s not my place to tell you what I think about your son. Listen, it’s cool, after all he’s not my kid.”

  “And thank God for that.”

  “Yeah really,” Trenton snapped as he started to dress. “And when he grows up robbing and killing folks don’t call me.”

  “Don’t you worry about him!”

  Trenton grabbed his car keys.

  “Where are you going?” Jaise asked.

  “Listen, go take care of the thief you’re raising, and when he’s sentenced to prison and is finally out of the house, call me.”

  “I can’t believe you said some shit like that!”

  “Believe it, because I said it. You’re so busy complaining and all up in my ear about when are we going to be married. Well, from where I’m standing, outside of fucking you, there’s no future with you. You nag too much, you have a life filled with drama, and any man that comes up in here and takes you seriously will have to fuck your son up because you won’t. Here’s some advice: If you want to raise a strong and productive black man then find a man to be his daddy, because Lawrence ran away and I don’t have the tolerance for it.” And he slammed the door behind him.

  Jaise could hear Trenton’s car tires screeching down the street as she sat naked in the middle of her bed. If only my son would behave, she thought, I wouldn’t have these problems.

  A few minutes later she was dressed and practically skating down the stairs and into her car. She placed her car in reverse and saw the camera crew’s van revving its engine behind her. Jaise couldn’t believe it; they had actually camped out across the street from where she lived. She knew it was reality TV, but damn.

  As soon as Jaise pulled up in front of the precinct with the camera crew on her heels, she flew out of the car and into the station. She found Jabril handcuffed to a metal bench, surrounded by a room filled with busy officers and other handcuffed criminals. Jaise’s heart dropped. Although Jabril towered over her at six feet, he still looked like a sweet and innocent baby to her… a toddler at the most, with big brown button eyes, deep dimples, and a sweet smile. She could tell by the way he was biting his bottom lip that he was nervous.

  “Jabril,” she said breathlessly as if she’d been running in a marathon, “what happened?” She ran her hand along the side of his face. “Did anybody hurt you? Are you okay? What the hell happened? Why are your eyes so red? Did somebody put their hands on you? And who are these so-called thugs?! And alcohol, Jabril? Why won’t you listen to me?!”

  “Man, don’t start questioning me.” Jabril sighed and sucked his teeth. His breath reeked of alco
hol, and contact with the stench almost made Jaise high. She felt as if she were having an out-of-body experience, because there was no way the baby she’d nurtured in her bosom, carried on her hip, loved more than herself, protected like a grand prize, and had dreams and aspirations for was sitting handcuffed in a police station drunk … Maybe she was in space. Yeah, that was it, she was in the Twilight Zone.

  Jabril pushed his mother’s hands from his face. “What does it look like happened? And what took you so long?! And get that camera outta my face before my friends think I’ma cop.”

  The innocent vision of Jabril quickly faded. “Who the hell are you talking to?!” Jaise lost it. “I’m worried sick about you and this is how you speak to me? And on TV? You think I like coming to get you from jail? Is this what you want out of life—to be a crack-head?” She mushed Jabril in the center of his forehead.

  “I don’t do crack. It was Banana Red Cisco. And what you worried about it for?”

  “I’m your mother!”

  “I ain’t the one who needs to recognize who the mother is.” “You better shut your fuckin’ mouth, talkin’ all high and crazy.” “Whatever.”

  “I can’t believe you’re sitting here drunk, Jabril! What is really going on with you?!”

  “I like to drink, Mama.” He cracked up laughing.

  Jaise reared her hand back and slapped Jabril so hard that the sting from the slap resonated around the room. “I’ll kick yo’ ass before I let you be reduced to nothing!”

  “Ma’am.” One of the officers walked over to Jaise. “Don’t put your hands on him again.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do! I pushed his ass out, not you!”

  “Ma’am, can you please calm down. The assigned officer will be out here to see you in a minute.”

  “You lucky I’m handcuffed!” Jabril spat.

  “And what you gon’ do, but get fucked up!” Jaise yelled. “The day you even look like you wanna hit me I’m shuttin’ the world down!”

  Before Jaise could go on, a voice drifted over her shoulder. “Hi, I’m Detective Asante, and you are?” He held out his hand.

  Accepting his gesture, but never looking into his face, Jaise said, “I’m Jaise. This is my soon-to-be-bust-upside-his-head son, Jabril.”

  The detective looked at the cameras strangely. “And they are?”

  “Her new boyfriends,” Jabril interjected.

  “Shut up.” Jaise squinted. “No, Detective Asante, they are the camera crew … for a reality TV show I’m doing.” Jaise rolled her eyes, hating that the cameras were recording this.

  “Oh-kay,” he said. “Well, maybe you need less reality TV and more reality with your son, who’s quickly making a rise in underage drinking.”

  “Excuse me?” Jaise said, offended. “I didn’t come here for you to judge me.”

  “I haven’t judged you. I’m just calling it as I see it. But as I was saying, it seems your son was picked up for underage drinking. There were open containers in the car. He was the only one caught. The others took off.”

  “First of all, my baby isn’t drunk.”

  “Stevie Wonder can see that he’s drunk.”

  Jaise looked at Jabril and he gave her a stupid one-sided smile. She quickly took her eyes from him because if she looked at him a moment longer she was sure to slap the shit out of him again. “Well, maybe he’s a little tipsy, but he didn’t buy the alcohol.”

  “How do you know that?” the detective asked.

  “Because … we’re better than this. Do you know who his father is?”

  “His father doesn’t concern me.”

  “Listen, I don’t have to go back and forth with you. Like my son said, he didn’t buy any alcohol.”

  “He didn’t say that, you did,” Detective Asante said.

  Jaise looked at Jabril. “Tell him.”

  A sly smile ran across Jabril’s face. “My dude,” he belched, “I ain’t buy no alcohol.”

  “Listen,” the detective said, “we’re not equals, and you’re a kid, not my friend. So as far as you’re concerned, my name is Detective Asante.”

  “Yeah, ai’ight, Detective Asante,” Jabril said sarcastically.

  “Now,” the detective continued, “if you didn’t buy the alcohol, who did?”

  “You the cop, you tell me.”

  “As far as I’m concerned you did, and since you were the only one caught, guess who wears the charge?”

  Jaise placed her hands on her wide hips. “I think it’s unprofessional,” she said to the detective, “the way you’re going back and forth with a sixteen-year-old kid.”

  “This isn’t about him being a kid. This is about him committing a crime.”

  “I’m not raising a criminal!”

  “No, you’re just raising a problem.”

  This was the second time tonight that everything for Jaise had come to a complete standstill. She couldn’t believe this man had the nerve to stand his big and muscular, six-foot-three-inch fine ass, looking like Boris Kodjoe on his best day, with skin like butter-colored silk, perfectly white teeth, and a raspy voice that let her and everybody else standing around know that he didn’t play much, and tell her any damn thing about her baby.

  If she hadn’t noticed how fine and how big he was, she would’ve risked her freedom and slapped him for talking to her crazy. “Listen, I don’t have to argue with you,” she said. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this.”

  “Like what?” The detective blinked.

  “Like this new group of friends he suddenly wants to hang with!”

  “Whatever,” Jabril yarned. “Don’t talk about my friends.”

  “Shut up, Jabril, right now!” Jaise snapped. “Stop acting like one of them niggahs in the street!”

  “You better back up out my face. And I’m not playin’!” Jabril went to lift his hand and point his finger, but the handcuffs halted him. “Get me out of here! Stop talking to this dude and get me out of here now! You don’t never listen to me. Get on my nerves!”

  “Who are you talking to, son?” Detective Asante looked at Jabril strangely. “You aren’t that drunk, so I know you couldn’t be talking to your mother like that.”

  “Man, this between me and my moms, not you, so mind yours.”

  “Jabril, shut your mouth!” Jaise peered at him. “And you got one more time to get into some shit and you getting out my house!”

  “I ain’t got to live with your miserable ass. All you got to do is tell me when to bounce and I’m out!”

  “Ungrateful ass! I swear I’m tired!” She turned to the cop. “I’m really trying—”

  “Don’t be discussing our business with this cat. And what I tell you about yelling at me like that! And get this stupid camera out of my face.”

  “You need to calm down, son,” Detective Asante said.

  “Get out my face.”

  “Jabril—” Jaise said, embarrassed.

  “Shut up and go see if I can get bail or something. Just get me out of here.”

  “I will not stand here and have you talk to your mother like that,” the detective said.

  “Yo, uncuff me and lose yourself!”

  “Jabril—” Jaise gasped.

  “Whup … his …ass,” a man who was being fingerprinted shouted. “Cut them cameras off and fuck him up. That’s why I’m in here, for fucking my son up!”

  Jaise turned to Detective Asante. “He didn’t mean what he said. Listen, we’ve just been going through a hard time right now. His dad and I are divorced. He doesn’t come around too much anymore. It’s just me and—”

  “You don’t have to explain anything to him,” Jabril snapped.

  “Shut your mouth,” Jaise said sternly.

  “You need to shut your mouth!”

  “Yo dig,” Officer Asante spat at Jabril, with enough bass in his voice to beat a drum, “let me kick it to you in a language you understand. If you say one more ill-ass thing to your mother, I’ma lock yo’ drun
k azz up. Now I hate to see your mother’s pretty face in distress, but you being real foul right now, so calm yo’ li’l ass down. ’Cause true story, you ain’t that bad, thugged out, and on the real you can’t bring it to nobody, so you and all that punk-ass mouth you have can fall back, fa real. Now, if you got other thoughts and you think you that tough then buck.” He paused. “I didn’t think so, trust me, the streets ain’t for you, ’cause you gettin’ caught too soon. Now, you are a man and a man’s job starts with loving and respecting his women, and if you can’t even respect your mother, then you gon’ have some problems. Now be clear, if I see your face on my streets again I’ma make sure you don’t see the sunrise for a long time. Now apologize to your mother, right now.”

  “Acting like a damn niggah in the street,” Jaise said, pissed.

  “And you”—Detective Asante turned to Jaise and twisted his lips—“what is it with you calling him a niggah every five seconds? You raising a niggah or a man? ’Cause if you raising a man, then you better straighten this shit out. I get tired of seeing these young boys float in and out of here and nobody gives them anything to stand up to. Let him know you have expectations, and this isn’t what you had in mind. You want him in jail or on a job? Because at the end of the day you’re his mother, so it’s your call. So my suggestion to you is to see what your son is really saying to you underneath all this nonsense and deal with it.”

  Jaise looked at Detective Asante in shock, and instead of responding Jabril sucked his teeth.

  “You testin’ me, bruh?” The detective looked at Jabril as if he could see through him.

  “Nah,” Jabril quickly spat out.

  “I didn’t think so. Now, didn’t I tell you to apologize?”

  “Sorry,” Jabril mumbled.

  “I can’t hear you,” Detective Asante said.

  “I said sorry.”

  “Sorry who?”

  “Ma.”

  “For what? And say it like you mean it.”