When Loyalty Dies, So Does Love

by Dorothy Brown-Newton

  * * *

  The day for Jason to come home had finally arrived. We were all at my mom’s house, waiting on Tressa and Jason. She was picking him up from the jail and driving him home. Mom was a nervous wreck; she kept wiping her hands on her apron, talking about how she hadn’t seen her baby in four years. I had to keep reminding her that he wasn’t a baby. Her response was, “Well, he’s my baby, smartass.” I laughed at the irony of her still treating him like a baby. Shit. He was a grown-ass man. Dad was feeling somewhat better, and he sat in front of the television, watching the news and not really speaking much.

  When Jason walked through the door, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Even Dad was tearing up. I noticed that Tressa wasn’t with him, so I asked Jason where she was.

  Jason said, “She said she had to go, and she would see us later.”

  Strange.

  I must say that Tressa had hooked my li’l bro up; he was dressed fly as hell. We sat around, catching up and eating the meal Mom had made, until Jason’s homeboy, Low, came to scoop him up to get straight for his party tonight.

  Rellz had decided not to attend the party. He still wasn’t himself after his falling-out with Turk. He was trying to find someone to fill Turk’s position, but it was really hard. How could you trust someone after your right hand, the man you called your brother, betrayed you? This was going to be tough for him.

  The party had a great turnout. The only shit that popped off was when two of Jason’s ex-girlfriends tried to get at his new girl. Mind you, the girl had held him down for the entire four-year bid, after both of those bitches had tapped out. They both had to be escorted out of the building. The nerve of those bitches. I couldn’t stand either one of them rat bitches. Soon after the party started, my girl Shea and I were ready to go. The whole club scene and drinking weren’t our thing anymore. Tressa was turned up and turned out; “white girl wasted” didn’t have anything on her ass.

  I tried to get Tressa to go home, but to no avail. Jason told me to go. He said that she was good, and that he would look after her. I was like, “Okay. If you say so.” He’d been gone for four years, and he had no idea how Tressa got when she was drinking. Her ass was already acting up. It was one thing to drink and dance while having a good time, but her ass brought out the capital R in rachetness with her actions. Against my better judgment, Shea and I bounced. I dropped her off and then headed home.

  Jason

  I wasn’t really able to enjoy myself at my own party. First, Trish and Gena were up in here with the bullshit. They were trying to put claims on the god, when both of those bitches had jumped ship on my bid. I didn’t know why either one of them was in attendance. I had no love for them thirsty hoes. I had met my new girl, Keisha, while she was on a visit with my dude, her brother. He had plugged me in, and she has been nothing but loyal to my ass. I wouldn’t say I was in love yet, but I was definitely feeling her.

  This was her first time meeting my sisters. Tasha was cool, but I was a little embarrassed because Tressa’s ass was off the hook. It took everything in me to be calm and not knock her on her ass. She was being real fly at the tongue with my shawty. I knew the liquor and the roll ups played a big part in her acting like an ass, but this wasn’t the homecoming party I had expected. If I had known I would be babysitting, I would have passed on the party and gone to my girl’s house, got my dick wet. Now Tressa’s ass was in here, ho dancing from dude to dude. It was time to go. She tried protesting, talking about how we hadn’t cut the cake yet. Fuck that cake. My girl grabbed her and Tressa’s belongings, I dapped all my boys who had come out and shown love, and we were out.

  Me, Tressa, Keisha, and my boy Low headed out of the club. Low was going to drive Tressa’s Range to my mom’s crib. Tressa was bugged the fuck out. If she knew that this was how she got down, why would she drive? As her ass staggered out the door, I heard pop, pop, pop. It was like everything happened in slow motion as the gun shots rang out. I grabbed Keisha and pushed her and Tressa to the ground as Low started bucking off shots. As quickly as the shooting started, it stopped. I told Keisha and Tressa to get up so we could be out before the blue boys came.

  Keisha started screaming when she noticed blood all over her dress. I thought she had been hit, but it was my sister’s blood. Tressa lay still on the ground, bleeding. I tried shaking her, but she didn’t respond. That was when I noticed she had been hit in the neck. I tried to put pressure on the small hole in her neck, but that didn’t seem to work. I tried to pick her up, but the bouncers told me not to move her. So I got down on the ground and held her as I cried and then rocked her back and forth. Everyone around me was screaming and crying, trying to locate friends and loved ones, but I blocked it out as I held my sister. I didn’t care about the boys in blue. I wasn’t leaving my sister, and I didn’t care that I was on the ground, looking weak, crying like a newborn baby.

  Once the authorities got there, followed by an emergency unit, Tressa was pronounced dead at the scene. She had bled out from her wound. Low had to get ghost, because he had caught dude in the chest, and he didn’t want to catch no case. Dude was also pronounced dead at the scene. Looking at dude, I was numb. Who would have thought that after four years, dudes would come gunning for my ass? I knew exactly who he was; he was the cousin of the nigga me and my brother had robbed. I guessed doing time for the crime wasn’t good enough for him. Dude had wanted me to pay with my life, but they had got the game fucked up, because I was going to catch every last one of those bitch-made niggas.

  Tasha

  The ringing of my phone was nonstop. I tried to ignore it, but it just wouldn’t stop. I rolled over and reach for my phone. “Hello!” I yelled into the phone.

  Whoever was on the phone was crying, and I couldn’t understand what was being said. I looked at the caller ID. It was the number to the phone that we had just got my brother yesterday, so now I was in panic mode because it wasn’t him on the phone.

  “Hello? Please calm down and tell me what happened.”

  I realized it was Jason’s girl, Keisha. She finally got out that my sister had been shot, and almost instantly, the room started spinning. My eyes started tearing up as I dropped the phone and let out a gut- wrenching scream. My screaming caused Rellz to jump up.

  “Babe, what’s going on?”

  I heard him loud and clear, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find my voice as I lay on the floor, crying. Rellz picked up the phone and spoke with Keisha. Now, he didn’t know my sister, but the look on his face told me it wasn’t good news. As he hung up the phone, he told me to put some clothes on; we had to get to my mom’s house. Oh, God. Just the thought of my parents gave me the strength to dress quickly.

  My mom’s driveway and street were filled with so many cars, it looked like a party was taking place on the block. Once I got inside the house, I realized it was my brother’s friends who were posted up. My brother had been taken down to the station for questioning. His friends were there on some protection type shit, but since Rellz was there now, I kindly asked them if they could please leave the house, just to give us some privacy. My mom was a wreck; she was rocking back and forth, screaming, “They took my baby. They took my baby.” Dad sat quietly in his chair, staring off into space. I could tell that guilt consumed him, because the last time he saw my sister, they had gotten into it over something. I had no idea what it was about; all I knew was that Tressa had stopped coming around. As I tried to comfort my mom, I felt a cold chill run down my body when I realized I had to get to Tressa’s children, my nieces and nephew, who had been left with a sitter.

  Rellz got behind the wheel and put the sitter’s address in the GPS because with the way I was feeling, I couldn’t make the one hour-drive to the sitter’s house by myself, and I couldn’t sit in the passenger seat and call out directions to her house, either. I sat in silence as we drove. I was hurt, sad, and angry: hurt because I should have made Tressa leave the party, sad because I was going to miss her, and angry at those punks
who had taken her life for something that didn’t have anything to do with her. Now her children were left without a mother.

  Rellz

  This situation was fucked up on so many levels. My girl had just lost her sister, whom I had never met, and we had got to her mom’s crib, only for me to find out that Tasha’s sister, Tressa, was my baby’s mom. I had met Tres about a year ago, when me and Turk were on a business trip in Philly. I had fucked shawty the same night, and we had exchanged numbers, but I had had no intention of calling her, because she had let me smash on the same night on some straight bird shit. She’d called me a month later about some “I’m pregnant” bullshit. I told shawty not to contact me again until she had the baby and we could get a DNA test done.

  Just my fucking luck, the li’l nigga was mine, so I’d been taking care of him financially. I’d seen him only once, and that was the day we had the test done. On some guilt shit, I had been blessing her with whatever she requested, because I wasn’t there. I didn’t even know how to tell my girl this bullshit right now. As we pulled up to the crib, I automatically got nervous, hoping that homegirl who had been in Philly with her wasn’t the one who was babysitting the kids.

  God must have been on my side that night, because it was the neighbor’s teenage daughter who was with the kids. I peeled off five twenty-dollar bills and sent baby girl on her way. The crazy shit was I picked up my phone to shoot Turk a text. That was how fucked up my head was right now. Tash was holding on to her nieces and crying. I had to tell her to try to get herself together for the kids, because she was scaring them. I went upstairs to my son’s nursery. He was lying on his back, looking around, and instantly, I felt a connection to him. I picked him up and held him tight. In my heart I knew I had to tell Tash, because I had promised her that there would be no more secrets. I needed to tell her now, because I’d be damned if my li’l nigga got caught up in being passed from family member to family member. I swallowed hard as I laid li’l man in his crib. I went back downstairs after getting the girls some jeans, shirts, and some sneakers to put on. My hands were sweating as I dressed the girls. I was nervous as hell, but it had to be done. Even if it meant losing her.

  “Babe, I know this isn’t a good time, but I need to holla at you about something,” I said.

  She just looked up at me with sad eyes, and at that moment, I couldn’t do it. I just told her that if she wanted to raise her sister’s children, I was with her 100 percent.

  Tasha

  Rellz looked pathetic as he tried to tell me that he was the father of my sister’s son, but I didn’t give his ass the satisfaction. I didn’t want to hear it, because hearing him say it to my face, I didn’t know what reaction I would have in front of her children.

  I sat there, remembering when I had come to Tressa’s house to make the arrangements for Jason’s party. Since I hadn’t seen the new baby, I was excited to meet him, so my first stop was the baby’s room upstairs. He was sleeping on his side, so I couldn’t really see his face, but when I looked at the pictures she had of him on the dresser, my heart fluttered. I was looking at a younger version of Rellz. I could have been mistaken, but the eyes, nose, and lips were all Rellz’s features. I brushed it off, because how the fuck could Rellz be this baby’s father? He had never even met my sister.

  When I got back downstairs, Tressa had this look on her face that made me raise my eyebrows, but I said nothing. Moments later, she mentioned that the baby’s name was Li’l RJ, and that his father had a girlfriend, so he and Tressa couldn’t be together. All of a sudden she had money and a ride, and my interest was piqued. What made me a believer was the fact that the baby looked just like Rellz and had Rellz’s initials, and the bitch had a smirk on her face as she spoke about his father, where he lived, and what kind of car he drove. Yes, Rellz no longer drove the car that she spoke of, but at one time he had. I sat there and played stupid, and it took everything in me not to fuck her up.

  Now I knew why she had stayed away from the family for so long, and for some strange reason, I thought that my parents knew that she was pregnant by Rellz, and that this was what the falling-out was about. Rellz didn’t know Tressa, but trust, she knew exactly who he was. So this bitch wanted to be on some low-down and dirty bullshit.

  As I left her house, I had already put my plan into play. I reached out to the cousin of the dude whom my brothers had robbed years ago and told him I would give him five stacks to dead that bitch and make it look like some revenge-type shit. He was hesitant at first, thinking I was trying to set him up, because he knew my brother was about to be home. He thought I was trying to get him somewhere for testifying against my brothers years ago, but I could care less about that shit. I was on a different mission. If my brother felt the need to see him on that bullshit, that was between them. So once I told him my reasoning, he believed me, but then he got balls and told me he would do it for ten stacks. Little did his ass know, I would have paid fifty stacks. It wasn’t like it was my fucking money.

  I’m not going to lie. I was worried that this shit was going to come back to me, because dude was supposed to do the job solo. It didn’t make me feel any better that he was dead, because I had no idea who had been riding with his ass that night and if he had told them what the job was, who had hired him, and why. So it was possible all this could come back to me. I just hoped whoever had been riding with his ass took the money and kept their fucking mouth shut. And I was also hoping my brother didn’t go and get himself in trouble behind this, because it would be the perfect setup, if dumb ass didn’t manage to get himself killed.

  After Rellz dressed his son, we had to risk the one-hour drive home with me holding the baby because we hadn’t been able to find his car seat anywhere. Rellz’s ass was nervous as hell, and I loved to see him sweat with his nasty ass. Whether he had known she was my sister or not, he had still run up in some random chick raw and had come home to me like shit was okay. I really could care less if he found out about my involvement in the robbery. I no longer cared about his feelings and whether or not he found out about what I had done. His feelings could now take a backseat. Fuck him. I was glad I had got his cash, and I felt no remorse over getting his best friend to help me rob his black ass. Just thinking about it made me mad, so mad that I felt like pinching his son, but I didn’t. I wasn’t that fucked up in the head, and plus, he was still my nephew, regardless of who his father was.

  When we got back to our side of town, I called Mom to see how she was doing and told her that I had Tressa’s kids. She got quiet for a minute, and then, with a shaky voice, she asked if I thought taking the kids was a good idea. For me, she just confirmed that she knew about Rellz being the father, so I guessed that this issue really was what the big argument between my parents and Tressa had been all about. I remembered that day like it was yesterday. My mom had called me, all upset, and had talked about how she had done all she could do for Tressa. She had said that Tressa had disrespected her one time too many, and that she was done. I remembered calling Tressa and asking her what was going on. Her response was, “Fuck this family,” and she hung up on me. That was why I hadn’t spoken to her in so long.

  Now I have a clearer understanding of why my mother’s hate for Rellz was so deep. Mom knew he was a lying, cheating dog, even if he didn’t know Tressa was my sister. Tressa must have thrown the shit in my mom’s face about Rellz being her baby’s father when Mom was going in on her about being pregnant again and not settling down. But Mom should have told me. If she had, I wouldn’t have left him necessarily, but I damn sure would have approached him and made my own decision. She was not going to make that decision for me. I didn’t know if I would forgive my mom, because at the end of the day, I was her birth child, and she should have told me.

  * * *

  My sister was laid to rest today. The ceremony was beautiful, and we were pleased they had my sister looking like herself. She was wearing a rose-colored dress that Mom had picked out to match the rose lining of the coffin. The pa
stor had only nice things to say about my sister, and they were all true. My tears and my feelings of guilt had me bugging out when Pastor started talking about the person who was responsible for her death having his judgment day. I swear, he looked into my soul and was speaking directly to me. I had to get up and get some air. I felt like I was suffocating.

  Once I got myself together, I walked back into the church to find my brother Jason breaking down at the podium as he tried to read the obituary. My sister’s best friend, Amy, had to take over. She struggled with it too, but she was able to finish. I sang “Tomorrow,” and everyone broke down, including me. My tears were me asking for forgiveness. I was so sorry and had to be helped to my seat. I was inconsolable. My brother Kane had been brought down for the funeral but wasn’t allowed to stay for the entire home-going service. He had to go once it was time for anyone who wanted to speak any kind words or sing a song. Once we were at the burial, I had to pull myself together for my parents. My sister being lowered into the ground was too much for them, and Jason and I needed assistance getting them to the limousine.

  The repast was back at Mom’s house. My mom served the food and did any and everything, trying to stay busy. I tried to get her to sit down and let me handle everything, but she insisted on doing it herself. We had all made the decision not to allow Tressa’s children to attend the funeral, so they had stayed back at the house with Rellz, who had done an excellent job with setting up for the repast.

  Jason was blaming himself for Tressa’s death, and it was killing me inside, but at the time I had felt I had to do it. Did I regret it? I did. She was my sister, and I loved her, but she had betrayed me, and I had acted out of anger. Jason sat on the couch and drank glass after glass of Hennessy. I wished I could take away the pain and the guilt he was feeling, but I knew that at this time, with her death being so fresh, nothing that anyone said to him would offer him comfort. Keisha had left hours ago because he had snapped at her each time she’d tried to get him to eat something.