The Fight Within

by Laveen, Tiana

  Sean ran his hand slowly over the boy’s back, trying to soothe him, comfort him, as he spilled his guts.

  No problem, he’d help him clean that up, too…

  “Fuck the money, Sean! I’d rather have the man!” The words sank deep inside of Sean’s soul in a way that Brian could never in his wildest dreams comprehend. The very premise he wrestled with, fought with deep within his heart…the ol’ mighty dollar and what it meant—how it had changed his life and made him hate ten percent of the population—was the very thing that Brian hated too, but the boy detested it for all the right reasons…

  WAKE.

  UP.

  CALL.

  Dead presidents don’t love nobody…

  “My mama think she can do it all, but I think she now realizin’ she can’t…and she mad. She mad that she can’t fix what she never broke in the first damn place. I used to think,” he said as a tear ran down his face; one slow tear against the boy’s smooth, mahogany skin, “that uh, I hated her too…that she was somehow responsible for how I feel. But that wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, either. My mother gets on my nerves sometimes.” He laughed lightly and ran his hand over his knee. “But…I love her, and I know she loves me and Asia more than anything in this world. I never have to question that. I never have to worry about her not being there for me, taking care of me. We even joke sometimes and yeah, we go at it, argue at times, but I never questioned whether or not she is down for me, would go to bat for me. She a good mom but I don’t tell her often enough.”

  Sean nodded in understanding but said nothing, instead allowing the boy to purge while he quietly listened.

  “My mama is a good woman, period. I ain’t stupid, though I might seem like it to some people… I know what I got at home. A lot of these guys at my school, their mamas don’t pay attention to them at all. They too busy out shoppin’ ’nd shit, showing off and talking about designer purses. Their mamas don’t be at nothing, but my Mama do. Tired and all, she be there. But it ain’t enough, man! I’m just…I’m just so mad, Sean! She don’t understand!” The boy’s arms and hands shook and he moved them about, as if not completely certain what to do with his limbs. Another tear, then another, streamed down his face as his expression contorted with some deep-dish pain he’d buried in a trash heap within his heart.

  The boy turned completely toward him, his face now fully exposed, showcasing the wet evidence of his grief.

  “Brian, it’s okay to be mad.” He paused, grabbed a napkin from his bag, and handed it to him. He waited couple of seconds while the kid wiped his tears. “You just have to find constructive ways to get that all out, to release it. You could use music, you could use all sorts of things, but you have to stop self-destructing. Your mother is afraid you’ll be a statistic. She worries about you so much, and rightfully so. Your actions don’t only just hurt you, but your mother, too.”

  “You had it good though, man! I can see it!” Brian glared at him, suddenly rearing back as if he were sitting next to an adversary. “Your parents still together and you had a good childhood. Mama even said so.”

  “Yeah.” Sean nodded, not daring to try to act like it was rough and tough under his roof. “I did. I had two loving parents who, though a bit crazy,” he laughed lightly, “love me and my brother a whole heck of uh lot, and made a lot of sacrifices to ensure we ate every morning and night, had a roof over our heads, and felt loved. But, that doesn’t mean everything for me was peaches ’nd cream, Brian.” He leaned a bit forward and scratched his head. “Because it hasn’t been. I’ve had some problems along the way…my share of trouble.”

  Brian looked at him for a bit, then swiped the soiled napkin across his face, removing a fresh layer of tears.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, like a lot of crap. For one, I walked around for the longest with a chip on my shoulder. I felt like the world somehow owed me something. There was other stuff too, but I got that bad attitude because sometimes, in school, people would say dumb shit, and my brother and I would react with violence. I don’t know what you got into a fight about the other day, but imagine that going on in your life on almost a daily basis, and no one gave a shit to try and help, intervene. That is what my brother and I knew, that’s how we grew up. There were no anti-bullying memorandums, laws and sign-up sheets. You got what you got. Boys will be boys. That was the code; it was how we dealt with problems—you’d fight. Nothing got examined or talked out. You just got jumped! End of discussion. This wasn’t a joke.”

  Brian glared at him, holding on to each word he uttered.

  “Everyone was like this. This is what our peers were doing—fighting. Not this candy shit you all do, where you knife and shoot people. We’d fight, beat somebody damn near to death because it helped relieve stress when in fact, we were both angry that we didn’t have what other people had…like the people on T.V. I didn’t live in the belly of poverty, don’t get me wrong, but I grew up in a time frame where people were real image conscious. The ‘80s and ‘90s were like that.”

  “You had to look a certain way, talk a certain way, be a certain way. I was none of those things that people aspired to. I was a man of few words. My family didn’t have shit, I was broke and everyone knew it, but to make matters worse, I didn’t hustle, so I was looked at as not even cool enough. A lot of my peers were sellin’ drugs, running numbers, stealin’ cars, shit like that. Most of those same guys are in prison now. But at the time,” he shrugged, “that’s how you overcame it. I didn’t do any of that shit. Not because I was afraid of the police, but because I was afraid of my father and trust me, he was far worse than 5-O!” They both laughed.

  “Anyway, I had one good friend and a few associates. My one good friend, who I’m still very close to, had a lot of money. He was born into it, and now he’s a big time Wall Street broker. His parents were both surgeons. He was a good guy, took a liking to me after I helped him one day when he was getting beat up. I’ll never forget it. I didn’t want to help him. He was one of the popular, rich kids that hung out with all the other rich kids that used to mess with me, talk shit…but he got into it with someone, fists flew, and he was getting fucked up. I couldn’t just stand there and keep watching it happen. I knew that wasn’t right. So I jumped in the fight and took care of it, and he and I have been friends ever since, but other than him,” Sean shrugged, “I really didn’t have nobody besides my brother for a while.”

  Sympathy popped on Brian’s face. That wasn’t what Sean wanted. He felt a bit silly at telling these stories from his past, a little vulnerable, too. Nevertheless, he continued on.

  “So, you know, I could fight pretty good and I liked it. I never lost a street or school fight once I hit high school, ever. I got a reputation of being the wrong guy to try to test in that way, but something really interesting happened, in the midst of that.”

  “What?”

  “I discovered I was funny.” Sean nodded and smirked, and noted the acknowledgement on Brian’s face.

  “…You are. That’s the first thing she mentioned to me when she was telling me about you. Mama says you crack her up all the time, too.”

  “I’m glad…I just want to make her smile.”

  “Brian,” he said after a short pause. “I found this out by playing the dozens with some black and Hispanic kids in my class who were crackin’ on me. I thought up my insults on the fly, no rehearsed material, and soon enough, I got a reputation as being hilarious. And that made me feel really good. The people that used me as a human dartboard for their insults were now my friends. Suddenly, no one cared that I didn’t dress the best anymore. I had a lot more friends, real friends, and got respect, because I could make people laugh, ya know?” He smiled.

  “I got that sense of humor from my parents, a gift from them to me, only it was just a byproduct of who they really were as people. My father never tried to be funny I don’t think, he just was that way inherently, and the same with my mom. They are two of the funniest people I know. I think
that’s why they always got along so well. Humor was their medicine when times got rough…and I adopted that. It’s easier to smile than to fight.”

  “Awww man, please. Save that after school special shit! I saw how you were working that punching bag over!” The boy burst out laughing, causing him to do the same. “You pretty damn good.”

  “Thanks.” Sean lowered his head and grinned. “Yeah, never said I lost my passion to fight… I just did it in a more constructive manner is all. It had gotten to a point where in school, I was no longer just defending myself, Brian. The bullied had turned into the bully—that wasn’t cool. It didn’t justify anything, ya know? I needed to find something else to do, so I did. I worked it to my advantage. Now, I get paid for it. People buy tickets to see me whoop on someone.” He grinned a bit wider. “I’m just not out here in the streets knocking guys out.” He laughed lightly, while Brian nodded in understanding. “The key to change is changing the tapes you play in your mind, then your patterns of behavior will follow. You have to make a habit of what you want in life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A habit is doing the same thing over and over until it comes natural to ya, right? A part of your nature.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, it’s easy for negativity to become a habit…like talkin’ back, being disrespectful to your parents when you’re a minor.”

  Brian looked away, as if not wanting to hear the truth, to have the magnifying glass swing so swiftly in his direction.

  “And keeping everything bottled inside, taking things out on the wrong people. I did the same damn thing, man. Trust me, I get where you’re coming from. I’ve kept some pain bottled inside for a long ass time, Brian. My issue with the rich kids that bullied me was two-fold. I think I thought since I had a rich friend, after a while, they’d accept me. No, they never did, and I resented that. Then I had a situation with a woman I loved; again, the money shit came up and punched me right in the gut, but I was looking at it all wrong, all wrong, man. I’ve taken my anger out on the wrong damn people, and they didn’t deserve it. A prime example is this issue I’ve always had with rich people versus poor people. You just said your father throws money at you, as if that solves everything.”

  Brian nodded, kept his eye on Sean, refusing to blink.

  “I think it’s kinda wild how we both have this problem with money, but from different perspectives.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, let me explain it to you.” He swallowed and took a deep breath. “In my mind, if someone had money, they were automatically bad. I didn’t know what the hell they had to go through to get that money, how their personal lives were, none of that!” His voice rose as his self-actualization caused him to warm with a wave of shame and anger. “Your mother helped me with this. I really had no idea how I was letting that gnaw at me, and how it was coming out, being projected as it consumed me. I coulda lost her before I even had her if I didn’t take a long look at myself. That is just one of the many reasons why I love her… I came to her broken, not asking for repairs, Brian. But my heart was asking to be loved, so I could fix my damn self.” He pointed to his chest.

  The boy glared at him, as if the message wasn’t computing.

  “I basically assumed your mother was some pampered housewife, or some rich woman who felt she had something to prove. I was attracted to her though, so much so, I pushed past that, treatin’ it like some handicap she had… That was crazy, but regardless, I approached her anyway, although deep inside, I still didn’t trust her because of her socio-economic status, or what I perceived it to be. I judged her in advance, didn’t even know anything about her. That’s the type of thing I’m talking about, Brian. I painted her to be someone she wasn’t, and yet, I hated when people would do the same thing to me… I was a hypocrite.”

  “Okay, I get it now.”

  “I was judgmental and unfair and a number of other things, too. Those were my issues,” he said, pointing to himself, “that I imposed on your mother and unfortunately, over the course of my life, I saw things around me that helped reiterate my hatred for wealthy people. As your mother said to me once, people are people. There are good rich people and pissy ass poor people. No one is good or bad based on their socio-economic ranking alone. Money don’t make the man, but poverty doesn’t always build character, either.”

  “My mother didn’t have shit growin’ up.” The boy uncurled his back as he prepared to set him straight. Sean already knew this information, but he gave the boy the floor anyway. “She had to pay for everything by herself. She didn’t have any money until after she graduated college, and then she got a good job after a few years, but it was all uphill, man,” he explained. “She and my father built something, and regardless of what he says, my mother makes money, too, and has always held it down. She earned every penny, too! Sometimes she be online or on the phone at like two in the morning, hustling, making that paper. She takes care of her family. She’ll be talking with clients and some of ’em are real spoiled!”

  “Don’t I know it.” Sean nodded.

  “They call at dinner time, like she just supposed to stop what she is doing with us and talk to them about carpets ’nd shit. Like the color of their floors is a life or death matter. I hate that. So damn entitled! Like she waitin’ around all day to talk to them about decorations and flooring, like she has no life outside of their fuckin’ pillow shams!”

  Sean couldn’t help but nod in affirmation and chuckle.

  “But she tells them she has to call them back, that she is cooking dinner for her family or sitting down with us, because she doesn’t play that. And then when it’s over, she’ll call them right back and handles her business. Nothing came before us… not money, not her job, zilch… and then, one day she was spending a little less time with Asia and me and I knew then, someone had her attention.” He side-eyed Sean, who didn’t suppress his smirk. “I like you, man…and you seem good for my mother. I don’t know if it is because of you or not, but she listens better now, too. I think maybe you both are good for each other, though I could be wrong. Sometimes people only let you see what they want you to see.” He shrugged.

  “Brian, you and I are getting to know each other a bit more each day, and that’s what’s important. I’m glad you came down here, trusted me enough to give me a chance to listen to you, offer my perspective.”

  Brian averted his eyes, looking a bit embarrassed from his assertion, although a half-smile did form on his face.

  “I like you and Asia. You’re both really good kids. You’re just going through a difficult time and sometimes only another guy can understand how you feel. Not being sexist, it’s just the truth.”

  Brian nodded in agreement.

  “So.” Sean leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you plan to do about your dad? Have you told him how you feel?”

  Brian’s eyes narrowed as his lips twisted to the side in his customary way. The boy stared down at his feet.

  “Nah, he wouldn’t listen to me. Or he’d just hear what he wants to. I’ve tried to talk to him, but it goes in one ear and out the other.”

  “But have you tried to talk to him like you did with me just now?”

  The boy scratched the side of his left eyelid and yawned. “No, but my father acts like he doesn’t do shit wrong, Sean. He acts like he’s invincible. He was shocked when my mother told him to get his ass out. I’ll never forget that night.” The boy’s voice grew weak, as if he were almost afraid to open that door, lest he relive the trauma. “I was mad at her for that, but happy she did it too, if that makes any sense.”

  “It does. I get it.”

  “He would talk to her all crazy, like I said. He was real disrespectful.”

  …Maybe that’s why you thought you could do it, too…

  “When he was still at home, I would tell him to stop, and he and I got into it a couple times, like physical altercations, shit like that. It got real heated
. She and Asia would have to break us apart… I meant what I said earlier, man. I hate him.”

  “No, you don’t. You love him, that’s why you are so hurt by how he’s been treating you. If you hated him, you’d no longer care.”

  “I suppose you might be right… I’ve decided to not have anything else to do with him though. I’ve made up my mind.” He crossed his arms indignantly over his chest. “That’s how I’m going to make it through.”

  “How can you do that? I mean,” Sean said with a shrug, “he has visitation rights, and you’re still living at home.”

  “The last couple of days I haven’t been calling him. He is used to me calling him every day, even though typically I just get the voicemail or him rushing me off the phone as soon as he says, ‘hello.’ I’m just sick of it all. I’d be better off having a dad in prison, or some shit like that. At least then he’d have an excuse for not being active in my life, doin’ what he was supposed to do!”

  “Has he tried to call you?”

  “Nope.” The boy clicked his tongue against his inner jaw in his habitual way, while wearing a crooked smirk to hide more bubbling pain and hurt. “He probably hasn’t even noticed… Nope,” he repeated softly, like a delayed echo, as he rose to his feet. Sean followed suit and grabbed the boy by both arms, hard, stopping him from walking away.

  “You’re not just going to come all the way over here, tell me this stuff and walk out of here.” He made the boy face him. Brian slowly lifted his head, meeting eyes with him. “Let me tell you something. I don’t know what’s going to happen between your mother and I, Brian,” he said, swallowing over a lump in his throat. “What I do know is that we have a good thing going, we love one another, we respect one another, and we have a lot in common. We have fun, and I’m serious when I tell you this, I love you and Asia, too! I think about you both every damned day! I wonder how you’re doing, all of that.”