by W. S. Greer
Kelvin scrunches his forehead. “No! I’m not doing it. I don’t want any extra money. If you want to make me happy, do a better job picking out your delivery boys.”
Senior glances over at Clarence for a second. They smirk at each other, but Clarence doesn’t say anything, so Senior returns his attention to us.
“That’s right. Tommy told me a little something about that. They tried to steal from me. I just have one question about that, Junior. One of them tried to steal from me, and you let them live. Why is that?”
“What kind of a question is that? I let them live because I’m not a fucking murderer. I pistol whipped the guy, Dad. That’s not good enough for you?”
Senior and Tommy glance at each other again, but Clarence still doesn’t speak, so Senior continues. “You know me, Junior. I can’t have people trying to steal from me. There has to be consequences for something like that.”
“There were consequences, but I’m not killing anybody,” Kelvin says defensively.
Senior hesitates for a moment, staring at Kelvin without speaking. He’s obviously thinking about saying something in particular, but he decides against it. “I get where you’re coming from,” he says. “We’ll address that issue at another time. Anyway, so you said you had something you wanted to talk to me about.”
I hear Kelvin take a deep breath. I’m not sure what this is about, but my anxiety immediately reaches a peak as he begins to speak.
“Yeah. You know, Dad, it’s been six months since we started this little business with the Russians. You told me that if I played along, you’d sign over the Red Chip to me. Well, half a year later, I’m still playing along, stashing your dope in my warehouse, endangering my life and the casino at the same time. I’ve done everything that you’ve asked me to do. I’ve held up my end of the deal, now I think it’s time for you to hold up yours. So, will you please sign over the Red Chip to me?”
Senior exhales loudly and sits back in his seat. I notice a shift in his demeanor immediately. The act that he was putting on before is gone now, and I can see that the real Kelvin Carter Senior is about to emerge. I had been searching for the reason for my nerves, and I think I just found it.
“Hhmm,” Senior replies, twisting his lips and scowling. “I was beginning to wonder when we were gonna have this conversation. I should’ve seen it coming. Here I was, thinking that you were starting to come around to the idea of working for me, and as it turns out, you were just after the casino after all.”
“You thought I was coming around to the idea of working for you? You’re kidding, right?” Kelvin snaps. “You knew all along that I was only doing this for the casino. Now, I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to do, Dad. I’ve earned this.”
“You’ve earned it? Do you hear yourself? You’ve earned it. You must be the one who’s kidding. You haven’t earned a damn thing.”
“What! I’ve done everything you’ve asked.”
“Who gives a shit?” Senior barks. “You think that because you’ve hidden a few kilos of heroin in my warehouse that you’ve earned a casino? You think you’ve earned the right to get a casino for free? You must be out of your fucking mind.”
Kelvin quickly rises from his seat and his chair goes barreling backwards. “What the fuck! We had a deal!”
“The deal was that you needed to prove your loyalty to me. You haven’t done that. You haven’t proven shit, and you haven’t earned my casino either. You know who has? Clarence. I’d rather give it to him. He’s been a part of this family since the beginning, and he’s never asked me for anything. All of a sudden, you come join The Family for barely even a year, and you think you can come in and steal one of the businesses that I started? I don’t fucking think so.”
Sitting here listening to this bullshit, my frustration reaches a point where I can no longer hold it in. I slap my hand on the table and stand up next to Kelvin.
“This is totally unfair! You made a deal with us. This is bullshit!” I bellowed. I notice Clarence shifting in his seat, but I’m too pissed off to care.
Senior cranks his head to the side like a confused dog as he stares at me indignantly. “Umm, I didn’t promise you a goddamn thing. I made a deal with my son, and that doesn’t include you. So, do yourself a favor and sit the fuck down.”
Kelvin flinches, and I know that he’s about to say something to defend me, but I grab his arm before he can speak, cutting him off.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” I snap. “I don’t work for you, so don’t think for a second that you can tell me what to do. I’m not one of your brothers. You just don’t want me to talk because you know that I’m right. You made a deal, and now you’re trying to back out of it. You’re pathetic.”
Clarence slowly rises from his seat. There’s something about his calm demeanor that actually is more intimidating than all the screaming that Senior does. He doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me like he’s ready to kill me if I say another disrespectful word to his big brother.
Kelvin obviously notices Clarence as well, and shifts his eyes over to his uncle. “Uncle Clarence, please don’t make me do anything I’ll regret,” he says calmly. As I hold his arm, I feel just how tense he is. He’s ready for anything right now.
Senior stands up and waves his hand at Clarence. “It’s cool. Let’s not get carried away. I don’t want anybody doing anything they’ll regret.” He pushes his chair back and takes a few steps towards Kelvin and me. “I don’t like the turn this conversation has taken, and I’m gonna kick you both out of my casino now. But, before I do, let me be absolutely clear about this. You haven’t proven anything to me, Junior. Stashing the dope in the warehouse isn’t enough. So, if you want the keys to the Red Chip, you’re gonna have to step your game up.”
“I already told you, I’m not dealing your heroin for you,” Kelvin replies, looking at his father but occasionally glancing over at Clarence, who still hasn’t sat down.
“You don’t want to deal from the Red Chip. That’s fine. But, you’re gonna have to do more than what you’ve been doing. I told you you’d have to work for me, and that hasn’t even started yet.”
“What more do you want me to do?”
Senior grins at Kelvin and lets out a tiny chuckle. “You’ll see. Now, get the fuck out of my casino.”
I can see that Kelvin’s ready to snap. It feels like all the muscles in his arm are flexing at the same time. However, he relents, because he knows that he can’t win in this situation. He either does what Senior says, or he loses out on the opportunity to own the Red Chip. Not to mention the fact that Mikey is no longer here to protect him if things get too crazy.
“You know this isn’t right,” I chime in. I want Senior to know that I’m standing beside Kelvin, and that I’m not afraid to stand up to him. From now on, he’ll have to acknowledge me. He’ll have to respect me.
“I don’t give a fuck about what you think is right,” Senior says. “This is my business, and we do this the way I say we do it, and that means you haven’t earned shit, until I say you’ve earned it. Until I say you’ve proven your loyalty to The Family.”
“Just tell me what you want me to do,” Kelvin interjects.
Senior lifts his large arm and places his hand on Kelvin’s shoulder with an obviously fake smile. “Like I said, you’ll see. Now, get the fuck out.”
“Self-righteous, entitled, ungrateful little prick.”
“I still haven’t figured out why you put up with so much of his shit. I know he’s your son, but there’s probably a hundred guys on the street who would run the Red Chip and deal at the same time, for half the money you give him, no questions asked.”
“Yeah, I know that, Clarence,” I say, as I sit back down in my chair at the head of the table. Now that Kelvin and his little girlfriend are gone, I feel myself relaxing again. “As much as he does get on my fucking nerves, he’s still my son. I’m obligated to him, and I feel like I owe it to Fab.”
Clarenc
e sits back in his chair and lights a cigar, puffing out white smoke that encircles his head. “I understand that. I mean, we all love him. He’s my nephew, after all. But he’s not cut out to do this like Fab was. He never has been, and now that he’s got that girl, he’s even weaker. You know how they get when that pussy starts to cloud their judgment.”
I can’t help but smile at Clarence’s statement. I know he’s right. He and I have always stayed loyal to The Family. We put The Family before everything, including women. That’s why my marriage didn’t work out in the first place. My ex-wife, Lula, couldn’t understand that she didn’t come first in my life. The Family has always come first. The money and the power have always come first. Women can’t stand being second, even if them being second makes them filthy-fucking-rich. They have this internal need to always be the most important thing in a man’s life. If the man has fun without the woman around, the woman gets pissed, like he’s not supposed to be having fun without her. She always wants to be involved. She always wants to stake her claim in whatever the man is doing, even if she wasn’t around when the man started doing it in the first place. They want everything. However, for some strange reason that still eludes me, Clarence and I are the only ones who’ve been able to figure that out. We still date women on and off, but only for the pussy. I mean, I’m a man, and I have needs that only a woman can fulfill. But, there’s absolutely no chance that I’d ever let myself get strapped down by another woman, and Clarence wouldn’t let it happen to him either. We’re too smart for that. We’re too focused on getting the only thing that really matters in this life—money.
My son, Kelvin Junior, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite of me. Before he came to kick it with his brother, he was living with his mom and always finding himself falling for some woman. Always letting himself get burned by some chick, and sitting there crying on his mom’s shoulder. Being soft. Being a little pussy. Every time Lula gave me an update over the phone about what Kelvin was doing, she always had to mention the fact that he was out with some girl, or how another one of his relationships hadn’t panned out and he was all upset about it because he was on a never-ending search for love and happiness. The shit used to make me sick to my stomach.
When Junior came out here to be with Fab, I thought that he might finally come around to being a real Carter. I thought that he’d finally realize that there are things out there that are more important than chasing love to no avail. I thought he’d finally man-the-fuck-up. It started out well, too. A few little flings here and there, and the sudden realization that all the women he was meeting in the city all wanted the same thing—his dick and his father’s money. They didn’t give a shit about him anymore than anyone else did. If he wasn’t fucking them right, and if he wasn’t showcasing the new money he was making that his brother was giving him, then they didn’t want anything to do with him. They didn’t want love, and he was finally catching on and trying to become an active member of The Family. Then, Fab died and Junior went right back to being all sensitive. Losing his brother reminded him of how dangerous this lifestyle is, and he went back to being the boy his mother wanted him to be. He went back to being the boy I can’t stand.
Here we are now, still going through the same bullshit we were going through a long time ago. I’m trying to make moves with The Family and advance us as a force to be reckoned with, and Kelvin is still out there fighting for love. I can’t fucking stand it. If it was anybody else, I would’ve killed him already, for being so weak and allowing himself to be sidetracked by a woman. Once you join The Family, there’s no going back, and you can’t walk the line between The Family and being a civilian. You’re either in or you’re out. But, I’m stuck, however, because he is my son—the only one I have left. So, even though I can’t stand him, I find myself being more lenient with him. I put up with a lot of bullshit that I wouldn’t take from anybody else, ever. I do it because I do love him. However, even love has its limits.
“You’re right,” I reply to Clarence. “I think he’s becoming too soft for his own good.”
“I think there’s more to it than that, Senior,” Clarence responds, taking another drag of his cigar.
“What do you mean?”
“I think he’s becoming a liability.”
“A liability?”
“Yes. What if word got out that Derrick tried to steal from you? What if Derrick goes out and tells people that he tried to steal from you, got caught by your son, and that your son let him go? How does that make you look? How does that make The Family look? We look weak, Senior.”
I rub my chin as I think about the weight of Clarence’s words. He’s absolutely right. If word got out that someone tried to steal from me and got away with it, it would encourage others to try it. Being in a game like this means that you have to have no mercy. I have to show people that I won’t allow that kind of shit, even from people who aspire to be a part of The Family. You make a mistake when dealing with Kelvin Carter Senior, you suffer consequences. Harsh consequences. No, I can’t let this slide.
I place my feet firmly on the floor and lean forward in my seat, placing my hands on top of the table in front of me. “This needs to be handled, Clarence. How about you pay a visit to Derrick tonight. Give him my warmest regards.”
Clarence looks at me with his sly smile that he rarely shows. “Understood.” He gets up from the table and begins to walk towards the exit, but he stops just before reaching for the handle to the door. “Oh, and what about Kelvin?”
I think about it for a second, and a second is all it takes for me to figure it out.
“When you go see Derrick tonight, take Kelvin with you. He wants to know what more he can do. He wants to prove himself because he’s dumb enough to think I’ll actually give him the Red Chip. He wants to prove his loyalty. Well, here’s his chance. Take him with you, and show him what it means to be a Carter.”
Five hours has passed, and I’m still fuming about the conversation I had with my father this morning. I’ve done my best to be loyal to this family since I got here. I just wanted to hang out with my brother, who I missed because our parents split up when we were young, and I never expected to have to bury him and take his place in The Family. However, what happened, happened, and I can’t do anything to change that now, but the truth is, I have absolutely no desire to be anything like Fab. He was my brother, and I loved him, but we’re nothing alike, and I don’t think there’s a thing in this world that pisses my dad off more than that.
I know that he’ll never look at me the way he looked at Fab. I’m really not sure if I even want him to. All I really want is to take a part of The Family and make it legit. If it wasn’t for my brother being a member of The Family, I’d be saying fuck this. I would have never come here and gotten involved with my father if it wasn’t for Fab being here. Then again, if I never came here then I wouldn’t have ever met Lilliana, so I guess I should be thankful for everything that has happened. But, my brother is the real reason I want to hold on to some part of The Family. He’s the reason I want to own the Red Chip and make it an honest establishment. If I can take the Red Chip out of the grasp of the crooked Carter family, it’d be just like taking Fab out of that grasp and setting his spirit free. I can take something dirty and make it clean. It’s about my brother’s legacy, and I’m the only person who can make that happen. The rest of them are too self-involved. They’re too into the life to realize how they’re disrespecting Fab’s memory. My dad tries to act like he knew Fab better than I did, but I knew Fab too, and I know that he would want us to do better. He wouldn’t want The Family to be caught up in smuggling and selling drugs on the streets. He’d want me to do better, and that’s the reason I can’t give up on this. I have to make this happen for me and for him. I just don’t know what I’m going to have to do to be able to make it happen.
“Talk to me, Kelvin. What’s wrong?” Lilliana says as she finishes chewing her last bite of pot roast. She stares me straight in the eye, and I know t
hat she knows there’s something on my mind. There’s no use trying to hide it.
“It’s just the same old shit,” I respond, taking a sip of my Dom Perignon. “The same old wondering what my dad is gonna do, and wondering if I should trust him. I can’t stand that he has so much power over whether or not I can ever own the casino. He has all the keys, literally. It just sucks, babe.”
“I know it does, but it’s only been six months. I never expected your father to give in so quickly.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked so soon. I guess I should’ve known better.”
“Maybe. Honestly, Kelvin, things have been going well for the past six months, and even though I don’t like the drugs, at least nobody is trying to kill us. We should take that for what it’s worth. I’m sure Senior will come around. We just have to wait him out.”
I push my chair back and stand up, grabbing my plate and stacking it on top of Lilliana’s, and then take them both into the kitchen and put them into the dishwasher. “I know my dad is a hardheaded son-of-a-bitch, but I don’t like that he expects me to just do this for him without having some sort of a timetable. Am I just supposed to keep hiding drugs in the warehouse, and never ask him about when it all will be good enough? That’s crazy. He doesn’t even need the money from the Red Chip. He makes plenty with all of his other businesses. So what’s the point with this?”
“He knows he doesn’t need the money, but this is Senior we’re talking about, babe. Your dad is all about power, so giving up the casino would be like giving up power to him, and I don’t expect him to relinquish it without giving it a lot of thought.”
I close the dishwasher and turn around to look at Lilliana, and I’m sure my confusion is written all over my face. “Well, you seem to have a lot of confidence in him all of a sudden.”
Lilliana rises from her seat and walks over to the barstool in front of me. “You know I don’t have any confidence in your dad. I’m just trying to be understanding and supportive, while also acknowledging that your father is a prick, and I know he’s not gonna do anything without giving you shit about it first. The truth is, we don’t have any other choice but to trust that he’ll do what he said he’d do.”
