305 Lovin' 3

by Diamond Johnson

  I don’t think that I have ever cried in my life because I was so fuckin’ heartless.

  “You’re way too fuckin’ beautiful to be living this lifestyle. I want to believe you, I really do, but I just can’t. How you expect for a nigga to believe anything that’s even coming out of your mouth right now when you didn’t even keep it real from the get go?” he asked.

  “I was scared, okay! Scared that you would judge me, like you’re judging me now,” I said, still crying.

  “I ain’t in no fuckin’ position to judge anybody. I done did some fucked up shit in my life too, and I’m man enough to say that shit because ain’t nobody perfect, so I’m not afraid of what the fuck somebody else may think of me,” he said.

  I only wished that I had his courage.

  “I want to be able to open up to you, Davion. Please, don’t make me leave because I have nowhere else to go. All of my things are in Miami, and I told you that I planned to take his car and go back home last night. I’ll help out at the club if you allow me to. I’ll find me a job, whatever I have to do, just please don’t kick me out because if Tracy’s finds me, he just might kill my ass,” I said to him.

  “Get up and get dressed!” he said, and I quickly did that.

  This was a good thing because from the sound of it, I think he was going to let me stay.

  Chapter 18: Jaquan

  I was in the middle of a press conference and this shit was very important because last night, myself, Dre, and Quay decided to have a little after party at one of the hotels. We were in Tallahassee for homecoming week and we had a performance that night at Club Coliseum. Whenever I had to do a performance, I loved coming to Tally because those college students be lit as hell, and I could feel the love right off the bat. Half the students that attended Famu and Florida State were from Miami, so the love they had for me is real. Charlie’s ass was still pissed off with a nigga, so she didn’t come, but Toya came with Dre, since Florida State was her school and she wanted to be down for homecoming weekend as well.

  Anyway, two girls got into an altercation back at the hotel room, which resulted in one of the females being beat with a glass bottle. She was now laid up in the hospital and had to get stiches and shit in her face. Since the party was ours, we had to come out and tell the story, and mainly apologize for the shit that happened, even though the shit wasn’t technically our fault. I swear this was the only part I hated about being famous because your ass had to apologize for every damn thing.

  “That was a mistake on our part, and we should have stopped it before it went that far. I never want my fans to think that we support that type of violence and that it’s acceptable, so again, I sincerely apologize,” I said.

  As soon as I finished giving my speech, the double doors opened in the room. This press conference was in the middle of going live and anybody couldn’t just walk into the room while it was going on, but the person who had just walked in wasn’t just anybody. This was someone who played a big role in the way that I am today. Someone who had scarred me for life and pushed me to want to become the best father in the world to my daughter. This was the man who caused my mother to have to struggle while I was growing up because she didn’t have anybody there to help her raise me. This was him, the deadbeat that I rap about in my music. The man who felt like I wasn’t worthy enough to receive his love. If I were, he never would’ve left me to learn how to be a man on my own. This was the same man who I watched my little sister cry over time and time again because she never got the chance to be spoiled and be labeled as a “daddy’s girl”. This was the third time that I had seen him in my entire life, but hey, who was counting?

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t be in here right now,” one of the people from the press said.

  I mean, we were literally in the middle of recording and he had come in there and messed things up.

  “That’s my son!” he said. He said it with power, like it meant something. Like he took part in my success.

  “Jaquan, do you know this man? If not, we’re going to have to ask him to leave,” the security guard said.

  It was kind of a tricky question that she was asking me because, did I know this man? The man who was standing before me, looking like an older version of myself, could I honestly claim to know him? He was standing there in a suit and it was like he was begging me with his eyes to confess to him being my father.

  “No, I don’t know that man! I never had a father,” I said with hate dripping from every word that I said.

  I left the podium and Dre followed me. I could hear my sperm donor yelling out for security to let him go as I walked away. I needed a moment to get my thoughts together. How dare he come in here and claim me after all these years? How dare he! I was so fuckin’ mad that I punched a hole in the wall. Paparazzi and press were all around, and I was giving their asses a show.

  “Quan, let’s go. I understand you’re mad, but don’t give these motha fuckas a reason to have a field day with this shit you doing out here right now. You’ll wake up tomorrow and they’ll have all type of false accusations on you, talking about how violent of a person you are, and they’ll even bring Charlie and China into it. Come on, man, this shit ain’t a good look,” Quay said when he came out of the press conference and saw how I was out there acting.

  I got myself together and the three of us headed outside. When we walked out, he was still standing there. It was like he was waiting for me or some shit.

  “Come on, lil Quan, give me a minute, son. I just want to talk to you,” he said, coming after me.

  He was really pissing me off throwing that son word around. Quay tried to make me keep walking, but I had to turn around and say something.

  “Lil Quan? Nigga, don’t call me that shit, and don’t fuckin’ refer to me as your son ever again in your motha fuckin life. I’m your son now because of the level of my success? Where the hell were you when we needed you? When you showed up the last time in my life, I was six years old. Do you know how the fuck that scarred a nigga for life?

  “It’s crazy because I never admitted this shit to anybody, not even my damn mama, but I always hoped that your ass would come back for us. I prayed that one day you would come back and fix the hell that you had caused. It’s funny the cards that life deals you because now that you’re standing in front of me, I want nothing more than for you to just get the fuck from out of my face and continue what you been doing for all of these years, staying the fuck away,” I barked at him.

  “Come on, Quan, I’m still your father. Where is Monae?” he asked.

  That question pissed me off more than I already was.

  “Where is Monae? You have no fuckin’ right to ask about her, nigga! Because of you, I lost out on a childhood, busting my ass in the streets, trying to make sure my mama and my little sister was good. I was picking up your slack and being a motha fuckin’ man! I raised Monae! The woman that she is today, I brag on how I played a big role in that transformation. Yeah, we were poor, but I’m rich now and I make sure those two women don’t want for shit! We needed you and you weren’t there, so don’t come around now!” I said and my voice cracked.

  I hadn’t even realized I had tears falling from my face until now. I tried to act like certain shit didn’t bother me in life, but it killed me every day that I had to live life not having a father there to take part in my success.

  “I made it without you. I taught myself how to be a man. I thank you for one thing, though, and that’s for showing me the way a father is not supposed to be. I got a little girl, man. I don’t get to see her every day, and it’s not by choice either. I call her and I tell her I love her every day because I never in my life want that little girl to grow up and say that I wasn’t there for her! She knows exactly who her father is and she’ll never have to walk around this cold ass world, wondering if I was going to ever come back for her because I’m never leaving!” I wiped my eyes and then walked away.

  People were outside recording the whole t
hing and I didn’t care. It took a real man to do the shit that I had just done. So the fuck what if I cried? I have reason to. I’m hurting right now.

  7:00 P.M.

  When I pulled up to my mother’s house, I noticed Charlie’s car in the driveway. I hadn’t spoken to her ass all day, and she had been ignoring the past three phone calls that I had made to her. I knew Charlie, and I knew that she was fucked up behind those text messages that she had seen in my phone. I’ll admit that the shit did look suspect, like I only married her because I knew that once she found out about Chantel, she would right of the bat leave a nigga, but I promise that wasn’t the case at all. I quickly did that marriage with Charlie because I felt like it was time for me to step up and be a man about the situation. Charlie had proven to me time and time again that it was time to make her my wife, but I kept running away from the responsibility.

  I parked my car and headed toward the front door of my mama’s house. When I let myself in, I could hear their voices, and it sounded like they were in the kitchen. I walked inside and made my presence known. Suddenly, all conversation ceased.

  “Fuck y’all stop talking for?” I asked, looking from Charlie, to Monae and my mama.

  “Boy, I done told your ass time and time again that I am not one of your lil’ friends. Cuss at me again and watch I slap the shit out of your ass,” my mama fussed, and I laughed.

  She hated when I used profanity around her, and honestly, I didn’t even do the shit to be disrespectful, I only did it because I knew it pissed her off, and I liked to see her get all riled up.

  “And where you coming from, looking all handsome,” my mom said, referring to the three-piece suit that I was wearing.

  “I told you that we had that press conference today because of what happened the other night at the hotel.” I walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water.

  “Yo’ ass can’t speak? And where the hell you been all day because I called your ass twice.” I approached Charlie as she sat on the barstool in front of the island.

  I picked her up, took her spot and sat with her in my lap. I knew she had missed a nigga because if she didn’t, she would have told me to stop touching her.

  “Charlie, girl I’m so done with your ass. You were just over here whining about this nigga, and look at your ass now,” Monae said.

  “Oh yeah, what you were whining about now? Seems like ever since your ass got pregnant, that’s all you seem to do anymore,” I said it in a teasing way, but lord knows that I was dead ass serious.

  “I wasn’t whining about anything. I was just telling them what was going on between us. How did the press conference go?” she asked me.

  “That shit was straight. I just had to give a bullshit ass apology for the shit, which I don’t understand why it was me who had to do it because I damn sure didn’t crack a bitch upside the head with a bottle, but since the shit happened in our room, Dre and I had to apologize for it. But that’s not even the shit that got me all heated. Excuse my language, Ma, but guess who had the fuckin’ nerve to show up in the middle of the damn press conference?” I said.

  I was still in a state of shock about that shit, and I was still livid that his ass referred to me as his son. Not once, but twice. He wasn’t there for the fuckin’ hard times, so don’t be there now in my time of success. It kind of had me thinking, though, was he looking at me now and seeing dollar signs, or was he coming back after all of these years, trying to rekindle a relationship that never even existed. Damn near fifteen years ago, I would have died to hear that man call me his son and be so anxious to see and talk to me, but it’s crazy how the times have changed.

  “Who?” all three women asked at the same time.

  “Keith, that’s who,” I said. That was his name to me. It wasn’t dad, father, none of that shit, just plain ole Keith.

  “Are you fuckin’ serious, Jaquan? What the hell did he want?” my mom asked me.

  I could see in her eyes how shocked she was about the situation. I’m pretty sure my face resembled hers when he brought his ass in the room earlier.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t even give his ass a chance to explain himself! After all of these years, why now, ma? I didn’t need him then and I damn sure don’t need his ass now,” I spat.

  “The last time I saw Keith was at your birthday party that year. He told me how he was moving to Atlanta to be with his wife and their two daughters, and you know what? I didn’t ask his ass for a dime, nor did I try to argue with his ass, I just let him go. I told myself that if he loved you and Monae, then he would have told his wife, a wife that I didn’t even know he had, about you and Monae. I was way too strong to sit there and beg a man for shit, even though I knew I needed that money. The little birthday party I put together for you, I had been saving up months for that, just so I could make you happy. I was surprised when he told me that he would come to your party, but I was way more surprised with the bomb that he dropped on me that day,” my mom vented.

  This wasn’t the first time that I’ve heard her tell this story, and each time I heard it, it did nothing but piss me off again.

  “Wow, baby, look. People have the video all on YouTube,” Charlie said.

  I glanced at her phone, and sure enough, there was a video of myself and him outside, having a conversation as emotional as this in front of the whole fuckin’ world to see. I hated people to see my vulnerable side, so it kind of made me feel some type of way because of the tears I had shed in the video. I wasn’t crying so much of because I was hurt, but I was angry and I had a lot of resentment toward him. I felt that because of him, I was rushed to grow up. Instead of being a normal little boy whose focus was to go to school and make good grades, I had to figure out ways that I could help my mom keep food in our stomach, clothes on our back, and a roof over our heads. It wasn’t fair to me! Everything that I would sit and dream about as a little boy was finally coming true, and I had done it without him.

  Charlie pulled me closer to her and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Jaquan, I know you, and I know that you only get emotional about shit when you care. I’ve been around you long enough to count on my fingers how many times I’ve seen you cry, and those few times that I did, it was because of the fact that you cared about the situation. Baby, I know you’re mad at your father for leaving you, trust me I’m mad at him too because I used to watch you suffer from that when we were growing up. I know you don’t like it when I try to tell you what to do, but Jaquan, at least hear him out. Just see what he has to say,” Charlie said.

  I didn’t even respond to what she said because honestly I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

  “Ma, what you think he should do?” Charlie asked my mother.

  “I always said that if Monae and Jaquan were to run into Keith, that I would never intervene if they had a chance of building a relationship. I’m not going to sit here and act like I’m all for it because I’m not, but whatever decision they decide to make, I will support it. I know one thing, though. I don’t have to have a relationship with his ass. My kids are fuckin grown, so there is nothing for him and I to discuss,” my mama snapped, and I understood where she was coming from.

  “What you think about it, Monae?” I asked.

  Monae was sensitive to shit like this, so if she decided that she didn’t want to fuck with him, then that was cool. I wasn’t about to force her to do shit that she didn’t want to do.

  “I mean, as of now, I don’t want to hear anything he has to say, maybe sometime in the future. I’m still hurt behind his absence in my life, and I’m probably just now getting over the fact that he was never there. Yeah, Quan, you stepped up when I was younger, but it still doesn’t add up to the point of an actual father. I’ll admit though, you’re the closest father figure that I’ve had because even though you’re my brother, your ass swear up and down that I’m your daughter, and I honestly thank you for that. I no longer wish for his presence. Hell, I did twenty-one years without him, I don’t see how i
t would hurt to go on the same way,” my sister said, and I agreed with her one hundred percent.

  “We’ll finish this conversation another night, I’m tired as hell,” I said, standing up. “Wait, Charlie, where my baby at?” I asked, just realizing that I hadn’t seen my daughter in the past two days.

  “She’s upstairs sleeping. We might as well just stay here,” Charlie said.

  I gave her a look that said ‘hell no’. Shit, I was trying to get some pussy tonight.

  “Quan, come on,” she said and grabbed my hand, paying what I had just said no mind.

  After telling my sister and mother goodnight, we made our way upstairs to one of the guest bedrooms.

  “Damn, a nigga was trying to get some pussy tonight and your ass playing,” I said, as soon as I closed the door behind me.

  “And what the hell is stopping you? Just make sure you lock the door behind you,” Charlie said with a freaky smirk on her face.

  “Do you not hear how loud your ass be when we’re having sex? But wait, so that must mean that you’re no longer mad at a nigga.” I walked up to her.

  I lifted up her shirt and kissed her pregnant belly.

  “I’m still a little mad, but I’m pregnant and I’m horny, so I got to do what I got to do,” she said.