All That Drama

by McKinney, Tina Brooks

Chapter 20

  As the details of Jessie’s arrest began pouring in, I could not wait to call Sammie back to gloat.

  “Hello,” Sammie said, clearly stopped up as if she had been crying.

  “You heard for yourself, didn’t you! They got that motherfucker,” I said elated.

  “Yeah, it was him,” she simply stated. I could not understand why she was crying and not shouting for joy.

  “What’s wrong with you? He’s in jail. You should be damn singing and doing the happy dance!”

  “I’m happy for the moment but what happens to me when he gets out of jail. He’s going to be pissed and when he’s pissed I suffer for it,” she whimpered.

  “Look, I can’t come over now. We are having breakfast, so why don’t you come back over here and we can talk. Surely there is something that can be done to keep his ass in jail,” I replied.

  “I’m tired now. I’ll get back to you later.”

  “NO, damn it; get your ass over here now! You can’t sleep this away; you have to make a plan of action.” I hung up the phone before she could reply. I knew what she wanted to do. She was going to try to sleep her way out of her depression. This time, I was not going to let her go into her protective mode.

  “Mommy, is Ms. Sammie coming over here today?” Keira said.

  “Yes, sugar, so I need you and Kevin to hurry up and finish your breakfast and get dressed, okay?”

  “Will she be crying again?” she asked.

  Wow! I thought that Sammie and I did a good job of putting on a happy face whenever she was around my kids. I had no idea that they knew how unhappy Sammie’s life really was.

  “I hope not, sweetheart, but if she does this time, she will be crying ’cause she’s got some good news,” I said. This was not exactly a lie so I didn’t feel too bad in saying this to Keira.

  “Hurry up, baby; you don’t want her to see you with your hair all over your head, do you? Do me a favor and call Kevin to eat so his food won’t be cold.”

  I went back into the kitchen to pour juice for them. My hands were shaking as I filled the glasses, and I pondered just how much I was really keeping from Kevin and Keira.

  By the time Sammie made it to the house, the news was all over the radio and TV. Jessie finally had gotten what he deserved.

  He tried to stiff a nigger and in return got a serious ass whipping. The guy beat him to a pulp and left him for dead in the back of Sam’s where they were supposed to be doing the wild thing. The trick rammed a stick so far up Jessie’s ass that it had to be surgically removed. I wish I could have seen that shit. The police found him the next morning. They took him to the hospital and once he was treated, they locked his sorry ass up for drug possession. They did not have any suspects in their investigation and were asking the public to come forward if they had any information.

  At Jessie’s arraignment held later the next week, Sammie learned about his prior arrests for prostitution, assault, battery and drug possession. Sammie was stunned to find out that he would be serving the next ten to fifteen years in jail. Elated and afraid, she filed for divorce while he was in prison and closed a very unpleasant chapter in her life.

  I just prayed that Jessie got bunked with a big guy named Bubba that liked his bitches skinny. Only goes to show you, what goes around comes around. I just wish I could have seen him so I could have done the happy dance in his face!

  Chapter 21

  Sammie decided to become proactive while Jessie was incarcerated. She had given Jessie thirteen years of her life and had nothing to show for it. It was a really scary time for Sammie because it was the first time in her life that she was responsible for herself. Her first step was to reclaim her children from her mother, Althea. She and I both knew that it was not going to be easy since they had been living with her for most of their lives, but she had to try.

  Althea did not give up the children easily. Sammie had to retain the same lawyer that she had used for her divorce to get temporary custody of her children. Luckily for Sammie, Althea never had filed the papers that Sammie had signed as a youth giving up her parental rights.

  The conditions of the temporary custody agreement were that Sammie maintain a full-time job and a stable home environment for the children. Therefore, she had to give up her job with the temp service. Although she had been working fairly regularly as a temp, it did not provide the health benefits that she also needed to maintain for the children.

  After three months of battling, Sammie was a mother. Kendall was now thirteen and Tyson was sixteen. Both were bitter towards Sammie and she fought hard to earn their love and respect. They did not want to come live with their mom and they made it crystal clear every opportunity they got. I felt sorry for Sammie but this was the bed she had made for herself.

  We were having Easter dinner at my house. My mother and her new friend had just left and Sammie and the children were coming in. Tyson hit the door first, walking up to the table bumping up against chairs. Kendall meekly followed him, never raising her eyes from the floor.

  “Don’t you walk up in my house and disrespect me by not speaking,” I said to Tyson. Kendall cringed and I lowered my tone.

  “Hi,” he mumbled under his breath. I shot Sammie a glance to find out what was going on. She simply shrugged her shoulders. Tyson and Kendall had been living with her for over a month and this was the first time that they were on my turf.

  “Kendall, I want you to meet my daughter. Hold on and let me get her.” I turned around and went to the steps to call Keira. She came bouncing down the steps and they became instant friends. Kendall was three years older then Keira but as they turned to walk away, I could tell it made no difference. Tyson looked up but he still had that sour look on his face.

  Kevin ran down the stairs as they were going up and almost knocked both girls down.

  “Hey, hold on, mister. You ain’t outside,” I said firmly.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. He went right up to Tyson and asked him if he wanted to play one of his PlayStation games. It was like someone had flicked a light switch on Tyson’s face. He jumped up from the table and quickly followed behind Kevin.

  “What games you got?” Tyson asked as they headed up the steps.

  “Hey, what about dinner?” I said to their retreating backs.

  “Aw, man, he ain’t hungry,” Kevin said, answering for Tyson. The only other sound we heard was the closing of Kevin’s bedroom door.

  “So how is it going?” I asked Sammie now that we were alone.

  “It’s tough; I ain’t going to lie. Tyson hates me and Kendall is afraid of her own shadow. I tried to get my mother to give me their clothes, but she is still being a bitch. She won’t give me any of their things and I can’t afford to buy them the things that they used to have!”

  “Sammie, it’s not about possessions. They are still children and they are having a problem with accepting you after all this time. Just continue to show them love. They will come around; I promise you.”

  Although I never met Althea, I learned to hate her just by observing the empty looks in the eyes of Tyson and Kendall. It was a look of someone who was desolate and beaten down. It was not a look you hoped to see in two teenage children with their whole lives ahead of them. I could tell that they had to fight every day of their lives to be who they were and that made me very sad.

  Of the two, Kendall was worse. She was obviously in pain and would not let either Sammie or me in. She had questions about her father that Sammie could not or would not answer. She knew that her father still resided in California but had no way of contacting him without Sammie’s help. Sammie didn’t want to tell Kendall that her father denied paternity of her so she denied knowing his whereabouts.

  Over the next few months, Kendall did develop a relationship with Keira. She pretended that Keira was her sister and enjoyed spending time with her at my house. Tyson, on the other hand, was totally belligerent and he made no attempt to disguise his contempt for Sammie.

  Sammie tol
erated this abuse at home but I would not allow it when they came to visit me. One day, I pulled Tyson aside and made it clear what I expected of him in my home.

  “Look, you may not like some of the things that your mother has done, but the fact remains that she is still your mother and you can’t change that,” I said.

  “I hate her!” he yelled, standing face-to-face with me. “Why couldn’t she just leave us alone? We don’t want to live in that funky apartment with her. We had our own rooms back at my real mother’s house. Why couldn’t she have left us alone?”

  “Because she loves you,” I yelled right back at him, forgetting that he was still a child. I wanted to ring his fucking neck but I had to remember that all of his animosity probably had come from Althea. Children rarely hate their mothers regardless of how wrong they are.

  “She had a fucked-up way of showing it,” he snarled. I snatched his narrow ass up by his arm and brought his face closer to mine so that we were facing each other nose-to-nose.

  “Look, I told you once before that regardless of the circumstances, she is still your mother and therefore is entitled to your respect. She made some mistakes. I can’t deny that, but she is trying to correct them! You will not disrespect her in my house and I better not hear of you disrespecting her in yours. Do I make myself clear, mister?” I asked, making sure I pinched his skin hard enough to cause it to welt. He snatched his arm away from me and raised his hand as if he were about to strike me.

  “Don’t even think about it buddy ’cause I will have your ass laid out on this floor before you can draw back the nubs!” Tears welled in his eyes but he would not let them fall. He still bucked at me and I swung hard enough to rattle his teeth. For a moment, we were both too stunned to move. Even though I did not mean to hit him, I knew I had slapped the taste out his mouth.

  On impulse, I grabbed him again but this time to comfort him. He resisted my touch but I continued to hug and kiss him, telling him how sorry I was.

  “I had no right to do that and I am truly sorry. You made me so angry. Don’t you see your mother is trying? Can’t you just give her a chance?” He did not answer me but he did not pull away from me either. We sat down together on the sofa.

  “What are you so afraid of?” I whispered.

  Very quietly he answered, “That she will leave us again and where will we go?”

  “But don’t you understand; your mother never had a choice. She was still a teenager when she had you. Your grandmother would not allow her to take you both away. Your mother did not leave you of her own free will.”

  He did not respond so I continued. “Could you give her a chance, please? It won’t be easy—I know that, and I am not going to sit here and lie to you that it will be, but I’ll be here for you and Kendall. If things get scary, call me. I can’t fix everything but I will damn sure try.”

  At that point, Tyson and I formed a truce. Even though I still felt he didn’t like me for hitting him I thought that he respected me enough to listen to what I had to say.

  He agreed to go to school and to stop all the senseless fighting with his mother. It was not the best truce in the world, but it was a start.

  Chapter 22

  After Sammie filed for divorce from Jessie, we became regular bar flies. We stayed in the clubs. That’s not really anything to be proud of but we were still young, single, and we both loved to dance. We would start on Thursday night with ladies night at Chit-Chat on Candler Road in Decatur and would continue at various clubs until Sunday night for the All-Male Revue at Faces on Glenwood Road.

  We didn’t like going to the ritzier clubs ’cause number one, since they were too far away, we didn’t want to get caught driving under the influence; and number two, the niggas in those other clubs acted like they were too cute to dance.

  We made that mistake one night when we went to Hairston’s in Stone Mountain. It wasn’t far from our houses but the people were too stuck up for us. We came to party and that is what we did! Those perpetrators acted like they could not even work up a sweat. That’s when we swore off the swankier clubs. Since most of the people there were pretending to be something that they were not.

  Sammie met Curtis Brock at Chit-Chat one Friday night after about a month on the club circuit. That first night, he could not keep his hands off her. They danced to nearly every song, and he bought her a rose when the flower peddler came around. That was a first for Sammie. I occasionally got a rose or a teddy bear from an admirer but it had never happened to her and it opened her nose for real. Curtis was not necessarily handsome but he wasn’t barf bag material either.

  In short, he was an okay-looking man with a fairly decent body. He had a short Afro cut into a fade. His most striking feature was the peculiar shade of his brown eyes—we later learned were colored contacts.

  I could not help but to mentally pick him apart but I didn’t let Sammie know of my concerns. His clothes were rather ordinary and the soles of his shoes were run-down and badly needed new heels. His only saving grace in my opinion was the way he treated Sammie. I knew she needed to be pampered as a princess. This was what had been missing in her life for as long as I had known her. Coming so soon on the heels of Jessie, Curtis was just what the doctor ordered.

  After watching those two carry on, I envisioned Sammie and Curtis going steady, courting, and eventually getting married and having 1.5 babies. I’ll admit it, I got carried away with my fantasy for them, but Curtis was doing and saying all the right things and I liked it. He got an “E” for effort in my book. He was attentive to her needs all night long, and I did not have to worry about whether she was having a good time or not for a change.

  Normally I would have to hold myself back from too much fun just so I could make sure she was having a good time. Because if Sammie got bored, then she would want to go home and if she was driving, that meant I would have to go home, too. I kept thinking, Uh-oh, this might be the one to straighten her ass out. But she fucked it up and took the nigger home. She broke the number one rule of dating: never take a man home on the first fucking night. I was pissed and she knew it, but that didn’t stop her.

  The next day, Sammie and I had a major falling-out about going to the club. In my heart, I knew that if she saw that nigga again, he would dis her and I would be left to pick up the pieces.

  “What are you wearing tonight?” Sammie asked when I picked up the phone.

  “Well, good evening to you, too,” I sarcastically replied.

  “Oh, my bad, girl. I guess I’m still tripping about last night.”

  “Yeah, you and me both.” She did not catch on that I was truly irritated with her.

  “I had so much fun last night! I can’t wait to get back there. What are you wearing?” she asked again.

  “I don’t think I’m going out tonight,” I responded.

  “And why not?” she said, finally picking up on that attitude I had.

  “If I do go out, I’m thinking about going somewhere different. We are wearing a hole in Chit-Chat’s and I don’t want to be labeled a ‘regular.’”

  “What’s wrong with being a regular? It has its perks; half the time we don’t have to pay.” I could picture her sitting up in bed with her hands on her hips. I knew that she was not out of the bed since chill was all Sammie did when she was at home.

  “Nothing, really. I just don’t want to be one.”

  “Oh, I think I detect a little hate-a-ration,” she huffed.

  “Hate? Oh no you didn’t just say that to me. Why the hell do you think I’m hating on you?” I demanded.

  “I just detected a little jealousy in your voice, that’s all.”

  “Jealous, of what? Now you really are tripping!” I said, suddenly pissed.

  “You know, about Curtis and all,” she said with a tee-hee to take the sting out.

  “Sammie, I am pleased as punch you found a man but I have absolutely no reason to be jealous of you.” Shit. “Hey, I changed my mind. We will go back to Chat’s tonight and see y
our ‘man’ but you are driving. Call me when you are ready to leave,” I said and hung up the phone.

  I stomped around my bedroom slinging clothes and talking to myself. She had suckered me into her plan to go to the club and I didn’t even realize it until after I had hung up.

  I was searching for the perfect outfit to wear that night. I was going to show that heifer just how bad she fucked up by sleeping with Curtis on the first night. Keira and Kevin were still at my mother’s, and Tyson and Kendall were old enough to stay at home alone so the coast was clear.

  I decided to let my shoulder-length hair hang down instead of pinning it up like I usually did. I picked a brown suede skirt outfit that clung to my hips and showed off my sexy legs and phat ass. I knew I looked good. Sammie came over and she was wearing a tired black cat suit that left nothing to the imagination.

  One of these days, I was gonna tell Sammie that just ’cause designers made something in her size didn’t mean she should wear it. But for right now I was going to keep my mouth shut. I was still pissed at her.

  Even though I was upset with her, I didn’t want to wish bad luck on Sammie. Before we left, I prayed that God would seal my lips from saying, ‘I told you so’ if Curtis decided to clown on her.

  Sure enough, the nigga was clowning. You would have thought he never laid eyes on Sammie because he did not even acknowledge her presence. I mean nothing. Nada. He did not even nod to indicate that he even knew her in the first place. I was hot and I could only imagine how bad Sammie felt. To her credit, she kept her chin up and tried to have fun even though her eyes stayed glued to him all night long. That shit was foul. I even made a point to dance right next to his stank ass shooting him evil glares. He looked right through me as if I wasn’t even on the same planet that he was on.

  When the song was over I left my partner and returned to my seat. Sammie was rooted in place with this fake ass smile on her face still following Curtis’ every move.