URBAN: In Love with A Boss Nigga

by Shantel Johnson

  “I know ma’am, but rules are rules.” He told them but Yvette took his hand.

  “Come with me.”

  She led him to the foster apartment next door. She signaled for him to be quiet, as the children were still asleep inside.

  ‘Look at this.” She showed him the almost empty fridge. He leaned and look at the dingy walls, the mildew in the air, horrid stench that was coming from Ms. Rita’s room. There was a mattress on the floor in the middle of the room. As the cop walked in, his feet stepped over crack pipes and they shattered under his weight.

  “Oh shit.” He cursed. “What is this?”

  “This is where that beast sleeps. And as bad as her bedroom is, I want you to take a look at the kids’ rooms.”

  When she opened the doors, the cop’s eyes opened wide. The clean and pristine room came as a shock. The bunk beds were filled with sleeping children, stuffed animals. In the corners there were books, toys, and games. He tiptoed his way out of the apartment. Lionel’s mother followed right behind him. He shook his head and couldn’t believe what he saw.

  “The apartment is a mess but the kids’ rooms were great. If she didn’t care about these kids, why did she give them such great rooms?”

  “You think that’s from her? You’ve seen the drugs in her room. The reason that place is any good is because of that girl right there.” She pointed to Laura. “You can’t take these kids away. Not tonight.” She pleaded with him. “I know that it’s your job to do it, but I’ll look in on the kids and…” She drifted off. “Just give us some time with them.”

  The cop thought long and hard. The hallway wasn’t as filled with those nosey residents as it was before. There were a few people here and there, but most of the residents went home and gone to bed. It was now three in the morning and a lot of them had to be up later for work. He could see the desperation in the eyes of people there. It was obvious that Ms. Rita was as crooked as they came. He didn’t understand why nobody locked her up, or even called the police. But the more he thought about it, he knew what the relationship the police and the neighborhood had. For all he knew, they probably tried to get her locked up, but it seemed like Ms. Rita knew how to work the system.

  “Look,” He took Laura, Giselle, and Yvette to the side. “I’m going to personally give you my cell phone number, and you call me if you need any help. I’m not going to call child services-”

  “Thank you.” The three ladies said at once.

  “At least if there isn’t another incident. I’m going to try to keep that lady detainment and not in prison for as long as I can.”

  “Why not just lock her up and get rid of her?” Laura asked teary eyed. She thought her nightmare was over.

  “Because there’s a chance that she might be put in the system. I don’t know how it works, but once she has an arrest, who’s to know when Child Services finds out. They might just take the children. So if I keep her in detainment, she won’t get a record. Or at least I’m going to try. While I’m doing that, you guys have to find somewhere safe and permanent to place these kids.”

  “They can stay with me.” Laura chirped in happily. “I’ll just stay here and take care of them all. It’s like we’re a family anyway, so it won’t have to be somebody new.”

  “That’s very admirable of you, but I think they will find you too young for this. You guys help them find a great place and then you go from there.”

  “There's nothing else you can do?” Laura asked.

  “I think he’s doing more than he’s supposed to.” Yvette pointed out. “Thank you. We are so grateful.” She extended her hand and they shook hands.

  The cop left and Laura breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t get the news she wanted, but at least the kids could stay with her for awhile. She could help them get up in the morning and pick them up after school. She would also try to pick up some work so that they would have money around the house. She still had the checks from what the city gave Ms. Rita for fostering the children, but the extra money could only help her some more.

  “We got to find these kids a safe home.” Yvette said out loud but she was really speaking to herself. “They need some room and place to stretch.”

  “We can clean up Ms. Rita’s room.” Laura’s brain was working overtime trying to find solutions. “That way if ACS comes here, the first thing they’ll see is a completely clean room. They never went back there and if the first time they see it, it’s neat, that’ll look good, won’t it?”

  “You’re going to go crazy trying to do this all on your own.” Yvette told her. “We’ll put our heads together Monday after school and see what we can come up with. I’m guessing the younger kids were with her for daycare.”

  “She got extra money for that, I think.” Laura confessed.

  “I have a friend that owns a daycare. I think I can get her to watch the little ones there.” Yvette yawned. “I just did a double to come home to this.” She started walking to her door. It was wide open. Lionel was standing there watching it all. “Let’s all go to sleep. You girls hit the bed.” She started moving towards the bed but noticed that Giselle wasn’t moving. “Aren’t you sleeping here with us as always?”

  That’s when it was awkward again. Giselle shook her head that she wasn’t. Lionel’s mother was far too tired to get into their business. She just walked to her bedroom and went to sleep.

  “So, what happened?” He asked them. Laura took her cue and walked toward the apartment.

  “I’ll leave you two alone.” She went back to the apartment to check on the kids and then go to sleep.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah I’m fine.” Giselle answered barely in a whisper. It was still weird between them and as an attempt to smooth things over, Lionel thought that he should apologize again.

  “I know I’ve said it a million times, but I’m really sorry. I should have never said that about your parents. I didn’t mean them any disrespect by saying it.”

  “Ok. I know that.” She still had a bit of an attitude, but at least she was hearing him out.

  She waited for his apology but she wasn’t saying anything. Her arms were crossed. He didn’t know what else to say, but he did all that he could. Maybe after some sleep, she’ll be a bit more reasonable then.

  “Want to come in and crash?” He asked her. She shook her head and walked away.

  “I don’t need someplace safe to sleep now.” She opened the apartment door to her temporary home. “It’s a little too late for that.”

  Chapter 3

  Lionel made his way to Antwon’s apartment. He knocked on the door but there was no answer. He knocked on it again, and still there was no answer. He started chuckling to himself remembering that sometimes his friend would be occupied with a female. He hoped that wasn’t the situation now. The last thing he needed early that Monday morning was his friend calling him a “cockblock”. He just wanted to check up on his friend and see where his head was.

  Ever since that night he called Lionel, Antwon has pretty much kept to himself. Lionel reached out, but Antwon always had some excuse about being busy or just not in the mood to talk. Lionel thought it would be best just to pop up on his friend. He’s done it times before when Antwon was drunk from a hard night of partying and he lost his phone. He knew his friend wouldn’t mind him coming to see him. As long as he was there as a friend, Antwon would be alright with a surprise visit.

  Lionel knocked on the door again, but there was still no answer. He shrugged his shoulders and thought that maybe his friend was either sleeping over at some woman’s house, or maybe he just missed him. He turned to leave when he heard the door’s locks move around.

  “What you doing here?” Antwon asked. His eyes were bloodshot red and he had huge dark circles beneath them. It was obvious to Lionel that his friend hadn’t been sleeping or at least not sleeping that well.

  “Damn, what happened to you?” Was the first thing he could say to him.

  “I asked you a questi
on.” Antwon ignored him. “What are you doing here?”

  “What? Do I need permission to come and see you?”

  “I just wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Is that why it took you so long to answer your door?”

  “I didn’t know who it was.”

  “Well damn.” Lionel shook his head. They stood there for a few seconds. He noticed his friend wasn’t even moving. “So, am I going to have to push you in order to get inside?” Antwon didn’t answer, he just simply moved to the side.

  The inside of the apartment which was always fairly neat and decorated nicely, was almost vacant. He used to have a three piece living room set, but now that was gone and replaced with three folding chairs. Lionel looked over and saw that his huge 50 inch tv was gone. In fact his whole place almost looked like he’d just moved in as opposed to him living there for three years. After all the money he got from drug dealing and anything else, he was so proud of his apartment, but looking at it now, it was hard to tell.

  “What’s going on?” Lionel still was taking a tour of what looked like to be Antwon’s new apartment. “Where is all your stuff?”

  “I sold it.”

  “You sold it?” Lionel’s mouth dropped open. “Why would you do that? You put in all that time to get this place looking nice and then you sell most of your stuff.”

  “I didn’t need it.” Antwon shrugged.

  “Don’t need it?” Lionel asked. He looked at his friend. He still wasn’t used to the new hair color, but his friend looked like a shadow of himself. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing.” He barely answered back. He dragged his feet to his bed in the bedroom. He plopped down.

  “Son, you look horrible.” He told his friend point blank. “I’ve never seen you looking like this.”

  “I’m just having a hard time sleeping.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “I don’t fucking know.” Antwon yawned. “What’s up? Why did you come here?”

  “I really need a reason to check up on you?”

  “No, I just mean why aren’t you with your wife?”

  Lionel rolled his eyes. The argument and fight that he had with Giselle was still fresh on his mind. He put it to the backburner a bit so that he could check on his friend, but now that he mentioned it, Lionel could feel a headache coming on.

  “Man, let’s not even go there. First of all, she’s not my wife. Secondly, she’s doing the most lately. She did some shit that I’m just not cool with.”

  “What?” Antwon yawned again. “She try to stick her pinky in your booty hole?” He chuckled almost looking like his old self.

  “The fuck? Nah nigga, not at all.” Lionel laughed. “But seriously, she said some shit about my Uncle.”

  “What did she say?” His voice was getting quieter.

  “She said that me losing an uncle wasn’t the same as her losing her parents. You believe that shit? She tried to compare our pain.”

  “Damn, how did ya even get there?”

  “Yo, you know how sometimes I stick my foot in my mouth and say dumb shit.”

  “All the time.” He chuckled again and started to close his eyes.

  “Well when she was talking about her birthday, I told her to be happy and grateful and that somehow meant I was disrespecting her parents.”

  “What?” He turned over.

  “Yeah. It was just so much. It was like the conversation was happening at this crazy fast speed. By the time I realized that I should have slowed down and shut up, it was too late. Now every time I talk to her, she got some sort of attitude. She’s so mad at me that she’s making it seem like I did it on purpose. But you know how I feel about death so I would never do that to her. I keep apologizing but she’s not trying to hear it. I know you always hate to talk to dudes about their girl. I know your ass is probably going to tell me to fuck some other girl and move on, but I like her. I’m not going to lie, I’m feeling her a lot, but this whole talking to a brick wall shit has got to end. What do you think I should do? You think I should try to talk to her again?”

  Lionel waited for an answer, but only got the soft sounds of Antwon falling asleep. He was about to wake him, but it looked like he was already in a deep slumber. From what he could tell, Antwon really needed the sleep. He let his friend go and then went back to the living room. Seeing it so empty still shocked him. He walked over to the kitchen and opened the fridge. When he saw that it was completely empty, that’s when he knew something was really wrong. Antwon loved food. He always had his fridge stocked up. He may not cook, but he always had food. But when Lionel opened that fridge, there wasn’t even a bottle of water.

  “What the fuck?” He said to himself. He started to shake his head. “Nah, he can’t go on like this. He needs food in his place.” He stood up and decided then and there that he would go grocery shopping. He got up and and left the apartment unlocked. He went across the street where there was this huge supermarket. He popped in his earbuds and blasted hip hop as he got in. He grabbed a shopping cart and went off into the market.

  He grabbed a bunch of bread, cheese, milk, and whatever else his friend needed. Shopping at the supermarket brought back memories of his childhood. He remembered his mom just dragging him around the supermarket. He would scream out about how he was bored, but his mother didn’t care. She was trying to teach her son life skills.

  “Come on.” She told him while taking a young Lionel around the supermarket.

  “I don’t want to.” He whined.

  “Did I ask you if you wanted to?” She rolled her eyes. “Now, come on.”

  “Why can’t you do this by yourself?”

  “Oh shop by myself? Do I eat the groceries by myself?” Yvette laughed. “Listen, I know you hate doing this, but you’re going to thank me one day.”

  “Thank you? Why?” Ten year old Lionel asked.

  “Who do you think is going to do your grocery shopping for you?”

  “My girlfriend.” He smiled.

  “You’re going to be single and starve to death if that’s going to be your mentality.”

  Lionel laughed in the present. His mother was right. He wasn’t one of those men that were lost when they went shopping. He could do things on his own. He finished grocery shopping for his friend. He went on to the checkout line with the music still blasting in his ears. He saw a bunch of people buying the newspaper and talking by the checkout line. He just ignored them and loaded his groceries on top of the conveyor belt. After he finished paying, his music stopped briefly.

  “I can’t believe someone was murdered right in front of a strip club.” He heard someone say, he whipped around and saw that it was one of the people who were around the newspapers. He wanted to listen more, but his music came back on.

  He walked out of the supermarket in a daze. It was too much of a coincidence. What happened. Did something happen at the club? It’s possible that it could be a different strip club. He didn’t know the story for sure.

  “Hey there stranger.” Tasha tapped his shoulder as she bumped into him. Lionel hadn’t seen Tasha ever since he borrowed her car. He hated to admit that she looked good and as close as she stood next to him, she smelled so good too.

  “Stranger? We are not strangers.” He laughed.

  “Then what are we?” She chuckled. When there was a bit of silence, she just continued. “How are you?”

  “I’m good. How are you? Where are you off to?”

  “I was just going to the supermarket, but it looks like you purchased everything.” She joked looking at his hands that were full. “Do you need any help?” She asked already reaching for some of the grocery bags.

  “No, it’s okay. I’m only going across the street. You don’t have to help me.”

  “I insist.” She was holding some bags. “Right across the street?”

  “Yeah.” He pointed to the brown and white building. “You sure you want to do this?”

  “I just thought that you
needed help. Shouldn’t you help people that need help?”

  “I guess you should.” He smiled.

  It didn’t take long for them to feel comfortable around each other. There was something there that they weren’t quite sure of.

  “So, you’re not going to be needing my car soon?” She poked a little fun at him.

  “No, no.” He laughed. “Why? Do you miss me?”

  “I don’t miss you per se, but it was nice for someone else to do the driving for once.”

  “You know they have these things called cabs. Maybe you should look into them. I heard that they drive people around. What do I know? I think that it might be a great fit for you.”

  “Oh you funny funny man.” She said through her teeth.

  They got to the front of the building. He was taking the bags from her.

  “You don’t need any help bringing it up?” She asked.

  “No, not really. Besides, it’s my friend’s apartment.”

  “Ok, I just wanted to help.”

  “I really appreciate that.” He smiled. “It’s refreshing.”

  “I guess I’ll see you later.” She kissed his cheek and ran back across the street.

  He watched her for a second. It was like he was stuck in a daze. It wasn’t until he heard the noise from the Brooklyn, New York Streets that he snapped out of it. He ran up the stairs and went into his friend’s apartment. He started to put the groceries away quietly. He suddenly remembered hearing about a strip club shooting.