by J Peach
I reached over the seat and punched Blaze in the arm. “You can’t even lie to me, so how can you teach him and why would you want him to lie to me?”
Blaze, licked his lips and glanced at me as he drove down the street. “First, I’m a damn good liar. I just don’t like to lie to you. Secondly, leave that man alone. If he wanna get some medicine from some chick, let him. He ain’t no damn girl. I done already told you once before you not about to turn my son into no damn spoiled ass girl. He gon’ be a man. Let him go out and poke his needle in some skins.”
My mouth opened then closed. I looked back at Blake and then to his dad. My eyes squinted at him. Was this the type of foolishness my son had been around for the last few years when Blaze had him?
Of course it had been. I seriously didn’t know what to say at that moment. Was he really encouraging our eight year old son to go out and have sex with different women?
My mouth moved in the motion of a fish. I was at a loss for words.
“See that, Blake? Cat got her tongue. Just say some dumb shit like I just did, confuse the fuck outda her and she’ll be lost to the point she don’t know what the fuck to say.” Blaze told him before reaching in the back and letting Blake slap his hand.
No this yellow bastard didn’t. “I wasn’t at a loss for words. I was simply thinking of ways to whoop yours and his ass.” I lied. “Blake, don’t listen to your daddy. He’s going to mess around and get you a whoopin’.”
“You only got one kid in this damn truck and it ain’t me. Fuck outda here.” Blaze reached over the seat and muffed me.
“Gon’ now, Blaze. You play too much.” My eyes rolled and I ended up laughing.
“B,” Blaze called to Blake and I saw his head nod toward me before he mouthed this all you have to do.
I was confused at first until I remember what started this. Blaze was good, I must admit. I thought about blasting him but figured I would let it go for now, just in case he tried to pull that mess one day.
***
When we pulled into the driveway, Bellow, Khyree and Khalil were sitting on the front porch. Blaze put the truck in park and Blake was about to hop out but Blaze stopped him.
“Blake, hold up. We wanna talk to you about something real quick.” Blaze turned off the truck.
“What’s up?” He closed the door back and stuck his head between our seats.
I looked at Blaze waiting to hear what he had to say.
“Yo momma about to have another baby.” Blaze put it plainly as if it was nothing.
I rubbed my forehead not believing this man. Why was I surprised he told him the way he did was beyond me.
I shook my head at him and then tried to make light of the situation. “Blake, what do you think about having—”
“Like what I think really matters. But if you want to know, this some bullshit is what I think! Fuckin’ bullshit!” Blake snapped before getting out the truck, slamming the door behind him.
“He done lost his gotdamn mind!” Blaze was right behind him, slamming his door as well.
“Oh, God.” I didn’t want to go in there. Mainly because I didn’t want to interfere with the trouble Blake was about to get in with his dad. I was too understanding when it came to Blake so I knew following behind them was only going to cause Blaze and I to get into it.
Blake had a right feel anyway he did. He just shouldn’t have cussed. Then again, Blaze could’ve been a bit more considerate about his feelings when he told him. My hand rubbed my forehead. Let me go in there before he hurt my child.
I got out of the truck and headed inside. I could hear Blaze yelling from outside the house. By the time I reached the porch, Blake had ran back outside to me. Again, Blaze was right behind him.
“Blake, I’m not about to chase yo little ass. You cuss like you grown and slam doors, so I’m about to beat yo ass like you grown.” Blaze snapped at him as he walked down the steps.
I had to roll my eyes because Blake’s mouth was bad because that was how Blaze and his friends talked around him. He had no one to blame but himself for the way Blake talked at times.
“Blaze, just chill out for a sec, dang. I really don’t feel like this right now. Blake, let me go.” I tried to shrug him off but he was holding onto the back of my shirt tight.
“Hell n’all! Fuck that! He ain’t ‘bout to talk to me crazy. I’ll fuck his little ass up.” He fussed as he snatched Blake up like he was a rag doll.
I got offended. “Blaze, don’t be snatching on him like that. You got yo fuckin’ nerves to be pissed at him for the way he talks when he got the shit from y’all. And Khalil if you say one thing, I’m going to slap the shit outda you. I don’t have time for your smart ass reply.” My eyes slid to him. I had come to know him all too well. It never failed, he always had something smart to say back.
His hands raised in the air as if he surrendered. He didn’t say anything.
I grabbed Blake and put myself between the two of them. “Blaze, let him go. You have nobody but yourself to blame for his mouth—”
“Yeah, it’s your fault!” Blake suddenly snapped, jerking away from me. From the hard rapid pants of his breathing and the raise of his shoulders, I knew he was pissed. “All of this is your fault. We out here in this nothing ass town because of you. I hate it out here. You ruined everything. I had friends and a life back home but I have nothing here but your fuckin’ friends. You’re too busy to do anything with me, all you do is shoot guns, workout and sleep with my momma. Now she’s pregnant. How the fuck you’re going to have another kid when you don’t have time for the one that’s here. I hate you—”
Blaze slapped the shit out of Blake. My mouth dropped as Blake’s head jerked to the side.
Slowly Blake’s head turned back toward his dad and the meanest glare I had ever seen covered his face. Blake hocked and spat blood from his mouth.
“Oh, my God.” I grabbed his face to look at his mouth.
His head jerked back and out of my hold. “Don’t touch me. I wanna go home.” His eyes slid to Blaze as he walked past him, still mugging him hard as he walked by. “Move!” Blake snapped at Bellow before bumping past Khyree and going into the house.
Blake’s words played inside of my head. Did my baby feel neglected? Tears filled my eyes as his outburst repeated in my mind. “I’ll go talk to him.” I needed to explain something to Blake. I didn’t want him to ever feel like we didn’t have time for him.
“No, you stay yo ass right here. Don’t bring yo ass in that house.” Blaze walked away from me and went into the house, slamming the front door shut.
I wasn’t about to let Blaze touch my baby. He was already upset about everything. Blaze should’ve been a little more considerate with telling him about the baby.
“N’all, Peaches, let that man handle that.” Bellow pulled me back.
I jerked away from him. “No, I’m not about to let him beat up my baby.”
“Oh, he gon’ whoop his ass and it ain’t shit you can do about that. Look, I get you see him as yo baby but, sweetheart, he gon’ be a man one day, so you gotda see him as that right now. It’s no way in hell he should’ve ever popped off like that to B. You wanna blame Blaze for everything but you can’t do that. Yeah Blake’s mouth is us, ain’t no denying it. But that extra flippin’ shit he do is because of you. Yo ass always running behind that man, so he pops off knowing what you gon’ do.
“Every time that man in trouble, you running to his rescue, which causes problems with you and Blaze. You gotda stop doing that. He ain’t no damn girl, he’s not going to be a woman one day. He’s a little man and that’s how we see him. You ain’t his father, Peaches. B is. So chill out and let B handle this.” Bell leaned against the front door and crossed his arms, indicating he wasn’t going to move.
I knew he was right but I just couldn’t do anything. My hand rubbed my forehead once again and I let out a breath. I thought about how Blake acted when it came to Blaze. Ever since he was two, I had always jumped in the
middle of them.
Bellow was right, I needed to let Blaze handle it. I looked at Bell and sighed, “Is he going to hurt him bad?” I questioned nervously.
The three men laughed. “Oh, he gon’ fuck him up,” Bellow said with a head nod. “Just think about how yo pops was with King.”
The images of King getting his ass whooped popped in my head. Oh, hell n’all! King was a boy so my dad never took a belt to his ass. He fought King with his fist. “Oh, hell n’all! Bell, move! He bet not be in there fighting my baby.”
“Peach, chill out. Yo pops might have boxed King’s ass up but look how he turned out now?” Bellow tried to make me see reason in what he said.
“Bellow, have you not met King? He’s not normal. That man is crazy as hell. No! Move!” Using King as an example was terrible.
“He’s normal to me.” Bell shrugged.
I gave him a blank stare. “Nigga, yo ass ain’t even normal. Bell, what are you talking about?”
“She has a point.” Khalil pointed out.
“Thank you, Khalil.” My lips pressed together and my head tilted to the side staring at Bellow.
He looked away from me to Khalil. “Shut the fuck up, Khalil. Yo ass ain’t normal. Yo whole family fuck’d up. Shid, just look at y’all fuckin’ names. Khalil and Khyree.”
“Don’t bring me into y’all shit.” Khyree jumped in. “My pops is mixed, which is how we got our names. And we got our name from my grandfather and his twin brother, who died before we were born.”
My eyes squinted. They didn’t look mixed at all. “So you two are half black?” I pointed between the twins.
They both nodded.
“That makes so much sense to me now. I simple thought y’all grew up in the hood.” I exclaimed.
“We did. After my pops died, we couldn’t afford to live middle class. My mom wasn’t working and her mother wasn’t helping us out for the simple fact she got with my pops who was half black. So she had to sign up for government assistance and Gary’s low income housing. She found a place out in Ivanhoe. And like mostly everybody else that live out there, they become stuck. Our moms did, but we didn’t, though. Khalil may seem dumb but he’s smart as hell. I wouldn’t let him fall off, we had to look after each other. School was the only way to do it.” Khyree shrugged, tossing a rock from off of the porch.
My head nodded. I understood them wanting to leave the hood. “I’m not going to ask about the side job with the cleaning vans—”
“Khalil has a cleaning and plumbing business.” Khyree informed me. “He can pretty much do some of everything when he’s not being dumb. But he smokes too much.”
I looked over at Bellow and he shrugged. “Yeah, they not normal at all.”
They broke out laughing.
I didn’t find anything funny. All these niggas were dumb if they asked me. Realizing what just happened, I glared at Bellow before hitting him. “It’s been long enough. He should be done by now. Move.” I told him just as the front door opened.
Blaze walked out, he looked highly pissed off. “Gon’ in the room and pack some shit up. We going back to Gary, we’re leaving here in about an hour. So do what you gotda by then.”
I didn’t move at first. I looked him over, trying to spot some blood on him. I didn’t know what he did to my baby but I was nervous to go see. I didn’t want to have to fuck Blaze up but I would if he had hurt Blake.
“Why the fuck you standing there fah? Get yo ass in the fuckin’ house and get ready.” He snapped at me.
My mouth opened but I shut up when he raised his hand.
“Real shit, Peaches, not right now. I will seriously hurt yo ass. Now get the fuck inside.”
I don’t know what happened in the house but from the look on his face, I knew he was serious. I was far from a punk but I knew when to choose my battles and this wasn’t one I wanted to fight. Not saying anything, I walked past him into the house. Once inside, I quickly took the stairs by two and went into Blake’s room.
He was packing his clothes into a suit case. “Blake, are you okay?”
His shoulders shrugged but he didn’t say anything.
I walked fully into his room and sat on his bed. I peeked at his face, expecting the worse. Besides the mark from the slap Blaze gave him, there wasn’t anything else, so I let out an easy breath. “Blake, talk to me.”
“I don’t want to be here no more. I wanna go home,” he told me.
I patted the spot beside me. “Come here.” He sat down and I grabbed his hand, pulling him into my side. “Blake, you know even though I’m having a baby it’s not going to change anything between us, right?”
He shrugged me off. “Ma, it’s not you. It’s him. How is he going to have a baby when he don’t have time for me? Ever since I been here we’ve done nothing together. He’s always with you or Khyree in the shed. Even when I went out there the only thing he taught me was how to clean a gun and shoot it before he went back to working out. He didn’t even shoot his gun with me, Khyree did. Now you’re about to have another baby. I want to go back to Lafayette. I wanted y’all together at first but now I don’t. At least we did stuff when y’all was broken up.” He shrugged again. Before he went back to packing his stuff.
“Blake, you know your daddy loves you and will do anything for you. Baby, you have to understand that he was working out so much to build his strength back for us. He might not tell you this but being in that wheelchair hurt him because he couldn’t do anything for you while he was in it. It made him feel bad, like he was failing us because he was in there and not able to walk.
“Baby, I felt just like you did and lashed out on him the same way. He couldn’t face us while in that chair. It made him feel less of a man and a father. But, Rashad, you can’t jap out like you did. Regardless of how you feel he is still your dad. Let that had of been my daddy that I snapped at like that. Y’all will still be looking for pieces of my face. Or Uncle King, my dad used to actually fist fight him.
“Rashad, you owe him an apology. I get you’re mad but think about what your daddy had to be feeling not being able to do anything with you. Think about him having to be carried up and down the stairs, to the car, needing help to get dressed every day. He love playing basketball with you and he couldn’t even do that. And to watch you shoot guns with Khyree and play around with Khalil, I know that hurt him. Now think about all that he had to been feeling.” Standing up, I kissed the top of his head. “Hurry and finish packing.”
I walked out of his room. Once I got into the hallway, I had to hurry into my room. I burst into the bathroom and went straight to the toilet, releasing everything I had eaten. Once I finished, I rolled off some tissue and just sat on the floor. “I hate this.” I mumbled to myself before I felt myself getting sick again. I leaned over the toilet once more and began to dry heave.
I wiped my mouth again and laid my head against the side of the counter.
I didn’t feel like moving. My eyes closed and I started to take steady breaths in order to keep myself from getting sick again. It wasn’t long after I felt arms wrap around my waist before I was lifted up off of the floor.
“Come on, baby.” Blaze took me to the sink and turned on the water.
He held me up as I rinsed out my mouth and brushed my teeth. Once I was finished, he carried me back into the room. I wanted to tell him I could’ve gotten up off of the floor and walked. It would’ve taken me a minute to do it, but I chose not to say anything. I was going to accept his help whenever he was giving it with no complaints.
Blaze laid me down on the bed and started to remove my shoes then clothes. He took off my panties and then unhooked my bra. I know he was not about to try and have sex with me, right now? Even with my thoughts I kept my mouth shut.
He took the sheet I kept folded at the foot of the bed and covered me up. He then walked away from me going back into the bathroom.
My brows furrowed as I heard the water turn on in the tub. Blaze walked out the bathroom a few sec
onds later and left right out our room.
I was even more confused. He wasn’t talking to me so I didn’t know what to think. A rude shit talking Blaze I could deal with but a quiet Blaze, I never knew what to expect.
I slowly started to sit up until I heard the door open. Then I quickly laid back down and closed my eyes. I was about to play sleep just so we didn’t have to talk.
“Peach,” he shook me. “Peaches, here.”
I let out a tiring sigh before I opened my eyes. “What’s this?” I asked dumbly while staring at the paper plate with premium saltine crackers and the cup he held out for me. I sat up against the headboard.
“Ginger Ale and crackers? What the fuck it look like?” His eyes squinted and he looked at me like I was the one crazy. “Here, suck on these.” He sat the plate on my lap and the cup on the nightstand before he hurried off to the bathroom to turn off the water.
I picked up a cracker and smelled it.
“What the fuck is you doing?” Blaze laughed at me as he walked back into the room.
“Smelling it,” I replied as my stomach turned. I wanted to eat it but the thought of eating something right now had my stomach feeling queasy. “Thanks, bae, but I can’t eat these right now. I’ll sip on the Ginger Ale, though.” I grabbed the cup and took a drink from it.
“And you’ll eat those crackers. It’ll help settle your stomach.” He informed me.
I knew that but how the hell did he? “Who told you that?”
Blaze ignored my question. Instead, he picked me up out the bed and took me into the bathroom, where he had ran a bubble bath for me.
Now I was real confused because just a minute ago he was on the verge of hurting me if I had said something else to him. On top of that he was determine on going back to Gary tonight. But now he was giving me a bubbled bath.
Once my body hit the warm water, all of my confusion was forgotten as a moan left my mouth and my eyes closed. The water felt amazing against my skin. My head lazily moved to the side and I peeked up at Blaze to see him watching me. “Are you getting in?”
He shook his head no. “N’all, this all you.” With my sponge in his hand, he got my body wash and got it soapy. Blaze kneeled down beside me and began to wash me up. “What? Why you looking at me like that?”