by BlaQue
I spent more time with YaYa and her father than I did at home and that suited Mike just fine. He only had one rule, I better not tell Darnell Clayton shit about what was going on in our house. He claimed it was none of his business and he didn’t want to fuck around and have to kill me for running my mouth.
When YaYa’s dad would ask me how was my home life, I thought about telling him it was fucked up on so many levels. Then I thought about Mike’s threats and knew he would act upon those threats if I was disobedient. Mike had a reputation in the streets of being a goon and he didn’t take too kindly to niggas testing his gangsta’. I was not going to put myself in the position of being on his shit list. Besides, who was to say Mr. Clayton would believe anything I told him anyway.
I was spending more and more time with YaYa’s family than my own and that was fine by me! I could identify with YaYa. She was being raised by her father. Her mother had left years before after her father had put her out when he found out she was using drugs and fucking around on him with more niggas than he could count. YaYa’s mother was a real piece of work. I had even seen her at my house creeping out of Mike’s room. Her mother was scandalous, and it was a wonder that her father hadn’t done more to her than put her out. I was surprised that he hadn’t killed her for her behavior. YaYa said the only reason her father let her mother live was because she was his baby’s mother; if it had not been for that, he would have deaded her ass years ago.
I could relate. My mother had left me years ago too. Then I found out she had killed herself. Why, I don’t know, but my life had been lonely and cruel and she wasn’t around to change any of that. My mother didn’t want me, and my brother harbored such ill feelings towards me that he would rather torture me than love me. That was my sick, cruel, and twisted world.
In spite of all that, I made it to high school. I had a reputation of being “easy” because of the shit Pajay kept doing. I knew even my best friend thought I was fucking anything moving. It wasn’t easy to deal with the whispers and the stares. I did what I could to get by. The girls hated me and the boys all flocked to me in hopes of getting some ass. None of them knew Pajay was the easy one. I was still a virgin. I hadn’t given myself to anyone willingly, Pajay had.
Pajay was a gift and a curse all rolled into one. She would defend me when I couldn’t take the abuse, and then she would do something crazy causing people to look at me like I was unstable.
One morning I decided I didn’t feel like dealing with the pressures of school so I ditched. I didn’t have anywhere else to go so I went back to my house. I only had a slim window to double back home before Mike would come back home after his cash pick-ups for YaYa’s father. I sure didn’t want him to know I had ditched. He would have taken the opportunity to get his rocks off for me ditching class.
I entered my house and went to my room. I watched television until I heard Mike come in. Easing across the room, I turned the TV off and pressed my ear against the vent that I used to spy on my brother’s conversations. He didn’t know I could hear all of his business dealings and everything he said when he was in his office on the lower level of the house. I positioned myself so I could hear his drama. With my ear pressed firmly against the vent I could hear he was on the phone.
“Darnell she is your responsibility, not mine. I was doing you a solid by keeping her here. She is starting to cramp my style. If you want me to keep playing big brother to your daughter then I suggest you run me some more money. She is wilding out over here and I don’t know what to do with her. I never know what the fuck NiQue is going to do next. She keeps lying, saying that it ain’t her doing this crazy shit. Besides no one believes shorty is my sister but her! Niggas in the hood are looking at her all funny and you got me playing super save a hoe!” Mike said.
I knew I should have backed away from the vent. I had heard too much! Any fool could see that Mike and I didn’t look anything alike, but I chalked it up to what he said about us having different fathers. I never doubted that he was my real brother.
I continued to listen because Mike was yelling and cursing and I was afraid if I moved he might hear me. To be honest, I was too shocked to even move!
“Wait a fucking minute did he say Darnell? Darnell who? I know this nigga ain’t talking to who I think he is talking to!” Pajay said.
Oh shit! Pajay was taking in every detail. She didn’t miss a fucking beat.
The tears flowed silently down my cheeks as I listened to the only person in the world that I thought I had in my corner talking about me like I wasn’t shit. I wanted to go and get my so-called brother’s gun and put two bullets in his head with it.
I was trying to shake having bad thoughts because if I kept having them I knew Pajay would hear me and react. The last thing I needed was her getting mad and doing something off the hook before I could confirm what I needed to know.
“I can’t believe you are going to sit there and let him talk about us like that. If you don’t handle this shit, you are just what he said about us, crazy!” Pajay continued.
I bit my bottom lip until I bled, holding in the anger and hatred I felt for everyone. It was bad enough I ain’t have a mother or father for damn near my whole life; but to know my entire existence was a lie was enough for me to say fuck it and let Pajay loose on all of those involved.
“Fuck this, they are gonna’ tell us something! If Mike ain’t ya’ brother, then who is he? I know one thing; it sure does explain why he wanted to sample the pussy instead of acting like your brother!” Pajay said, breaking into my thoughts.
I could hear Mike demanding money. He was threatening to tell me that everything I thought was real was just a bunch of concocted fabrications, put together to keep me from finding out who I really was. Little did he know he had done just that. He didn’t have to worry about blackmailing anyone to keep their dirty secrets because he had said a mouthful and I had heard it all!
“For a street nigga, he sure does run his mouth like a bitch! Doesn’t he know the first rule is to trust no one and check his surrounding before he gets to bumping his gums? I don’t give a fuck if he is at home. Niggas these days act more like females than the bitches.” Pajay continued in my ear.
I didn’t know why I couldn’t know who my father really was, but I was going to find out no matter who had to die if they got in my way! Playing with my whole life and feeding me bullshit was not something I was going to take lightly. Pajay was more than willing to do whatever she needed to do to make sure that happened.
After a few more minutes of Mike fussing at the person on the other end of the phone, I heard the front door open and slam shut. Mike had left back out and I wished I had taken my ass to school instead of ditching and hearing the shit I had heard.
I didn’t know which was worse, living as though I hadn’t heard what I had heard, or knowing that niggas around me had been keeping secrets for years. I sprawled out across the bed and cried until I fell asleep. When I woke up a few hours later, Mike was standing over me with a lustful look in his eyes.
“The school called and said you didn’t show up to class today! You know there is going to be punishment for that shit don’t you?” He unfastened his pants and released his massive dick as he spoke the words, and I knew another punishment was coming.
I nodded my head and dropped to my knees and took my punishment like the soldier I had become. Mike didn’t know there weren’t going to be many more days like this where he was going to be able to abuse me…at least not if I could help it!
Winter 2010
I managed to not only survive Mike’s shit, but I was able to find out all the information on my father I needed.
I did a long stint of cutting class and getting high after that. When I started experimenting with Xtasy I was doing it for the high. Then I started to notice that it kept Pajay too high and suppressed to get into anything dangerous. I began to use the drug regularly to keep her out of the way. The wounds that had been opened by learning that my father was paying
this nigga Mike to molest me was fresh. If I didn’t stay high, then Pajay might get out of hand and kill Mike before I got confirmation that Darnell, his employer, was indeed my father.
Mike was a bitch-made mutha fucker just like Pajay said! He talked too much, and left too much shit to chance. I went through Mike’s shit a few years back and found all I needed to know about my mother and father. Mike had kept all of the documents and my birth certificate right in his room. I guess he thought he had instilled enough fear in me that I would never go through his shit to find out who I really was and where I came from.
Mike had more than my birth certificate naming Darnell Clayton as my father; he had a written contract between him and Darnell. The contract stated that Mike was to be paid several thousand dollars a month to care for me and guard the fact that I was Darnell’s child.
What was shocking about it all was that the name on the birth certificate was Pajay Clayton. All this time I was thinking that the voice in my head wasn’t real and it really was. Along with my birth certificate, were medical papers from a doctor who diagnosed me with multiple personality disorder and a manic depressive since the tender age of three. The papers suggested that I be placed under a doctor’s care and that I be medicated to try and sedate the other personalities that were roaming around freely in my head.
One day I made copies of all of those papers and stashed them for safe keeping. I knew some of it would come in handy. The doctor’s diagnosis wasn’t the part that threw me for a loop. It was the name that was listed as “mother” on my birth certificate that had me intrigued me the most. My mother’s name was Donna Reynolds. She was the sister to Christa Reynolds, Darnell’s bitch, and my best friend’s mother!
My father had chosen to keep YaYa around because she was perfect and she didn’t have the voices controlling her like I did. I played along with their little game while I devised my payback on all of them. I had also found out I wasn’t the only child Darnell had thrown away for his precious YaYa. I had a brother too. His name was Neko Reynolds. Christa gave birth to him after Darnell threw her out.
As I began to put all the pieces together in my head, it was apparent to me that Darnell had gone to great lengths to hide me from the truth, and I was ready to expose him for the liar he was. I confronted Darnell and he wanted no parts of me. He denied knowing what I was talking about. After he shot down my hopes of having a real relationship with him, I figured out how to get back at them all and make them pay for hurting me. Pajay and I spent countless hours putting it together. I made sure that Darnell’s past would catch up to him and hit him where it hurt the most—with YaSheema. Since he loved her so much, I was going to use her to get to him.
I started by finding my drug-addicted aunt Christa, and my brother Neko. I had them come back into Darnell’s life. I wanted to watch him squirm while he tried to figure out how to keep Neko a secret. When that didn’t work as planned and he accepted Neko into his life with open arms without offering me the same opportunity, I started picking Darnell’s life apart by way of his precious daughter, and my sister, YaYa.
YaYa never saw it coming. I set her up and tried to drive her crazy by making her think that she was being stalked and hunted by some unknown person. I played my part as the loyal best friend and used our friendship as a way in. I tried to have her boyfriend, Papi, kill her so I wouldn’t have to get my hands dirty. He was so fucking stupid and into too many other things. He ended up dead before he could take her out. So I took matters into my own hands and killed Darnell and his whole camp myself. One by one I got rid of anyone who knew anything about me and finally I got rid of YaYa who, just like my father, was loyal to no one but themselves.
I kept my baby brother Neko alive only because he didn’t know about any of the family secrets. He didn’t know that he and I shared the same bloodline. That was the only reason I spared his life. As far as I was concerned, he was an innocent pawn in Darnell’s game of chess.
Present Day
There couldn’t be such thing as a God. If there were, I wouldn’t have been cursed with Pajay. A kind God wouldn’t allow someone to have other people living inside of them constantly doing evil things and pushing evil thoughts into their head. If there is a God, He has never shown me any kind of love and He damn sure hasn’t given me any breaks in life. I didn’t believe in God or anything spiritual. Sure, I had prayed from time to time to see if this Mighty God that so many people worshiped would appear and save me from myself. He never showed up, so I gave up and stopped praying altogether.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Junkyard Band (JYB)
“Hee Haw”
Dread
Crack and I made it to DC without further incident. We stuck to the back roads and tried not to draw any attention to ourselves.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this? I think we should call Queen. She might be able to get us in with the attorney.” Crack said trying to talk me out of what I had intended to do.
“If you don’t want to go through with this you don’t have to. You’ve already done enough. You are risking your own freedom so I can keep mine.” I said only half meaning it. I didn’t want to do any of this shit alone, but I didn’t want to drag anyone else into my mess with me.
“I ain’t saying I ain’t want to do it. I think we need to think this shit through before we go to the police station. They are looking for you so what’s stopping them from shooting you on sight?”
Crack was making sense but it was too late to try and do this the right way when everyone else was playing dirty.
We crept through the city I loved so much hoping that we would make it to the police station without getting caught up in the process. We were about two blocks away when we saw the barriers and plumes of smoke billowing from somewhere in the distance. There were news trucks and reporters everywhere. When we got a little closer to where the smoke was coming from we saw men and women dressed in fatigues and big tanks stopping any traffic from proceeding any further. Crack pulled the car over and looked at me like I knew what the hell was going on. There were people milling about all over the place.
“Aye, come here for a minute shorty.” Crack called out to a young girl who was standing out on the block watching the happenings. The girl cautiously walked over to the car. She put a twist in her hips when she got closer. She must have thought we were trying to holler at her.
“What’s going on around here?” Crack asked her.
The girl was cracking sunflower seeds between her teeth and spitting the shells on the ground. I watched her to make sure she didn’t know who we were or try to alert anyone of our presence.
“You ain’t heard? Some nut fucked around and blew up the police station, killing everybody inside.” She spit a shell on the ground and focused her attention on me.
“Oh shit, ain’t you that rapper everybody been looking for?” she said with excitement.
“I don’t know what you are talking about baby girl. You must have me confused with someone else.” I said looking around to make sure no one had heard her. No one had.
She smacked her lips and leaned into the car.
“You are him! Can I have your autograph? Can I call my friend and you tell her who you are? She ain’t gonna’ believe this shit!” The girl said whipping her phone out and feverishly pushing buttons. “I have all of your stuff; you have got to at least take a picture with me!” The girl continued, not giving up.
She was starting to irritate me and I wanted nothing more than to get away from her. Normally I enjoyed the reactions of my fans, but right now I didn’t want any unwanted attention. Shorty was so star struck she was going on and on.
“You have me mistaken for someone else. I ain’t no rapper baby. I was just trying to get home. I live just up the block and I was trying to get through here. Do you know how long they have been here?”
“They have been here for hours and they ain’t going anywhere anytime soon! The whole place went up in a ball of fire with
close to one hundred people inside. That includes police, and just random niggas being held until they were to be transported to Central Cell. I mean, can you imagine just walking in to file a missing person’s report and BOOM, the whole place is on fire? That is some gangster shit right there. I bet you could write a whole album off of that one.”
Crack was smiling, but I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that calling this dumb bitch over to the car to fish for information was more trouble than it was worth!
“So Dread, can I get my autograph and my picture now or what?” she asked while tossing more seeds into her ever running mouth.
I wondered how many sisters in this world would be more attractive if they just shut the fuck up!
Crack made a face at me. I looked around and got out the car slowly, being mindful that I was less than a block away from a police station and Crack took the picture with the sunflower seed assassin.
“Can I call my friend and you tell her who you are? She is never going to believe this shit!” the girl said.
“Naw baby, we have to go! I don’t have time to talk!” I said, trying to be as polite as possible so she wouldn’t cause a scene. Any kind of attention right now would be bad. It was bad enough I was in the middle of the hood participating in a ghetto photo shoot.
I got back in the car and Crack made a u-turn in the middle of the street. With a relieved look on his face, he headed back in the direction from which we came.
“I guess it is a good thing that we ran into that crazy broad before we went any further and got caught up in whatever is going on around here.” Crack said.