It is What it is: A Hood Love Story

by B. , Ivory

  “For real Ralph you gotta diversify ya portfolio. Get aggressive with your investments.” “Oh no, no, no. I put everything in bonds the market is far too volatile at the moment.” “Scared money don’t make money, Ralph remember who told you that.” Jah dapped him out and proceeded to head to the elevators. Keema looked back to see Ralph standing there with an inquisitive look on his face repeating scared money don’t make money, under his breath trying to decipher the meaning. Keema burst into laughter once she got onto the elevator.

  Keema entered the house and went straight to the bathroom on the lower level of her tri-level apartment. She sat and peed for what seemed an eternity. “Awwww my god that shit feel so good, this is ridiculous I have to use the bathroom every five minutes,” Keema fussed. When she was finished she washed her hands grabbed the groceries and went to put them up, she had a lot to do to get ready for tonight.

  On the other side of the city Jah sat in his office with a drink in his hand, that is where he had been held up day after day. He didn’t even bother to get any paperwork pushed on his desk or check on two of his artist that he wanted to sign to the record company progress in the studio. He was fucked up about the dilemma he was in “Damn it was all good just two weeks ago.” Jah said aloud then he laughed to himself. He remembered that day clear as day.

  Jah was down stairs in the studio messing with a producer named Spook on beats when he saw the multi line phone blinking. He could tell the call was internal. “Yo what up?” “Ayo Jah it’s some certified mail up here you gotta sign for.” Meat said. “A'ight” Jah could remember feeling a little bit uneasy as he went upstairs to the main lobby. He couldn’t think of anything that could be arriving for him that needed to be signed for. When he got into the lobby there was a man standing at the front desk he was fully dressed in a sheriff’s uniform. Jah immediately got tight he didn’t do cops, didn’t like nor trust them. “Ijah Evans?” the man said. Jah just stood there staring at him before he answered. “Yeah that’s me.” Jah had expected to be tackled and handcuffed or some shit. “I have some very important paperwork for you sir, can you please sign?” He took out a computerized pad similar to the FedEx ones. As soon as Jah signed his signature he regretted it, the man handed Jah a large manila envelope and said those dreaded words “You’ve been served.”

  The man walked briskly to the door, trying to hurry and make an exit. There was something about Jah’s demeanor that didn’t sit too well with him. He had been doing this job for over 10 yrs and had been put in some very hairy situations when he served for this matter. “I’ve been served?” Jah repeated looking down at the envelope and opening it right there in the middle of the lobby. When he started to scan through the wording on the papers his mouth became instantly dry. He couldn’t feel not one peck of saliva in his mouth to even speak. “Yo what the fuck!” Jah barked. Meat looked at him as if he were crazy. Jah looked spooked and confused. Next thing Meat knew Jah ran outside like he had the law on his ass “YOO! What the fuck is this?!” He demanded to know holding the papers in the air. The man in the sheriffs’ uniform stepped on the gas and fled out of the parking lot.

  Jah was fucked up, he could barley breath and his heart was thumping hard. He walked briskly back into the building all awhile staring down at the words on the papers in a daze. He nearly smacked dead into one of the interns that worked for the record company. Even though it was clearly his fault he barked on her “Watch where the fuck you goin.” No one said anything to him as he walked to the elevator to go up to his office. Everyone looked pretty shocked this was so not Jah at all. Jah was easy going and always ready to crack jokes with everyone in the office. Both him and Nice were the people you went to if you needed something and was too afraid to ask Los for it, so to see him do a 360 had people dumbfounded.

  Jah barged into Los’s office “Yo I need to talk to you.” Los was sitting at his desk while Nice was sitting in one of the leather chairs in front of his desk fiddling with his phone. Carlos never looked up he just threw his finger up signaling Jah to hold up, Los was on the phone speaking fast in Spanish, so Jah knew it was a business call. “Nah nigga I said I gotta talk to you,” Jah stressed. Los looked up at his cousin and wrapped up his convo immediately. Jah looked as if he seen a ghost. “Fuck is wrong with you?” Nice asked looking at Jah as if he were crazy. “Ayo I just got served…” Jah hesitated. “I just got served a summons to appear in court for child support.” “Child support!” both men said as if they were in a damn choir. Jah walked over to Los and handed him the papers.

  “Damn so chick saying you gotta shorty that’s three years old?” Los said after reading some of the papers. “Apparently that’s what that bitch is claiming. Ain’t that what it look like?” Jah said with hostility in his voice. Los looked up at his cousin but this time he stood up and sat on the edge of his desk. Los gave him a look that reminded Jah of who he was talking to. “Yoo cuzo that’s me baby, I’m just mad fucked up about this right now. How this shit just gon pop up out of nowhere? Why the fuck this bitch wait so long to say that I was the father? The nigga almost a grown ass man!” Nice cracked up and Los had to chuckle a little too. Jah continued to wear a hole in the carpet. He walked briskly back and forth from one side of the room to the other.

  “So question who is this chick Bianca Thomas?” Los asked he never heard of her before from Jah so he knew she couldn't have been of any importance. “Chick I was fuckin from time to time when I came up here to visit while I was living in M.I.A. It wasn’t nothing serious, as a matter of fact she had a man. That was cool, shit I wasn’t tryna wife her. I smashed a couple of times when I came back home to visit.” “She never told you she got pregnant?” Nice asked. “Nah, I mean…yo she had a man right, we was on some shit like, Saw her at the club. She told me what it was she had a man she lived wit but she was really feeling me. Yo we jumped it off that night, exchanged numbers and that lead to me calling when I was in town, or her calling to find out when I was visiting. That shit lasted all of like 6 months, it was really nothing major. Then we both just stopped calling.”

  “A’ight first things first, sit the fuck down you starting to make me dizzy,” Los said. He loosened the tie around his neck that Lucky had tied with the perfect knot that morning. Yeah Carlos was on his Barak steez that day all presidential. Wearing all the highest lines of men couture. Purple labeled button up shirt, pants and tie. The diamond cuff links that he had on just added the icing to it. There was nothing sexier to Lucky than a well dressed man; she loved when Los got on his grown man steez. She couldn’t help but steal a quickie before he left for the office that morning.

  “You got a month till this court date right. First things first, call Steve, I know he working on a case for one of Real peoples. But he can have his team work on that while he work with you personally.” Steven Horowitz and his partner Paul Steiner were some of the best that ever practiced law. The Jewish Partners were Carlos’ lawyers; they were once his father’s as well. Their law firm was on the company’s payroll. The two lawyers got paid salary from Carlos and got paid extra for cases. That’s why Carlos was their number one client; they would drop any case they had to work on something he needed.

  Carlos wasted no time in getting Horowitz on the Horn. “Carlos! Hey what’s going on?” “Same shit.” “Good. I’m glad to hear your staying out of trouble,” he said in a joking tone. “So what’s the special occasion?” Los looked over at Jah like take the stage nigga. “Yo Steve this Jah you ain’t gon believe this, I got served child support papers. I gotta be in court in a month.” “Wow when did this happen?” “Today.” “Okay send me over everything and I mean everything that was in the envelope. Fax that right over. I’ll have one of my investigators look into this woman to see what we’re dealing with here.” Horowitz promised to call right back within two hours.

  “Yo Jah this for you!” Los called out from his office. Jah damn near ran from his office into Los’s “Just put that on speaker phone,” Jah said. Whatever S
teve was going to tell him he was going to tell them anyways. “I’ve just had my secretary fax you over some info on Mrs. Thomas. The paperwork that you faxed over to me with Mrs. Thomas’s information enabled our office to get some more information about this woman, unfortunately nothing juicy. She seems to be a law bidding citizen,” Steven talked while shifting through papers on his desk in a file. “She had one speeding ticket a couple of years ago other than that nothing. Graduated from Temple University, works as a social worker at an elementary school right here in Philly, Has a three year old son named Taj. And has one helleva outstanding balance on student loans but who doesn’t nowadays, she seems legit.” Just then the fax machine in Carlos office beeped giving warning that papers were coming through.

  “Okay so what you’ve been served is a summons to come to family court for child support. Now on that date we are going to file a motion for paternity testing. So there will be no order put in place for child support until the parentage of the child is confirmed, now I see that she has filled for child support and in addition filed for a legal name change once the parentage is confirmed, and has also agreed to establish some custody rights to you.” The more the lawyer talked the more Jah’s stomach flip flopped. “Damn! This chick is doing the most, custody! She ain’t playin. Name change, she wanna change shorty last name to yours? That’s insane. What the fuck you gon do wit custody? That ain’t a puppy you taking home to Keema,” Nice stated while shaking his head. “I need a fuckin drink.” Jah announced interrupting the lawyer. Los watched as his cousin went over to the mini bar in the office. He had been drinking a little more than usual they all drank socially yeah but never got twisted enough that they weren’t on point. Los decided to just fall back on commenting about it considering Jah’s circumstances

  “Yo what if I say fuck it and just don’t even go to this bullshit ass court date?” Jah asked. “Jah,” Steven said hesitantly. “I’m going to be straight up with you, they already know you’ve been served the summons to court its certified mail. If we don’t show up in court it looks exactly how it is, that you chose to say fuck it and intentionally not go. The courts can still then put an order for support without you being there. And they seem to stick it to the parent who’s a no show. Now if it comes to that, all is not lost we can still then go to court and file a petition to modify the order of support and file for paternity testing. What I’m suggesting as your legal counsel is its best just to go to court.”

  Jah stood there trying to really digest all that he had just been told he felt trapped; there was really no way of getting out of this shit. “Yo this is on some bullshit so any woman can just pop up out of nowhere point her finger saying you the father and can get the court to actually order me to pay something. Are you fuckin serious?!” Jah barked. All the men in the room were feeling Jah’s pain this was no joke, Los thought to himself damn I hope and pray don’t no shit like this ever come up on me. Jah threw his hands up in the air pacing from one end of the office to the other, “Yo it’s whatever man, damn.” He felt defeated.

  Horowitz chuckled “Now Jah calm down you do have options.” Jah turned to look at the phone with pure desperation in his eyes. “Now we can play fair, go to court file for paternity testing if the child is yours we can pay what we feel is fair. Not what the court feels would be fair, remember you work at a company that is family owned we can definitely and will definitely cook the books to alter your income, make it seem as you don’t make as much as you do. As far as the cars and the property put it in the business name easy as that.”

  He took a deep breath and paused before continuing. “Now another option is, we just buy this bitch off and put this all to rest.” Everyone in the room knew exactly what he was talking about. “We have her sign a confidentiality agreement, in that contract she will be signing over all her legal rights to ever bring this up in a court of law or to the public. Now considering she is going to be signing and agreeing to get lost, her and the kid for his entire childhood. I say we at least go in with an offer of 1 million. I know you can do that; we won’t give her anymore than 1.5 million. I feel that it’s a fair price to get rid of a problem like this. Personally I think she will take the bait with the offer of 1 million. People hear one million and they start to fall over that number she’ll take it. Paying to keep the news of an unexpected child from getting out is nothing new. Politicians, judges, presidents even lawyers have chosen this option. However, I must warn you with this option nothing is ever guaranteed. Your basically taking a gamble, that child may come to your doorstep when he’s grown asking if you’re his father. But on the flip side of it, he can never say you didn’t take care of him financially.” That last option made perfect sense to Jah, Keema would never have to find out. “Yeah fuck it write her ass a check. Call her lawyer up and tell him to just chill the fuck out wit all this Maury shit, offer that greedy bitch the milli”

  Jah was a grown man who was capable of making his own decision, Los tried to stay out of it but he really felt that Jah was acting on impulse and not thinking things through. It was a real fucked up situation that Jah was forfeiting any relationship he could ever have with his own seed. Jah should have known better he was always bitter about growing up without even knowing who his father was.

  “Wait, hold up nigga is you fucking crazy?! You not really about to give this bitch a milli. Yo I can get lil shooters to pop that bitch for less than a milli,” Nice barked. “Well yeah that is another option but you know I would never suggest any violence. So do we put this to rest or you need time to think about it?” Steve asked. Jah felt as if he had an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other. His conscious was telling him that it was fucked up to just write a kid off. But the demon was saying fuck it the problem would be gone. The better part of his brain won he thought about his own childhood never knowing his own father was really fucked up. The child support payments wouldn’t be an issue nor would paying to get rid of the issue. But could he really sleep at night or look Keema in the face if he carried this secret. What if him and Keema had their own child? Could he possibly live up the charade of their child being his very first and lie to her face? “Fuck it clear your calendar we gon just take it to court shit. If he my shorty I gotta step up and do what I gotta do, it is what it is.” When Jah looked up he saw his cousin nodding his head with a proud look on his face. Deep down Jah knew he did the right thing. “Okay court it is, you know that’s my comfort zone.”

  “If Keema find out about this she gon leave my black ass,” Jah said with an exasperated sigh. “Whoa Keema doesn’t know about this?” Horowitz asked? “Nah. Why y’all think I should tell her?” Jah’s question went unanswered; he looked over at Los and Nice noticing they just turned their heads. “Los should I tell Keema the real?” Los turned his head and scratched an imaginary itch on the back of his ear. “Jah that’s probably not even ya kid, if it’s not you would have started some shit for nothing,” Nice said. “I’ma co-sign that. No harm no foul, why start some shit for nothing? Just wait till you find out for sure,” Los suggested. “Well Jah as your legal counsel I would advise you plead the fifth, don’t say anything at all until you find out. However, as a man who’ve been married for 18 plus years I say tell her. But you have to make that call.” And with that statement Jah decided not to tell Keema shit, he would tell her when he was sure of the paternity test results.

  A week later Jah was sitting in his office feeling even more fucked up, earlier that day Bianca had contacted his lawyer and requested to speak with him. Jah took down the number from Horowitz and debated whether or not he should call her. His urge to check her for popping up after all this time in the matter that she did serving him child support papers made him pick up the phone and call.

  “Hello.” Bianca answered the phone in a hurried tone. “Bianca this Jah what up?” There was an awkward silence on the phone. “Oh hi Jah, how have you been?” “Jah took the phone away from his ear and looked at it as if something crawled out. Is this bitch ser
ious how have I been? “Yo Bianca skip the formalities. Why did you want me to call? Is there something wrong with the kid?” “No there’s nothing wrong with Taj he’s fine, thanks for asking though. I really just wanted to call you to let you know that I’m really sorry if things came off calculated in the way I went about filing for support and all. I really didn’t think I had a chance to come to you and tell you face to face. I mean…me and you both know how your temper is.” Jah just chuckled “Nah ma, that’s the old me. I’ve calmed down a lot. But I would be frontin if I told you shit is sweet and I’m not feeling salty about this whole situation. Yo why the fuck didn’t you tell me you were pregnant? Why would you wait damn near four years?” Jah fumed he didn’t hide his frustrations.

  There was silence on the other end. Then he heard faint sounds of her sniffling as if she were crying. “What I did was fucked up, but I was going through a lot when I had him. I finally said fuck niggaz that I could raise my son on my own. And you know what? I’ve been maintaining and doing okay, but it’s not about me anymore, it’s about my son when he starts to question where his father is.” Jah took a deep breath running his palm over his face in exasperation. “How sure are you that this is even my seed?” “I’m one hundred percent sure,” she responded with confidence. Jah’s heart dropped into his stomach damn he thought to himself. Bianca could tell that wasn’t the answer Jah wanted to hear. “I don’t know ma. I’ma keep that shit ahunnit, I’m not convinced. When we was messing around you had a man. How you know he ain’t that kid father?” “Because he looks like you Jah.” More silence over the phone.