by Nikki Brown
Me and Jaako did a little business before we got ready to go and meet Omari at the hospital. His ass was finally getting the fuck out. He was in there giving them people hell because he was ready to go home. They were trying to tell him that he needed some physical therapy on that one arm, but he wasn’t having it. He said he could do the physical therapy at home.
Two weeks later they were sending his ass home, the only reason his ass stayed that long was because Mama threatened his ass. He was feeling better and ready to put in work. He had his main man, Ice looking after his part of the business and that nigga was doing a damn good job of it too. I needed to find me somebody that I trusted to handle shit when I needed to dip out.
“I’m hungry as shit my nigga.” Jaako said leaning back in his chair.
“Feel you; I could go for some Chicken Coop.” I looked up and that nigga had the biggest fucking smile on his face. That place was small as hell on the inside, and trying to get food from there was like trying to pull blood from a turnip, but the shit was worth it. I’m an impatient nigga so I didn’t go there often, but today I was in the mood for it.
We finished up and headed over to South Charlotte to order and fucking wait. Once we got there it was stupid packed, and I was starting to regret that decision.
“Fuck!” I yelled out in frustration.
“Nigga we here now and it took me forever to fucking park, so we staying.”
I didn’t argue because I really wanted some damn chicken. We hopped in line and gave our order and stood back for that shit to be called. I kept feeling somebody looking at me but when I looked around everyone seemed to be in their own world or staring in the back hoping the next order called was theirs. I went to grab my phone and just so happened to look up and I caught the eyes of a young girl who was staring me down. The more I looked at her the more she was starting to look familiar.
“Aye bruh, ain't that the freak hoe that was at the trap with no clothes on when them niggas ran in?”
“Where?”
“Right there trying not to look in this direction.”
“Hell yeah that’s her with her cute ass.” Jaako licked his lips and I shook my head.
“She looks familiar as hell though.” I took a good look at her and then she finally looked up at me and her light brown eyes danced beneath the light that she was standing under. He thick lips and light skinned made me shiver.
“Nigga she looks like a miniature version of you.” Jaako said now focusing on the girl too.
He said what I was thinking but I didn’t want to say that shit out loud. I was getting freaked the fuck out. I’ve always had access to my birth certificate anytime I wanted to know who created me, but I never felt the need to look. So, this chick could very well be of some kin to me, but hell to be honest I didn’t want to know that either.
“Numbers 156 and 157,” the worker yelled letting us know that our food was ready. I walked up and grabbed my bag and Jaako did the same. I looked at the girl one more time and I turned to walk out the door, but I bumped into this little frail woman who looked to be in her fifties. She had fair skin with light brown eyes like the girl and puffy lips that weren’t the pink color they were designed to be. She looked at me for a second and I looked at her. Before I could excuse myself, she spoke.
“Son,” was all she said, and I looked at her a little more and I didn’t know what to say. “You don’t even know me,” she dropped her head. “Your father told me that when you were old enough that he would tell you the truth and let you decide if you wanted to see me.”
“What the fuck you talking about, yo?” I was getting frustrated because she was talking all this shit about my father like I was supposed to know who he was and shit. Hell, as far as I was concerned the only “family” I had was my brothers, my ma and Unc. “Man, I gotta go you talking crazy.”
“My name is Chelley Ford.” She smiled like that shit was supposed to mean something to me.
“Okay and?” I was two seconds from getting rude.
“Mama come on so we can get home.” The young girl that had been looking at me all weird since I got here.
“Mama?” I asked looking back and forth between the two of them.
“Oh fuck.” I heard Jaako say from behind me.
“Will somebody tell me what the fuck is going on?” I said a little louder than I intended.
“I’m your mother.” The little frail lady said, and I looked at her like she was crazy.
“Ann Barnes is my mother.”
“She didn’t birth you, I did.” She had a little too much bass in her voice when that came out of her lips than I liked.
“Hell yeah you birthed my ass, full of fucking crack.” I yelled out and she dropped her head. “Excuse me because I ain’t even in the mood for this shit right now.”
“Mama just let him go, he’ll come around eventually.” The young girl said.
“Kaylin, I know baby, I know.” She looked up at me. “I was in a bad space back then but eventually I straightened up, it took a while, but I did it. It was too late to come for you then, you were happy, and Ann gave you a life that I couldn’t. Your father told me to stay away until you were old enough to make your own decisions. If you don’t believe me just ask him. I’ve always loved you; I just want you to know that.” She said before she walked in the restaurant and over to Kaylin.
Right as I was about to leave I had to stop because she kept mentioning my father, I didn’t know who the fuck he was. No one ever talked about him, so I knew nothing about him. I turned to her once more. “Who is my father, you keep saying it and you never said his name?” She gave me a look of confusion, like that was something that I should have known. Was I missing something?
“You don’t know?” she asked, and I shook my head to refrain from cussing her out for asking that dumb fucking question. “Raymond, Ann’s brother.”
I could not think, speak, move, or nothing at that moment. All I could do was stand there and look at her like she had sprouted twelve heads. I felt Jaako’s hand on my shoulder and he slightly pushed me out the door. When we got outside he just looked at me with sympathetic eyes. He wanted to say something so bad but just like me he didn’t know what to fucking say. All I could do was shake my head and hop in the car. Somebody owed me some fucking answers and I was getting that shit today.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Uncle Ray
“So, you know for sure that it was Ortiz that shot you?” I asked Omari who was up and dressed waiting to be discharged. I wanted to make sure that I was raging war on the right muthafucka.
“I saw his face,” was all he said and that was all I needed to hear. I had men everywhere looking for him and anyone associated with him was gonna die. Starting with his parents who I had my men going to pick up now.
“Aight then that’s what it is. I think you should come to stay at the house until this shit blows over.”
“So, you want me to run?” he laughed. “You know I ain’t even built like that, Unc.”
“Nigga I know, but I want you to lay low and I know you.” Again, he laughed, because he planned on doing anything but lying low.
I should have known better than to ask him to do anything but what he knows how to do and that’s survive. From the time he was a kid he had to teach himself how to survive and even more so he had to teach his brother. I needed to have a conversation with him to see what the fuck all this beef was about. It had to be over more than some pussy, right?
We waited around for another hour before the nurse came and finally discharged him. I didn’t know where the hell his brothers were, but this nigga was anxious as hell to get the fuck out of here, so we left and headed to the house. They would just have to meet us there.
“Hello.” I heard O answer his phone. “Nigga they gave me them papers and my black ass ran the fuck up out of there. Fuck that, y’all were taking too long, we headed to Unc’s house,” he said into the receiver.
The drive was quiet; we we
re both in our own thoughts. I knew my sister was at the house cooking all this nigga favorites, so his ass was gonna be excited when he walked in. I just needed to get all this bullshit behind us, because when I did I was planning on giving this shit up. Them niggas earned this, and they knew the business inside and out especially Kayson. He was almost better at this shit than me. So, handing it over in his hands was the sensible thing to do.
Pulling up to the house I could see his girlfriend and Kayson’s girlfriend was here but no one else had made it yet. So, I helped him out of the car and ushered him into the house. As soon as he hit the door that nigga started grinning from ear to ear and then all a sudden, he got serious.
“Zemia!” he yelled. “Zemia!”
“What? Is everything okay?” she ran out of the kitchen followed by the other two.
“Why the fuck you in the kitchen man?” he narrowed his eyes at her. “You know yo’ ass can’t cook, I swear if you fuck something up I’ma hold you down and make you eat it.” He was serious as hell which made all of us laugh and she flipped him off.
“Leave that girl alone, she in here trying to learn for yo’ punk ass. If I was her, I wouldn’t do shit for you.” Ann said heading back into the kitchen.
“I’m just saying.”
“You ain’t saying nothing,” Ann said. “Go wash up, the food almost done.”
We went and got cleaned up and headed to the kitchen. We all looked around and still no Jaako and Kayson. Where the fuck was those niggas at? I picked up my phone to call when the door busted open and in walked Kayson with the look of death on his face.
“Who the fuck is my father?”
His question caught me by surprise because I had no idea how to answer it without pissing him off further. I just never thought that he needed to know. Ann just stood there and mugged me. I already knew she was pissed but what’s done was done. She had been on me for years to tell that boy the truth, but I just wasn’t in the place to do so. When he was younger, I was too busy running the streets chasing ass to settle down and focus on raising a son. I know that shit sounded selfish as fuck, but it was the truth. By the time I settled down a bit to help Ann out with the boys it was too late, we had fell into the Uncle and Nephew role and I didn’t want to fuck with that because it worked.
“Kayson have a seat.” Ann finally spoke up.
“Nah I don’t need to sit down, I need somebody to tell me something.” I watched how his chest rose and fell. I could tell that he was hurt and felt betrayed, but it really wasn’t that deep.
“Look, shit was crazy back then. Ya mom said that I was ya father, but she was a crack hoe and I didn’t believe her. After a while you started growing up and shit, I saw my mannerisms in you and that’s when I had you tested.” I lied. I knew he was my son because I was the reason that his mother was on drugs so bad. Hell, I use to dab in the coke myself, but no one will ever know that.
Me and Chelley had our thing and I was actually in love with her, but she was wild back then, so I used the coke to keep her “tamed.” That worked for a while until her addiction grew out of control and she wanted the drug more than she wanted me. When I found out she was pregnant, I cut her ass off. I thought her ass had gotten some business about herself only to find out that she was just getting her supply elsewhere. Hell, I was always in the streets so it’s not like I wouldn’t have known what she was doing anyway. The day Kayson was born, and Ann called and told me that he had coke in his system, I felt bad as shit.
“So, is this why you adopted me?”
“No baby, I adopted you because you needed to be in a good home with people who love you.”
“Love me, you mean people who lie to me.”
“Kayson, now that’s not fair,” Ann pointed at him with tears in her eyes.
“What, you felt bad because ya brother didn’t want my ass, so you took me in because we were family, huh?”
“Stop Kayson, right now.” She now had a full face of tears and this was all my fault.
“You want some truth little nigga?” Wasn’t nothing little about that nigga, he had a build like I did but I still had him by a good fifty pounds. “I was young and fucking dumb, me and ya moms was out here living reckless and shit. I wasn’t ready to be a daddy and ya mama damn sure wasn’t ready to be a mother. When she had you, you were fucked up and needed a lot of care. There was no one better to do that than my sister. You were headed to foster care where you may never have gotten what you needed. Whether you were my son or not she was gonna take you in, that’s just the kind of woman she is.” I threw out there. “This ain’t her fault, it’s mine, so if you wanna be mad at somebody, be mad at me. She always told you that when you were ready we could tell you all about your birth parents, but you always said that you didn’t need to know.” I added that because it was true. He always said that he didn’t want to know about them because as far as he was concerned we were his family.
“Fuck all that you still kept that shit from me. I had to find out shit from some skinny bitch and her daughter. When y’all could have told me a long time ago.”
“You seenChelley?” Ann asked him with her face turned up. Ann made Chelley promise that when the time was right that we would tell him together and the right way.
“Yeah we were at the Chicken Coop when she stopped me talking about some son.”
“I’m your mother!” Ann yelled out. “Always have been and always will be and don’t you forget that shit.”
“Let’s go somewhere and talk about this shit.” I told Kayson, we needed to have a heart to heart because I didn’t need this shit getting in his head.
“Nah UNC.” He put emphasis on Unc. “I’m done with this right now.”
“Please don’t do this Kayson.”
“I didn’t do anything, y’all did this.” He said looking between me and Ann. “Let’s go Jenacia.”
“Kayson—”
“Let him go Ann, the man needs time to process this shit.” I told her, and she rolled her eyes at me.
“I told you to tell him a long time ago, Raymond!” She threw the spoon down that she was scooping out the potato salad with and ran out the kitchen. She was hurt because she felt like Kayson was putting the blame on her. When he got out of his feelings we would talk about this shit, but until then I was gonna give him his space, as long as it didn’t affect business, I would let him be.
He gave me one more look and left out of the Kitchen with his girl in tow. I wasn’t tripping over it, he would come around. He was my son, and just like me he was a processor, he needed time to let things sink in before he came around.
After a while Denari and his girl came, and they were all sitting around like they had lost their puppy, so I got up and fixed me a damn plate I wasn’t about to let all this good food go to waste. Shit would work out, it always did.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ortiz
“This little bitch is starting to piss me off.” I yelled to no one in particular. I was really getting upset with the fact that Heaven thought it was okay to just run off with that little fucker, Denari. I was hoping that it was him that got hit that day at his apartment, but when I found out it was his brother I was pissed.
“She’ll be back, when he starts showing his true colors she’ll come back.” Cello said trying to reason with me.
“I don’t want the bitch back; I want her ass dead for pulling that fucking stunt.”
“We did leave her at that hotel to fend for herself.”
“I went back to get her, didn’t I?” I looked him in the eye with a questioning look. I knew that he looked at Heaven like a little sister, but she betrayed me, and she knows what happens to people that betray me.”
“Right boss.” Was all he said. “So, what’s next?”
“I’m waiting to see what these niggas about to do; I shot one of theirs, so I know they are looking for me. I need to play this smart so I’m gonna chill for a minute.”
“Out here in this country ass to
wn.”
We were currently chilling in a little town called Troutman, it was country as hell. I swear I could count the number of stop lights on my fingers. There was one fucking store here; you had to go clear into the town north and south of it if you wanted to shop. I was aggravated by that, but when it comes down to it, this was the best place to be in this situation.
“Yo, what if they come after your family and shit?”
“Them niggas ain’t that smart. Plus, my dad a muthafucking G, he got them no doubt.” I didn’t even think of the fact that they would retaliate by going to my family. I had never known them to be those kinda niggas. They usually go to the target and destroy, they weren’t one for hurting innocents and I needed to bet on that.
“I hope you right.”
“Yo Cello, you starting to act like a bitch, is there something that you need to tell me?”
“Fuck you, Ortiz.” He flipped me off and walked back inside the little house that we got in the country.
Even though it was country as fuck I must say the shit was nice. We had so much land, the little realtor bitch, Tracey, found this shit for us. She came highly recommended from some associates of mine, and I must say she came through for a nigga. I called her one day and she had this property the next. The fact that she knew how to work with people who paid cash was great, I would definitely be using her again.
Being out here all secluded and shit made me want some pussy and bad. I pulled out my phone and I started to call the realtor bitch, but she seemed like she would be too much work for me. I just wanted to fuck and call it a day, so I picked up the phone and called this bitch that I kick it with from time to time.
“Hola papi”
“What’s up?”