7. Quasim
Quasim
The sound of smacking made me stir in my sleep and open my eyes. Elijah was sitting in the corner chair watching me sleep with dried cereal in a bowl. I leaned up and stared at him for a second before pulling my legs over the end of the bed and getting down on my knees.
Without exchanging words, Elijah put his bowl of dried cereal on the dresser and joined me. We put our hands together, lowered our heads and both said our prayers before saying amen and getting up from the floor.
“You sleep weird, Sim,” he tried to hold his laughter in, but what nine-year-old could?
I looked down at him and smirked. “Oh yeah? How I sleep weird?”
He followed behind me but stopped when I went into the bathroom. “With your arms behind your head… you almost look dead.”
“It’s comfortable for me.”
“Maybe I should sleep like that.” He debated as I washed my hands and looked at him. “Do you think I should sleep like that?”
I was always used to a quiet morning with just myself, my bible, and my coffee. I never had to make any noise unless I wanted to, so the peace and quiet was something I had become used to. I always had an hour before I knew Elijah would come barreling through my door ready to talk with a million questions and side conversations. We never stayed on the same topic, constantly bouncing around a few. Ryder did the same thing, so I was always used to following seven conversations at once from one person.
Last night when he called me while I was with my angel, I knew it was God telling me that I needed to leave. As we stood in that hallway – forehead to forehead – I wanted to take her inside and show her why that other nigga didn’t matter.
Blair deserved more than that, though. She didn’t deserve to be fucked because I was trying to prove a point to her. She knew who she should have been with, and it was me that was preventing that.
She loved me.
Blair had never said those words to me, it was the way she stared at me. How she became so choked up within a simple conversation. I knew she loved me because I loved her, too, and wanted to tell her.
I wanted to scream the shit, and fear prevented me from doing that. It prevented me from doing a lot of things that my heart desperately wanted, and my heart wanted her. The doorbell pulled me from my thoughts and Elijah from whatever eight conversations he was having with me.
Elijah cowered behind me. “She’s going to be so mad at me, Sim.”
When Elijah called, he told me he hadn’t seen his mother for two days. Leon had been at the house, but his mother hadn’t been there. I automatically thought the worst because Thea never left that damn house.
By the time I made it home, Elijah was asleep on my back porch. I carried him inside and tucked him into the guest bedroom before going to pour myself a drink and sitting in the living room thinking about my baby.
I opened the door, and Thea was standing there with her blonde matted hair pulled into a bun that hadn’t probably been let down in weeks. She looked behind her as she stood there hugging herself.
“Hey Sim, I know it’s early… is Elijah over here?”
Elijah peered from behind me, holding onto my pajama pants, letting me know he didn’t want to go with his mother. “The better question is where the fuck were you?”
She looked behind her again and sighed. “I went out with a few friends…I’m trying to get my life back on track since me and Leon aren’t together anymore.”
None of what the fuck Thea said made sense, and the fact that she couldn’t hold eye contact told me that she was high or coming down from a binge, having been so high that she was just remembering that she even had a son.
How in the fuck was she and Leon not together when his car was parked right outside the house now, and Elijah said he had been the only one at the house with him while she was missing in action.
I didn’t reply.
Instead, I stared at her while she nervously fidgeted in front of me. “Elijah, come on, baby… Leon is gonna drive us to your uncle’s house to stay while mommy gets cleaned up.”
“Please,” I heard him whisper behind me as I watched his mother continue to scratch her arms.
“Why you sending him to his uncle, Thea?”
“I’m going to get clean for my boy… got to do right by him. I want you to be proud of me, Quasim… be that mother that you always speak of me being.”
I ain’t never spoke on her being any kind of mother because once shit started to slip, I noticed the kind of mother that she was . Thea always thought I was going to give her a lecture about getting clean and being better, and that wasn’t my ministry. I wasn’t about to tell a junkie a damn thing except to get the fuck away from me.
“Where you going to get clean?”
“Um, some treatment center in Mexico. Eli, you’re only gonna go for the summer… you’ll be back here when school starts.”
“Then let him stay with me.” I suggested.
“Oh, no… I couldn’t ask that of you, Sim. I know you’re busy and have a lot going on.”
I plucked her in the mouth again, and she bounced back and tossed her arms up. “You don’t know what the fuck I got going on because last I remember; I don’t speak to you about my shit. I told you that I will keep him for the summer, so go and get clean.”
Thea was shipping her son away because Leon was probably complaining, and she couldn’t get high and do what she wanted if she had to keep an eye on him. Her ass wasn’t going to get clean, and she damn sure wasn’t sending him to some uncle.
She stood there debating as if she gave a fuck. “Quasim, I appreciate this. I know my boy looks up to you and I need to get clean.”
“Elijah, go to the guest room,” I told him, and he let go of my pajama pants and rushed off to the guest room.
I probably should have told him that before I plucked his mother in the mouth. Thea tried to look behind me, and I stood in her view. “You not going to get clean, so why you playing with me?”
She let out a sigh of relief that she didn’t have to lie or pretend to get clean. “He’s so much... always got some questions and asking me to stop being sick. This is my life, man. I’ve tried to get clean and it’s hard. I want what’s best for him, so a friend of mine in Phoenix offered to take him.”
“A fucking friend?”
“You a fucking friend and you’re offering.”
“One that would kill for that boy… including you.” I smiled, and she looked at me like I was a demon. “I’ve been taking care of him while all you been doing is getting high. You think shipping him off to some random ass friend’s house in another state is smart.”
“Um, yeah.”
I shook my head. “I’m keeping him for the summer, Thea. Don’t think I’m doing you a favor because I’m not. Consider me doing myself a favor because I know you’ll do something with him that will have me killing you.”
She swallowed hard and looked at me with misty eyes. “I love my boy, Quasim.”
“Yeah, and you love that shit, too… probably more than him.”
She continued to hug herself while she stared up at me. “Can I bring him some clothes and things over to make him comfortable.”
I laughed and slammed the door in her face. What the fuck could she bring over that would make him comfortable. The only time he was comfortable was when he was under my roof. I witnessed him take that sigh of relief as his shoulders relaxed and he was able to be innocent.
Elijah peeked from around the corner, and I waved for him to come toward me. “I bet not ever see you touch drugs in your life. Your mother is sick and it’s because of drugs…hear me?”
He nodded his head. “Yes, Sim.”
I kneeled down and looked him in the eyes. “I haven’t done this in a long ass time, so we gonna help each other this summer… all I ask is that you’re honest with me, Elijah. Tell me when something is wrong. Remember how I said I would always help you and come after you?”
He nodded his head slowly. “Yes.”
“How can I do that when you’re not honest with me… don’t make sense, right?” I smiled and held my hand out.
He ignored my hand and hugged me tightly. “Thank you.”
The emotions filled into my chest as I hugged him, knowing that I was saving this boy. Something that I couldn’t do for my own daughter. “You never have to thank me… we gonna get haircuts today and then I need to stop by my tattoo shop for a second.”
I stood up and went into the kitchen to make myself some coffee. “Can I get something small… maybe anime or something?”
I looked at him and he gave me a goofy grin. “Just kidding.”
“Yeah… ight. Go and grab your bible so we can get the morning started.” I called behind him as he skipped down the hall, laughing and filling this house with sounds that had been missing from it for so long.
It wasn’t often that I pulled my Camaro out. If you saw me, you usually saw me on my bike. The only time you saw my Camaro was when I opened my garage, and you caught a glimpse of it. It was my prized possession, along with my bikes. I had all plans to pull it into the garage after last night and use my bike today. Since I had Eli, I knew that wasn’t an option.
After showering and getting ready for the day, me and Elijah headed out. He was so excited when I showed him the new Jordans he was talking about last week. Half the time, I allowed him to ramble because he was ignored at home, and he had a lot of shit to say. Most times, I tuned him out while he rambled on about random things. That particular morning, I heard him going on about a pair of sneakers one of his friends in school had.
From the color way he described and the number, I knew what shoes he was talking about and went and picked them up for him. He kept kicking his feet, all excited because he had them on. Even before Thea found herself on the wrong side of life, he didn’t have many sneakers or clothes because she was a single mother.
“You don’t listen to NBA Young boy?” Elijah asked as we pushed it across the bridge into Brooklyn.
“Hell nah… classics only.”
“Boring.”
I snorted and looked over at him. “Real men listen to the classics… that’s what you wanna be, right?”
He straightened his posture like I had taught him. “Yeah.”
I turned up ‘The City is Mine’ by Jay-Z and bopped my head to the music. “Catch the beat… feel the words. Know that you that nig… guy,” I quickly caught myself.
With Elijah being around for the summer, I was gonna have to change the way I spoke around him. It had been a while since I had to be responsible for a child. Ryder didn’t count because whenever she came over, it was only for a few hours.
It was rare that my niece stayed the night with me. Elijah would be with me the whole summer. It wasn’t something I gave much thought to when I told Thea I would keep him. All I felt was that little boy tugging onto my pajama pants and silently pleading for me to do something his mother never did; step up.
As I drove on the BQE expressway, I kept looking back at him as he was mimicking what I was doing; slowly nodding his head and tapping his fingers on the door handle while feeling the words. “Is the city yours, Sim?”
I smirked. “Come on now… you know the answer to that.”
“You’re perfect, Sim. I want to be perfect just like you when I get older.”
I turned the music down and looked over at him quickly before turning my attention back to swerving in and out of traffic. “I’m not perfect, Elijah.”
He looked at me like I was crazy for saying that I wasn’t perfect. “Sim, you have everything. A house, cool bikes, and this cool car.”
I chuckled. “Material things don’t make you perfect, Elijah. No man on this earth is perfect… I want you to remember that for me, alright?”
He nodded his head. “Sim?”
“What up, Eli?”
I watched as he nervously peered at me. “Are we going to eat some lunch? It’s okay if we don’t… we don’t have to.”
That shit broke my heart. The fact that he was used to skipping meals and had to ask if he was going to eat a particular meal pissed me off.
“You can have whatever you want with me, Eli. If you’re hungry, make sure you tell me, and I’ll get you whatever you want. I’ll get you some chicken from the Chinese spot near the barbershop.”
He grinned. “I love chicken.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
I turned the music up and we continued to bop our head to the music as we got closer to Brandon’s shop. Brandon always came to my crib to cut Elijah’s hair for me. This would be the first time that I would be bringing him around the other Gods, aside from Havoc. Blaze was going to be at the barbershop because he was getting his hair twisted, and he usually got his shape up right after.
The minute I pulled onto the block, I spotted Blaze’s truck and pulled in front of it. Havoc was sitting on his bike talking to Capella and Kincaid. I hopped out and Elijah did the same. He was nervous so he stuck by me as I walked over and hit the IG shake with them.
“Oh, we acting like a stranger now?” Havoc laughed, and Elijah ran over to hug him. “Oh, you fresh as fuc… hel… shit.” Havoc failed horribly at trying to sensor his damn language.
“Sim got them for me.” Elijah spun around, showing his Essentials sweatsuit that I purchased for him.
It took a lot of trial and error trying to figure out the size that he wore. You couldn’t just buy a child clothes based on their age.
Go figure.
My brother came swaggering out the barbershop with Ryder right behind him. “Uncle Simmy!” She rushed into my arms, and I picked her up, kissing her on the cheek.
“Ry, what you doing on the block?”
“Daddy let me come since Gams is watching Cherry.” She smiled as she hugged me again, then noticed Elijah standing beside me.
Meer looked from me to Elijah and then back to me, sharing the same confused expression that his daughter had on her face. I put Ry back onto the ground and she looked at Elijah like she was trying to figure him out without asking who he was.
When it came to Ryder, my brother didn’t play about her being respectful and staying in a child’s place. What she got away with while with her bitch ass mother, didn’t swing when it came to being under Capri and Meer’s roof.
For the most part, my niece was a good kid, and she would never get out of line, unless someone fucked with her. She was spicy like my mother.
What I remember of who my mother used to be.
“Elijah, this is my brother and my niece… Quameer and Ryder.” I looked down at him, and he looked at me nervously. “Fix that posture… no cowering. Stand tall, Eli. You straight, they good people.”
“Hi, Elijah,” Ryder smiled at him.
“Hey, Ryder.”
“Call me Ry, or Peach… everyone else does.”
“Okay. You can call me Eli.”
Ryder nodded her head. “Ry, take him to the Chinese restaurant and get whatever you want.” I fished in my pocket for my wallet and peeled off two twenties.
Kincaid removed himself from in front of the shop. “I’ll walk with them.”
“Appreciate it.” I replied, as I walked into the barbershop with my brother on my ass. Brandon already had his chair cleared for me, so I sat down.
I never had to tell him how I wanted my shit because I always got the same thing. Brandon also knew I would put my foot in his ass if he fucked me up. “Who child did you kidnap, Quasim?”
Blaze sat in one of the empty seats while studying me to see if I had gone mad. “He’s my neighbor’s son, and he’s spending the summer with me.”
“You know there’s laws against taking people’s kids, right?”
I chuckled. “His mom on that shit and she neglect the fuck out of him.”
Blaze nodded his head. “I get that… you can’t just take her seed because you don’t like how she lives her life.”
“Blaze, I been taking care of the boy for a whole year. He comes to my house every morning so he can shower and change into clothes I bought him and eat. I know you a pops and got that shit under control, but I know what I’m doing.”
“First off, you a pops too, nigga. I’m not saying you don’t know what to do… just trying to see where your head at, Sim. Showing up with some random ass kid ain’t like you.”
He looked me in the eyes, and I remained silent. It was so easy to forget that I was ever a father. Harley had been gone, and although every part of my home reminded me of her, I didn’t feel like a father anymore. It felt as if the moment that she was lowered into the ground, that title had been stripped from me.
I remember sitting in the house staring at pictures of her and Cherie, jealous of my dead girlfriend because she got to be with our daughter. She was able to smell her curls, hear her voice, and feel those hugs she used to give.
The more time that passed, the less I could remember what they felt like. It was something I wanted to hold onto forever, and as time went on, the more I felt it slipping through my fingers. This was foreign to Blaze because I wasn’t the type to get in the middle of someone else’s business, and damn sure wouldn’t take on helping someone else’s child.
“He doesn’t have anybody except me and Havoc.”
“Wait a damn minute, you trusted this nigga to know this and not me?”
“You got your own life, Blaze. I’m not gonna come to you for every little thing.” The words came out harsher than I intended them to come out.
He looked down at the spliff in his hand and then back up at me. “I come to you for everything, though.”
“As you should… I’m big bro. I don’t need to involve you in every part of my life.” We both looked toward the door and saw Kincaid bolting down the block with both Ryder and Elijah running behind him.
“Uncle Kin, you cheater… you didn’t give us a head start!” Ryder hollered as Kincaid laughed.
Kincaid came over laughing. “Ain’t no head starts in life, Ry.”
“You supposed to let the kids win.” Capella laughed.
“Nah… my girl tougher than the rest, right?”
Ryder laughed and hugged him, and Kincaid held his fist out to bump Elijah’s fist and opened the door for them. “Uncle Simmy, is Elijah coming to the lake house with us this summer?”
Somehow, the Delgato’s tradition of going to their lake houses every summer had rubbed off on the Infernos. I’m not going to front like we didn’t have a good time last summer, and my mom’s loved it.
Gams enjoyed having everyone around, and it was the reason I purchased a house there. Our family needed to be around each other more, and spending the summer at the lake was the perfect time.
“Yeah… he’s gonna be there.”
Elijah’s mouth dropped. “I get to swim in a lake?”
Ryder was so excited. “Yes! My cousin CJ’s daddy has a boat, and he takes us out on it sometimes… we’re gonna have so much damn fun!” Ryder allowed damn to slip, and her father gave her that look.
“Sorry, Daddy.”
Me and Brandon laughed because she was so excited, and it made Elijah just as excited. Other than our conversations in the morning when he was talking about a million things at once, I hadn’t seen him this excited.
Brandon finished me up and Elijah had got in the chair while I went to the Chinese spot to get their food. Ryder remained in the shop with Elijah while they both had eighteen different conversations with each other.
Before I left, they were playing twenty questions.
Me and Blaze walked to the restaurant, and I stopped when I heard that laugh. It was a giggle with a slight snort, and only one person laughed that way.
My Anjo.
“Suga, you want something to eat from the Chinese spot,” Blaze called across the street where Capri and Blair were.
They quickly crossed the street, and Blair avoided eye contact with me. I hated that last night happened. I knew how her mind got, and she probably thought I went to see some other bitch, but that wasn’t the case at all.
It was my fault because I should have explained it to her. Why make shit more complicated than it needed to be?
Then at the same time, she knew me, knew how I was, so she should have known I wasn’t on it like that. “Anjo, you can’t speak?”
“Hey Quasim,” she smiled at me.
She was so fucking beautiful without even trying. Dressed down in a pair of leggings, crop top, and Nike Airmaxes, she was still the most beautiful person walking. Her hair was slicked back, and she wore a Yankee dad hat.
“Can you get me some shrimp egg foo young, baby,” Capri said, as she kissed her husband, and he went into the store.
“No sticky wings?” I teased her.
When Capri was pregnant, all she wanted was some damn sticky wings. She ate those shits so much that I didn’t even want any, and I wasn’t even the one that was eating them.
“Suga, you have to meet Elijah.” Ryder stuck her head out the barbershop door and waved for Capri to come to her.
“Who?” Capri looked at me.
“My neighbor’s son… I got him for the summer.”
Capri looked at me like she hadn’t heard what I had said. “ You have him for the summer? Is he your secret son or something?”
“Why the fuck y’all acting like I don’t know how to take care of a child?” I looked at my sister, and she laughed. “He’s not my secret son, either… ain’t busted a nut in nobody yet .” I stared Blair right in the eyes, and she quickly looked away from me.
“What’s the tea with his mom, Sim?”
“She on that shit and she neglects him. I take care of him because he don’t have anybody… he’s a good ass kid and needs someone.”
Capri came and hugged me. “Aww Sim, you are such a good person… I’m going to meet him.” She skipped down the block toward the barbershop to continue her investigation.
I looked at Blair and she stared at me like she had something to say and didn’t know how to say it. “I wasn’t running after pussy last night. He called me, and I told him I would always be there for him… only pussy I’m trying to run after is yours, Anjo.”
I turned and headed into the restaurant to get the kids’ food, and she was right behind me. “You should have told me that.”
“Why do I have to tell you that? You should know that I’m not worried about no bitches.”
“I don’t know that.” She whispered.
The food would be another ten minutes, so I stood near the counter next to the door. I leaned on the counter while Blair stood in front of me.
“You don’t have nothing to say to that?”
“What you want me to say, my love?” I yawned, because I was tired and didn’t get much sleep. One half of the night I spent babysitting my drink and thinking about Blair, then when I finally got into the bed, I tossed and turned, thinking about her and how we left things.
“You look tired, Quasimmy.” She noted.
I smiled at her. “Oh, I’m Quasimmy again.”
She rolled her eyes and smiled at me. “Why didn’t you tell me about your neighbor’s son? This what I mean, you don’t tell me anything and I tell you everything.”
I raised my brow and looked at her. “Everything?”
She looked at me, and kept her arms folded. “Stop switching the subject… this is on you, not me.”
It was hard for me to open up because that required letting someone in. I had to be vulnerable, and I always had to be the strength within my family. There was never any time for me to be vulnerable and share my emotions. A bridge never gets to rest; it must always stand tall, no matter how heavy the load it carries.
Even when Cherie was murdered, life kept moving on because I had a daughter to raise. It was crazy because life continues, even when you lose the people most important to you. The ball still dropped to signal a New Year, meanwhile, you were still stuck in the year you lost your people.
“Come here.”
She moved closer to me, and I pulled her even closer, kissing her on the lips and easing my tongue into her mouth. She held me around the neck as I carefully sucked on her tongue, while grabbing her ass; Meer was standing there staring at us and quickly turned around like he was a child witnessing his parents kissing.
I broke our kiss and kissed her on the chin as she looked into my eyes. That love that I spoke about was oozing out of her as she stared up into my eyes. I kept her close to me, my hands still around her.
“W…what was that for?”
“Because you keep questioning how I’m feeling about you. I need you to be easy… shit not easy for me, Anjo.”
Her phone was ringing, and she was too busy blushing as I kept her close to me. “I need more than that, Quasim… I deserve more than that.”
I kissed her neck, sucking on it while she giggled and tried to pull away. I was sucking the shit out of her neck while she was swatting me, laughing like this was a game. When I was satisfied, she looked in the mirror behind us.
“Quasim, why would you give me a hickie?”
I looked down at her through low eyes as she tried to rub it out like it was an ink stain or some shit. The bass from a car had pulled me and Blaze’s attention towards the window. A Ferrari pulled onto the block and Blair looked at me like she was sorry.
It was homie, coming to pick her up, and I assumed it was him who had been hitting her line while she was in here sucking on my tongue. “I have to go… I would love to meet Elijah, though… soon, maybe?”
“We’ll see.”
“Don’t be like that, Quasim,” she walked backwards toward the entrance, needing me to be okay with her going with Zay.
“I’m straight… be safe.”
She pushed the door open. “Thanks.”
“Anjo?”
She turned to look at me as I smirked. “I’m making it a problem.”