6. Trench
Trench
“Can I help you, sir?” The waiter held his hand up to prevent me from continuing my stride. “Are you meant to be here?”
“Excuse me?” I expressed, offended.
“Only platinum members can eat at this establishment. And you, sir, ain’t our, how would you say, target audience.”
“Yo’ pale scawny ass itchin’ for an ass whippin’, but you know what that’s what you expect for me to do. Let me checkmate yo’ ass. I have a reservation with your platinum member of your target audience, Ms. Mallory McCoy.”
“Let me go verify. What’s yo’ name?”
“Tell her the nigga is here to see her.”
The way his eyes widened as if I’d just read his mind caused me to chuckle.
Just as he was about to say something, Mallory walked her linky ass up to the waiter’s area.
She explained to him that I was her guest before making her way back to the table.
He reluctantly lifted the velvet to allow me access to the eating area.
Before I made it to the table, I looked back to see if he was looking.
When I noticed that he was, I flicked his bitch ass off before activating my inner Carlton Banks.
“And here I was thinking you were going to be late to our date,” Mallory chuckled as she ushered me to sit across from her. “Color me pleasantly surprised, Travis.”
“And color me not surprised, Mallory,” I faked heartedly chuckled. “You are exactly who I thought you’d be.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was just wonderin’ what led you to publicly go on a date with me?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“Actually, I do want to know. Matter of fact, how ‘bout I tell you what I think it is and we’ll go from there, cool? Cool. This gotta be some DEI type of shit. From what I gather, yo’ dad’s sheriff’s race isn’t goin’ to well due to him not being liked by the black folks.
So, this here public date at a quote unquote all-white country club is to help not only him but the club’s racist image. Remain quiet if I’m on a roll.”
She sat there with her mouth slightly gaped open as I shook my head in disbelief.
Here I was buying the bullshit my mom was feeding me about white people not being judged like their ancestors.
Clearly they were good at hiding that shit from people like her and my dad, but not me because I could smell their bullshit from a mile away.
And this motherfucka had a stench worse than a newborn with diarrhea.
Standing to my feet, I was more so disgusted with myself than her for being exactly who I expected her to be.
Once I made it outside the country club, I noticed both Mallory and the waiter staring at me.
It took every ounce of strength I had not to show my natural black ass literally.
I jolted awake from the nightmare I’d just had.
Never in a million years would I buy into the bullshit my parents spilled to me every chance they got.
To them, white was right, and that was pure bullshit to me.
So, we were constantly bumping heads when it came to that, but they always used their money to keep a grip on me.
Because there were times I was ready to cut them off, but I didn’t know how I would survive in a world without their financial backing, so I stayed.
Not until I started making money doing something I loved, which was racing.
My weekends were usually spent at Valley Raceway, which was the official racetrack, or racing at Magnolia Bridge.
Both helped keep my savings swollen as I stacked my earnings.
As I got ready to take a shower, I pulled out my outfit for the day.
After I showered and got myself ready for the day, I texted Harli to see if she was up.
Smiling at the text that Harli had sent me, I typed away with my response as I made my way to the kitchen.
I couldn’t wait to see her at the races tonight.
She’d been out of commission after our rematch from me beating her in the first race, which resulted in her bike getting messed up.
I offered to pay and get it but, like the independent woman she was, she rejected the offer.
That shit pulled me in even more because she could’ve been like a typical hood chick and just used me for what I could offer.
Just from our conversations these past few days, I could tell Harli was cut from a different cloth.
She didn’t like handouts, and her drive to get it out the mud on her own inspired me.
With me toying with the idea of cutting off ties and just living my life as I want or continuing to deal with my parents.
They never supported me wanting to go to culinary school instead of getting my master’s in business.
That’s when I first experienced them using their money as a means of control.
I never thought to disrespect them, but I hated being controlled and forced to be something I’m not.
“Are you ready for tonight?” my mom’s voice interrupted my thought process.
“Tonight?” I tilted my head as I tried to remember what the fuck they had going on tonight. “Is there a fundraising event tonight?”
“No, silly. Tonight is the rescheduled date with the girl from the other week.”
“I didn’t reschedule a date with her, doee.”
“I know you didn’t. I did it for you. Had to save face in some kind of way because you basically did a no-call, no-show, and in the business world, that could get you fired and replaced. I didn’t want you to mess up the chance to get to know her.”
“See this the shit that I be talkin’ ‘bout,” I huffed with the shake of my head. Looking down at my phone, I read Harli’s response to my text and smiled. “I got plans for tonight, so you need to cancel that for me and not reschedule it.”
“Travis, that’s gonna make us look even worse to her family. We are already battlin’ with a strike against us with our skin color.”
“And if we were around our own fuckin’ people we wouldn’t be battlin’ no shit like that.
I don’t know whose idea it was to get older and start denouncin’ yo’ blackness.
Unlike y’all, I am black and damn proud of it.
So, miss me with that bullshit of tryin’ to get me to settle down with some white girl.
I want all my kids to be one hundred percent black.
The way these black men all over America been losing their lives by the hands of white people and you want to just throw me to their asses.
Hell nawl get somebody else to do that.”
“Me and your father both struggled comin’ up, and that was hard, so we promised to give our children a better life than we had.”
“That’s fine to do, but a better life isn’t a white one.
You could’ve still kept the same promise but stayed in tune with your blackness.
‘Cause how you get rich off a sneaker store that only black people shop at but turn yo’ nose up at them.
That ain’t right, and I’ll never do no shit like that.
‘Cause while you’re turnin’ yo’ nose up at the same people who helped build you up, those white people you try to ass kiss do the same shit to you and pops.
No matter how much y’all try to fit into their world, you’ll forever be an outsider. ”
“Travis…”
“Travis, nothing. Like I said, you need to cancel that date because I have plans for tonight. Matter of fact, I’ma grab a room in town for a few days. Because y’all becomin’ so overbearin’ a nigga feel like he can’t breathe.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll cancel the date.”
“Actually, I do need to do that. Because at this point I’m ‘bout ready to figure out life on my own. And before you try to threaten me with it, I know you will cut me off from yo’ money, and that’s cool.”
Before she could try and plead her case, I walked out of the kitchen.
I never had the courage to get that off my chest to her, but something about Harli’s text gave me that push to do it.
Something about giving her that true version of me in all ways had me ready to stand my ground where I was skeptical about doing so.
I did little things like going to college to be an educated black man in America, but instead of taking over their business, I chose to simply work there.
To some, it may seem small, but to me that was the biggest move I made against my parents in this game of chess.
To a hood nigga, I might not be a man, but this is the only life I've known and the life I'm slowly giving up to create my own path.
Standing up to her now felt like my next big move, and each move was to guarantee my victory.
As I walked out the door, I got into my blue Mercedes-Benz CLE 300 to head over to ‘Scoe’s house.
Although me and ‘Scoe just linked up about three years ago on the racing scene, he was the one real nigga I knew.
His spot had become my safe haven, but I was tired of that being my escape instead of having a place to call my own.
“Wassup, Trench?” ‘Scoe greeted me once I stepped to his door.
“I need you to ride with me,” I informed.
“Bet. Where we goin’?”
“I need to go look at some spot because I need to get the fuck up outta that house ‘fore I been done spazzed the fuck out.”
“Yo’ folks may need to experience you spazzin’ so they know not to play with you like that. What’s goin’ on doee?”
“They tryna do that matchmaker shit with some snow bunny again, and I ain’t goin’ for that. When I get Harli because I’m gon’ get her… I don’t even wanna bring Harli round them and risk them scarin’ her off because she’s not some white woman.”
“I feel ya, bruh. Let’s go see what we can find.”