15. Fatz
Fatz
Three weeks later
I was already pissed from the sun beaming down on me all day.
I hadn’t ate a damn thing and could feel my blood sugar getting low.
I’d been hitting all of Sol’s trap spots since early this morning, collecting what was owed.
After each spot, I stopped by the warehouse to drop off and count through the money to make sure no niggas skimmed off the top or bottom.
Both Sol and I didn’t trust none of these niggas to operate money or drop off weight.
So we did the shit ourselves; a lot of shit fell on me.
I didn’t mind it because making money and saving it was something that I never got to do coming up until I moved with my dad.
Plus, I would rather have my brother’s back while he made all of the power plays.
I opened the door to my truck and noticed that this chaotic block was a little too quiet for my liking.
Usually, besides the niggas on the porch looking nervous to see me coming, it’d be kids and feens out in the streets doing the most. Maybe it was too early in the day for all the extra bullshit. Today I was running early because I had to double back and drop off niggas re-up.
I stepped out of my truck slowly and wiped the sweat off of my forehead. My shirt clung to my back from the excess sweat from ripping and running all morning. I couldn’t wait to shower, shit, and eat. With my lips pressed tight, I asked one of the little niggas…
“Where the fuck my money at?” I looked over at the oldest one.
“Rico got that shit in the safe, Fatz.” He nodded toward the fucked-up screen door.
I didn’t really fuck with going inside of trap spots, niggas usually had my shit ready to go through the corner boys that they had guarding the front. I pulled my gun and pushed the busted screen open. Before I even made it two feet into the living room, I stopped cold in my tracks.
My heart damn near dropped out my chest. My momma was slumped on the couch, eyes glazed with her mouth cracked opened like she was dreaming about some fairytale shit.
It broke my heart instantly to see her the way she was when I remembered my momma being the most beautiful woman on earth in my eyes.
Her hair was wild and brittle, skin splotched, she looked bony as fuck.
For seconds I couldn’t breathe, memories hit me like bricks as my hands curled into fists.
“Who the fuck?” I yelled as I observed the dingy living room.
“Who the fuck been servin’ my momma?” I looked right toward the kitchen then toward the small dining area where niggas sat at the table with stacks of money and drugs.
Everybody went quiet, the only sound that I could hear was flies buzzing around and the rattle of my momma’s chest as she snored with her eyes wide open. Rico’s footsteps coming down the hall ended the silence. When he appeared, he had the nerve to smirk.
“She a customer, word on the street she stopped being yo momma when Raft had to?—”
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Rico’s body dropped before he finished his sentence. His blood sprayed across the drywall as his skull cracked open like rotten fruit. I held my Glock low in my hand with my chest heaving and ears ringing.
“Anybody else got some out-of-pocket shit to say to me?” I eyed every man in the front room ready to empty the clip.
“Y’all serving her like y’all don’t know who the fuck she is! I told you niggas—” I stopped talking to pinch the bridge of my nose.
I hit the side of my head over and over as I felt my eyes gloss over.
“Fuck kind of sandwich is that, nigga?” I asked one of the young niggas that stood off in the kitchen with a big ass sandwich in his hand.
“It’s yo kind, big dawg.” He quickly walked over to where I stood and handed it to me.
Soon as the sandwich touched my free hand, I took a big as bite. I wanted to shoot his ass in the head for still eating bologna. He fried the meat so it was eatable but still, the after taste was nasty. I finished the sandwich in seconds as I watched my momma stir awake.
“Go put my money in the fucking trunk and if anything missing when I count up, all you niggas dead.” I warned them as I focused on my momma as they moved around.
I should kill all these niggas for playing on my fuckin’ top like this.
Acting like she not my fuckin’ momma. Them young niggas in the front knew the fuckin’ deal when I pulled up, after I warned niggas not to serve my fucking momma.
Niggas acted like my momma didn’t used to be beautiful, she used to walk with her head held high.
I thought as nobody said shit. I looked back over at her and she didn’t even flinch.
She was unaware of where the fuck she was.
I walked over to her and damn near wanted to break down as I smelled the strong stench radiating off of her.
I crouched down next to her when she opened her eyes.
She looked at me like she didn’t even recognize me since she was so fucking high.
Her crusty lips curled into a faraway smile as she waved weakly at me.
“I used to love you so much…even when you let me go hungry for weeks,” I whispered, more to myself than her.
I brushed a loose strand of hair from her face and felt my throat close up.
“Trap is closed, and ain’t nobody eating out this bitch until y’all get her to a fifty-one- fifty hospital and tell them she trying to self-harm herself and others.
Wait a couple hours until she starts having withdrawals then take her up there and say you found her on the streets.
They’ll keep her and offer her rehab or something.
Tell my momma when she start going crazy from withdrawals that if she loves Rashad, she’d get clean.
Call the clean-up crew to get that nigga body disposed.
” I said nothing else as I walked to the front door.
The sun hit me like a slap, too bright for the way my insides felt.
My Glock was still warm in my hand as my chest heaved.
The heat pressed down on me like the guilt I felt for making them niggas do the work that I was tired of doing with my momma.
I kept my hopes up with her each time I took her to a facility and begged her several times to make shit right by getting clean.
I stared out at the block like it was a battlefield, niggas cleared the way and was no longer standing on the porch.
Even the three pitbulls laid on the porch like they didn’t want to chance getting shot by me.
I tucked the gun into my waistband as I walked to my truck.
My hands shook and that hadn’t happened in a long as time since I was a kid hiding in the closet, too scared to be left at home by my fuckin’ self.
I slammed my door shut and the silence inside of my car hit like a punch to the gut.
I gripped the wheel tight as I stared out the windshield.
It felt like I was falling apart inside.
My cell phone buzzed, and I knew it was Sol.
I ignored it because I didn’t know how to explain to him once again how I let my momma get me out of character, especially in front of niggas that was supposed to respect me.
I blew a nigga brains out and didn’t regret that shit at all.
I started the engine to my truck and swallowed down all of the emotions that I kept buried.
I wanted to cry but it was no point in crying, it never fixed shit or made my problems go away.
I pulled off slowly with the bag of money tucked in the trunk.
I thought about pulling up to one of my bitches house and having one of them cook a home-cooked meal for a nigga to make me feel better.
Truth was, nothing made me feel better. Everything was temporary.
I joked to make myself laugh, ate to make myself feel worthy.
Soon as it passed, I was back feeling fucked up on the inside.
My soul was heavy since a kid. Lately I been moving without much of a purpose besides going along with the plan that Sol had set out for the both of us.
I been moving like I got a shadow trailing me.
There was so much pressure sitting on my chest. I couldn’t sort my feelings or never knew what my purpose was.
I knew the things that gave me temporary happiness, I sought after it and then was still left feeling incomplete.
The shit that I was feeling on a day-to-day basis wasn’t the type of shit that a person could just say out loud.
When you started talking a certain way, muthafuckas would automatically assume that you was paranoid.
Sol wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to express myself, he’d call me dramatic or tell me to man up and get out of my feelings.
I couldn’t help but to complain to myself about everything that was bothering me.
My joints ached, breath always short. My knees cried when I stood up or sat down.
When I smoked weed, it wasn’t enough to keep my self-pity thoughts at bay.
It didn’t matter how many niggas I killed, none of that shit made me feel powerful.
I wasn’t suicidal or reckless, but I felt fated, like some clock was ticking somewhere.
I didn’t know if it would be a bullet or my heart giving out on me.
I felt it in my gut that I didn’t belong.
I thought about the conversation that I had with Dr. Toby.
Our conversation never left his office because I didn’t go around making excuses for myself.
I didn’t want Sol or my father to feel bad for me and use the medical terms against me.
Dr. Toby came into my life as a court ordered therapist back when I caught my first gun charge at the age of eighteen.
Back then I had no clue with what was wrong with my thoughts being so fucked up.
One moment I could tell myself that I was tripping and then the next, I believed all the negativity that came to mind.
Dr. Toby saw through me; he was quiet and patient, he was never quick to report me to have me committed with all the nutty shit that came out of my mouth.
He didn’t flinch when I told him about the blood and the pain.
I told him all about the nights my momma disappeared and left me to eat dry cereal and sometimes spoiled ass milk.
He listened when I told him how much I hated my own mind. Three months of Dr. Toby listening to me, he told me…
“You have severe bipolar depression, Rashad. You’ve been living in cycles called manic highs, where you feel unstoppable, then you go to soul crushing lows where you feel like you don’t deserve to live.”
I made a joke and ate my chips when he said that shit to me because I didn’t want to believe it. I was put on meds; I took them only when my thoughts became overbearing. The pills made me feel dull as fuck. Like somebody turned the world’s color into black and white.
“Rashad, don’t ever think that nobody could ever love you through all of your different emotions.”
Although my mind was fucked up, Dr. Toby’s words stuck with me till this day.
I let out a few tears then tried to roughly wipe them away.
I stopped crying long ago in front of folks because they would only see it as weakness.
Dr. Toby’s words played over and over inside of my brain.
The familiar ache buried deep behind my ribs held on to hope.
Something inside of me starved to be loved.
Not on no bitch feminine shit, but I wanted to feel something other than what bitches made me feel like because I had the money to trick. I wondered if someone would ever see me pass the money and the gold diamond grills and nice ass cars. I had a lot of what ifs about the shit.
I ain’t never believed in fairy tales or thought a woman could save me.
But maybe a woman could help me save myself because I was spiraling.
I could go home right now and take my medicine to tranquilize my thoughts.
What good would that do when I would get right back in the same mood whenever the meds wore off.