Anthony #3
Funny how I’d told my brother I owed him and he refused but Jill was here demanding things for me when she’d never done anything for me.
“I don’t owe you anything. You don’t keep a tally with your kids but again, you’re the type. I’m good, and like I said when you release your information from your doctor we will see about the cancer thing. You might not believe it but me and Choo give a fuck, just not the way you want us to.”
“No y’all don’t. Y’all living the high life and think I’m about to go somewhere and get a fucking regular job. Why the fuck would I do that?” Her voice was shaky with the rage of not being able to manipulate me.
“Because you have bills.”
“That’s rich coming from you. You ain’t had to do shit your entire life but run around on a fucking field and wait for you brother to toss you some money but you want to talk about me.” Her bitterness was loud, permeating everything she said making her words sound sour.
“I’ve had a real job. And if this football shit was so fucking easy everyone would do it.
I humbled myself when I lost everything.
I ain’t wait around to get a handout like you swear I did.
I had to swallow my pride and do the one thing I didn’t want to because it was necessary.
When have you ever done that shit, Jill?
You went from relying on the government to relying on your son when we got too old for you to get money from them.
I appreciate that you ain’t let us starve, but you gotta at least be real with yourself on the shit that you did and didn’t do. ”
“So now I wasn’t any good?” She was laughing like something was funny because facing the truth in my words was too much for her.
“I’m done with this. I said what I said. You could’ve got on this call and said ‘congratulations on the contract, I’m proud of you’ or ‘happy your dream is coming true’, like any regular mother. Instead you decided that you want to talk shit like it’s your default setting. I’m good on that.”
“But—”
I hung the phone up gripping it in my hand tightly to settle my nerves. My mind ran through the people I could call to settle me but only one would truly understand why I was so tight because he’d suffered through it with us.
“Where y’at?” My smile was immediate hearing the way he answer the phone.
“Awrite, you got a minute?”
“Always for you my boy. Sumin’ heavy on you I can feel it. Woke up early and threw some food at the swamp, felt like they might need to be putting in some work soon.”
Silas’ ass had to be the descendent of a root worker or Marie Laveau with the way he could sense so much about the world around him.
“You and them feelings.” I grinned thinking of when I stayed with him and observed some of the things he’d done.
He huffed playfully because he knew I wasn’t testing the veracity of his gifts. “They ever been wrong?”
“No suh neva.”
“Then tell me who I might need to feed to the ancestors.” He truly did take care of those gators like they were family and I had to wonder which part of his bloodline he felt they were from.
“Ion’t know if it’s all that bad.”
“My gut is saying it is. Just like when Flash decided he was gonna call me up to handle that vermin that was messin’ with his Rye. But I thought you might’ve called me sooner.”
“About?”
“You know what. I swear you boys think I’m dead just cause I’m older.
I ain’t got but thirty years on you. You’d never know what I might be able to do to some of them same young girls y’all running after.
” We both laughed cause Silas’ ass was a confirmed bachelor and known heartbreaker around the whole state. And that was just what we knew about.
“Them girls would give you a heart attack.”
“Don’t count ol’ Uncle Silas out. But I wouldn’t want a young girl anyway. Give me somebody fine and forty-five and I’ll be good. Now tell me about your problem and then you’re going to tell me about your lady.”
I laughed but I didn’t bother to try to deny it.
He knew me better than most especially after we spent so much time together after Choo got married.
Uncle Silas helped me get my mind right and cleanse it for all of the bullshit I’d been fed by my mother.
Even after I got a regular job, I was still trying to handle everything for her.
It upset me some when Antwan cut her off because she just demanded more from me.
It was misplaced and he helped me see that.
I already knew it deep down but I was taking out my frustrations on the easy target.
“Jill called.”
“‘Course she did. She saw the news like everybody else did. I’m sure she’s tried her hardest to get the lead on what you’ve had going on all this time. Y’all have kept stuff pretty locked down before July.” Silas’ voice never changed inflection so I could assume he too had expected this to happen.
I smirked at his words because Wimbledon did put me onto a national stage and I wasn’t upset about it at all. “I don’t understand what she thinks she’s gonna get now.”
“She thinks she still has your undying loyalty. Flash gave her his ass to kiss when he finally came out of the haze, she’s hoping there’s some smoke left around you to keep her true face hidden.”
My scoff was filled with disdain at the thought of my mother thinking she could still manipulate me after everything she’d done.
“That’s long since gone. Do you know she’s saying she has cancer.”
“You talk to her doctor?” I laughed because he’d said the same thing I had.
“Of course not. But I mean she’s been smoking like a chimney for longer than I’ve been alive so it’s possible.”
“Even if it was you know she ain’t gone do right. You think Jill’s stubborn ass is going to stop smoking? Or drinking for that matter? Her greatest accomplishment in my eyes is that she didn’t get cracked out.”
“Not you thinking she was gone turn to smokin’ rocks.”
“I’d tell you to give up on her but I know you weren’t. You’re going to have to hit this point the same way Flash did.”
He was right. I felt bad, that inkling of doubt and what if that would haunt me forever. She couldn’t get money out of me but if she was sick I’d be sympathetic.
“Why do you think that is?”
“Because y’all are still good boys despite the way that you were both raised. You should’ve been bitter, angry, hate filled. And for a while maybe you were. Both you were able to come out of that and I’m happy to see it.”
“A lot of that was probably because of you.” I tried to keep my voice steady but it still tightened up on me.
Silas’ kindness had been our saving grace: Choo’s when we were kids and mine the last few years. Hell, he’d probably done more for us than even I knew and I was grateful.
“None of it would’ve happened if y’all boys didn’t care enough about wanting to be better. I can tell you anything, but that doesn’t mean you’ll take heed to what anyone says.”
“Maybe.” I squeezed my eyes closed to keep the emotions back and took a deep breath.
“Now about your beauty—”
I laughed at how he was switching it up probably to lighten the heaviness of our conversation. “So we’re done talking about this I see.”
“Nothing else to say. Your mama gone be who she is and the only factor you can control is you. How you choose to act is completely up to you.”
“She makes me happy.” I didn’t have to tell him who the she was I was speaking on.
“I would think so. I had my questions but when I hadn’t seen you crashing out or acting up because of what the media was saying, I knew you were doing okay. And I’m grateful that you didn’t have to cut up behind the headlines.”
Folks kept saying that Aphrodite was slumming it and if she was going to go for someone that had a reputation she should get a rapper or at least an A-list athlete.
“I mean if we’re being real she is too good for me. Got her head on straight, from up north and she ain’t probably ever had to go through the kinda shit that I did.”
“Very few would understand what you went through, Knuck. Even people from Louisiana only don’t know the extent of how bad things were.
And even the people who do inside of the state they’ll do whatever they can to try to deny it.
They don’t want the taint of what they’ve done to weigh too heavily on them so they pretend that ramifications of their misdeeds don’t exist.”
“Man they showing them documentaries and so much is right and so much is white washed. It’s something that makes me so angry.”
The closer we got to that date the worse the feelings got but I’d learn to swallow it down. People bringing it back up for views disguised as information was starting to piss me off.
“I know, son. But there’s nothing you can do about it but protect yourself from it.
It’s a trauma you won’t ever forget because it’s not something a popsicle and a pat on the head will erase.
Folk act like doing the bare minimum makes it go away but it doesn’t.
But you need to focus on everything you’ve gotten since then.
It’s the only way you’re able to keep moving forward. ”
“She knows. Heard me and ‘Twan talk about it and she never looked at me different. I think she might care more.”
“‘Course she does. Women like to know men can be strong enough to show their underbelly sometimes. You in love, Knuck?”
“Yeah.”
“Nah boy you can’t sit there and say yeah . It has to be something deeper than that. You give that girl a yeah and she might run for the damn hills.” Silas’ disgust with what he thought was a lukewarm declaration was clear.
I laughed but his words were the warning I needed to express myself better to her when the time came. “We don’t want that.”
“Course we don’t. So tell me what you’re thinking? You gonna do something like your fool brother and propose in front of all that media at the gala?”
“She can’t attend because of the tournament. I ain’t mad though cause I don’t want to go for real myself.”
“Can’t get out of it. Not now that you’re a big name.”
“Not big name. Not yet.”