Chapter 25 Proctor
Proctor
I was sitting at the stoplight across from my daughter’s daycare with my daughter in the backseat, reading an article about the explosion at Dianne’s Soul Food the week before.
They credited it to a gas leak, but the truth was that gas leak was credited to me.
I needed payback for that snake of a bitch turning on me after all those years I supported her.
All because she wanted some dick, she decided I deserved to spend life in prison.
I laughed to myself as I closed out of the article.
No lives were lost in that explosion, but she definitely took a loss.
I guess her husband died in vain anyway, and every dollar she had invested in that building was now gone.
I even made sure that she didn’t have fire insurance before going through with that plan.
It's good that she had snakes around her just like she was the snake around me.
When the light turned green, I drove to the parking lot and then turned around to give my daughter her motivational speech of the day.
“Little mama?”
“What?” she said happily from the backseat.
“You’re going to have a good day today, ain’t that right?”
“I don’t know,” she made me laugh because her little ass was blunt as hell.
It was amazing how much she had grown over the past year or so. The little girl had an attitude so crazy that we swore she had the same blood running through her veins as me. Treasure acted just like my family and me, cold-blooded toward people who we didn’t love.
My phone rang through the speakers in the car, and I answered, happy to talk to my wife. Today was her first day of school, and I know she was nervous, but I also know she was about to kill this shit like she did everything else in life.
“Talk to me, wifey. What’s up?”
“Nothing really, love. I’m sleepy, ready to come home and lay under you,” she said, sounding like she was slumped over in her seat.
“You know, I'm going to be waiting on you with open arms.” She giggled.
“You know that I know. What are you doing, big man?”
“About to drop Treasure off at daycare.”
“Proc, it is an hour after you were supposed to drop her off. She is not supposed to be that late, baby.”
“I know, I know, but we went to Waffle House. We were hungry, baby and you know how us Proctor’s like to eat.” I laughed because I knew Ari was about to fuss at a nigga.
“Proctor, she’s missing out on curriculum that she should be learning. We pay for her to learn at daycare, so stop letting her play hooky for half the morning.”
“Baby, it’s not half the morning, and I’m sure they're not even done eating breakfast in that mutha fucka yet. She will be alright. She already smart as fuck anyway.”
“Yeah, I know that” she replied, and I could hear the smile crack in her voice.
“But anyway, how’s your class going?”
“It’s going good. My English lit teacher seems boring, but the syllabus makes me think the class will be easy. My next class is in ten minutes and is math, so let’s see how that goes.”
“It will be fine and I’m proud of you, nonetheless. You're doing something you want to do, and you have my full support baby girl. I love you.”
“I love you more. Talk to you when I am on my next break.”
“Okay. later.”
She hung up the phone.
I dropped off Treasure at daycare before heading across town. The city was big as hell, so it took me about forty-five minutes to get to the other side, where my little brother Houston was waiting so we could talk more about our new club.
We had found the space, and we had the means. There’s just a few more things we have to figure out before we could get construction of the club up and running.
My son was still back in Vegas doing his thing, but we figured we could expand our enterprise even more.
I was tired of being under my son’s wing, even though he took good care of his father.
I wanted to lead by example, even if it was later on in life, and show him that I was a man on my own, whether I had him or not.
He and his wife were still trying for a baby, and I prayed that one day I would be a grandfather and be able to say that my son had a son of his own, because he was already one of the greatest men I know.
Being with Cyn had changed my son. A lot of people might get upset about their family changing, but I wasn’t. She changed that boy for the better, the same way Ari changed me. Now I see myself as a family man and I wasn’t worried about women or selling myself for money anymore.
When I pulled up outside the gambling shack my brother Houston liked to frequent, I already knew he was inside losing money he knew he could lose because Houston wasn’t a dummy.
Houston had graduated from the University of Houston and even played football there for a while.
My brother and I hadn’t always gotten along because we were both headstrong, and he used to think everything I did was wrong.
That was until he realized that sometimes being on the right side of things still left you on the wrong side.
He was an established dentist in the city who still ran into issues on the streets because when trouble follows you, that shit neva ends.
When I got out of the car, a few people greeted me as I walked through the niggas standing outside.
“What up, Proc?”
“What up, Proc?”
“What’s up? Houston in there?”
“Yeah, he's in there,” One of the niggas, Scooby, replied while taking a bottle of moonshine to his mouth.
When I walked inside the shack, it was dark in the front hallway leading to the living room, where the curtains were pulled tight.
“Yo, Houston, where you at, baby bro?”
“What up nigga, back here?”
I heard Houston’s voice, just as deep as mine, because that nigga was easily one inch taller than me. I followed his voice that sounded like mine to the living room area and stopped in my tracks when I saw two bodies lying on the floor.
“What the fuck happened here, nigga?”
“These boys tried to rob me, Proc, so I had to drop they punk ass. Now I have to get this shit cleaned up, because I have to work in the morning. Ain’t that about a bitch.”
I shook my head at this so called dentist that had more bodies and hoes than I ever fuckin had.
People thought I was ruthless, but they had never met my brother, Houston, before. He was good at putting on for the public, but deep down inside, he was the man I used to be times fuckin ten. I’m retired from a lot of shit that Houston is just getting started on.