2. Quasim
Quasim
I hated the fucking mornings.
Like clockwork, I heard phantom cries of Harley. No matter where I was, I could have sworn I heard my baby girl crying out for me. Soon as my feet hit the floor, I got onto my knees and surrendered to the lord, saying my morning prayers. I needed him to quiet the thoughts in my head and forgive me for all the sins that I had committed.
No sooner than I said amen, I felt like I could breathe a bit more. That he had forgiven me and was giving me this slight relief so I could go on about my day in a little less mental agony. My chest wasn’t as tight as when I woke up, or when I tossed and turned in my bed all night. Sleep never came easy, and I had grown used to not being able to sleep. Whenever sleep evaded me, I laid with my arms behind my head and stared at that ceiling, thinking of how the fuck my life turned out this way.
As I stretched, I bypassed Harley’s bedroom and looked inside like I did every morning, like I would see her in the bed with her wild, curly hair that all of us Infernos shared, including Rayce. It was crazy how those Inferno genes were.
When I stared at Rayce long enough, I saw Harley when she was a baby. Shit pulled at my heartstrings every time I picked her up, because it felt like I was holding my daughter all over again. The silence within the house haunted and soothed me all at the same time.
I should have been hearing my daughter hollering about something, Cherie complaining about me snoring the night before, and the sound of us all moving around in the morning to start the day. If I closed my eyes long enough, I felt like I could hear Cherie hollering about her flat iron not being hot enough for her thick hair.
The same morning routine I had been doing for years took place. Grab my number one dad mug that Cherie had gotten me when she found out she was pregnant, make my way to the Keurig, input the ounces, and hit the button. The mornings were like autopilot for me, and I could do it with my eyes closed.
The sound of the machine spitting coffee into my mug was the white noise of the morning while I looked at my phone and saw the ping of Blair’s anklet that I had given her. My Anjo was important to me, and I wanted to make sure she was always protected. I never invaded her privacy, and the only reason it was alerting me was because she was on the move early in the morning, outside of her normal hours.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” I heard Blair whisper as she leaned up in the bed.
I had listened to her guzzle the water like a damn camel in the desert before she realized that I was even awake. Before she woke to quench her thirst, I stayed awake, listening to her soft snores and moans as she slept peacefully. With her so close to me, I wanted to just protect her from everything, including the unknowns. Blair was so fragile, yet mighty.
She needed me, and at the same time, I knew I needed her. She had the power to break that block of ice that resided inside of my chest. Who the fuck was I kidding? Her soft manicured hands had already started to chisel away at the ice, allowing me to breathe and feel a little more.
Feel for her.
My heart had been closed off for so long since losing Cherie and then my daughter, that the shit physically hurt to open it back up. Especially to a woman like Blair… one that had the potential to break it as quickly as she healed it.
After I lost Cherie, I swore off ever feeling something for another woman. I had lost the love of my life in the most horrific way.
Then turned around and lost my daughter, too. Feeling that pain of coming into a home without my family was something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Having to leave the hospital without my love was a pain I hadn’t healed from, even though I had tried.
“I never sleep at night, Anjo.” I replied, as I continued to rest on my back with my arms behind my head.
She shifted in the bed and looked over at me on the couch. “Do you want to switch? I’ll sleep on the couch… I know the couch can’t be that comfortable.”
I would take the couch as long as I knew she was comfortable. My only concern was her being comfortable, physically and in life. With Blaze and Capri taking over her room, we had to share the room. I stepped out while she changed, and she remained quiet while I prayed.
Anjo and I had a mutual respect for each other that just worked. It was the reason I was so in love with her and kept trying to convince myself that I was tripping. I couldn’t love again like that… not someone that could possibly leave me.
Cancer was serious and I knew because I had gone through it before. The last time I went through it, I watched my daughter become a shell of herself. So weak and fragile that she was practically staring into my eyes and begging for death to save her.
So much pain…
So many tears I shed with her.
Seeing your baby in pain wasn’t something any parent should have to experience. I watched as her skin peeled from the radiation, how her lips cracked because they were so dry. Her beautiful curls falling from her head and holding her as she cried and asked me if she was still as pretty as her favorite princesses.
I heard the bed creak and saw the white short set Blair wore to bed making its way over toward me. “Can I lay on you, Quasimmy?” She asked.
No words were exchanged as I nodded my head, and she carefully climbed on top of me. Her small body not making a dent on mine. She looked into my eyes and gave me a small smile before kissing me on the cheek and resting her head in the crook of my shoulder.
“Anjo,” I stressed.
The moment felt so good that I didn’t feel like I deserved this. Blair felt like one of Gam’s cookies after a stressful day. The perfect cure for whatever you were going through, and I never wanted the feeling to end. Never wanted to lose her. Her soft skin gliding against mine, and the smell of her freshly washed hair was a cure for all the bad things that swarmed my mind.
“We don’t need to talk about our feelings tonight... I just want to feel your arms around me…Please, Simmy.”
I obliged and wrapped her in my arms, kissing her forehead. She cuddled deeper as I grabbed a handful of her ass, and she giggled while kissing my jaw. “You hardheaded.”
“I am.”
“Gonna handle that.” I whispered and squeezed her tighter as we both laid on the couch, instead of the king-sized bed that was a few feet away from us.
“I look forward to the day.” She whispered back as she placed another kiss on my jaw before making herself even more comfortable.
With the balcony door opened, we could feel the warm breeze caressing both our skin. Not too long after holding her, those soft snores returned and I rested my lips on her forehead, kissing it a few times before sleep had entered my body. Almost like it was contagious, and I could only catch it when Blair was near.
“Fuck,” I muttered when I saw that I hadn’t stopped the machine in time to avoid it overfilling my coffee mug.
The settings weren’t right for my mug of choice, my only mug of choice, so I always had to hit the highest setting and snatch the cup away and turn the machine off when it reached the desired height of my coffee mug. I carefully walked over toward the sink and poured the extra coffee into the sink before bringing the piping hot cup to my lips.
Taking a sip of the black coffee, I nodded my head in approval as I looked out the kitchen window at the stray cat that I kept fed. Her hoe ass better not had brought any more babies to my damn front yard, or she was gonna end up hungry.
Before going into the living room, I swiped my bible off the counter and went to go dive deep into the word this morning. My scriptures every morning always kept me levelheaded, and closer to God. Without it, there would be a lot more dead muthafuckas laying around. The minute I stepped out that front door, I acted like I had never heard the word or prayed to our father a day in my life.
It was hard staying grounded in the word when you were a real-life demon to others. I got comfortable on the couch as I opened my bible on my lap and flipped to where I had left off yesterday morning.
The silence consumed me once again, and I took a deep breath as I read the words. Gams had given me this bible when I was fifteen years old. She gifted both me and Meer the same bible, both of them had our names inscribed in the back.
Meer’s bible had caught fire when moms burned the apartment down. I like to think the reason my brother was here today was because that bible was in that room with him. He always got choked up when he spoke about how he stared at the posters in his room, knowing his time on earth was coming to an end.
I like to say my secret power was having a praying grandmother. Gams made sure we knew the bible front and back, and that we stayed rooted in the church. Me and Meer grew up in the church, Meer singing and me playing the piano.
With the chaos that my father was causing in the streets, and my mother chasing behind him, she needed to keep us both close to something. The older we both became, the further we strayed from the church, but Gams never judged.
That wasn’t her.
Unlike other judgmental church folks, that wasn’t my grandmother. She never forced it down our throats. She knew the roles we had to play, being Quinton Inferno’s sons, and knew the damage that we had caused since we were young.
The minute I was old enough, I jumped off the porch and right onto a bike and had been moving ever since. Meer was right behind me before I redirected his ass and made him attend college.
My brother wanted to follow in my shadows, and I wanted more for him. This role was already mapped out for me the minute my mother pushed me out. I was always going to step into the role of King Inferno, head of the Inferno Gods. Did I expect to step into it sooner rather than later?
Nah.
Quameer didn’t have to live this life; he could attend college and have a life outside of this. All because he respected me, and I promised him I would make him an Inferno God; he went and graduated college at the top of his class.
Nigga was super smart, and because of college, his ass was sitting on a lot of money. I was good at redirecting everyone else’s life except my own. The minute Cherie was taken from me, and then Harley left behind her, I didn’t give a fuck what happened to me. I never cared about what happened, because I wanted to be reunited with my family. I considered myself a lost soul, just wandering this earth until it was my time. I felt dead on the inside.
That was until Blair Underwood walked into my life.
That morning, when I saw her sitting at Cappadonna’s counter with tears in her beautiful eyes, I felt this pull to her. I was drawn to her, and had never been drawn to any woman since Cherie was taken from me.
The thought of some woman I had never met having this strong hold over me scared the shit out of me. I wanted to protect her and didn’t even know her story yet. She didn’t need to tell me her story, because her eyes told me before she could mention her name.
I knew that when I heard her story, it would cause a nigga to shed tears and make a nigga shed blood. My heart felt tight whenever she was near, and I didn’t know this woman from a hole in the wall.
Blair had been hurt, betrayed, and her trust in people remained unscathed. She was so trusting and the love she held in her heart was like a warm hug in a blizzard. That first sip of hot cocoa after climbing through the treacherous blizzards of New York.
Every part of my body told me to stay away from her, to pretend like we hadn’t met. Her life wasn’t my business, so why the fuck did I care about the woman that I had only met seconds before?
How could someone that had been wronged be so welcoming and accepting of love? It was something I spent most of my time trying to figure out. Every interaction we had, she chipped a little piece of ice from inside of my chest. Every smile, laugh, and flirtatious banter we shared, warmed my heart.
It scared the shit out of me, but I couldn’t stay away. It was easy to pretend to be nonchalant, because naturally, I didn’t give a fuck about anything besides my family. I didn’t want Blair to see that side of me, though. I wanted to let my walls down and let her into who I was as a person.
I wanted her to know pieces of me that not even my family knew. Shit that I had only told the one woman that was now buried six feet below us. I didn’t want her to feel like she was walking in the footsteps of Cherie.
What me and Cherie had could never be duplicated, and with Blair, I never wanted it to be. What me and Blair shared was different, deeper even. When she stared into my eyes, she trusted me. She knew I would protect her, and nothing was uncertain in her heart.
Blair had always been certain since the first day that I met her. Every time after that, I would watch as her eyes followed me, how she took me in, and learned how I moved. I noticed her studying me, because I was doing the same with her. I could see the days when she didn’t feel good because of chemo, still, she pushed through because if she gave someone her word, she was gonna be there.
She never complained.
Never.
For so long, she has had to roll with the punches, that naturally, she hated to complain. It scared her to complain, and I didn’t like that shit. In Monaco, the bartender made her drink wrong and from the twist of her lips, I could tell she didn’t enjoy it.
Instead of complaining, she continued to sip the nasty ass drink, until I took a sip and shoved that shit back onto the bar and demanded he make another one. Even when he gave me attitude and I leaned up to put his head through the bar, she quickly put her foot on me, forcing me to hold her ankle.
Feeling her soft body on mine, calmed me. The heat that I felt in my body instantly cooled and it was because of the beauty sitting across from me. Even when she removed her leg from my lap and crossed them, I kept my hand around her ankle. I needed to feel a piece of her, because the shit felt nice.
Blair Underwood calmed something inside of me. I had no choice but to make her mine because I didn’t think I could live without her. I’ve already been forced to live without my daughter and Cherie. When it came to Blair, there was no other choice but to make her mine.
Make her Queen Inferno.
Except, like a pussy, when she told me she wanted to be my wife and have my babies, I folded. Ran away like a fucking coward because I wanted those same things. I had wanted to put babies in her since the night I scooped her up from homie’s lap in Miami. Seeing another man touch what was mine had me so mad that I couldn’t function.
As I held that man’s neck, I was having a silent conversation on if I should have ended his life. It wasn’t his fault, he didn’t know the thoughts going through my head and didn’t know the invisible claim I had put on Blair.
How was he supposed to know, when she was sitting on his lap willingly? None of that mattered to me because I saw someone touching what was mine and I didn’t like that shit. His ass should have read my mind when I stood over his ass with that look on my face.
That was his chance to excuse himself, instead, he continued to sit there and got his ass handled. When it came to Blair, I would handle any nigga that was a problem for her.
Including her pussy ass soon to be ex-husband.
Shit always ended up coming back to me, and Blair was my obsession. I studied her ass and watched how she moved. Ever since Tookie’s bitch ass had kidnapped her and Alaia, my eye was always on my baby.
There wasn’t shit that she could do that wouldn’t get back to me. Before she even knew, I had Gods watching her when I couldn’t. I didn’t know the story behind why she married that sucka ass nigga, and I was waiting for her to tell me.
You couldn’t want to marry me, and have me pump you full of my babies, but wasn’t keeping it real with me. It wasn’t for nobody to tell me except Blair.
I didn’t want to find the shit out from nobody except her. She had to be the one to stare me in the eyes and tell me that she married that nigga. A nigga that wasn’t even worthy of the spit in my mouth.
The doorbell rang and I closed my bible and placed it on the coffee table before walking over toward the front door. My slippers slid across the wooden floors, as I did a slight stretch before opening the door.
A pair of light brown eyes followed by a toothless grin. “Elijah, you’re late this morning.” I raised my eyebrow, and he looked behind him.
“Mama wouldn’t wake up… I had to use the nose stuff to wake her up.” He spoke about the Narcan I had shown him how to use.
I held the door open for him and he came in, kicking his dirty sneakers off in the foyer. “She good now?”
“She was hollering at me about the kitchen, but I’m hungry. Her boyfriend punched me in the chest, but it didn’t even hurt, Sim,” He shrugged it off like it was nothing, which hurt my heart.
Elijah was nine years old, and had seen more shit than he should have. He and his mother have lived across the street from me since he was seven. Thea was a single mother working full-time and fucking with the wrong men. A few times, I had to come over there when a boyfriend she was so in love with had put his hands on her.
She always thanked me and promised that she was done, but she was never truly done. It wasn’t my business, so I stayed out of her shit. When she got with her current boyfriend, I realized the car was repossessed, and she was no longer leaving the house to head to work. Child protective services had been there a few times because Elijah had missed school.
Instead of her leaving, a black BMW pulled into her driveway. I always happened to peep homie on my way out and he nodded his head before heading into her house.
I never acknowledged him.
Stared right in his face each time as he went into the house, obviously having a key, because Thea gave him one. The more she kept that nigga around, the more neglected Elijah became. He didn’t have a haircut, clothes were two sizes too small, and he got teased because he smelled.
I didn’t live in the best neighborhood, and I like it that way. I bought my house with cash.
My cash.
I could afford to buy a big ass modern house like Blaze, but this home was my comfort. This was the home I brought my baby girl home to. Me and Cherie were so fucking young and excited when we moved in.
Shit was ours and nobody could take credit for nothing. Like with everything, the longer you’ve been somewhere, the more changes you’re bound to see, and that was what happened with the neighborhood. All the older people died, and their children sold their property to some developer that promised to turn the neighborhood around.
This neighborhood was supposed to have been turned around two years ago and it only kept getting worse. They couldn’t turn it around because I was the nigga that was here, and owned three houses on this block, including the house that Elijah lived in.
Every month, Thea found a way to pay the rent, and when she was late, I never hounded her. If she stayed on the block, I was able to watch Elijah and look out for him because his mother never cared.
“My bible still in the guest room?” Elijah ran toward the guest room, and I caught a whiff of him and sighed.
Since I started taking care of Elijah, I had bought him a bible of his own. His mother gave him a biblical name and the boy didn’t even know what his name meant and how powerful it was. Every morning, he came over here to read his bible before taking a shower and getting a warm breakfast before catching the school bus.
“Yo, Eli…” I allowed my voice to trail, and he looked at me, knowing what I was about to ask.
His head looked down and I walked over and lifted his head. “What I told you about looking down?”
“Gods never look down, they look upon,” he recited.
“You wet the bed again?”
“Yes, Sim.”
I kneeled down. “You straight… don’t gotta be ashamed around me. Go take a shower and then pick some clothes out for school. I’ll get started on breakfast while you read your bible.”
Elijah slowly nodded his head as a tear fell down his cheek and I swiped it away. “Thank you, Sim… I want to stop.”
The environment he lived in contributed to him wetting the bed. At any time of the night, I could look out my bedroom and see multiple cars in the driveway and the music bumping. Nobody ever called the police because that wasn’t shit you did around this way.
“Homie punched you in the chest?”
“Yeah… said I ate all the food from last night… my stomach was hurting.” He was apologizing and it made me upset.
Pissed me off that he was sorry for fueling his body, having food that was meant for him. “I got you on some breakfast and lunch today. Go shower and I’ll be back.”
I stood back up and Elijah hugged me tightly and I rubbed his soft curls. He went down the hall to shower, a routine that we both had settled into.
When I wasn’t in town, I made sure Havoc came over and was here when he knocked. I had been taking care of Elijah for a year, and nobody except Havoc knew.
Not even Blaze.
When I heard the shower, I slipped out the front door and made my way across the street. Elijah always left the door unlocked because he didn’t have a key. I entered the house right away and turned my nose up at the smell of cigarettes, ass, and moth balls. Smelled like niggas was in here opening their asses up.
The sound of the TV was coming from the living room, which had nothing more than a ratty ass couch that had seen better days and a few lawn chairs. The only thing worth something was the flatscreen TV that sat on a cheap TV stand that was one huff and puff away from falling onto the floor.
Weed trays, white residue, and needles littered the fake marble coffee table. It was crazy how reckless Thea was when it came to her son’s life. If Elijah wasn’t smart enough, he could fuck with any of this shit that was spread out on this table.
My slippers damn near stuck to the tiled floors because they were sticky. I never bothered to dump money into this house because Thea didn’t know how to keep a damn house clean. From the sticky floors to the holes in the wall going up the hall, I had been in trap houses that looked better.
When I made it to her bedroom door, I could hear loud snoring before I twisted the doorknob and opened the door. Thea was sprawled across the bed while the TV watched her.
She was awake.
Her eyes were glossy as she watched them report on the traffic heading over the George Washington bridge this morning. Her nose red from Elijah saving her fucking life this morning, and her blonde hair matted to her head.
She looked like a blonde Q-tip as she laid lifeless on the bed. I knew better, though, because without removing her eyes from the TV screen, I heard her soft voice.
“Have you come to yell at me this morning?” She weakly asked, as I took space in the doorway.
Had I not been listening I would have missed what she said because of the loud snores of her boyfriend. He was comfortable, tucked into the king-sized bed under blankets and with the fan facing him.
The bedroom was the only room that looked decent and comfortable. Meanwhile, Elijah’s room reminded me of a prison cell. Even prisoners had more in their cells than he had in his bedroom. There were no posters of his favorite action figures, toys everywhere, or a computer or gaming system with cases lying around.
It was a small twin sized bed that had a mismatched blanket, sheet, and pillow combo, the faint hint of piss and Irish Spring soap, because Elijah thought he could clean up his mess before his mother discovered it.
She never did.
Reason why he went to school smelling like piss and was being teased by his peers. His closet was bare and had the same clothes that I kept washed for him. Thea’s ass never bothered to wash his clothes, brush his hair, or take him to get a haircut.
“Thea, we spoke about if he put his hands on Elijah again. I told you that I would burn this bitch to the ground with you in it… right?” I walked over toward the side of the bed her boyfriend was on.
Thea leaned up in her bed, fear in her eyes as I punched the nigga in his chest, sending him flying up and finding himself in a coughing fit. He nearly coughed out a lung as he tried to catch his breath.
Thea crawled across the bed concerned for him. More concerned than she was about her son who he had abused after he saved her fucking life. “He has asthma,” she panicked, as she tossed herself across the bed and went to dig in the night table.
When she tossed herself back across the bed, I grabbed her wrist and snatched the inhaler from her. While homie was trying to catch his breath, desperate for the pump, I held it in my hand and pumped it into the air.
“Thirty pumps until this is finished.” I smirked as it counted down from the thirty, I had announced.
His eyes widened while he clutched his chest.
“He’s going to die… you don’t want him to die, right?” Thea was more alive than I had seen her in the past year.
Fourteen…
Thirteen…
Twelve…
I continued to press the inhaler as I watched the both of them. Him with his hand on his chest, and her holding onto him like he was a prized possession.
Six…
Five…
Four…
“Bitch, you should give more fucking concern for your son instead of the same nigga that got you hooked on that shit… he put his hands on your seed, and you don’t bat an eyelash.”
“Elijah needs the discipline… he’ll be out of control without Leon to help lead him.” I took a seat on the edge of the bed next to homie.
Despite being on the cusp of an asthma attack, his ass was still smart enough to be scared and scoot away. Thea remained close to him as I extended my hand and plucked her in the mouth.
“Ouch.” Her bony hands found their way to her lips as she looked at me shocked. I didn’t put my hands on women unless they deserved it.
Even then, I preferred to get it done quickly. I was never the type to take my anger and strength out on a woman. While she held her mouth, I grabbed her by the neck and stared into her eyes.
“Go take a fucking shower with yo fishy ass. You too busy worried about getting high and this nigga’s lungs, while you over here smelling like fucking Chicken Of The Sea.” I turned my nose up and shoved her ass off the bed.
She scurried from the floor to the attached bathroom. “You… take these three pumps so you can listen to me clearly.”
I extended my hand, and he reached for the asthma pump, taking each pump slowly and inhaling the chemicals into his body. Just as he relaxed on the second pump, I snatched him up by his shirt and tossed him across the room.
“Aye… man…. I told you I don’t be getting her high no mo.” He copped the plea, and he wasn’t lying.
Thea had found someone else to scratch the itch that Leon could no longer scratch for her. She kept him around because she loved him. When he left out in the morning to do whatever the fuck he did, a Ford Expedition pulled into the driveway and stayed for a few hours before he was gone.
“I told you that if you put your hands on Elijah that I was gonna put mine on you… right?”
He shook his head so fast I could have sworn I saw it unscrew. On his neck’s second trip from going up and down, I punched him in the mouth, sending him flying back into the wall.
Leon was too scared to get up because he knew showing any part of me that he wanted to go toe to toe would entice me, and I would spend my morning whopping his ass all up and through this crib.
“The little nigga always in so—” His words were stopped short when I stomped his ass into the ground.
“I don’t give a fuck what he did… you put your hands on him again and I’m gonna make sure that I end you, Leon. I’ve been being nice because I’m not in the mood to catch a body in my investment property… just because I don’t want to doesn’t mean that I won’t. Clean this fucking house from top to bottom… nasty ass sleeping next to her, and she smell like fucking Joe’s Crab Shack.”
He stammered over some inaudible words before he caught his bearings. “You got it, Sim… I won’t touch em no more… I promise.”
I walked over toward the night table and took his key fob. “Don’t knock on my door until I can smell the fucking Pine Sol from my house.” I stared down at him as I heard the shower running in the bathroom.
This was the second time that Elijah told me that Leon put his hands on him, and I had already punched his front tooth out before, warning him of what would come if he continued. You had three strikes with me, and the three strikes were more so for me and not the other person. I figured within those three strikes, the other person would get it together, and I wouldn’t have to show them who I really was.
They never learned.
The one thing I did know is that if Elijah came to my house and told me that he put his hands on him again, Thea was gonna be mourning, because her boyfriend was gonna get tossed up while she watched the shit. Once I was done, she was gonna clean up his fucking blood.
I looked down at Leon’s sorry ass and turned to leave the room while tossing his keys up and catching them. “Think I might take Elijah to school in your shit… might just take him to get breakfast and let him make a fucking mess with a chicken biscuit sandwich.”
The horror in Leon’s eyes confirmed that was exactly what I was going to do this morning. I might even run a few errands while I was already out.