Chapter 8 Relic
“Uncle Shabu, move over! Your line is getting tangled in mine!”
“I ain’t doing the shit on purpose! It’s the wind! Relic, get yo ass up and help, nigga!”
Relic angled in his seat with a chuckle, watching his son and brother go at it like siblings while Indigo crawled across his lap as if he were a play mat, and Titan chilled on the swim platform with his jeans rolled up to his knees, so he could dangle his feet in the water.
After mulling over it for a couple days, he’d decided to turn his fishing lessons with Jahleel to a day out with the boys since he’d been too preoccupied to spend time with his brothers.
There wasn’t any telling how long he had left to do it, so he figured he’d hop on the chance before it slipped by.
The countdown on his arrest was forcing him to realize he’d done just that for years—let time pass him by without living or enjoying the moments while he was in them.
“Figure it out yourself. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime, ti frè.” He scooped up Indigo and strolled to where Shabu and Jahleel were standing. “Reel it in to cast again.”
“I’d be better at it if you’d taught me as a kid,” Shabu continued to bitch as he yanked his fishing line to unravel from Jahleel’s before reeling it in. “Nigga got a whole boat nobody knew about and still didn’t teach me. You’d rather keep it close to the chest like it was top secret info.”
“It was. I had fishing, and you had cooking. The fuck is the issue?”
“The issue is that what you mean is, I had Judith and you had Joseph. We could’ve taught each other what they taught us. I offered.”
“I didn’t want to learn from you.”
Shabu stole a glance at his brother before he flung his rod over a shoulder and then cast his line. He didn’t press the issue on who Relic preferred lessons from since they’d been having a good day.
“You didn’t want to learn it from me, but I wanted to learn from you, bro. Anything you wanted to do, I wanted to do, too. You know that.”
“I didn’t want you doing what I did, Shabu, and I still don’t. If I had it my way, you’d be like Titan. Look at him. Not a care in the fucking world.”
They both glanced at Titan before falling into laughter at the nigga swinging his feet while recording their outing to post onto his social media platforms where he made the kind of bank that Relic didn’t have to financially support him. He spoiled his baby brother because he chose to.
“Better late than never,” he stated, throwing Indigo in the air, causing animated giggles to lighten the mood.
“I’m not saying that as an excuse either.
I’m saying it to say, I’m trying to right what I can.
We grew up in the same house, Shabu, but we didn’t grow up the same.
A lot of shit I was told made sense to me then. ”
Shabu leaned to grab his beer off the table for a swig, recounting how Judith had made sense back then as well.
In hindsight, and as a father of two children—with one not being biologically his—he couldn’t understand his mother and Joseph’s actions.
The older he got, the more it dawned on him that they’d pitted him and Relic against each other with their selfish games, leaving him and his brothers the real losers.
He took another sip of his beer before smirking at his son beaming while Relic launched him in the air, not even attempting to dodge the slob catching him in the face from Indie’s wide mouthed laughter.
If anyone could notice the changes Relic was making, and strides that he was taking for Jahleel and to mend their brotherhood; it was Shabu.
“You know, as soon as Indie turns one, I’m tossing his ass in a pool, right? He needs to learn to swim,” Relic said, propping his nephew on his side. “I gotta teach Jah, too.”
“You can try, but Whoop is gon’ beat yo ass. I told her a while ago that we need to start Navy’s lessons, but she’s acting scary about it.”
“Savvy is scared of her own fucking shadow when it comes to these kids. What she gon’ do when they’re school age and leave her?”
“Shit, she might homeschool,” Shabu half-joked since he didn’t put it past her.
“She’s stressed the hell out about CPS questioning us over Navy’s broken arm.
I told her, it was normal, especially since she’s a toddler, but she won’t let it go.
In her head, they’re going to snatch my baby, and put her with Eric.
I’ll kill everything moving before I ever let that shit happen. ”
The reminder that his brother wouldn’t have custody of Navy if Savvy lost it put Relic’s mind back in overdrive.
Shabu had pointed out an oversight on Relic’s part that’d require immediate course correction.
They’d almost made it through their time together without mishaps arising, but knowing there was chance he’d placed his niece in another unsafe predicament because of his bullshit, left Relic with no choice but to reveal a secret he’d hidden for months.
If his brother didn’t hate him before, he knew that’d change as soon as he exposed the truth.
A stretch of silence lingered before Shabu put a hand on Indigo’s head, making his son slap it away with a lour. Relic chuckled while reaching to grab Jahleel’s reel handle, spinning the spool to ease his line further into the water.
“You and Savvy are good, though, right?” he quizzed, and Shabu’s shoulders sagged, unable to conceal his mood dampening.
“We’re straight, but I can’t stop thinking ‘bout the fact she called the shit. She saw it coming since day one, being with a nigga like me. With the way our track records are looking fucked with her and Kenn, I know they’re putting their big ass heads together, making a list of pros and cons on if they should leave our asses or not. ”
The likelihood of Kennedy doing so and having more reasons to leave than stay was obscenely high, prompting Relic’s insides to ball up, making his abdomen clench.
He didn’t show it on his face. Empathy for his brother didn’t come either because it was unnecessary.
Relic didn’t hold a single doubt in his mind about Shabu smoothing out the rough patch with Savvy, but he was sinking to the bottom of whatever thin assed ice lake Kennedy had him skating on.
“Savvy won’t have to worry about shit like that soon, so you’re good,” he told Shabu, who peered at him with a hiked brow.
“Fuck that mean? I hope you’re saying ‘cause we gon’ handle that situation. If it was your way of telling me that you’re about to pull me out, it ain’t happening because I’ll be damned if a nigga catches you lacking again. Whatever I gotta do to keep you here with us, it is what it is.”
“That ain’t your job, Shabu, so sit your ass down and take care of yo family like you were doing before I pulled you back in.”
Relic made that simple order and cast his eyes toward the expansive water. His brother proving he had, indeed, produced a milder version of himself unsettled Relic more than it brought him peace of mind, knowing Shabu would do whatever necessary to keep him around.
Shabu looked lost at their abrupt turn in conversation. “Where is this shit coming from, bro? Help me understand where yo head is at right now.”
“I’m telling you where it’s at, so open your damn ears and listen.
I don’t want you doing shit else for me, Shabu.
Put your family first. Keep striving toward the great man, father, and husband I see you turning into right in front of my eyes.
Like I told you, I don’t want you to do or be like me, nigga. Be better.”
“I wouldn’t have the opportunity to be better if you ain’t sacrifice to put me in a position to do that, Relic, so I got your back whether you want me to or not. Mwen renmen ou plis pase tout. It’s no way I’m gon’ leave you hanging, bro.”
The flitter Kennedy put in Relic’s chest was miniature compared to the one he endured from Shabu avowing to a brotherly love he assumed was dying out.
He didn’t give it a second thought before yanking his brother into a one-armed hug, palming the back of his head as Indigo tried to push Shabu away before whining from being squished in the middle.
“This is the shit I love to see!” Titan extolled, making Relic and Shabu release one another before they glanced at him. He raised his recording phone and told them, “I’m so happy y’all niggas acting right, I ain’t even gon’ speak on how you just told that nigga you love him more than me.”
“More than anyone,” Jahleel corrected. He pulled his attention from the water to ask Relic, “Do you love Uncle Shabu more than me?”
“Nigga, fuck yea! We just met you,” Shabu joked, and Relic smacked him upside the head, while Titan spit out a boisterous laugh.
“Don’t tell my son that shit! I love y’all the same, Jah. You, Shabu, and Titan are all one third of my heart. I don’t have room for anyone else, so don’t ask.”
“What if you have another kid?” he quizzed anyway.
“I won’t, but if I did, are you willing to give up space on your side of my heart for a sibling?”
“Yea, if it’s with Ms. Kennedy. I’d share my side with her and the baby, or I’ll give them space in my heart if you don’t have room in yours.”
Shabu scratched his brow and exchanged an amused glance with Titan before he settled a pitying one on Relic.
“I don’t know who Kenn Dog got more whipped, you or my nephew. How’s that gon’ work if you and her... you know?”
Relic huffed a breath before scrubbing a hand over his mouth, accepting the fact that he’d fucked up introducing Jahleel and Kennedy.
He hadn’t expected them to grow so close, and the idea of Jahleel loathing him for taking away another motherly figure if it came down to that caused his insides to loop and knot like lariat rope.
Jahleel frowned, his eyes pinging between the two. “If they what? Break up?”
“We can’t break up because we’re not together, Jah. I told you that.”
“But she’s staying at the house with us, and you don’t bring nobody there.”
“Who said she was staying with us?”