Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Adonis.
“Aight, lil’ man, you up.” I waved my next customer over.
He climbed out of his chair and made his way to me. I grabbed the booster seat and put it in my chair before I helped him up. I grabbed a neck strip to tie around his neck before shaking the cape out and draping it around him.
“Aight, you ready to get right, lil’ man?” I asked as I smoothed the cape down.
He shrugged as his eyes followed what I was doing. I grabbed the first set of clippers and flicked them on. Lil’ homie flinched as soon as the buzz began, causing me to smirk. Most of my kids reactions were the same, especially on their first cut.
“Chill, lil’ homie. They don’t bite.” I assured him, gently grabbing the side of the chair to turn it, then I used two fingers to tap his chin, instructing him to lower his head some. When he did, I nodded and said, “there you go.”
I started at the side, running the clippers in clean strokes. His dark curls tumbled down into little piles on the cape that I brushed off every so often. I brushed his hair forward with a soft bristled brush to check the grain and switched the guards as needed with practiced ease.
He wiggled a little, and I steadied his head with a firm but gentle hand. “Hold still for me, Champ. If you keep movin’, I can’t make you look good for the ladies. You wanna be fresh, don’t you?”
He cracked a smile and muttered, “yeah.”
“I thought so.” I grinned.
I worked my way around his head, fading the sides neatly into the top. Once I was done, I stepped back, narrowing my eyes, then nodded seeing that I was satisfied before grabbing the edgers.
“This is the most important part right here, so be extra still for me.” I said as I pressed the buzzing blade against his hairline. I carved out a crisp line across his forehead, then arched carefully around his temples and ears. Lil’ homie was stiff as a statue while I worked, only blinking.
Once I was done, I brushed the loose hairs away and checked the blend one more time.
Satisfied, I drizzled a touch of moisturizer into my palms and smoothed it over his head, giving the clean cut some sheen before I unfastened the cape, shaking it out in one snap, then spun him around toward the mirror.
“You fuck with it?” We both grinned. His little eyes were lit up at his reflection. “Told you I had you.”
I helped him down and walked him back to his mother.
“Oh, wow.” She beamed. “I love it, Kyrie.”
“Me too.”
She grabbed two dubs from her purse then handed them to me.
“It’s only ten, love.”
“The rest is a tip.” She smiled and stood. “Thank you so much. We’ll definitely be back.”
“Ain’t no thang.” I smiled. “I’ll see you next time.”
As they walked away, my phone rang. I reached inside my pocket to grab it and saw it was the school calling.
I answered quickly as I made my way to the back of my shop.
I’d only been open for business for a week, and the shit had been jumping already.
It was too loud out on the floor for me to answer out there.
“Hello?”
“Is this… Adonis Gates? Guardian for Apollo?”
“Yeah, what’s up? He good?” I frowned.
“Yes, physically he’s fine, but someone will have to come and pick him up.”
“Pick him up?” I repeated, glancing at the G-Shock that I wore to work. “He still got like three hours left.”
“Yes, he does, but Apollo was involved in an incident with a few other students handling a firearm.”
“What?!” I barked, instantly pissed. “Aight, I’m on the way.”
I didn’t even allow them to respond before I disconnected the call and headed out.
I let the guys know that I had to dip and would be back later.
None of them had keys to the spot because I didn’t trust any of them enough to allow them to open and close my shit, so for the moment, I’d do it on my own.
I sped across town to Atlyn Prep to grab my brother. When I entered the office, I didn’t see him, so I asked the lady up front to get ‘em. Instead of AP coming out, the school resource officer appeared and asked me to follow him to the back where AP was waiting in a small conference room.
As soon as he saw me, he stood and said, “man they bogus, bro.”
“What happened?” I ignored my brother and asked the resource officer.
“There was a report of a child bringing a pellet gun to school this morning and he actually fired the weapon at another student during the fight…”
“Was Apollo one of the ones that was fighting?” I quizzed and the officer shook his head.
“He knew where the weapon was hidden…”
“And?” I frowned. “Fuck that gotta do with him?”
“Well, sir, if there’s a weapon on campus it’s everyone’s job to report—”
“Naw, it’s yo’ job to find the shit,” I cut him off. “He’s not a sworn in officer, so it’s not his fuckin’ obligation to do your job.”
“So, if another student had gotten hurt, you’d be okay with that?”
“That wouldn’t be my problem as long as this one straight,” I spat, pointing to my brother. “I don’t give a fuck about nobody else.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate, sir.” He shook his head and slid a sheet of paper toward me. “I need you to sign this form then you can take him.”
“Naw, that shit’s facts.” I snatched the paper and read over it but still asked, “what’s this?”
“A custody release form,” he answered. “You’ll need to sign it to show that I released him into your custody. The school will be in touch about what happens next.”
I dropped the sheet back onto the table and grabbed a pen to scribble my name on it before I tossed it and waved to my brother.
“Come on.”
I waited for him to exit then I followed him. I didn’t say shit to him until we were in my car and rolling.
“Fuck happened, AP?” I snapped after snatching the Beats off of his head. “And don’t fuckin’ lie to me.”
He sucked his teeth and said, “he just told you.”
“Nigga, yo’ ass ‘bout to tell me, and you finna do that shit right now.”
He wasn’t happy about the shit, but he started to explain the story, which further infuriated me. He said two of his homeboys got into a lil’ squabble in the bathroom. Apparently, the shit was planned including one of them bringing the lil’ BB gun to school.
After they fought and the lil’ nigga shot the other one with the gun, they ditched it in AP’s bookbag.
He foolishly allowed the shit then went to an area where there were no cameras with the same lil’ nigga that brought the gun and dumped the shit into a bush.
According to him, the one that got shot ratted on all of them once the word started to spread.
Of-fucking-course he did.
“Let me get this straight,” I chuckled humorlessly, throwing my car in park since we were in front of the crib. “You mean to tell me that you let this lil’ nigga put the shit in your bookbag?” I looked his way. “Like you actually unzipped ya shit and let him do it?”
“We had to move quickly because one of the teachers came in,” he argued. “I was the only one that had my bookbag on me.”
“And nigga?!” I snapped.
“How was we supposed to get it out of there, Donny?” He asked, calling me by the nickname only him and our mother called me.
“You ain’t take the shit in there, so it wasn’t ya fuckin’ job to get it out.”
I was fuming. He always did lil’ dumb shit, but this took the cake. I’d always raised my brother to be his own man and to stand on his own two feet, so I didn’t understand how he let some shit like that go down.
“It was my homeboy, Don,” he sighed. “You can’t tell me that if it was you and Zig you wouldn’t have done the same shit.”
“Got me fucked up,” I said as I got out the car and he followed.
“My homies know not to put me in no shit that’s gon’ get me jammed up or it’s gon’ be some mothafuckin’ problems,” I assured him as we entered the crib.
“Furthermore, I surround myself with real niggas. Zig would have taken his own charge and let the jakes know I ain’t have shit to do with it and vice versa.
We don’t even play them kinds of games.”
“Yeah, I forgot, y’all the realest niggas on earth.” he mumbled. “Fuck outta here.”
He tried saying the last part so that I couldn’t hear him, but I heard it.
“Fuck you say?” I stopped him from walking away.
“Man, watch out, Donny.”
“Move me.”
He tried moving around me again but I stopped his ass once more.
“Here you go.” He shook his head. “I knew you was gon’ get on this fake macho shit.”
In lightning speed, I hemmed his lil’ ass up on the door.
“Bro—”
“Who the fuck you think you talkin’ to, nigga?” I spat.
“Man, Donny…”
He tried wiggling free, but it was futile. He knew he wasn’t getting out of my hold unless I wanted him to.
“You don’ lost yo’ mind cursin’ and talkin’ to me like I’m one of ya lil’ fuckin’ friends, my nigga.”
“You not my father, Adonis!” he shouted as tears welled up in his eyes. “Dang man.”
Despite his words bothering me a little, I smiled and released his lil’ soft ass.
When I hemmed him up, he dropped the shit that was in his hands, so he bent to grab it. I snatched his phone and headphones from his hand then journeyed down the hall to his room grabbing his PS5 as well as the cords to his T.V.
“Bro, what you doin’?” he asked, looking dumbfounded as hell. “Why you takin’ my stuff?”
“Because I bought the shit, nigga.” I looked him up and down. “Call down to ACCD and tell yo’ mothafuckin’ daddy to buy you the shit.”
“Donny, bro,” he sighed. “I ain’t mean it like that.” He tried to clean it up, but the damage was done.
“Naw, you meant the shit just how you said it.” I chuckled humorlessly.
“But it’s straight. I ain’t ya pops, AP, that much is a fact, but we both know that nigga could never walk a mile in my shoes.
I’m the only mothafucka that’s been takin’ care of you, bustin’ my ass your whole life to make sure you were good.
Even when mama was here; I fed you, I clothed you, housed your dirty ass, just like I’m doin’ now!
So, at the very least, yo’ ass gon’ show me some mothafuckin’ respect. ”
He dropped his head. I hated for my brother to feel a way but shit I did too.
Everything I did, I did the shit with his ass in mind.
I did for him before I did for myself. Stopped my whole life for his ass without a second thought.
He ain’t ask me to do it, but he didn’t have to.
Shit was a given. Putting me and our sperm donor in the same sentence was a slap to the fucking face to me.
“The shit you did today was stupid, Apollo, and could have been avoided. You constantly doin’ dumb shit, tryna paint ya self as this tough guy when that ain’t you.
You a good kid with a bright ass future.
If me lovin’ you and gettin’ on you when you fumble makes me the bad guy, then fuck it.
I’ve been viewed as worse for less. You ain’t gettin’ none of this shit back ‘til I find out what the fuck they doin’ about you at that school. ”
“Aight,” he mumbled then looked up at me. “I’m sorry.”
I left him standing there without acknowledging his apology and went to my room to lock the shit up in my safe.
I didn’t like taking his shit because I didn’t like wasting money.
I bought all the shit and paid his phone bill for him.
I didn’t need the shit to be collecting dust or taking up space in my safe, but I wasn’t gon’ reward dumb shit.
He was, at the very least, suspended for five to ten days, so he wasn’t sitting up playing the game and shit all day when he was supposed to be in school.
He was gon’ get up and go to the barbershop with me every day, sweep hair and whatever else me and the guys needed him to do.
I might even get him a babysitter for the nights that I was out and shit since I couldn’t trust that he would make the right decisions on his fucking own.
I rolled a blunt then went out to my balcony to burn. I tried not to smoke in the crib because I didn’t want the shit to smell like weed. All it would take was for AP to go to school smelling like that shit one time to have those people at my door.
I sat, slouched down in my chair, with my blunt burning slowly. The complex was quiet, but my head wasn’t.
“You not my father, Adonis!”
My brother’s words played on a loop in my head. They hit me more than I cared to admit. I lifted the blunt to my lips and took a long, slow pull. I released the smoke slowly and watched the cloud lift.
I hated getting in my feelings about shit involving Apollo. Just like niggas in the street knew he was a for sure way to get me to nut the fuck up, he knew it too. Hell, he knew it more than them niggas.
I knew I wasn’t his father, and a nigga wasn’t trying to be, but I was here. I’d always been there, and I always would be… but damn.
I lightly tapped the end of my blunt on the edge of my chair to get the ashes to fall as my thoughts consumed me.
I didn’t ask for this fucking role, but I ain’t run from the shit either.
I was present for everything, signing school papers, taking care of his ass when he was sick, checkin’ him when he got out of line but also applauding him for his wins.
That shit wasn’t enough?
He’d only said the shit to me three times now, but it hit like a ton of bricks every single time.
He was always apologetic afterward, but that didn’t make the shit hurt any less.
He was only fifteen; angry at the world and angry at me because I was the one in front of him, I understood that, but the shit was still frustrating.
I sometimes found myself angry with my mother when times like this came about. I didn’t want to be emotional and I didn’t want to fight with my brother about shit like this either. I didn’t want to make him cry and shit, and I damn sure didn’t want to feel like I was about to.
But here I was.
I leaned forward, planting my elbows on my knees as I stared at the burning tip of my blunt.
“I ain’t his father, but I’m all he got, and whether he likes it or not—I’m all in.” I mumbled to myself before finishing my blunt and heading back inside.
I wasn’t gon’ sit around in my feelings about the shit. It was water under the bridge, and whether I was public enemy number one or not, I loved my brother to death and was gon’ always be there whether he was doing good or bad.