Goon #3
It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, either. She expressed how she felt and I accepted it, even if what she said was hard to process. She was sounding like Khaos, and while I understood where they were coming from, something in my heart wouldn’t allow it to happen.
What the fuck I looked like tossing her out on her ass, no matter how many times the thought came across my head.
I reached for her hand, and she placed it inside of mine, as I lifted it and kissed the back of it. “I love you, Baby.”
She looked over her sunglasses. “I love you, Pumpkin.”
I smirked. “Oh shit.”
“What?”
“Never thought I’d hear Ms. Lawyer Lady say that shit so willingly.”
We both laughed, as I drove further away from the city and into the more rural area. “Where are we going?”
“Up country.”
“I’m gonna pretend I know what that means. We passed by the KFC and now we over here next to farms and shit.”
My grandparents owned land in Mile Gully, which was in Manchester Parrish. All of this farmland felt like home to me. I grew up always driving these same winding roads to their home. The air felt different and the sun shinned a bit brighter.
Even being here, I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I had to come today and see them, and sleep under their roof. I knew Boobie was going to throw a fit, but I wanted her to understand me.
When I first came home after being locked up, I sat in the second room and wanted to cry because the shit felt like heaven. You didn’t know what you missed until it was taken away from you.
We didn’t get to visit back home often once we were older because money was tight.
Whenever moms could get a cheap flight for us, we came and spend time here.
I’d run on the land, go down to the water pump and refill the water jugs.
All the shit that modern ass kids would throw a fit over, I did it because I loved being here.
She let her hair free from the bun it was in, as I drove up a hill. I watched as she sang along to the music as her hair was going wild in the air. This peace wasn’t some thing that I could ever pay for.
Her hand did a wave motion out the window, while she sang her entire heart out. I loved seeing this part of her because it was one she never let anyone see often. Not even her own family got the chance to witness this.
Zoya being peaceful and free was foreign to many people.
Not me.
The further we drove into Mile Gully, the more the road disappeared from us.
Pavement gave way, as we hit the curved roads that took us further into the hills.
It was a rough drive, but one the locals made every day.
I shifted the gear the deeper we got into the hills.
Boobie was gripping the door every time we hit a dip in the road.
The homes this way weren’t stacked on each other.
Once you saw one, you could see miles and miles of green before you would run into another one.
The lines with clothes swinging in the wind with animals and greenery as the background. People here were so happy with less. We often thought we needed it all, when those that lived here already felt they had it all.
Living off your own land sounded like a fucking dream to me.
“Pumpkin, I know you said that we’re going up country, but where is that?” She looked around nervously, as I shifted gears again, as we took another turn around the curves.
“Country, Baby… told you already.”
“Gerald, this ain’t the country. People come to disappear here… like bodies. I watch enough shows to know this ain’t right.”
“You trust me?”
She touched her stomach. “We’re not sure.”
“Zoya, stop fucking with me.” I laughed.
She giggled. “You have to admit this is sus.”
“Not to me.”
A couple bumps in the road and minutes later, we pulled up to the front of two concrete pillars. They had seen better days and had chips and scrapes in them. They had been here for years. I never knew this place without these pillars standing tall.
“Hold on,” I advised her, because the road up to my grandparents’ house wasn’t paved, and was hard, which is why I rented this Jeep.
Before we pulled through, I hopped out and pushed the metal gate secured with a chain back before getting back into the jeep. I shifted the gear and slowly pulled through the gates and up the unpaved dirt road.
We by passed thick trees with lush banana leaves, and a few breadfruit trees that were so thick you couldn’t see what was behind it.
The hills rolled into more, the higher we drove up.
Below, you saw the specs of the yellow, blue or green, which were homes.
I drove past the mango tree that I used to climb with my cousins.
“I used to climb that tree as a child.”
She raised her brow, reminding me of her damn brother. “Knowing that I’m allergic… how rude.”
“Baby?”
“Yeah?”
“You not fucking allergic to mangos!”
She snorted. “I forgot that I told you my truth... keep it on the low, Goo. Don’t be telling people.”
The Jeep continued to climb the mixed dirt and gravel. This shit seemed like it went on forever. Chickens were scattered in front of the Jeep, with one being the baddest out of the crew. I assumed that was the rooster with the way he had his wings flexed.
“Let the chicken cross the road,” Boobie cracked herself up with her corny ass joke, as we continued.
The house came into view, and my heart started to beat faster.
A single-story concrete home with shutters, and windows that never closed.
It used to be painted blue, but after years of the sun and rain, it was now the palest blue I had ever saw.
The zinc roof stretched over, providing enough shade for my grandmother’s wooden chair.
She used to sit out here and watch me play for hours.
Her plants were all in different mismatched pots, some even in a coffee tin.
Anything she could recycle, she would. The water tank could be seen in the back.
Whenever it rained, they collected the water there.
If they ran out, there was a water pump on the land.
This home was old as dirt, and it was my grandparents’ pride and joy. They always did something new to it.
Smoke rose from the back of the house, carrying my favorite scent of wood fire and something cooking. Grandma was forever cooking something, even with it just being the two of them. I never told her that I was coming but knew I would have a homecooked meal.
I pulled behind that Buick truck that had seen better days but was still running like when it first rolled off the show room. The fenced pasture was beside us with goats just ready to be curried.
The chicken had finally made it up the rest of the hill and surrounded the Jeep.
I killed the engine and sat there enjoying the silence.
The silence of nature consumed the both of us.
We didn’t have to hear horns blare, people yelling, or the hustle of the city.
I stared at the house, as I held my baby’s hand.
“Your grandparents own the house and over here.”
I smiled. “Nah. All of this is theirs.”
She looked outside of the jeep at all the land I was pointing at. The trees, hills, pasture, and the house. There was land that I couldn’t point to because it disappeared beyond where I could see.
“All of this?”
I couldn’t help but to be proud of my grandparents and what they owned. What would be left to our family when they passed on. There had been a few developers that tried to buy the land to make a retreat resort up in the mountains. No matter how much money was tossed their way, they never sold it.
When it came time for us to take ownership, I would continue to do the same thing. No amount of money would be worth selling the memories of this place. It would be like selling a piece of me.
“Wraithe land.”
Before she could reply, the screen door opened and my grandmother looked like she had seen a ghost. “Bwoy!” she hollered.
Maxine was behind her and looked even more shocked. “Wah yuh a do yah so? Yuh nuh tell mi she yuh a come!”
I climbed out the jeep and walked over towards her, as she hugged me tightly around the waist. It seemed like every time I saw her; she got smaller and smaller.
“I can’t surprise an old woman?”
“Oh shush!” she smiled, her toothless grin making me smile even wider. I loved the shit out of my grandmother.
The older I became, the more I saw so much of her inside of my mother. The stubbornness, independence and always having something smart to say.
“You didn’t tell me that you were coming,” Maxine reached up to kiss me on the cheek.
If she knew her daughter was here, she would have really lost her shit. “It’s a surprise.”
I walked back over to the jeep and opened the door for Boobie. She held my hand as she stepped out. “I look a mess and you want me to meet them like this?”
“Nobody worried about what you got on. I want them to meet the love of my life, that’s more important.”
She reached up and held the side of my face. “Stop fucking gaslighting me.”
The laugh that I let out was loud as shit, because this woman was going to give me gray hairs. “Bring your ass on, Zoya.”
“Fine… hold my hand.”
I held her hand as my grandmother and aunt waited by the house. Maxine had heard about Zoya but hadn’t formally met her. My grandmother stood there with a stern face watching us walk over to her.
This was the first woman I had ever introduced to her. Zoya was the first woman I had ever loved. There had been other women, but none made me feel like she did. She could rip my heart out, stomp on it and place it back, and I would still love her.
“An a who dis yuh bring come yah?” Grandma asked, as she looked at Zoya whose hand was sweating inside of mine.
She was nervous.
“This is my girlfriend, Zoya Caselli.”
“Ugh, never thought I would be pregnant and be a girlfriend… stranger things have happened,” she muttered.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Ms. Lawyer Lady.”
“Eh, the lawya?”
I looked between the both of them. “You be telling my business, Maxine?”