Goon #4
“Your muva does that when she gets to chatting.” She smiled, as she reached to hug Zoya.
Zoya hugged her, while my grandmother looked her over. She wasn’t so easy to win over like my mother was. Ever since whatever happened with my mother, and aunt in the past, they never brought a man home.
“Yuh hungry?”
She smiled. “I can eat.”
“Got some jerk pork in the back with rice and peas.” I nearly chopped my grandmother in the throat when she offered my child pork.
I wasn’t thinking about Boobie, I was thinking about my child in her stomach. She damn near asked my child if they wanted to go to hell.
Right?
“She Muslim tew?”
“I’m not,” Zoya quickly spoke up. A little too fucking quick if you asked me. I was gonna let her ass make the decision she thought was best.
“Good. I hav some jerk pork for suppa.”
“I don’t eat pork though,” she quickly spoke up.
My grandmother kissed her teeth. “I’ll make sumting. Maxine, grab one.”
Zoya looked concerned. “Grab what?”
“The chicken,” Maxine laughed.
“Like out the fridge… not one of these chickens here.”
Zoya was dead serious with her question. “Hell yeah… one of them getting jerked or stewed tonight.”
Maxine quickly snatched up a chicken and followed my grandmother to the back of the house. Boobie was holding onto me like she was scared to let go. “We’re not staying here, right?”
“Just for the night, then we’ll go to the resort.”
She looked around the yard, and I could tell she wished she would have gotten into the van with slick mouth Inez. “Be a good gyal an’ mi ago suck dat pussy good.” I kissed her lips a few times, as I brought her inside.
The house was fully open aside from a small room that had been added on last year. My grandparent’s bed was right when you walked in. Grandpops chair sat right in the corner next to his newspapers. His cell phone that I had gotten him last year sat on the small wicker table.
“Where are we gonna sleep?”
“In the room. Maxine sleeps on the fold bed right there.”
Zoya was about to hyperventilate with the way she stared around in horror. This was horror to her. No matter how many times her life changed after her parents passed, she always lived in comfort. Menace made sure she never had to worry about struggling, because he took on the burden.
“I’m not trying to be difficult, Pumpkin… but we cannot stay here. I’m hot as hell just standing here. Where am I supposed to shower? I don’t have my night cu—”
“I took your cup out the suitcase and put it in my duffle bag. We shower outback and it will get cooler once the sun sets all the way.”
I had never seen her so worked up about staying somewhere.
This was normal for me and had always been.
When I was younger, me and Khaos would sleep in our grandparents’ bed with them, while moms slept on the pull out with Maxine and Inez.
We always made it work and somehow, I always felt so damn comfortable.
My grandfather had come home as soon as we finished eating. My grandmother had cooked us stew chicken. When he saw me, he came over and tossed his arms around me. He wasn’t a man of many words, but whenever he had something to say, they were impactful.
When he saw Zoya, he couldn’t peel his eyes away from her. The look he gave me was all that I needed to proceed with my plan to make this woman my wife. My grandfather was a shit talker like Boobie, so the two of them being around each other was either a great idea, or a wrong one.
If Zoya asked him to slow down talking so she could understand one more time, one of us was going to ball her lips up. I went into the house and saw my aunt and grandmother sitting at the metal kitchen table with mismatched chairs.
“Yuh love har?” Grandma asked soon as I snatched one of the stools near the backdoor.
“Nuff.”
She sat there with her legs crossed and a glass jar in her lap filled with her water.
The glass was sweating as she held it close to her to keep her cool.
The family album was sitting on the kitchen table.
Anytime we visited, she always pulled that tattered album out.
I hated looking through it because the last time I did, it was a picture of my great-uncle dead in a casket.
Now why in the hell would I want to see that?
“I can see that. You watch her like a hawk and there ain’t but so much room in here.” Maxine smiled, nudging me.
“She’s pregnant.”
“So, yuh plan fi marry har?”
I nodded my head yes. “Not the reason I’m marrying her though. Baby or no baby, I want her to be my wife.”
“Respeck.”
“Can you do me a favor, Grandma.”
“Eh?”
“I need you to come somewhere tomorrow. I know you hate resorts but do this for me.”
She kissed her teeth and did this wave of the hand she had done as a child. As if we were a fly she was shooing away. To know my grandparents was to know they hated resorts. Some of the places they knew when they were younger were taken away because of the need for a resort.
If it was up to me, I would have stayed here the whole trip. That wasn’t logical for my mom’s or fair to Boobie. Despite how comfortable I felt here, her comfortability mattered, too.
“You booked us rooms?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve been in the country since I been here… I can use a drink and some beach. Mommy you and Deddy can, too.”
She wasn’t trying to hear a damn thing either of us were saying. “Bring ha in.”
My grandfather went to smoke, and Boobie came in. Maxine gave her the chair, and my grandmother offered her the first smile since we had arrived. “Ah baby.”
“Yes.”
“Bwoy or gyal?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Wuh yuh want?”
“I don’t know. A little girl would be nice, but then a mini me for Goo would be cute, too. I just want a healthy baby.”
My grandmother put the jar down, and I knew she was about to start showing baby pictures of me. She handed Boobie the book, and she opened it carefully. With how old that book was, if she opened it any faster the cover would be on the floor and then she would hate her.
“Goo Goo a baby right inna dat sink deh.” She pointed the makeshift sink that had been there for years. I remember coming in from playing and washing my hands right in that sink.