THREE | JAMAR
“Ouuu, baby we want ice cream.” Ebony whined beside me in the passenger seat.
“Chill with that baby shit.” I grumbled lowly.
“Really Jamar? You really still on that?”
“Aye, Eb didn’t the doctor just say you needed to chill out with all the fast food?” I asked.
“So, what am I supposed to eat then?” she asked pouting.
“A salad, some fruit, vegetables?—”
“I didn’t even eat that shit before I was pregnant, how the hell am I supposed to eat it now?” she asked rolling her eyes.
“You know some women make sacrifices for the health and safety of their kids.” I replied.
“Look, at my fucking body, I think I’m making a big fucking sacrifice. I’ve gained almost thirty pounds already?—”
“And you only halfway done with yo fucking pregnancy!” I cut her off. “Take me the fuck home!” she spat folding her arms over her chest. “You mean take you to my shit, right?”
“Oh, now it’s just yo house? A few months ago, it was ours, my name in yo phone was wifey, and you kept them big pussy eating lips attached to my clit. What happened?”
“Just make better food choices and we good.” I shook my head.
“And what about us? You keep saying vague shit and I’m not feeling it. Are we together or not?” she asked facing me in the seat.
“Eb, let’s just focus on bringing a healthy baby into the world, aight?” I asked her.
“That’s code for, I like fucking you, but I don’t want to be with you no more.” She said turning to face forward in the seat.
“Aye, yo sit back.”
“Fuck you!” she spat hitting me with the McDonald’s cup she had earlier.
The extra ice she asked for was now ice-cold water that covered my shirt and leaked all over my skin.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I snapped as I pulled over to the side of the road.
“YOU! I fucking hate you!” she screamed hitting me again this time with her hands.
I tried to grab at her hands, but she was moving quicker than me and ended up punching me in the face.
I was a big nigga, six feet-three, two-hundred and thirty-five pounds of solid muscle and this simple ass girl was able to punch me in the nose.
I grabbed her by her throat and pushed her against the glass window behind her.
I stared down into her wide eyes as she looked back at me.
“Don’t put yo fucking hands on me again.” I growled before pushing against her and sitting back in my seat.
She didn’t say anything, not that I could hear any words through her sobs.
“You a piece of shit! I love you! I’m good to you!” she cried.
“You good at spending my fucking money! You good at getting on my fucking nerves!” I lashed out at her. “Or trying to fuck my brother!”
“I’M LONELY!” She raised her voice. “If you haven’t noticed we’re having a baby. Maybe I am a mess, maybe I ain’t shit, but I love you?—”
“You love the benefits you get by fucking with me.” I replied.
“What? The lonely nights, the random bitches tagging you on social media, not knowing if today’s the day you end up dead or in jail?” she asked snatching the glove box open.
She reached in and pulled out a few fast food napkins and handed them to me since my nose was leaking all over my shirt and arm.
“From now on just stay the fuck away from me, yo. I’ll get somebody to drop food off for you at the beginning of every week, but I’m done.” I told her when I started up the car.
“What? You gone cut me off because of some shit you did?”
“Nah, I’m cutting yo ass off before I cut yo body up and burn yo ass in a fucking barrel in the middle of the country somewhere.” I spat as I sped towards the house we used to share together.
At one-point Ebony was everything I thought I wanted.
She was brown skin, with long, dark hair and a set of double D’s that I used to love to sleep on.
When I first met her, she put on the good girl act, she was going to school studying to be a nurse or a doctor or some shit and then suddenly she wasn’t.
I didn’t even realize the shit was happening and boom, she dropped out of school, she quit the part time job she had in some doctor’s office and now she was pregnant.
“No, you said we were going shopping for her and that’s what we need to do.” She said shaking her head.
I kept driving and focused on the road instead of reaching over and strangling Ebony with both hands.
***
“Damn, nigga what the fuck happened to you?” Kyrie asked when I walked into the warehouse.
“I almost killed Ebony, that’s what the fuck happened to me.” I huffed as I took off my shirt and threw it to the floor.
“You put yo hands on her?” Kyrie’s voice was low.
I knew what he was thinking, but he knew better.
Kyrie wasn’t blood, but it wasn’t a soul walking this earth I felt closer to.
I met Kyrie when I was fourteen, we played basketball together for the city of Atlanta.
At the time he was in a group home, when he wasn’t running away at least. We got close, he saved my ass more times than I care to admit and over time he grew close to me and then my parents.
My mom always wanted a big family and all it took was a few nights before my mom talked my dad into becoming a foster parent and taking Kyrie in.
When he became my brother, he came with all these files that his caseworker had delivered to “warn” my parents.
My parents tried to hide the file the best they could, but I found it and read it anyway.
I read about every foster care, every group home, every doctor’s visit and hospital stay.
My brother went through hell and back being born premature, battling cancer most of his childhood, and being in foster care on top of all of it.
So, I stepped back, made it easy for my parents to love him as much as they loved me.
“I choked her to get her off me, but I didn’t hit her.” I explained.
“What happened?” he asked as I stormed the small office in search of a shirt to put on.
“She just been getting on my fucking nerves, yo. Every time she opens her mouth, I get irritated with her.” I explained.
“That shit bothering you cause you trying to slide in something new.” He sized me up.
I knew he was right, but I didn’t want to admit I was frustrated that Fallen was blowing me off.
I was used to getting whatever I wanted especially when it came to women.
I was a good-looking nigga, with money and more than enough dick to go around, most women flocked to me.
I rarely put in any effort to pull a bitch I wanted until now and after I’d pulled up at her job and pushed up on her, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do next.
“Maybe you right.” I admitted as I pulled a black tank top over my head.
“Ain’t no maybe in it.” He told me.
“Aight, let’s get down to business.” I said changing the subject.
A few hours later, we were done counting all the money that we’d collected.
“Aye, Nick team short.” I announced after counting the money in the black book bag he gave me.
“How short?” Kyrie asked raising an eyebrow.
“Almost five hundred dollars.” I told him.
“Oh, hell nah!” he said jumping up and snatching the gun from his waist. “Aye, don’t kill ‘em.” I said rising to my feet.
“Yeah, aight.” He said sarcastically.
***
“Where my fucking money?” I asked standing eye to eye with Nick.
I stormed into the trap house on a rampage, not giving a fuck what was going on.
“I gave you the money that was given to me.” Nick told me.
“Aye, my man did you count the shit?”
“On some real shit, I usually count it, but I got caught up in some shit.” He stumbled over his words as he rubbed the top of his head.
“You here this nigga? He got caught up in some shit. This nigga?—”
Kyrie threw a hard and quick, left, right combo to his abdomen area bending Nick in half with ease.
“Five hundred dollars, my nigga? You got caught up in some shit?” Kyrie repeated as he punched him again.
Nick bent down again holding on to his knees as he spit out a glob of blood.
“Damn, yo.” A young nigga named Roy groaned seeing the blood on the floor.
Kyrie grabbed Nick by his head and kicked him again splattering blood on the niggas standing to the right of him.
“I ain’t yo bitch nigga! Don’t give me none of them excuses!” Kyrie roared.
I rubbed the top of my head and blew out a long breath, we were about to be here all day.
“Aight, that’s enough.” I stepped up preventing Kyrie from doing any more harm to the youngin.
“Take Nick out of here, find somebody to fill in for three days.” I spoke to Roy and the other young nigga in the corner. “Aye, Nick. Take a few days off, come see me before you start back working.” I told him.
“And for the rest of you motherfuckas, the next time my money off I’m putting bullets in niggas before I open my mouth to speak.” Kyrie continued.
“Everybody out. Go grab something eat and be back in an hour.” I said looking at each of the three men other than Nick that were in the room.
After everybody walked out Kyrie sat down and started rolling a blunt.
“Fuck you interrupt me?” He asked calmly even though his tightly wound facial expression said otherwise.
“You was really gone kill that nigga over five hundred dollars?”
“I’d kill all them niggas over five dollars!” he growled jumping out his seat.
“Some of them niggas solid though, so just like that, one nigga mess up and all the niggas gotta pay for it?” I asked stepping towards him.
Kyrie and me were about the same size, he was a little smaller in weight, but we were the same height. My attitude wasn’t as bad as his, but I ain’t take no shit off nobody, his ass included.
“Everybody gotta die sometimes, right?” he asked still eyeing me.
“I remember a time when yo ass won’t perfect, hell we fucked up ten grand back in the day.” I reminded him.
“Yeah, but we fucked it up. We knew what happened to it, that nigga don’t know what the fuck happened. He don’t know if the money machines fucking up, if the niggas watching his back plotting, all he knows is what he was given. He gotta know more than that, that shit sloppy as fuck.”
“True but beating the nigga half to death ain’t gone do shit. Them niggas know you missing a few.” I told him.
“You too soft on these niggas, you’d be surprised what we can stand. The human body is very resilient.” His cold eyes focused on me.
This was the side of Kyrie I read about in those files when we were kids. He loved this shit, the more he inflicted the higher he got. I didn’t want to be on the other side of his rage, but my daddy would climb out his grave if he knew I let any nigga bitch me.
“All I’m saying is, Pops ain’t run shit like that so we ain’t about to start now.” I told him standing up.
“I ain’t trying to argue with you, I’m just trying to make sure five hundred don’t turn into five hundred thousand, feel me?” he asked now sealing his blunt. “Let’s be smart about this shit, aight?”
“Sayless.” I replied.