Rage #2
I was forcing myself to eat a dry ass chicken sandwich, when my mother rolled into the room being pushed by my sister, Wanda.
Jabar was behind them. When I was thirteen, my mother lost her right leg due to complications from diabetes.
At the time, Wanda was eight, and Jabar was six.
All I ever remembered about my parents being together was them arguing.
My mother never worked and though my father did, he didn’t make enough for a family of five to be living in the lap of luxury.
From the moment I was old enough to understand, there were arguments between my parents and whispers among family members about my father cheating on my mother.
She knew, but what I gathered from all the conversations that didn’t have shit to do with me was that she stayed because she had three kids by the nigga and needed him to support us.
Once she lost her leg, it was a wrap, however.
My father became bolder with his infidelities.
Despite his actions, my mom still didn’t leave him, but she didn’t have to.
When I was fifteen, he left her. Shit, he left us.
He still came by every Friday and gave her a few hundred dollars.
That along with her social security check and government assistance kept a roof over our heads and food in our bellies.
It took a good lil’ minute, but my mother eventually learned to be good without my pops.
She even started dating again. She also found a way to make a few extra dollars under the table by babysitting her neighbors’ kids.
Then, when I graduated from high school and started doing illegal shit, I contributed to the household.
She didn’t like what I was doing, but she couldn’t stop me.
And for once, we were okay. We got decent furniture and not cheap shit from bargain outlet stores that was falling apart after six months.
Wanda and Jabar were able to wear nicer clothes and shoes.
Things began looking up for us. Despite the extra income in the house, my mother was afraid to leave her comfort zone.
The rent in our apartment included utilities, and she knew that she could comfortably afford it.
When I moved out, Jabar was able to have a room to himself.
I didn’t live in an upscale luxury apartment, but it was in a decent area, nice, clean, and didn’t have loud, rowdy neighbors and nights filled with the sounds of gunfire.
“I brought you something,” Jabar held up a bag from a burger spot not too far from my mom’s apartment. “I didn’t get fries because I knew they’d be cold by the time we got here. I got you a double burger with bacon and two apple pies.”
“Good looking,” I let the sandwich drop onto the plate and winced from the soreness in my body as I reached for the bag.
“Are they saying when you can come home?” my mom implored.
“It won’t be today and probably not tomorrow,” I grumbled.
I hadn’t even seen the scar going down the center of my chest from the surgery I had to get, but if it looked like it felt, it was hideous.
The doctors had to make sure the incision didn’t get infected, I didn’t get blood clots, or endure any other complications that could occur after surgery.
I wanted to smoke bad as hell, but I couldn’t imagine having to cough or sneeze with the pain that I was in.
Most times when I smoked, I had at least one coughing fit.
“You coming to stay with me when you’re discharged? There won’t be anybody to take care of you at your place.”
I bit into my burger to keep from having to give my mom an answer right away.
I loved my mother, and I damn sure wasn’t too good for her apartment, but I no longer had a room there.
I’d either have to sleep on the couch or in Jabar’s bed, and he would have to sleep on the couch.
I kind of wanted to be at home. As long as I could get to the bathroom on my own, I didn’t need anyone at the house with me twenty-four seven.
If I had food and beverages within reach that would be even better.
As long as the pain remained the way that it was, I would spend most of my days asleep anyway.
Pain was affecting everything from my appetite to my temperament.
“It depends on how I feel when I’m released. I don’t think I’ll need a babysitter.”
“I won’t be comfortable with you being there by yourself.”
“I can check on him,” Jabar offered.
“I can go by and check on him too.”
Wanda still lived at home, but she was hardly ever there.
She told our mother she was a bartender, but I knew she was a stripper.
She was an adult and could do what she wanted, so there wasn’t shit I could say.
She kept saying she was going to get her own place, but Wanda loved to shop and travel too much.
During a good weekend, I knew for a fact, Wanda would make no less than $3,000 and she would be broke by Wednesday.
A brand-new Malibu took a nice portion of her money each month, and Wanda traveled out of state or the country at least once a month.
“Between them and one of my homegirls, I’ll be fine at home,” I assured my mother.
Homegirl was code for any female that I was fucking.
I had been single for three years. Leighton was the last person I’d been in a relationship with.
I hadn’t met the woman since her that made me want to commit.
My relationship with Leighton had been dope, but we were headed in two different directions.
She was ready to leave the hood behind and chase her dreams, and I was a nigga from the trenches that wanted to stay complacent.
The hood and the streets were what I knew.
It was where I was comfortable. It didn’t make sense to her.
I was sure it didn’t make sense to a lot of people.
Up until I got shot, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought.
My connection to the hood ran deep. Even before getting shot, I knew better than anybody that the hood could and would spit in your face if it got the chance to do so.
Desperation and poverty drove niggas to do unthinkable things.
Though it wasn’t foreign to me, I was having a hard time deciding if I wanted to keep my shop in the same area and hire security or flee from the hood like everyone else that made it did.
“Buddy that shot you is still alive. They have him at another hospital. Buddy that you shot is dead,” Jabar reported. “The one that died was twenty. The one that made it is seventeen.”
It was me or him, so I didn’t care that he was dead. That was simply the way the cookie crumbled. “You know who they are?” I asked.
“Two niggas from the west side.”
I was from the south side of Diamond Cove.
For some reason, finding out they weren’t one of us made me feel a sense of relief.
Relief that it wasn’t anyone from the same hood as me.
Being happy was overzealous as fuck. Just because my hood hadn’t turned on me yet didn’t mean that it wouldn’t.
I felt like I’d be a fool to sit around and wait for it to happen.