Motherless Child #2
I took out my phone and silenced Kisha’s call. When I looked back up, Peanut was scowling again.
“One day you gon’ listen to me. Come on Fredo. After, I can take you by Tati’s crib. She stay in Thunder Hills like the bougie bitches on tv.”
I shook my head, dapping up my bros and Turkey before dipping out.
Part of me wanted to ask him about Snow.
Seeing her online wasn’t enough, and the only reason I hadn’t popped up at her crib was because her parents’ cars were always in the driveway.
But the way Peanut was talking, I knew I was better off asking Turkey when he was alone, away from the He-Man Woman-Hater.
In the meantime, I used Kisha to distract me.
“Where you been, Ricky?”
I stepped all the way inside the apartment and glared at Ma.
She never came out of her room. Not even when Nan cooked. So seeing her on the couch was a little jarring.
Seeing her clutching a nine was even more jarring.
I knew she wouldn’t shoot me. But I couldn’t say the same for herself.
Still, years of her highs and lows have conditioned me to always stay calm. I walked slowly to the armchair and sat down.
She was in the middle cushion of the couch. I couldn’t reach over while seated, but I thought I could get to her if need be.
“I been out, Ma. Why you still up?”
Her eyes were blank as she peered at me. She looked better than she had been looking. Her hair was combed and brushed into a ponytail at the back of her neck. The crew neck was big on her, but she wasn’t as skinny as she could have been.
Hearing how her sister, Ty-Ty’s mom met her end, broke whatever was still inside of her. Nan didn’t believe in hiding shit from us, so we knew all about their upbringing, and how they both escaped foster care and ended up living with Nan.
But something else happened to Ma. Something that fucked her up beyond repair. It had to have been after we were born. She still smiled up until then.
Something bad enough to move us out of the Birch, up to that big house, where no one visited us.
Pooh would lace us with game. Would tell us not to save a bitch who don’t wanna be saved. And we knew he was talking about Ma, but he would never say what she needed saving from.
Yeah, herself. But what made her that way? She’d found happiness in Pooh, even accepting what he was. And he loved her more than I thought a nigga like him would be capable of.
What happened to them? What drove him to cheat? What drove her back into her tortured mind? What had a hold on her so tough that her family couldn’t break through?
I’d long-since stopped bothering her. Loving her from a distance was best for both of us. I saw how my cousin hated his pops for not choosing him, and I couldn’t hate Ma, even though I should have.
“Where’s Freddy?” she asked instead of answering me.
“If he’s not here, then he’s still with Peanut.”
Her lips twitched, before they sagged down, as they always did, when she was remembering Peanut’s mom, her friend Carrie. They were the same age, and supposedly, Pooh liked her first, though that didn’t come in between their friendship one bit.
Part of the reason all the niggas from Set’s crew were tight, was because our parents were tight. Project babies, making project babies. Though, most of their friends, my friends’ parents, were dead or in jail.
Fredo and I were blessed to have both of our parents, even if they weren’t whole.
“It hurts, Ricky… it hurts to be alive,” she whispered, blinking back tears.
I licked my lips, gesturing to the gun in her hand. “That why you got that?”
She swallowed, and nodded her head.
“What can I do, Ma?” I blurted, pleading. I forced my gaze to leave the gun, to look her in the eyes.
To look into the eyes of the only woman I loved at the time. “Ma, just tell me what I can do. You want me to call Dad?”
Her eyebrows bent, but she nodded again, so I got out my phone, so fast it slipped through my fingers.
Picking it up from the floor, I scrolled to Pooh’s name and dialed it. I moved closer to Ma, on the couch. Maybe if she just heard his voice, she’d calm down. Pooh had a way of getting to her, of getting her back to us when she wanted to leave.
I didn’t even know why I needed her. I couldn’t even say it was for Fredo, or Ty-Ty, or Nan.
I needed Ma here. In her room. Even if she never came out.
Even if we just talked on the phone every afternoon.
Even when Ty-Ty would send me random pictures of them hanging out, since she was just as much his mother as she was his aunt.
The phone rang and rang in my ear as pressure built in my eyes. “C’mon, nigga, answer the fucking phone,” I whispered to myself.
I hung up and tried again.
Each time his phone kept ringing and ringing. The answering machine felt like a bullet to my head every time it picked up.
During the fourth time I called, I heard her door slam. I didn’t even know she’d gotten up.
Abandoning my phone, I ran to the hallway.
“I swear to God, something happens, I’ma kill–”
Just as I reached her door, I heard a gunshot.
A roar ripped out of my chest as I ran my shoulder into her door. It splintered on the second try, before the third time knocked it off the hinges.
Blood covered the wall behind her headboard.
I stumbled backward, until I could catch my footing. Then, my feet led me out of the hallway, through the living room, and out of the apartment.
“Ricky, what was that?” Ms. Sheryl, my neighbor, whispered as I passed her.
I stopped and turned. She was clutching a shotgun of her own, an essential to living in the Birch. It must have been a rare night she had off from her job.
Lil’ Sean, her son, peeked from behind her. He knew exactly what sound that was, since he’d been put on recently; one of the youngest niggas we had.
Something in my face made her gasp. She handed her shotgun to Sean and ran toward my crib, bypassing the opened front door.
“You good?” Sean whispered.
My feet picked back up as we stared each other down. When Ms. Sheryl screamed at the top of her lungs, I fell into the wall.
Ma survived the gunshot, just to die three times on the table.
She didn’t come back after the fourth.
Whoever was in charge of the hospital knew Pooh, so they got to clean her up, and put her in a private room, so we could say goodbye.
Rone and Lala had to carry Ty-Ty out.
Nan, already fucked up from being woken up after taking her sleeping pills, was admitted as soon as we heard about Ma.
Still, no one could get ahold of Pooh.
It was just me and Fredo, each bracketing Ma’s bed. Each holding a stiff, cold hand.
Fredo didn’t have anything to say for once. He lay with his cheek on her hip. I would think he was dead if he didn’t sniffle every now and again.
Grief lay heavy as fuck in the sterilized room. And despair. Panic was licking at our ankles.
And something else. Something Fredo couldn’t feel, but I did. He’d always blame himself for her leaving, especially since he wasn’t there. This was a failure for him.
They were always closer. He never voiced it, but he and Ty-Ty felt they could love her out of whatever dark hole she was in. Catering to all her needs, never telling her no, making sure she knew she was loved and mattered.
I knew from a young age, only one person mattered to her.
The one muthafucka who hadn’t come.
I placed my phone in front of me and dial for the thousandth time. It was going straight to voicemail now, and the mailbox is full.
I’d never known Pooh to ever not be by his phone. It’d been hours, and he still wasn’t answering. A small part of me was scared something happened to him, too.
Maybe he felt the second Ma decided to make good on her promises. Maybe he felt the second she did leave this Earth, and decided to go with her.
Could Pooh live in a world without Yani?
Shit, could we?
I hung up and kept calling. Fire built in my chest each time the automated voice told me the mailbox was full.
On the sixth try, Fredo lifted his head. His eyes were bloodshot, with teartracks dried on the side of his face.
“Quit calling that nigga,” he said, voice thick with more tears. Fredo hadn’t cried since we found out about Ty-Ty’s mom.
“Fuck that,” I gritted. “He should be here, Rick. He should…”
My lungs seized as Fredo held my gaze.
My hands clawed at my chest like that would make me breathe again. Fredo stood slowly, his eyes never leaving me. Not until I couldn’t see him anymore. Not until he walked out of the room.
Only then could I breathe again. I threw the phone into the wall, the cheap plastic bursting into little pieces.
“Fuck.” I couldn’t get air into my lungs fast enough. Antiseptic and death tasted weird on my tongue, before it was replaced by salty tears.
She didn’t even look peaceful. I thought she’d look peaceful, getting what she wanted, but she didn’t.
I wondered if she’d take it back, knowing she still wouldn’t get the rest she craved.
I palmed either side of my head, letting my fingers dig into my braids.
“Why couldn’t you just tell me what was wrong?!” I gritted. Tears stung my eyes but they wouldn’t fall. Not now.
I lifted my gaze back to Ma. “What happened that you gave up? What the fuck happened?!”
No one would talk about it. It was just accepted that Ma was sad, that sometimes she was sadder, and other times she was only a little sad. Even when she was angry, or disappointed, or laughing, the sadness was there. It was accepted.
No one ever said why. Fredo never asked. Ty-Ty assumed it was because of Pooh.
That would have been easy. Before that night, I would have thought it too easy. But sometimes the truth is as easy as that. As straightforward as that.
I let anger and grief build up in my chest.
“You not gon’ be the only one hurting, on my soul.” I grabbed her cold hand again, bending down to kiss it.
“I promise, Ma. He gon’ feel the pain you felt. If it’s the last thing I do. He gon’ feel it.”
I kissed her hand one more time, before standing and kissing her forehead.
“Te amo siempre, Mamí.”