Her Future #4
So instead of working hard, I sat in the darkened studio, doodling in a notebook, on the side where I wrote out the next two years of my life.
Rico, all of a sudden, didn’t like the Get Money crew, but he supported me, even before hearing one of the songs Sean and I recorded that summer.
After he heard it, he was for sure all for it, including it in new mix CDs for his car.
The door to the room opened, bringing loud laughter. I looked up, just in time for a toddler to come barrelling in.
I turned up the lights on the dash, and a smile broke onto my face, just as the toddler noticed me.
He was tall, with the cutest, chubbiest cheeks and big brown eyes. His hair was in plaits, and he didn’t have on any pants or shoes.
“Trell! Where you go?” I heard Grimey yell, before he stumbled into the room like a dear in headlights.
Trell turned to him, before running toward me, and climbed into my lap like he was related to me.
Grimey sighed, before closing the door and locking it behind him. “My bad, Wynter. His ass fasho gonna be running track, on crip.”
“It’s cool. Right?” I smiled and looked down.
He grinned at me. “Pwetty.”
Grimey picked Trell up and brought him to the couch, where he began to wrestle with him to put his clothes back on.
“He yours?”
Grimey froze, letting Trell wiggle from his back and run off to beneath the dashboard.
“I’m sorry–”
“Nah,” he interrupted me. “I mean, you been cool about keeping shit you see on the low.” He glared at me, and I got the message before he nodded.
“Montrell. Get over here, cuz.”
Trell put on his best puppy dog face and marched over to his dad, and let him put his pants and shoes back on. After he was fully dressed, Grimey smiled and kissed the top of his head.
“Love you.”
“Luh you, Daddy,” his little voice said, throwing his arms around his dad’s neck.
I held in my swoon. I would have never pegged him for a father. In fact, most of the crew were adamant about not having any kids.
“No one outside of my niggas knows about him, and I’d like to keep it that way,” he gritted.
I nodded, not wanting any smoke, but I melted when Trell walked over to me, and began to climb back in my lap.
“Well, your secret son is a cutie. And he’s safe with me. The secret part and the son part.”
Grimey took a seat in the rolling chair next to mine, but his shoulders still were up to his ears. “I try to keep him under wraps. No one outside of my niggas know about him. The bullshit politics would fuck him up, and I wouldn’t want him to go through what my brother would.”
“You have a brother?” My eyebrows shot up. This was info for sure not on the internet.
Grimey smiled as his eyes went unfocused. “Yeah. He’s yo age, too. Thorough ass nigga, but he’s gotta stay away. They take children born out of wedlock real serious in the First Nations, and the discrimination ain’t worth having him close.”
“Dang. I’m sorry to hear that. How do you hide them, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Grimey’s eyes shifted back to me. “My brother stays with his mom’s peoples. I got people looking after him, making sure he good. He, uh, don’t really know about me, so it’s not like he’s missing out. And then my boy, I just been taking care of him, me and my granny.
Trell started preschool last year, and Trippy’s mom uses her address and watches him. That’s why I just jumped off the porch with this rapping shit, foreal. There’s this elite boarding school that starts at first grade I’ma put him in, too.
I just gotta stay put until some niggas on the council die off. But I’on know, I think it’s safer with them both being out the way.”
I nodded, hugging Trell closer to me, he grabbed my pen and began to draw where I was doodling.
“You’re a good dude, Grimey. I mean, I knew that when you made me leave, but now it’s cemented.”
Grimey’s shoulders finally relaxed, and he smirked at me. “Glad to see I got the Wynter Snow stamp of approval, cuz. But I’on know if that means anything, foreal. Not when I hear you fucking with a project nigga.”
I rolled my eyes, but he wasn’t done.
“This Birch Babies is no joke, Wyn. And them young niggas is worse than the niggas my age. Trippy cares about you too much to upset you, so I’ll be that annoying big brother and tell you to be careful. You a good girl, and you don’t gotta be mixed up in gang shit.”
“What about Trell’s mom? You told her that?” I snap.
Grimey sat back in his chair. “His mama wasn’t worth shit, and I hope she resting in piss. But my girl before her… she was a good girl. And I wish I did a better job of keeping street shit away from her.”
He rubbed the intricate fox tattoo on his forearm, before he wiped his mouth.
“Look, cuz. You stay out of trouble. You stay yo ass in them books, and doing whatever bullshit Shaka gon’ have you doing for these fake ass rappers, and I’ll make sure you get signed the day you turn eighteen, aight?”
We stood, and I handed him Trell, who lay his head on his dad’s shoulder.
I held out my hand, and Grimey shook it.
“Deal.”