Chapter 16 #2
The first time I had a meal with Kain Montgomery in a real restaurant was on our first date at Catfish Carol’s. This turned out to be the last time, too. Things had changed since then. Now that I was on Silas Montgomery’s radar, a meal at a restaurant seemed like too great a risk to take.
Instead, we lounged around in the living room of the Safe House, full off the abundance of nearly finished Thai takeout.
We both had The Itis now, barely moving as we talked on the couch, my legs draped across Kain’s lap.
I’d pulled my hair out of the tight ponytail, letting my tresses fall over my shoulders and down my back.
My heels were kicked off and so was my button down, leaving me in just my black camisole and jeans.
“So this place is off limits starting Monday, huh? Sanaa and Cierra told me that your uncle is getting out this week.”
“Of course they did,” Kain groaned.
“It’s a pity,” I mumbled. “I really like this place. So… what’s your uncle like? Your sisters also told me that he’s basically your favorite person.”
“Of course… they… did…”
I smiled, finding his irritation amusing. “So you’re not going to tell me?”
Kain sighed, shaking his head before giving me what I wanted.
“When I was a jit, I would tell anyone who would listen that I was gonna grow up and be just like Silas. Vance must’ve overheard me talkin’ my shit to Marlon one day, ‘cause he pulled me aside, furious. I think I was… six years old.”
“Vance is only twenty years older than I am, and he seemed more like a much older brother than an uncle.” Kain shrugged.
“I still respected him, though. Mostly because everyone else did. Even though he was Silas’ youngest brother, he was the brains of almost every project.
Silas respected him. But when it came to Silas, Vance…
” Kain smiled a little before continuing.
“Well, Uncle Vance sat me down after hearing what I said to Marlon, looked me straight to my six-year-old face and said, ‘Your Pops is a dumb ass nigga.’”
My mouth fell open.
Kain laughed at my reaction, continuing, “I had that same reaction. And I shit you not when I say I half expected lightning to strike him where he stood for sayin’ it. I damn near worshipped my father at that age, and Vance’s words were practically blasphemous.”
“So then what happened?”
“Eventually, I picked my mouth up off the floor and Vance continued. He said, ‘You don’t wanna be Silas, Youngblood. You too smart for that.’” —Hearing that, I liked Uncle Vance already— “And from then on, my life was a weird day-and-night contrast between those two.
“On one side, I had Silas, forever encouraging me to be a young savage. Live without a conscience. Treat emotions like they’re optional.
Pick fights even when you know you won’t win, ‘because gettin’ ya ass whooped is a learning opportunity.
’ Silas stayed givin’ me gems like, ‘It’s better to be feared, than to have friends.
’” I couldn’t tell if Kain was being sarcastic, or not.
“Then on another side, I had Vance, the nagging mother that I didn’t ask for.
He taught me the things Silas forgot to—from how to tie my shoes, to empathy and personal responsibility.
Every day, after school, Vance used to hover over my neck until I got my homework done, clearing his throat every time I started to write a wrong answer.
” Another memory crossed Kain’s mind, prompting another smile.
“You know… I swear I could hear him clearing his throat in my head while I was taking the ACT.”
I had to laugh at this. Kain continued through his memories.
“And so when I was eight years old, Silas and Vance got into some car accident on their way back from some event. They’d both been drinking; were probably a little high, too.
They smashed into some car full of girls on their way back from prom.
The driver was killed instantly, but three surviving girls were left as witnesses.
“Accident reports said Vance was driving. But all three girls swore on the life of their dead friend that Silas was driving. Their testimonies were thrown out, written off as unreliable because Silas and Vance look alike, and because the girls had been drinking themselves. Vance was sentenced to twelve years.”
“But he didn’t do anything,” I recollected, remembering that Kain once told me his uncle was in prison for taking the fall for someone. Apparently that someone was Silas.
“Whatever my father had on him must’ve been good, because Vance fell on that sword quietly.
” Kain shook his head. “I don’t think I ever forgave Silas for what he let happen.
Vance wasn’t… like the rest of Silas’ brothers.
Vance had real dreams. He was in his third year of law school, trying to be somebody legit in society.
And just like that…” Kain snapped his fingers. “…gone.”
Kain, it seemed, had traded a role model in Silas for another in Vance. I wondered if it was a conscious decision on his part, or if it was something that had occurred naturally.
“Seems like you really looked up to him,” I observed. “So was it Vance who put the law school thoughts in your head?”
“In a way.” Kain threw a look my way and explained. “Vance went to law school ‘cause my family’s real particular about who they let deep into things. We needed an in-the-family lawyer.”
“But going to law school changed him. I remember Vance bein’ one way when I was five, and then bein’ a whole new person by the time I was seven.
It had my lil ass thinking, ‘Well damn, what they got over there that’s got Vance all bossed up?
’ That’s kind of how it all started, and I’ve been on my grind ever since.
Fortunately for me, we still need an in-the-family lawyer. ”
I laughed, imagining a baby Kain deciding to go to law school to ‘boss up’. “Okay, but can we take a moment to acknowledge that younger-you is so cuuuuute?”
Kain shook his head at my girly reaction, an embarrassed grin uncovered. As I got over the adorableness of young Kain’s thoughts, he continued to speak.
“After Vance went away, Silas was all I had. My only mentor. And at face value, why should that have been a bad thing? He is my father after all. And Silas was a boss, too. To some, more of a boss than Vance could ever hope to be. But I knew them both – better than anybody. And you wanna know something?”
“Do tell.”
“Silas wasn’t a boss to me anymore.”
To that, my eyebrows shot up. Kain went on to explain.
“Silas was everyone’s boss, all my life.
And it’s only because people are afraid of him.
Afraid of what he could do to them. Afraid of what he might do to their families.
But Lauren…” Kain sighed, ready to admit something.
“…I haven’t been afraid of Silas since I was eleven years old.
By then, Silas had taught me to stare death in the face and smile at it.
He can’t do anything to me that he ain’t already taught me to not fear.
And he sure can’t do nothin’ to my family, ‘cause we got the same family.”
My mind wandered to a mental image of Kiana Harris. Oh, he did something to your family, Kain. I just have no proof.
I was pulled away from my thoughts, back to the real world where I was still rendered motionless by the miracle that seemed to be taking place.
Kain was finally talking to me. Really talking to me.
He wasn’t thinking about whether this or that was too much information. He was giving me something real, something he’d been bottling up. His guard was down… and he was talking to me. I listened as he continued.
“The Silas that I know, and the Silas that you’ve heard of, are so far removed that it’s almost funny. Don’t get me wrong. The nigga is coldblooded both in and out the house. But when Silas is your every fuckin’ day…”
Kain rubbed his temples like the mere thought of his father was pissing him off.
“Baby, that shit gets so old. When Silas is your every waking moment… You become numb to it. You begin to see the person instead of the persona. And you realize that your father is just like every other man. Except he’s worse…
“So then you begin to notice things… Real small things that you only really pick up on once someone’s lost your respect. The type of realizations that make me look back fourteen years, and finally understand the energy Vance was comin’ at me with when he said, ‘Your Pops is a dumb ass nigga.’”
Kain was still going. Venting. The words poured out of him like a water pushing past floodgates. Kain was finally opening up to me, and showing me his soul.
“You don’t think I know that it’s a lot of fucked up shit goin’ on from my side of the tracks? Do you think that because I don’t react to everything wide-eyed the way you do, that I’m not seein’ what’s in front of me? Because I see it all, Lauren.
“I saw a lot of shit then, and I see a lot of shit now. As a kid, it was all too common for me to wake up in the morning, go down the stairs, and casually eat my cereal to the view Silas smackin’ around the newest unfortunate face.
The faces would change, but the format was the same.
She was always begging Silas to let her go home.
Lately, in my nightmares, she looks a lot like you.
“One of my earliest memories is at age four. Three bodies piled one on top of the other. Just left in the middle of the dining room. I thought they were fake because their bodies felt harder than normal. Eventually, I was told they were real people, just dead. The following year I went on to tell my entire kindergarten class about it, not realizing this wasn’t normal.
“Vance was disgusted. Silas thought it was funny. If it were up to Silas, it might’ve taken me forever to realize this wasn’t normal. After all, when I was six years old, I was fuckin’ captain of the Silas Montgomery fanclub.
“And at that young, impressionable age, someone finally told me to cut that shit out and be better. For two years after that, I got to experience what I imagine life on your side of the tracks is like. It was real nice. Gave me a whole new outlook on life. It made me a human being.
“And then Vance left. Takin’ the blame for a crime he didn’t commit, and gettin’ himself locked up for twelve fuckin’ years.
It felt like my prison sentence, too. Because from then on, I was sent back to my side of the tracks, but now with an entirely new perspective.
It was like waking up to the realization that you were the only person in the world left with a working pair of eyes. It fucked me up real good.
“To make matters worse, Vance wouldn’t write me into his approved list of visitors.
And he didn’t take my calls. Vance used to tell me all the time, ‘You’re smart, Youngblood.
’ So from me, he only accepted letters. Never wrote me back, though.
Instead, he’d just return my original notes, marked in red pen, fixin’ my fuckin’ grammatical errors.
I thought he might reply once he couldn’t find any more mistakes, so I kept at it.
After my writing got to be perfect, he stopped replying altogether.
“That man gets out of prison the day after tomorrow. There’s this homecoming party, the whole nine.
And I don’t even know if I can go. Because if I see this man, I’m not sure if I’m gonna thank him for makin’ me the man that I am, or if I’m gonna knock his teeth in for makin’ me the man that I am.
Uncle Vance made me human. A human in a city full of fuckin’ demons.
There’s a part of me that genuinely feels like Vance ruined my life. But deep down I know he saved it, too.”
Despite the raw and unfiltered emotions, there were no tears.
At certain points, his voice faltered, but there were no tears.
I imagined for a man like Kain, tears were about as foreign to him as dead bodies in the dining room were to me.
Even though he was a mess, he was still together.
Me, however? I could never be that strong.
As Kain finally allowed me to see him for the first time, I was falling to pieces. His pain was so real, so deep, so consuming. And I didn’t know how to fix any of it.
“Kain…” A sob broke out of my chest. “Kain… You… I… I…” I wiped away at my cheeks, crying out, “I don’t… I don’t even know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” he assured, reaching into the distance between us and pulling me to his chest. His hand wrapped around to my back, rubbing it soothingly. It felt like the most erroneous turn of events that I was the one being comforted in this moment.
I’m useless. I’m so fucking useless.
The way my thoughts berated me, shaming me for my inability to keep it together, only made me cry harder. If Kain was losing his patience, I couldn’t tell from the way his hand continued to rub slow circles into my back. He didn’t criticize.
Instead, Kain said five words that let me know he’d gotten everything he needed out of this exchange. Even though I was a sobbing mess, I’d somehow still served my purpose.
“Thank you for listening, baby,” he whispered into my hair. That was apparently all he wanted from me. We sat in an almost-silence, the sounds of my sniffling being the only thing keeping us from complete quiet.
After some time, Kain breathed out a sigh and informed, “It’s midnight.”
I wrapped my arms around him tighter, refusing to let him go. Nothing could make me let go. Not even the mention of my stupid curfew.
“Baby, your parents…”
At the sound of those words, the response that came out of me was automatic.
“Fuck ‘em.”
You need me.
From under my tight embrace, I could feel Kain’s shoulders relax, and the fall of his chest as he breathed out a long exhale. His arm around me tightened. My heart broke upon recognizing the meaning behind his movements, understanding immediately what he felt.
Relief.