Chapter 29
August
Chilling in the far back parking lot in a park in Clarke County, I smoked a blunt and reflected on how far I’d come since August. I was a very dangerous Black man who wasn’t scorned by the past nor lived in it.
I was spiteful toward Thiago. Constantly, the nigga was at Mona’s head about her time and what he envisioned for them and our kids.
I was nonchalant to the sentimental messages from King and Kingdon passed down through the chain of command.
I wasn’t over Momma never wanting anything to do with me since I was Captain Enforcer for The Savage Clique.
Yet I found solace in the memories we made and in the daily reports I received from a worker at the facility.
August Junior decided that he wasn’t fit to be anyone’s basketball player.
I wasn’t pleased with that. I didn’t bitch him out about his choice not to return to college until he figured out how he could best contribute to the world.
He was indecisive on whether to be the bad guy or a great man.
I wanted him to be the great man whom I swore he would be because I raised him to be that way.
He was healed from being date raped, but he was nowhere near healed from losing Germoney.
Daily, he was on her ass about talking to him or at least seeing him.
He failed horribly to get an ounce of her time.
She changed her number last week, and that boy damned near tore up those folks’ campus looking for her.
Qamyion had to put him to sleep. With my son tied the fuck up in his truck, the chuckling fool called me to come get him.
Since last week, my angry son was next to me, fingers twiddling, mind racing, and growling. I hated that he was in a love rabbit hole that only he could pull himself out of. He only calmed down long enough to look at his sisters, dipped in sweet, special dark chocolate.
A week before February 22nd, I was in the city undetected.
I was waiting on my eyes to tell me Mona was headed to the hospital.
On February 22nd, at midnight, I received the call.
My tailers were on her ass but at a safe distance.
I hopped in my truck to see our daughter, but not her mother.
At 3:23 a.m., Angelette Ramona Abbott was born.
Two of her watchers with gift bags and balloons were my eyes and ears as I was behind the corner on the maternity floor.
Upon hearing their whistles six times followed by the clearing of their throats four times, I took in a deep breath and stepped from the corner. They neared Mona’s door while I followed the nurse to the newborn’s chilling spot.
“Where is he?” Mona bellowed, sending chills running through me as I stopped walking and looked behind me.
“I don’t want to hear that shit! Where is her father?” She choked up as I knew she would try her best to get out of bed with an open pussy.
While I rushed to get a glimpse of Angelette, Mona lost her shits. Sadness towered over me as I knocked on the door. I needed to do more than see our child. I needed to sign those papers, so Mona wouldn’t feel as if I didn’t care about our newborn.
After a smiling woman asked what I needed, she sent me to the front desk. I had a short time to get shit done because I knew the hurt woman showing her ass in the room would find a way to get off that bed and come to the newborn area.
Hurriedly, I signed all the paperwork for our newborn.
“Get out!” Mona shouted as I rushed to grab a sticky note.
On it, I wrote: Damn, you got my niggas runnin’ fo’ they lives. LMAO. See you sooner than you think. The Enforcer.
“Dad, look who’s down here.” August Junior chuckled, snapping me from that overstimulated day.
Before focusing on who I knew was in the city, I chortled. As I looked at The Quad Ts hopping out of Thiago’s truck, thick smoke floated from every direction. While I raised the truck, August Junior admitted, “You gotta give him credit, though, he’s working hard to obtain her.”
“I requested their presence, but they’on know it. They undah the assumption, that Chief need them to look after Mona, King, Kingdon, an’ Kingsley.” I grinned.
My son looked at me and howled in laughter. “Pettyyyy!”
“Damn sho’ is when it come to her, you, an’ yo’ sisters.” I grinned, pleased with the high rise of the truck before I dropped the front end.
“Go get my momma ‘nem, man!” August Junior hooted, pumping his fist as I nodded.
“An’ get them … I’m finna,” I held out, flicking the roach of a blunt out of the window.