It looked at me and tilted its head like it was telling me I should be watching too. Its claws tightened against my skin, it felt my fear and was feeding off it. It was all too much, the energy in the room felt pitch black. My eyes wildly scanned the room and somehow landed on Tone in the middle of chaos.
Tone wasn’t looking my way; he looked at Grand with concern. I looked over at Staress, she too had a look of uneasiness. Darius was sobbing now, his voice broken, body limp. Blood smeared across the marble mixed with my pee. Grand didn’t let up, his foot never stopped moving like it was powered by batteries. He even switched from his right foot to the left stomping the bloody life out of Darius.
His foot hit Darius temple, Grand used his weight to step up and twist his foot into the side of his head. He tried to pull his foot out, but the nails penetrated too deep into Darius’s skull. Grand’s black eyes looked lifeless, like he was in a trance that he couldn’t snap out of. Blood shot out everywhere, on Grand’s pants, the floor, blood even landed a few inches away from me. Darius was dead with his eyes wide open along with his mouth.
My knees buckled as bile rose in my throat hot and bitterly. I turned to the side and threw up, my body convulsed as tears blinded my vision. The smell of blood, the screeching sound of the owls along with the one who stayed glued to my shoulder digging its nails in so hard. I felt blood trickling down my arm. I gagged again, my body heaved as my chest pounded.
“Grand.” I heard Tone call his name as the stomping continued.
I looked over at Grand, and it was hard to not see Darius’s lifeless body. Tone’s hand rested on Grand’s shoulder as he called his name over and over.
“Relax bro, please.” Tone begged.
Seconds passed and Grand still stomped on Darius relentlessly until the tiny bloody holes turned into deeper wounds. Darius’s shirt was completely off; his pants ripped into shreds.
“Don’t fucking piss me off again!” Grand yelled my way.
I gagged again but nothing came out, I felt someone touch me. It was the owl’s wing brushing my hair. I couldn’t move,think or breathe. I looked up at Grand and felt dizzy all over again. Was this my new reality? I got kidnapped by the devil.
“Get her the fuck out of my face. Don’t take that bitch back to my room, find her somewhere secure to sleep.”
Those were the last words I heard Grand utter before I lost consciousness.
“Benny is gonna beshort today at count up…” Pops placed his glass pipe up to his dry lips.
“His dirty ass been short every week for the past two weeks. He thinks I haven’t noticed the shit.” He inhaled the smoke then trapped it in his lungs.
I watched on silently, annoyed with the smell of crack circulating throughout the car. His window was cracked but it still felt like he was hot boxing the car out. My throat burned as the smoke circulated inside of the car. The smell of crack made the inside of my stomach churn.
“Can I hit it daddy?” Irine cooed, as she fidgeted in the backseat.
“Shut up bitch.” Pops choked off the smoke that fought its way out of his mouth.
He shimmied in his seat, then seconds later he passed the pipe back to her. He quickly dug in his pocket and tossed thebaggie full of crack rocks out the window like Irine was a dog fetching for a treat. I listened to the back door open before Pops said...
“Get out the car and hit that shit.”
I didn’t bother to look back at Irine; I hardly ever acknowledged her. I hated her and every other female that wasn’t momma that Pops entertained. Irine must have been his favorite. She was around more than the others. I looked out the window only to witness Irine’s saggy titties falling out of the top of her dress. It looked like she was fighting against herself to pick up the baggie off the concrete.
“Look at her dumb ass…” Pops nodded his head at me towards the window.
I rested my cheek against the cold window. Irine stood on the corner; the sun beamed down on her high yellow complexion. She gripped the plastic baggie in her hand like it was a prized possession. With trembling fingers, she worked it open with the kind of hunger that I’ve seen before on Pops face when he itched to get high.
She wasn’t patient, she shoved the small rocks into the blackened mouth of Pops pipe. Her eyes darted around quickly and wildly. I couldn’t look away, I just didn’t understand why people relied so much on a substance that made them look and act bad.
“That right there is a part of me that I never want you to take after. Sell it, don’t smoke it.” Pops uttered as I continued to watch Irine.
Irine’s lighter flared, and she pulled in the smoke like it was the only air left in the world. Her head tilted back, slowly, like she given herself over to something bigger than life. Her eyes rolled, whites showing, and for a second, she didn’t look human.
Irine’s face looked dull and drained of every spark that might’ve once made her somebody’s loving daughter. She was a ghost of herself, bones and tired skin. I pressed my palm to the window and thought about my momma. I worried for her, saw less of her, and yearned for her loving.
Each time I got to see her, which was less now that Pops kept me with him, she seemed distant. Her first concern was Pops and why he hadn’t called or came home. I wasn’t a priority to momma, but she was a big priority to me.
If I ever get a woman as good as momma, I’ll never do her how pops do her… I thought.
It had been a year without me being in school and it felt like I was transforming into who my Pops wanted me to be. I got to be with him every day in the streets. He was losing his mind but still was sharp when it came time to collect. Pops graduated from lacing his blunts with crack to shamelessly stuffing his pipe with big rocks of it.
He couldn’t stay still; his mood was always snappy. Violence rose within him by the second. Whenever he was on a maniac crack binge, he refused to go home. Instead, he’d stay in one of his trap houses where he continued to get high.
