“What you mean?” Gremlin asked. He was young, but already had that look in his eyes. That emptiness. The weight of the world was weighing on him, even as a kid.
“I felt the violence in my stomach,” she said flatly. “Felt rage. That baby kicked like he wanted out early so he could start killing. And I wasn’t gonna stop him.”
She told us this like we were supposed to be proud. Like being born into violence was an honor.
“I named him Gremlin because that’s what he was. A creature from my first look at him. One that hunts. That destroys. I wanted him to move like a nightmare. I wanted the streets to fear him before they even knew his face. I wanted his name to ring louder than his father’s ever had.”
Three years later, she said that I came. This time, she spoke a little calmer. She said that my birth almost killed her. She lost so much blood they had to pump her full of transfusions just to keep her breathing. I came out big, hairy, mean-looking. Even as a baby, I had a scowl on my face like I already knew the world was fucked. Like I wanted to destroy everything in my way.
She said that when she finally held me, she was able to lift the hair off the back of my neck because it was so much. I was born hairy for no reason. She looked me dead in the eyes and nodded.
“Grizzley,” she said. “Look at him. Built to destroy. Grizzlies don’t get hunted—they do the hunting. That’s what my boys are. Survivors. Killers.”
Mayhem raised an eyebrow while sitting next to the hospital bed. “You naming the damn kids after animals now?”
She looked at him like he was stupid.
“These ain’t kids. These are hunters. Animals survive because they know it’s eat or be eaten. That’s the world we live in. So yeah, you damn right I am.”
That was her logic. That was our curse. And she was making Mayhem hate her more than he’d already started to. She just didn’t know it.It was said that he left the hospital and never came back around until a few months after I had been born. He decided he no longer wanted to cheat on his wife, but it was too late for that. He’d already made another family. That was short lived because he still had to pay my mom allowance to keep quiet, and to take care of us. She was no longer allowed to work for him, but the money he gave her was way more than she was making before.. So he eventually had to show his face, and they fell right back into their cycle.
Two years after me, Savage was born.
Mama didn’t hesitate or second guess the nigga name.
“Savage,” she said. “Because this one’s gonna causing hell.. He’s gonna be the most ruthless. I can feel it. He won’t have no heart. He’ll step on anybody to get to the top.”
And she was right. What she should have been doing was teaching her boys to stick together and that they should be against the world together. But most of the time, she just pinned them against each other.
We learned early that love didn’t exist in our house.
There was no affection. No bedtime stories. No warmth. Just survival.
If you ate, it meant you earned it. If you slept, it meant you lived another day without fucking up.
Mayhem and Sandi hated each other, but for some reason, couldn’t stay away. She held all of his secrets, and he knew that she’d expose her hand if she felt played or crossed. Whatever lust they had rotted into resentment. He regretted building a family with a woman he never loved. He was keeping secrets from his dying wife, and it ate him alive. He had a home with us, and a home where he actually wanted to be. This caused us to feel his wrath when he had to be around.
He hated himself. So he hated us more.
We weren’t sons. We were tools. And at an early age, he forced us to learn a world we should have never known, and made us do his dirty work.
“Gremlin,” Mayhem would bark, tossing him a package. “Run this. Come back with all the bread or you’re getting fucked up when you make it back. If you let somebody fuck you over, I’ll kill you.” He’d say, with no joke to the threat.
I was seven years old carrying a stolen gun in my backpack, protecting my big brother in case shit went left. I didn’t even know how to hold it right. Looking back, I realize how close I came to blowing my own head off.
Savage was five standing lookout while we sold drugs and committed crimes. He didn’t understand what was going on, but he understood to yell out for us if anything look funny or if someone else approached.
We didn’t get tucked in at night. We got instructions.
“You hesitate, you die,” Mayhem told me one night, shoving a knife in my small hand. “You feel bad, you die. You cry, you die. I don’t give a fuck about you niggas being young, you have to earn your keep or be on the fuckin streets. I’m tired of feeding y’all ass anyway. Please don’t think this is a game.”
I nodded. Because nodding meant I got to keep breathing. Around that time, I had to be ten, but I had seen more than any child should have. My big brother was only thirteen and had caught multiple bodies, while my baby brother was hoping that he’d catch one soon.
Mama was worse. Quieter, but worse.
She made us fight each other until someone bled. She wanted nothing more than to turn us against each other because she knew how strong we’d be together.
“Pain don’t kill you,” she said, watching me hold my busted lip. “Weakness does.”
