“I had to harden you up, Pup. You see boys come in that pit all the time that ain’t hardened up enough and look what happens. You hear about men who couldn’t protect their families because they wasn’t hardened up enough. That boy…”
His light voice drifts off.
He can’t say Jamari’s name anymore.
He stopped saying it the day Smitty wheeled him into our backyard and showed him where Jamari took his last breath.
Hell, he can’t even call Jamari a man because he was never a man. If he was, he would’ve fought me just like Arnez said he fought her, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even stay off the ground long enough to catch his footing.
“You told me what my baby’s face looked like when she came running into our backyard looking for you. I…I can’t even think of it without getting sick to my stomach,” Senior mutters. “A lesson had to be taught, and I couldn’t teach it, but I taught you how to. Imagine what he would’ve eventually done to her if hewas still here? I don’t give a fuck who he ran the streets with. This wasn’t about drugs or political gain. This was about a boy who couldn’t keep his hands off my child. This shit was about principles and morals. I don’t think you a killer, Pup. I think you just a man and you did what a man is supposed to do in that situation.”
I gulp in a breath of humid air while flashes of that night with Jamari intertwine with Slim’s voice:“I know exactly where you’re going when you leave this Earth and I’ll go with you.”
“She knows what I did,” I reply. “And she…she knows what I am.”
“So is that why she left? That’s why you wore down and drowning in Jack?”
“Nah. She ain’t leave.” I pull my phone out of my pocket while a ball settles in my throat. “She on here—haunting me and begging me to let her come home because she’s okay with me being the terrible motherfucka I am. She thinks we can figure this Melo Barnes situation out together. She ain’t even worried about her own problems anymore because she too busy worrying about mine, and I can’t even think about my own shit because I’m too consumed with hers. We’re all fucked up.”
“Well, it sounds like you finally found the killer, huh?” He blows one last plume of smoke out, then snuffs the cigarette on the arm of his wheelchair. “She know you in love with her?”
“Huh?” I choke on a wild bead of spit, and all the Jack I’ve been wading through since last night drowns me.
“Isaiddo she know you in love with her?”
“I…I don’t know about that. I don’t know shit about loving a woman properly.”
“I didn’t either, but that don’t matter to them. They’re defiant lil’ things. I realized they’re teaching you how to love them from the very first time you look in their eyes…” His voice drifts offand I hear the acceptance in the quietness that settles between us.
He sighs while that boulder inside my stomach explodes. “Yeah…that ole’ love shit is a motherfucka.”
“So that’s it?” I choke out. “You and Faye gonna live like this for the rest of your lives? Me and her gonna live the rest of our lives like this? This how it’s gonna be? This how love looks?”
“What you want me to do, Pup? Sit here and tell you to be even more selfish than you already been? Tell you to go to Kenny’s house and make her pack her shit? Tell you to bring her home and trust her when she says she can handle this life and live with the decision you made? As a man and a father, I can’t. She’s innocent, and I always asked you if you could handle ruining an innocent life if you ever fell in love. I tried to steer you away from this.”
“I…I get that. I understand. But Faye said if we can get the money together, we can beat this. She said I can go off to Vegas and train with a coach that Kenny’s friend Chico knows.”
“Pup…Kenny ain’t gon’ let that happen. That nigga ain’t gon’ wanna help you.”
I swipe the back of my hand across my face. “I…I just need some more time with Lovie.”
“Pup…”
“I just need a lil’ more time to get our shit in order at least—get her to get a damn bank account, get her a car, an apartment, put her name on the deed of the house for when that time comes since Arnez don’t want it…”
Smitty’s loud hammering eats the rest of my words. Thebangspound against my aching head.
“What’d I always say your responsibility was as a man…as a brother… and to these women around here that you fuck when they call and you answer?” Senior asks, twirling his finger around.
I close my eyes and try to drown out the head-splitting bangs that come one after another. “To protect ‘em while I’m here.”
“Mhmm. And I always said you gotta be ready for any consequences that come with that protecting, andallthis is a consequence of that. Being a real man is thankless, but that don’t mean you don’t do it.”
I open my eyes to him patting his chest. “That’s like me—what kind of man would I be to tell Faye to run around and try to come up with millions of dollars to hand over to this charlatan parading around here like he’s doing what’s best for this neighborhood? There’s only two ways out of this situation, and as a man you know what they are, and you know Lovie can’t survive either of them.”
My throat tightens and a lump forms in it. Warm wetness trickles down my cheeks.
I swipe them, glancing down at my fingers. “Fuck.”
