“What? You think it’s yours ‘cause of your daddy? He ain’t the king around here or down at Lucky’s no more. There’s order for all you dumb niggas now.” He tsks. “I heard you down at Worthing now, boxing with Kenny Fairchild and a bunch of kids ‘cause you can’t control yourself. Your ole’ man must be real disappointed.”
It’s the first time anybody said what everybody’s been whispering directly to my face. Thanks to Senior, I’ve always been a “sticks and stones” type of man, but hearing Wendell throw dirt on my name makes my stomach turn.
He curls his scarred lip, looking down at his balled fist. “You know what… I don’t believe what they say about you. Ain’t no way you throwing no haymakers. Ain’t no way you did what you did with your bare hands.”
“Listen…you ain’t got to believe shit, but what you can do is lea?—”
He shoves his fist right in the center of my jawbone that Dr. Borrowitz put a screw in. My teeth clank together, then cinch down on the soft tissue inside my mouth.
He steps back, breathing in and out, and staring at his busted fist with his lips hanging open. The taste of metal dribbles into my mouth, and a warm trickle of blood flows over my bottom lip.
I swipe at it, holding my red-stained fingers in front of my eyes. “Man, all you had to do was leave.”
He shuffles back, but I grab him by his faded shirt before he can step onto the grass.
“Now…now wait a minute…” He pushes his arms out while I wind the fabric around my hand. “Wait…wai?—”
I slam my fist into the side of his face.
His eyes roll back, and he falls into me.
I don’t even know shit about throwing haymakers, but I know how to push all 245 pounds of myself into a punch. Senior and Smitty always told me if I do it right the first time, I won’t have to do it again, but I’m tryna respect Beatrice’s house and not fuck up Melo’s ecosystem any more than I already have.
Wendell gasps and his eyes roll forward.
He pushes against my chest, throwing another sloppy punch that bounces off my chin.
I push his pudgy body to the ground. “All you had to do was leave like I told you to. We ain’t even have to do all this.”
He breathes hard. “Tell Beatrice to come tell me to leave to my face! Tell that bitch to come tell me what the problem is! It’s…it’s that shit about her granddaughter, ain’t it? I told her I ain’t want that lil’ bitc?—”
I shove my foot into his side, and he hollers so loud that his voice echoes into the night and gets swallowed by the sounds of the city.
I try to blink away Tamryn and Aisha’s faces from my mind, but they’re a constant, just like Arnez’s …and now Slim’s. Senior always said that’s what made me soft. I was always consumed with women and their problems. I couldn’t take care of them then let them go like he did. I always stick around.
“Pussy problems,” he always said, shaking his head. “They’ll ruin you quicker than them niggas down at Lucky’s.”
I lift my foot over Wendell’s face to shut him and Senior up.
“Rich?” a baby-soft voice murmurs.
But for the first time in my life, I hear somebody other than Arnez while I’m standing over another man. It shocks my nervous system so bad that my foot trembles.
Wendell rolls over onto his side, hawking up a glob of spit with his bloody face scrunched. He glances toward the back deck. I follow his line of vision, and my eyes collide with whiskey-colored brown ones.
“Slim,”I grit out.
She doesn’t move and I don’t either. It’s like I’ve been caught red-handed.
Wendell chokes. “You see this? Right? You see what he did to me?”
She opens her mouth.
“If anybody ask what happened to me, you tell ‘em what you saw! You hear me? You tell them how Pup attacked Melo Barnes’ brother because he’s a dumb motherfucka! He ain’t learned his lesson yet!”
Her fingers tremble against the banister.
“You hear me, you dumb bitch? You bitches gon’ get enough of fuckin with this?—”
