Page 188 of Own It

Once my father expressed that Ayan needed to practice until nightfall and Ayan agreed like the kiss ass that he was, I had no choice but to hitch a ride with Pops since he was dipping out to fetch the powder for his favorite son.

I tried to remain quiet and calm, scratching at my inner forearm to stabilize myself as I stood beside my behemoth of a father, frowning deeply and ready to curse at the store clerk because he hadn’t found what the fuck he was looking for.

I had to remind myself that once we grabbed this shit, he’d take me home, and I’d be free of his ass. A part of me wanted to call Rakim and have him scoop me since I knew Josias was busy on delivery for the baking company, but I didn’t want to cause any type of riffs between my brother and father.

Once Nate got wind of what I did, he would take issue, and then Rakim would have an issue with that. It wasn’t worth it. Rakim had taken enough of the beatings and mistreatment to be spread among us all to last a lifetime.

“Nate?” A gravelly voice called out, prompting me and my father to peer over our shoulders in effort to see who it was.

An older man, maybe around my father’s age, approached, hunched over. Though he and my dad were both sixty, or in their sixties in this nigga’s case, you could tell my father was in much better shape.

My dad’s forehead creased before recognition set in, and it relaxed.

“Gordon? How you doing, nigga? I ain’t recognize you looking like you could be my fucking dad,” my father replied, laughing heartily as Gordon joined him.

“Not everybody grew up to spend their life working out and in sports.” Gordon coughed and then looked up and over at me.

Peering to his left and down at me, my dad said, “My son Zaire. My youngest by three minutes,” he added, a joke he used to always throw out that I used to feel like was his way of showing love.

“Zaire. Wow. Of course you’re a big guy.” The man reached to shake my hand, and I obliged.

“Nice to meet you.” I bobbed my head, wanting to tell Gordon to get the fuck on so my father could take me home.

“Yeah, I went to high school with your father . . .” He paused, eyes widening as if a light bulb had gone off in his head. “Oh, and your mother too. Your mother is Helen, right?” He grinned, and I nodded. “Yes, they were high school sweethearts!” He turned to look back at my dad who appeared uncomfortable at the subject of my mother, which was understandable. My mama was a sensitive subject for all of us. “How is Helen?” Gordon grinned, unknowingly bringing up a difficult topic.

“Oh, she um, passed almost ten years ago⁠—”

“Oh!” Gordon shielded his mouth in shock, intercepting my dad’s sentence. “I had no idea, of course. How, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Yeah, uh, . . . stroke. Only fifty-one years old, so you know it was hard.” My father shrugged, releasing a dejected breath.

I zoned out at that point, wondering why my father would tell Gordon our mother died from a stroke when it was a heart attack. I was a zombie at that point, only snapping out of my whirlwind of thoughts when I watched the white man hand my father his receipt, grinning wildly like most heavy boxing fans did whenever in his vicinity.

As soon as we were both in the car, my dad having reversed out of the parking space, I asked, “Why you tell that old nigga mama died from a stroke? She died from a heart attack.”

He waved me off, pulling into traffic after yielding for a moment.

“I misspoke, Zaire. Not a big fucking deal.”

“You misspoke? How can you mistakenly say the wrong thing when someone asks what yo’ wife died from?” I continued to probe, not going for the misspoke excuse.

I didn’t know what I was expecting to find or learn, if anything at all, but I knew something wasn’t right. Having damn near grown up in the media from being one of the most coveted heavyweight champions, my father had perfected saying the right thing at the right time. Shit, how else you think the nigga was able to hide the violent abuse he’d perpetrated on his wife and kids for decades?

Slamming on his brakes at the red light, he gripped the wheel in his large hands and turned to me, venom lacing his eyes.

“Look, Helen was my got damn wife, and I loved her well before you and yo’ bitch ass brothers even came into this world. So don’t come at me like you love her more than I did, lil nigga. I made a fucking mistake, and that’s all the fuck it was. I was nervous.”

“Nervous for what? You a big ass, healthy nigga, and he was an old ass man who couldn’t even stand up straight or shake my hand without trembling.” I kept on, ignoring the foreboding feeling swirling around in my stomach like water did a drain. No matter what my mind and body told me to do, I couldn’t stop my fucking mouth from interrogating this nigga.

“Aye.” He laughed cheerlessly. “You’d better shut the fuck up talking to me. I’m telling you right now, this ain’t what the fuck you want.”

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I surrendered, having no more questions anyway. I wasn’t getting any-fucking-where, so it was pointless. However, I wasn’t gon’ let this shit go. Next time I saw Rakim and Josias, I was mentioning the shit, so long as his pet Ayan wasn’t in the room.

I loved the fuck out of my brother, but his obsession with being accepted by my father trumped his love and loyalty for us. Additionally, part of Ayan’s strive for perfection in Nate Godfrey’s eyes was out of fear, something that started when we were fucking kids. The more perfect he was, the less likely he’d be beaten or tortured or locked away.

The remainder of the ride to my spot was silent, and I wasn’t gon’ complain. He hadn’t even pulled up to the curb of my home fully before I was hopping out of the car, slamming his fucking door. I waited to hear him peel off, but instead, the engine shut down.

His heavy footsteps trailed me as he yelled, “Zaire! Zaire!”