“I heard you got a little girlfriend. Tell me about that,” I said, taking a seat at the foot of the bed and picking up her remote so I could mute the TV.
I heard her suck her teeth, and then she released a sigh that proved to me that she was annoyed, and I hadn’t even been in this bitch for more than five minutes. I really didn’t understand why she was keeping this shit a secret from me if it was true in the first place because although Breshay and I were no longer together, we had the type of relationship, where we could pretty much talk to each other about anything. A relationship where there wasn’t any room for the two of us to ever judge each other.
“Let me guess, one of your stupid ass friends told you that, right?” she asked, and I ignored her question. “You like to think that I go into new things, get bored, and don’t care to do it anymore, so I toss it to the side and start on something else. I didn’t want you to think of my relationship like that, which is why I didn’t tell you. Also, I wanted to make sure that shit was serious between us before I started running off at the mouth and telling you that I was in a relationship,” she said and then there was a long pause.
I was pretty sure that she was debating with herself in her head, trying to make sure she said the right words. I had yet to respond because the ball was in her court, so I was just waiting for her to finish her side. After a few short minutes, she finally continued.
“I’m in love, Bully, like really in love, but I’m not going to lie. A part of me is kind of holding back because of you and our kids’ acceptance of it. I don’t want the kids to think that I’m weird or something like that for dating a girl. I was in the room the other day watching something on TV, and Zayika happened to walk in the room while two women were kissing on the TV. You should have seen her face. It was like she was utterly disgusted, and she kept saying how it was nasty. She kept saying how women were supposed to date men and not women.
“Although she doesn’t know about me and my girlfriend, I swear it felt like she was preaching to my soul. I just don’t want to ever give my kids a reason to feel like I’m not a good mother, you know? Or like I’m not setting a good example. Then, there’s you. You can be so strong minded at times, and I’m afraid of you saying the wrong shit to me, but you have the right to know. I was going to tell you about it. I just planned to do it on my time. Since you just came in here asking me about it, then clearly you must already know, so the answer to your question is yes. I am dating a female right now,” she went on to say.
“You were with a nigga for years, and when have I ever judged you based off the shit that you did? If I ever didn’t agree with any move you made, I voiced it to you, but I never judged you, shorty, and you know that. You know my past almost better than anyone. You know about the times where I basically had to say fuck my pride and go into them stores and steal formula, so my baby could eat. So, fuck how I feel about anything because my slate isn’t clean, and I’m not the best person in the world to be pointing fingers at the next person. If you happy, be fuckin happy, and don’t worry about what other people have to say. I came down here to ask you was this shit serious, but I can hear the seriousness all in your voice, and I can see it in your face that you’re in love. Shit, I want you to be happy. That’s less stress on a nigga,” I let her know, and she laughed.
She was getting ready to say something, but my phone started buzzing in my pockets. I noticed that it was the prison calling where my ole boy was. Immediately, my antennas went up because he’d already made his call for the night, and it was too late for him to be calling. For some reason, I knew this shit couldn’t be good, so when I took the call, I anxiously stood to my feet.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hello, this is Officer Daniels, and I’m calling from the Lake City correctional facility. I’m trying to get in contact with Za’Kai Kemp. Is this who I’m speaking with?” I heard the officer ask on the other end of the phone.
“Yes, what’s going on? Everything alright with my ole boy? I just talked to him about three hours ago,” I said, and there was a long pause.
It was almost as if his silence was telling me what I didn’t want to know.
“No, actually everything isn’t alright, which is why I’m calling,” he said, and instantly, my heart dropped.
I knew he couldn’t be calling to tell me that my ole boy had passed because after finding out about the cancer, he also assured me that he had a year left to live. I had just talked to the man on the phone, and he was telling me how his chemo session had gone today, and he made me promise to send him some updated pictures of the kids. Couldn’t shit have happened to him that fast.
“A couple hours ago, all of the prisoners were allowed to make their phone calls. Due to them being on lockdown this afternoon after a fight broke out during lunch time, everyone missed their afternoon call, so you can imagine the level of hostility and the eagerness that was going on later on tonight with everyone trying to make up for the call that they missed earlier. Your father dialed out twice. From what we were told, he made a phone call, I’m assuming to you, which lasted for about ten minutes, and instead of walking away and letting another inmate make a phone call, he decided to make another call.
“The prisoner who was standing behind him was anxious to make a call, and I’m pretty sure you can see where I’m going with this. Words were exchanged, and the prisoner that your father was having the dispute with happened to have a shank on him, and your father was stabbed to death. I apologize for your loss, and whenever you get a chance, it would be great if you could come down and identify his body,” he said.
&n
bsp; My whole body was numb to everything he told me. The whole time he spoke, I felt like I was listening to one of those scamming ass car commercials that tries to hustle you into purchasing a car. You know the ones where they talk all fast at the end of the commercial, leaving out all of the fucked up shit, so that it pretty much goes over your head? That’s how it felt listening to this man, who I could hear in his voice that he didn’t give two fucks about my father being stabbed to death. He was a white cop from the tone of his voice and probably thought of my father’s death as just another nigga dying.
His apology didn’t mean a damn thing to me either because I knew for a fact that he didn’t mean it. That shit was all in the rule book. They were paying that motha fucka to sell me this fake ass apology.
Feeling as if I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, I hung the phone up and took a seat back on the foot of the bed.
If anyone knew me personally, then you knew that I wasn’t the type of nigga to ever show emotions. I mean, so much shit had happened to me, that at a young age, I had pretty much taught myself how to be numb to a lot of shit. Having both parents go to prison at such a young age and then having to go down to the prison and see them every weekend, it had pretty much turned my heart cold. As cold as my heart was, it didn’t stop me from dropping my head down and allowing years’ worth of tears to fall down my face.
I was trying to do the right thing. I swear to God I was doing right for my kids. I wasn’t breaking into nobody’s shit, I wasn’t out in the streets selling drugs, and I was making my money the legal way, yet I still had to deal with fucked up shit like this happening in my life. This one right here had broken me for sure because I wasn’t prepared for this shit. I had already made it up in my mind that I had at least another year with my ole boy, and now look.
I felt the heat of Breshay’s body behind me and she wrapped her arms around me. I couldn’t remember the last time that she and I had physically been this close to each other. Any other time, I probably would have pushed her ass off me, but I wasn’t too manly to admit that I needed some comfort right now.
“What happened, Bully?” she asked with her arms still wrapped around me.
I took my time answering her questions because the tears hadn’t stopped falling, and I didn’t want to talk through my cries. I needed just a few minutes to get myself under control before I told her what was wrong with me. She didn’t pressure me, though. She didn’t suck her teeth and rush me to hurry up or no shit like that. She allowed me to have this moment to myself while she patiently waited for me to tell her what was going on.
“That was the prison. My ole boy got into it with some nigga during phone time, and as a result of that, he was stabbed to death with the shank that dude had,” I said.
Breshay released a loud gasp. Just like how it was shocking to me, the shit was shocking to her. Breshay knew my ole boy personally because back then, when she and I were dating, I’d brought her with me to the prison a few times. It wasn’t the ideal place to bring your girlfriend to meet your parents for the first time, but some shit was out of a nigga’s control, so that was all I had to give her at the time. Along with her knowing my father personally, I’d also told her stories about him through the years, so she knew about the type of nigga that he was when he wasn’t behind those bars.
“Shit is just so fuckin’ weird to me, you know? I swear I feel like God has been testing my ass ever since I was two years old. Sometimes, I sit and think to myself, like what the fuck did I do to deserve this type of lifestyle, you know? All the fuckin’ kids in the world, and I had to be the one with parents who sold dope for a living, and as a result of that, it forced them to get these long ass sentences in prison. Like, how the fuck does shit like this work? How does He know who to give this type of fucked up lifestyle to? Don’t He think that a nigga already been through enough?
“I accepted the fact that my parents each got a fifty plus year sentence. I accepted the fact that I was only going to have a year left with my ole boy because of the cancer, now I gotta accept this shit too? Mannn, something got to give. How strong do He expect a nigga to be, yo?” I asked.
I wasn’t really expecting Breshay to answer any of the questions that I’d just finished asking, because if anything, I was just venting. I was asking all the shit that I had been too afraid to ask for so many years, but when you’re just fed up with the constant curveballs that life continues to throw at you, you reach a breaking point.