Daddy Dearest (20 page)

She faced her. “What?”

“You knew the truth, didn’t you?”

She responded by casting her eyes to the ground. “What’s the truth? The truth could basically be what you want it to be.”

“Bullshit! The truth is the truth. Forget what I want it to be. I want my mom to be here with me, but the truth is she’s dead and ain’t coming back.”

Dehila shrugged nonchalantly. “And?”

Cataya couldn’t take it anymore. She swung a haymaker. “I trusted y’all!”

The blow only grazed Dehila, but she felt the fury behind it, and knew that this wasn’t the time to take a stand. She backpedalled to the street, just as Rafeal rushed out of the house with a gun.

* * *

When Cataya saw Ching take off running she spun around just in time to see her uncle cocking the pistol.

“What are you doing, Uncle Ra-Ra?”

“This ain’t for y’all, Taya. Where’s my shit, Dee?!”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, still backpedalling towards the street.

“My stereo equipment and money! Where is it, goddamnmit?!”

Blaze her ass up!

“How should I know? I don’t be in your room.”

That bitch is lying through her teeth. Blaze her ass up like Ricky in ‘Boyz in the Hood’. Ricc-keey!

“Come here, Ricky…I mean, Dee.”

Ricky-Dee. Ain’t that a rapper?

She made no attempt to close the gap between them. “I don’t know where your stuff is, Uncle R-Ra. I swear!”

That’s because she done pawned it to the dealers with the fattest sack. Some of that shit that’ll send you straight to the toilet because it’s cut with laxative. Ahh, she sold your shit for some laxative.

“Shut up!”

I know she can’t wait until your next check comes, because we all know you’ re going to buy another stereo system. I’m start calling you ‘Easy Money’. Yeah, that’s your new name. E dot Money. My nigga!

Rafeal ran up on Dehila with the gun trained on her. She was too scared to run for the fear of getting shot in the back, so she fell to ground in the fetal position.

“No, Uncle Ra-Ra! I’m sorry!”

Sorry didn’t do it bitch; you did. Cancel that bitch, Easy!

“Sorry didn’t do it; you did,” he said, lining her up in the gun’s sight. “The disrespect stops today.” He pulled the trigger!

* * *

Dehila couldn’t believe that this was happening to her. And though she knew she had provoked her uncle, she still blamed LeLe. Dehila knew without a doubt, that if Hammer was her father wouldn’t no man dare threaten her in any form or fashion.

Through Ron, Hammer made sure that any opposition that troubled Cataya, was quickly dissolved. It was a security blanket that everyone, in her opinion, desired to have.

She felt so helpless now as she looked up the barrel of the gun. But she felt so much more when fire leaped from it!

* * *

Cataya watched in mixed emotions as Rafeal pointed the gun at Dehila. She felt no pity for her cousin, who had shown since her arrival that she didn’t care about anybody but herself.

But her uncle, on the other hand, had shown her love in his own crazy way. He also held a high level of respect for her mother, that he professed every chance the opportunity presented itself.

This was something that Cataya wasn’t use to. Granny had never spoken ill of her mother, but she never wasted any of her praises on her. They all went to Hammer, who was the apple of her eye, and the halo above her head.

Cataya knew that regardless of the calumnious ways that both Fannie and Dehila had displayed, she couldn’t allow the only true family member on her mother’s side, to throw away is life on them.

She had taken two steps toward him, when he pulled the trigger!

* * *

EL The One DeBarge went ballistic when the slug entered the ground beside Dehila.
Oh, my fucking God! You bitch as nigga! What the fuck are you, a gardener? Quit wasting bullets and dead that bitch!

“Think about what you are doing,” Cataya said.

“I know what I’m doing. Have you been in my room? She stole all my shit and pawned it to the dealer with the fattest sack,” he said.

“So you’re going to kill her? That’s your niece. And as rotten as she is, she doesn’t deserve to be shot or killed.”

Shei-ittt. She deserves both. One in the ass, and one in the head. You can’t keep giving her ass passes. Assess passes. This dick, her ass. I’m tripping.

“I can’t keep giving her assess passes. I got to make an example out of somebody.”

“You don’t want to go to jail, do you?”

Fuck it. We’ll just lift weights all day and tell war stories. Make up some shit like your daddy is doing in there.

Rafeal shrugged. “Prison might not be so bad. Why are you taking up for her, anyway? Her and Fannie been hating on you and LeLe since the beginning.”

“Still, I don’t want to kill them…”

So! That’s you!

“…Let it go, Uncle Ra-Ra. Do that for me.”

Dehila seized the opportunity to plead her own case. “I’m so sorry, Uncle Ra-Ra. I’ll get mama to pay for your stuff. I swear!”

Get your shit back in blood my nigga That way you won’t have to wait for it.

All the pressure that Rafeal was receiving overwhelmed him to the point that every word that he heard echoed five to six times. Even EL The One DeBarge started complaining about it.

Rafeal put his hands to his ears and took off running.

 –—Chapter Twenty-Two–—

Hammer was relieved that he reached the rear of the prison without being spotted. But he knew that he had only completed the easy part of his instinctive plan.

The barbwire fence presented a more difficult problem due to the fact that he had forgotten to bring a blanket. It’s sharp barbs gleamed malignantly under the streetlight, like they were almost daring a non-believer to test their sharpness.

Hammer knew that going back inside for a blanket was out of the question, so he cautiously walked the fence line looking for an area where the barbs weren’t present.

He was so caught up in the search that he never saw the moving figure until it pounced on him!

* * *

“He did what?!”
Dehila’s Facebook boyfriend exclaimed in his message. She sent him one back. They continued typing each other”

“He tried 2 kill me, but I wrestled da gun from ‘em.”

“OMG!”

“My nerves r shot, I need sum stuff.”

“What did I tell u about using dat kind of Lang?”

“Sorry! Stressed out. ‘Cuse me.”

“May-b cum c u 2morrow wit’ sum relief.”

“2morrow! Y not 2niht? U have been putting me off our initial meeting 4 2 long.”

“C how selfish u r. U told me just a few mins. Ago dat ur uncle wz over there shooting, & u want me 2 drive in da 5-0’s arm. Wow!”

“No, Mike! Wouldn’t do dat 2 u. Cool ere, dey never cam. Da neighbors r use 2 my uncle. Dey never pay ‘em any mind.”

“Dats’ good, I think.”

“Has Its advants. Anyway, cum scoop. Ready 2 meet u.”

“Me, 2.”

“Den cum on.”

“What will mom say?”

“@ work. Cuz & her B.F. here. Sleep.”

“Guess I could cum by.”

‘Great! Don’t 4get 2 bring me sumthing.”

“Never!”

“C u when u get here.”

She sent the last message off and headed to the shower. Her body still reeked of urine from the scare that Rafeal had given her.

* * *

Ching turned over on the pallet to face Cataya. “Hey, you sleep?”

“Huh?”

“You sleep?”

“It won’t come.”

“You think about what uncle say?”

She sighed. “Yeah. I can’t believe my aunt used me like she did. Only a monster could do something like that.”

“Why you still here?” We can go to my house.”

“I can’t right now.”

“Why not? My father never know, house too big.”

“It’s not that. I have to confront my aunt first.”

“What you expect her to say?”

“I …I don’t know.” Her voice crackled. “Truly, I want her to know that I know what she did, and I’ll never forgive her.”

A long moment of silence passed between them. Ching watched her eyes fill with tears and he wiped them away with his thumbs. It was the only thing that he could do to not feel helpless. That was a feeling that he had been experiencing since she had exposed him to her world.

“No cry.”

It’s hard not to. I’ve pushed away one of the only people that really loves me.”

“You no push him. He know aunt tells lies on him.”

Cataya remembered her father warning her not to believe anything that Fannie said. That let her know that he was conscience of Fannie’s nature. That still didn’t explain to her why he never bothered to enlighten her on their whole situation.

She expressed this to Ching.

“Well,” he began, “would you believed him if he did?”

“Probably not. Then again…I don’t know. I feel so awful how I’ve been treating him.”

“You like if I take you to him tomorrow?”

“It has been so long since I’ve seen him. What…what If he’s unreceptive to my apology?”

“That no happen. He will be happy that you believe now.”

“You think?”

“You good people. Everybody loves you.”

She planted a salty kiss on his lips. “You’re so sweet.”

“I only tell the truth.”

“I know. That’s why I love you.”

He couldn’t believe his ears. “I love you, too.”

* * *

Hammer instinctively lashed out at the figure, knocking it to the ground. He then followed through with a combination of short jabs, which he discontinued when he saw that it was the stray dog that often circled the compound.

It scurried to a section of the fence and disappeared. This interested Hammer greatly, so he approached the area and discovered the dog growling on the other side.

“Get your ass away fro here, mutt!”

The dog complied, and Hammer studied its escape route, smiling.

* * *

“I can’t, man. Won’t no good come out of me drinking.” Rafeal explained to EL The One DeBarge.

How the fuck do you figure that?

“Because, Dr. Yessuh said that it’ll only worsen my condition.”

Ha! I know you ain’t still talking about the same prick that was cooking your ass with electrotherapy under false pretenses. I can’t believe you let those crackers trick you into believing that you was crazy. I hate to see if you was a bitch. Dudes were staying tricking you out of some pussy and mouth.

“How was I suppose to know I wasn’t crazy? I didn’t start hearing your ass until I woke up in the psych ward.”

I don’t know how, I’ve always been here curing your simple ass out. And for the last time, you’re not crazy!

“I know that you explained everything to me in the hospital, but run it across me again.”

I’m your conscience, dickhead. I’m a little more profound than most peoples. It is what it is. I got some aliases, too. The ‘devil on your shoulder’, ‘inner voice’, ‘six sense’ etc. I’m He.

“Seems easier just to believe I’m crazy.”

Seems like to me your bitch ass done embraced that crazy title. You like being seen as an unstable person, don’t you? It gives you a reason to make excuses and feel sorry for yourself. Poor pathetic bastard.

“No! That’s not true!”

You’re not only a coward, you’s a bitch! A ho ass nigga! A fuck boy! A mama boy!

“You got some nerve calling me out of my name and you’re hiding in my head without a body. If you ever come out of me, I’mma kick your ass to sleep! I put that on my unborn!”

A man that was coming out of the convenience store switched directions when he seen Rafeal in a heated debate with an unseen entity.

You want to fight little ole’ me for having your back and speaking the truth, but you gave the bitch that stole all of your shit a pass. If that ain’t some ho ass shit, then I don’t know what is.

EL The One DeBarge only continued when Rafeal didn’t respond. All I’m saying is you ain’t crazy. You’re just a conscious man who haven’t learnt to listen to his inner voice. Me.

“If I listen to you, I’d be on death row somewhere.”