“Well excuse me for calling to check on my son.”
“What do you want?”
“The money you deposited into my account was a little light.”
“You mean your allowance?” Yes, I intentionally picked that word to chin check him.
My father cleared his throat and, in my mind, probably fought the urge to call me out my name. “I spoke with your assistant.”
“You texted her and you don’t get to demand extra money. She doesn’t have the authority to approve a request like that.”
“I thought she’d run it by you.”
“You should’ve saved us all the trouble.”
“Listen I have an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a very promising business model.”
“You can’t keep your bank account from being overdrawn, how do you expect to run a business with employees and expenses?”
“I’ve got a guy who’s going to handle the day to day.”
“What’s the business?”
“It’s a strip club slash sportsbook.”
“Gambling is illegal in Philadelphia.”
“Yeah, well the sportsbook part is silent.”
“You woke me out of my sleep to ask for money for an illegal enterprise.”
“It’s cool, everyone does it.”
“I’m sure you know every underground gambling joint in a one-hundred-mile radius.”
“Stop acting like I’m asking you for a million dollars. It’s just ten grand. That’s chump change to you.”
“I give you money every month, why didn’t you save some of it to fund this dream?”
“Okay then don’t give me the money outright, you could be an investor.”
“I have no interest in owning a strip club that will most likely get raided for gambling and sex trafficking in less than a year.”
“Well, your momma got some money saved up, maybe I’ll just ask her.”
The way I wanted to reach through the phone and choke his old ass out. Like rockabye baby. Lights out motherfucker. “If you ask my mother for so much as her opinion the checks from mewill end. I will freeze your account, and the gravy train will be decommissioned.”
“Damn you’re strict. You’re twenty-four and rich. This should be the best time of your life.” I was twenty-six. This motherfucker couldn’t even be bothered to remember my date of birth let alone my age. Maybe Danessa was right. Perhaps I’d been too damn generous. The life of an oat milk farmer was looking real good right now.
“I learned from you. Gotta go.”
“Aldrid—” I ended the call before he could say another word. As a grown man I wasn’t interested in going back and forth with him on this. I didn’t mind giving him an allowance, but I wasn’t his personal ATM. That’s a lie. I hated he got five thousand a month from me for being the most horrible person on the planet. Initially I was only giving my mother money but when my father got wind, he’d bully her to hand over the lion’s share.
I weighed my options and killing him wasn’t a viable one. Not that I hadn’t workshopped the idea of the perfect crime. No DNA or forensic evidence, just my father disappearing, never to be heard from again. At the end of the day, I determined I wasn’t a killer and if I had to hire someone it would no longer be the perfect crime. So my father got to walk around Philly breathing fresh air when he should be decaying in a shallow grave somewhere.
My phone dinged with a notification, and I was certain it would be a text from my father telling me he had no son. Instead, it was a message from my brother Duane with a link attached from No Drill, a gossip site that trafficked in rumors and stories loosely based in the truth. There was her side, his side, and then there was No Drill. Clicking the link I opened the post.
NBA SUPERSTAR, ALDRIDGE MOSLEY SPOTTED AT A COLLEGE BOOKSTORE WITH A BARELY LEGAL BEAUTY.
