“You’re not my father, Goo.”
“Never said I was.”
“Then stop acting like you are.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “You so fucking selfish, Inez.”
“How?” Tears threatened to fall from her water line, as she stared at me. “How the fuck am I selfish? I’m trying to fucking live.”
“We’re all trying to live, Nezzy.” My mother wheeled herself over and rubbed her back. “Baby, this isn’t good for you… not this life. Not good for you or your mother.”
Inez lowered her head, torn on how to feel. She had her family begging her to be better, and then the pain begging her to make it go away, even if it was temporary.
“Fuck your family, Nez? That’s what you basically telling me… I shouldn’t have to see you like that… never.” I raised my voice, and my mother placed her hand on top of mine.
“Maxine, no. You don’t need to come over here. It’s under control, right?” She looked to me and Inez.
I took a deep breath and looked across the table, as she messed with the fork in front of her. “You don’t have to live with this.”
“We all fucking living with it, Inez. You don’t think I take the blame for that shit too?” Khaos came from the back room.
Whenever he couldn’t sleep, he always found his way to my mother’s apartment. We both always found our way to Paulette. When I first came home, I came home to more money than I went in with. My first thought was to move my moms out the hood.
She refused to leave what she was used to and moved down to the bottom floor. The landlord had watched us boys grow up and agreed to let her move into a bigger unit on the first floor because she was now considered handicap.
Shit, with the way they were gentrifying Brooklyn, the hood wasn’t even the hood anymore.
I paid her bills and lived with her because I could. She needed my help, and even though she had aids, I liked to bearound. The fuck I looked like living in a nice neighborhood, and leaving my mother in the same place we came up in?
“I should have been better… should have not followed behind his father.” She rocked in the chair with her hands over her face, while my mother wrapped her into her arms.
I leaned back in the chair and looked at my cousin. Inez was more than my younger cousin; she was my little sister. I protected her like one, and for the first time, I didn’t know what to do.
Shit, I knew what to do, still, that wouldn’t solve all her issues. Getting clean would only force her to deal with the pain. Might cause her to hate me for forcing her to deal with the pain without an escape.
I abandoned my breakfast and grabbed my car keys and left the apartment, not wanting to deal with this shit today. It was one thing to know what the fuck was going on, and another thing to always have that shit being thrown in your face.
Crying and silently begging you for a way out. The reality was that our family was broken, and I didn’t know how to fix the shit. Money wouldn’t fix all of our problems this time. As much as I wanted it to, I knew that not even time would fix shit.
We’ve had time.
All time had done was make shit worse, the pain hurt more, and the memories seem further than what they were. I jogged down the steps and got into my truck, pulling away from the curb.
A nigga didn’t even have a destination; I just needed to clear my mind. I Just needed to stop hearing the tears. All it reminded me of was the wailing through those prison phone calls. Shit fucked with me, as I shook it off and drove toward a spot that felt safe for me.
Brooklyn was my home.
Every neighborhood, block, or spot, I knew. As a boy having to become a man before he should have, I used Brooklyn as my playground. Doing and trying to figure everything out on my own with a little brother determined to do the same.
These same streets that I loved ended up sending me away from my family. I ran my hand down my head, as I continued through Brooklyn, heading toward Canarsie Pier. For years, this had been the spot that I went to when I needed to think.
It didn’t help that I did some of my dirt in Bayview projects. Shit wasn’t always good at home when it came to moms. As much as she worked, she still wanted us to remain innocent boys. She didn’t realize that while she was working to give her boys a better life, the streets were making her boys into men.
Parking, I hopped out and went to sit by the water. I watched as a few Mexicans hung over the railing with a net, catching crabs. That shit was never allowed, but nobody gave a fuck about rules.
Rules were meant to be broken, and those crabs they caught were meant to be eaten. I leaned back on the bench and inhaled the smell of sea water in the air. My phone buzzed, and I ignored it while closing my eyes.
Taking in the air, I allowed myself to breathe. I was usually the calm one, the one who thought of solutions and fixed shit, but today I couldn’t do that shit.
