“I’m getting on the road now. I should be on the turnpike in about five minutes,” he let the caller know.
“Cool. What’s your ETA?” the caller wanted to know.
“I haven’t plugged the route in yet. I’ll get it started as soon as I pull off. If I don’t run into any traffic, I should be there a little after eleven,” Gemini responded.
“I got you. I’ll go ahead and let the receiver know now. Safe travels,” he said.
“I appreciate that,” and just like that, Gemini hung the phone up.
True to his word, I watched him as he keyed in an address, and just like he told the caller, the arrival time said 11:12 A.M. Not going to lie, in just these past ten minutes of being in the truck with him, watching the way he navigated through the screens, went onto a app to finish with his checklist, communicate with dispatch, I was impressed. It felt like I had quickly tapped into his world. It was obvious that Gemini had been doing this for a long time, and that he knew exactly what he was doing.
Within a matter of seconds, he pulled off, and just like that… we were off. This newfound person that Gianna said that I would be when I came back, I could only hope that she was right about that. I didn’t want to come back broken. God, I hoped this open road healed me. I wanted to stop mourning something that was no longer for me. This misery that I was living in…I wanted to shake my way out of it.
Gemini said that the road had a way of making people forget about their problems that they had back at home. I hoped that was true.
Chapter 3
Gemini Black
It’s been about an hour since we’ve been on the road. Amina was chilling. She wasn’t fuckin with me, and I wasn’t fuckin with her. All her time had been going into the book that she was reading. Every blue moon, I would glance over at her, just to see if she’d dozed off or anything, but she was still up. I placed a bet with myself, predicting that we would be going at it with each other at least the first five minutes in the truck, but we hadn’t. She was so quiet that a few times, I forgot that she was even over there.
I wanted to be respectful of her reading, so I didn’t have the music turned up as loud as I usually would. It was loud enough though. Loud enough for me to bob my head to the lyrics, as I cruised on Florida’s turnpike.
Future’s album was playing. It was his Monster album. One of my favorite albums by him. The song Throw Away was playing. The song was about halfway through when I heard Amina suck her teeth. Hearing that, I turned my head to look at her. Shit, I thought that she might have gotten to a certain scene in her book that annoyed her or something, but when I turned to look at her, it was me that she was giving this annoyed look to. She was looking at me like I did something to her.
“What you got going on, man?” I asked. These were the first words that I’ve spoken to her in the past hour.
“These songs is what I have going on, Gemini. I’m in your space. I get that I’m a visitor here, which is why I didn’t say anything earlier, but damn! Are these rappers supposed to be romantic? Like, do women really sit and listen to the lyrics of these songs and think that the things these men are saying about us is okay?” she asked me. I loved a good debate, but she was coming at me, taking frustrations out on me, as if I wrote the fuckin lyrics.
“It’s lyrics. Lyrics that I didn’t write. I’m just vibing to the shit,” I shot.
“It’s trash, Gemini. The kind of music that you keep playing is the kind of music that make women out to be disposable. Every word that comes out of these rappers mouths is bitch this, hoe that. Suck my dick, fuck you till you die, like what the hell, Gemini. Why is this the kind of music that you choose to listen to? You can’t put on some R&B?” she wanted to know.
“If I wanted to put on R&B, I would have put on R&B, love,” I said to her.
When I said it, I turned my head to look at her for a second because I wanted to see her reaction. She had an intense look in her eyes, as if she wanted to keep the debate going, but she probably was replaying my sisters words in her head, where Gianna told us not to get on the road arguing. I could tell Amina liked to argue. Shit, she met her match with me because a nigga liked to argue to. It was my specialty.
“Go ahead. Let me hear your next argument. I know you have one,” I went on to say.
“No. I actually don’t have one. Well, I do but I’ll keep it to myself. Gianna already told me that you get off by arguing with people, and challenging everyone’s opinion, so I won’t feed intoyour ego,” she spat, and hearing that, it caused me to suck my teeth.
“How is me challenging your opinion feeding into my ego?” I wanted to know.
“Because you would love the opportunity to hear yourself talk. I know the kind of guy that you are, Gemini. I get the impression from you that every disagreement feels like a competition with you. That’s why I said that I’m not going to feed into your ego,” she finished.
“You don’t know shit about me, love. I haven’t seen you in well over fifteen years. The last version you have of me is the version of me at seventeen. Having a little back and forth about my choice of music is not you feeding into my ego. I’m just curious to hear what your next argument was going to be. I know you have one, and I would just like to hear you say it,” I kept pressing.
I took my eyes off the road again, so that I could glance over at her. When she folded the page at the top of the book, and she closed the book, turned her body a little bit so that she could look over in my direction, I knew that she was getting ready to tell me what her next argument was. I was prepared for that shit too.
“I feel like people are reflections of the things that they consume. I’m sure you’ll ask me to elaborate on that, so I’ll go ahead and do it. I already told you that every song that you’ve played has spoken piss poor about women. The lyrics are hella degrading. With that, you’ve been nodding your head to it, rapping the lyrics, and on some parts, you even turned the music up a little louder. If that’s what you’re constantly listening to, constantly consuming, it leaves me to believe that you more than likely think piss poor about women,” when she finished with that bullshit, I had to take another glance at her just to see if she was dead ass or just talking to hear herself speak.
“You say all that bullshit as if I wasn’t raised by a black woman. You say that as if I don’t have a little sister in my life that I would knock a nigga’s shit loose over if things ever got out of line. I have all kind of women in my life that I love dearly. With all that being said, how the hell you get from my choice of music that I think piss poor when it comes to women? That shit is just music,” I started out.
“And your choice of music says a lot about you,” she kept saying that goofy ass shit. To keep from spazzing, I just laughed, while shaking my head.
“No, it doesn’t. It says a lot about the artists. You act like I’m taking these lyrics and studying these niggas lifestyles. I don’t know shit about these niggas other than the lyrics that they put out. Look at the shit you reading. What that say? The dead body? What’s the synopsis on this motha fucka?” I asked, reaching over, so that I could take the book out of her lap.
On the cover, you could see specs of blood, a knife, and a shadow figure off in the distance. I even flipped the book over, so that I could skim through the synopsis that was on the back.
