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My mom used to trick for a nigga named Hollywood. He was my father, too. He used to have her ass out on the corner, tricking for him, bringing back the money. I know I wasn’t a saint when it came to women, but it’s no way I’ll put a woman out on the corner for me to go fuck random niggas. It’s no way.

When he got my mom pregnant, you would think that he would have taken her ass off the corner, but he didn’t. Still had her ass out there doing the same shit. I only knew these things because the first few years of my life, my grandmother raised me. She would run her daughters dirty laundry down to me.

Hollywood wasn’t some nigga that I had a good bond with. Only memories I really had of him was him beating my mama’s ass and being angry all the time. I never called him dad because he never gave me the space to call him that. I always referred to him as Hollywood. According to my grandma, the feds were on to him by the time I turned six. They were trying to track that nigga, shut down his entire operation, and bury his ass under the jail. He got wind of that and got the fuck out of Miami. No one has seen or heard from him since.

Tricking was the only thing that my mom knew, so when Hollywood left, it’s what she continued to do. She might not have been on the corner anymore, but she still fucked niggas for money. Here she was, all these years later, doing the same shit. I don’t think she was going to ever slow down from this life, either. It was all she knew, and all she wanted to know.

“No. Our relationship is so fucked up because you bring your ass over here, trying to be my daddy, instead of my fuckin son! Stay out of my personal business, and then me and you won’t have to beef with each other,” she shot, and I nodded, going to let her have it, right after I said one last thing to her.

“Aight. Next time a nigga come over here and he start beating your ass, or you’re trying to put him out, and he won’t leave, don’t call me. Remember you told me to stay out of your business,” I said.

She just waved me off, and continued to put the dishes in the sink, so that she could wash them. Once they were all inside, she turned the water off.

“It’s food on the stove. I made baked chicken, yellow rice, and string beans,” she told me.

“I don’t want shit you just cooked for that nigga. I’m good,” I replied.

She did that annoyed, sarcastic laugh that women do when you were getting on their nerves. It probably wasn’t going to be much longer before she kicked my ass out of her house.

“What’s crawled up your ass this evening? You got this look in your eyes, that’s telling me it’s something deeper. Deeper than pulling up on me and seeing a nigga leaving my house. It’s a certain kind of stress to you. The kind of stress that a nigga has when he has a baby on the way. You got a baby on the way, son?” she asked me, calling me out on it.

Like I said, I haven’t seen my mom in months, and the last time we talked, it’s because she asked for money. Because of that, she didn’t know that I had a baby on the way. Shit was crazy how she guessed it.

I didn’t answer her question because I didn’t want to talk about it. Every time I had to accept the fact that I had a baby on the way, it was a reminder that I’d lost my bitch. I was still sick to my stomach that Deja wasn’t fuckin with me no more. As if that wasn’t bad enough, now I have to deal with the fact that she’s over there getting fucked by that mixed looking nigga. A nigga that I still had to put down. I wasn’t mature enough to allow another man to beat my ass, while I didn’t do anything about it. I had to handle that. Swear to God I did.

“The fact that you didn’t answer my question lets me know that I’m right. You love Deja, and if it was her that you had a baby on the way with, you would be sitting here smiling. I’m going to go ahead and make another guess and say that you were fuckin around on her and got the next bitch pregnant. That’s what happened, right?” she asked, calling it all out again.

“What? You supposed to be a psychic or something?” I asked her.

“Nope. I’ve just dealt with enough ain’t shit niggas in my lifetime to know. So, what happened? Who’s the woman that you got pregnant?” she wanted to know.

I slouched in the chair a little bit, picked my hand up, so I could run it down my face. After that, I placed my hands in my pockets. My mom was washing the dishes, but her eyes were on me. She looked at me as if she was waiting on me to respond.

“She work at the club with Deja. She a stripper too,” I shared, and after I said it, she made a face at me, as if she was disgusted.

“And Deja left you for that? Oh, I don’t blame her! Nigga, that’s low down. All the hoes in Miami, and you just had to fuck with one that works with your girl? As many men that I’ve dealt with in my lifetime, I will still never understand the way ya’ll mind operates. Ya’ll do the kind of stuff to us that ya’ll would have killed us for doing. You know if Deja had fucked someone that you know, or work with, that you would have been ready to kill her for it. You deserve to get your ass left for that. Deja is too bad of a bitch to deal with that,” she went on with her rant.

Deja and my mom weren’t the best of friends or anything like that, but they’ve been around each other a few times. I introduced them to each other last year sometime, and they clicked. That was new for me because I never brought women around to meet my mom. One, that was too serious for me, and two, I was embarrassed of where I came from and didn’t want to have to disclose how I was conceived. Even though I would fuck around on Deja, I trusted her with telling her intimate details about my childhood. She was the only woman that I’ve ever told that shit to. I had a baby on the way with Joy, and she didn’t know shit about my upbringing. She asked me before about my parents, but I kept it short, telling her that I wasn’t close with them.

“Yeah aight. I’m your son. Fuck is you taking her side for?” I wanted to know.

“Because right is right, and wrong is wrong. You were wrong. You think you lost her for good? You feel like she’ll come back?” she wanted to know.

“She already fuckin somebody else. A nigga named Wolf,” I shared.

“Bennett?” she asked and hearing her call his last name made me suck my teeth. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d fucked the nigga.

“Let me guess, you fucked that nigga too?” I asked, disgust dripping from each word that fell out of my mouth.

“No. I actually didn’t. I went to his shop earlier in the year with one of my home girls. We purchased some jewelry from him. That nigga is fine as hell, so I can’t say that I blame Deja. I didn’t know who he was when we went to the shop, but my girl did. Apparently, he comes from money. His father owns aircrafts. If that’s where Deja is at, son, I fear you might have lost her. That’s a different kind of wealth over there. Why leave that and go back to a nigga that has a baby on the way?” she just kept going on and on. Every time she spoke, she would annoy me even more.

As much as I wanted to stand up, and get the fuck out of here, I ended up sticking around for another hour. I only stayed so long because I didn’t know when I was going to pull up on her again. She asked me about Joy. She wanted to know what my plans were with her. She wanted to know how far along she was, and if we planned to have a gender reveal or a baby shower, so that she could attend. I told her no to both, although I knew that Joy wanted to have both.

Before I left, my mom left me with one thing. She told me that I knew what it felt like to grow up without a father. I knew what it felt like to have a father in the same city as me, but he never made me feel like I belonged to him. She told me not to follow that pattern. Told me to be a better father to my child than the father that I had. I knew that I wasn’t shit, but I planned on being good to my child.

I eventually left and headed to Joy’s house. I knew she was working tonight, so I wanted to catch her before she left.

It took me about twenty minutes to make it to her apartment. I parked my car in the guest parking lot, shut the car off, and quickly got out. Because I’ve been over here a lot lately, she made a key for a nigga. I no longer had to knock on the door and wait for her to answer for me. Instead, I used the key that she’d given me, making my way through the apartment. I removed my shoes at the door, leaving them here, and headed in the direction of her bedroom.