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“If she’s not there, I’m dropping her ass off somewhere. I didn’t sign up for this shit, Giovonni. I’m not even being mean, but it’s one thing to be a grandmother, and it’s a whole ’nother thing to take on the responsibly and be a full-time mom. I’ve been bringing Maya with me to work at the cafeteria because I don’t have money to pay for a babysitter. Her ass cries all night, and I’m changing the sheets of the bed every day because she’s still pissing in the bed. This was you and Krystal’s doing, not mine! I’m making ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck. She is another bill. Another bill that I cannot afford right now,” she vented.
I would say that I hated she was saying all of this shit in front of Maya, but I swear that little girl wasn’t even paying us any attention. Physically, she was there, but her mind was on a whole other planet. I kept wondering what the hell that was all about.
“Fuck is you saying? That’s my child, Ma. I can’t take care of her while I’m here, so this is where you gotta step in. Fuck are you going to do? Put her out on the fuckin’ streets? She’s five, yo. She ain’t ask to be here!” I yelled.
“And I didn’t ask to be in this ghetto ass situation. You should have thought about your predicament before you went fuckin’ on bitches, knowing that you are in no condition to be anybody’s father. I won’t drop her off in the fuckin’ streets, but I’ll take her somewhere,” she snapped.
If she wasn’t my mama, I would have slapped the shit out of her. She had some fucked-up ways about her, but I never thought that she would be so fuckin’ mean and heartless to the point that she would pretty much say fuck her own grandchild. When I was free, and Vonte was younger, she didn’t mind watching him on days that Shae was either working or in school, and I would be somewhere running the streets. What the fuck was so different now? It probably had to be that back then, I would front her a little money to keep Vonte. Now that I was locked up and didn’t have shit to give her, I guess her outlook on being a grandparent changed.
“Ask Shae for me, Ma, and—”
“Tuh!” she hissed, throwing her hands up in the air and rolling her eyes at me like I was crazy for even letting something like that come out of my mouth.
“Please! Are you serious? What are you doing in here, sniffing coke?” her stupid ass asked me.
“Man, say what you want. I know
that lady better than anybody else. She won’t do it for me, but she’ll damn sure do it off the strength of this being Vonte’s sister. Shae is not going to just say fuck a child like that, no matter how much she hates me. If you’re able to reach out to Shae, do that for me. I won’t ask you to do shit else for me, Ma. After this, you don’t even have to come back down here and see me, but just don’t drop her off to anybody. Do that for me,” I all but begged her.
It meant so much to me to have Maya somewhere safe because I already put her in a situation where she was another black child whose father was either incarcerated or dead. I figured that having her somewhere safe, where she could lay her head at night was the least that I could do. I knew Shae’s heart, and I couldn’t see her saying fuck Maya, who like I said, was Vonte’s little sister.
“Yeah, whatever you say! Maya, meet your daddy,” she nastily spat and stood up from the table.
Maya didn’t respond. She was in her own little world. My ole girl all but snatched her up, and the two of them walked out the doors together, never once even telling me bye. My eyes stayed trained on Maya the entire time. She walked on her tippy toes, trying to keep up with my mama. What was keeping her from catching up was those big ass jeans that she had on along with those little ass shoes. I could kill Krystal right now for even having our daughter looking crazy like that. What the fuck was the purpose of her having a daughter if her dumb ass wasn’t going to take care of her?
That hoe wanted to be put on the same level as Shae so badly that she was willing to birth a baby that she didn’t even want. My visit was up, so I stood up, and I was led back to my cell. Immediately as I got inside, it was as if a light bulb had gone off in my head. I remember Shae sent a letter to me a couple of years ago, and it had her job address on it. I tore this little ass cell up, looking for it.
I had over ten years’ worth of letters from Shae that I had to go through, but I eventually found it. I usually didn’t pull my phone out during the day because it was too much of a risk, but because this was important to me, I ended up pulling the phone out. I took a picture of Shae’s work address and sent it to my mama. I let her know that she could drop Maya off there. I knew that I had a lot of nerve asking Shae to do some shit like this for me, but it was the only option that I had.
She probably hated my black ass, especially after the shit that Miami said took place between her and Dino, but I didn’t tell that nigga to put his hands on her. I told that nigga right on the phone to leave the fuckin’ house if Shae was there alone. I would kill that nigga for putting hands on my baby mama. The plan was to put a bullet between her eyes only if Miami was there and she was pleading for him not to kill her. I know I probably should have never told him to take his ass down there anyway, especially given the fact that I knew he was missing a few screws.
“Rook time,” the inmates called out.
I quickly buried the phone back in the mattress and set the letters down too. Me, including every other nigga in this prison, actually looked forward to when new niggas came in. It was comical because half the time, these niggas would be shaking like a bitch walking in here and holding onto the shit that they would need to put in their cell. I remember my first time walking in over ten years ago. I wasn’t scared because I’d been to jail a few times, so I thought it would have been similar.
I tried to act all big and bad, knowing that I was fucked up inside because the day before, that’s when the judge sentenced a nigga to life. A gang of niggas walked through in a single file line, and one nigga, in particular, stood out to me. I was just talking about this fuckin’ devil, and here his ass was, just in disguise. His eyes landed on me for one second, and then he quickly turned away. The fact that he couldn’t even look me in my eyes spoke volumes.
This was a nigga who I would easily take the shit off my back for and pass it to him if he needed it, and he violated my girl the first chance he got. That killing rate that had us on lockdown about a month ago had just gotten higher because I was definitely killing this pussy the first time I got him alone! On my kids, I was killing him!
Mahogany Williams
“Okay, hang on. I’m going to tell you what it is, rigghhttt now… It’s a… girl! That’s definitely a girl,” my doctor said as he sat in front of a screen moving buttons around and trying to figure out the gender.
Immediately, I started crying because that’s exactly what I had been praying for. I couldn’t have a miniature Jabari; I was bound to kill myself if that was the case. Jabari was standing on the other side of me, and he had a look on his face as if he didn’t believe it. He, on the other hand, was begging God to give us a boy because just like me, he kept saying that he didn’t know what he would do with a miniature me.
Jashae was standing on the other side of me with her phone in her hand, recording the whole thing, although the doctor had told her not to. She started jumping up and down and screaming when she found out that she was going to be the godmother to a little girl.
“Nah, Doc, check that shit again. Check it again, man,” Jabari’ ass said, being so damn in denial.
I couldn’t even say anything because I was too busy crying tears of joy that I couldn’t curse him out the way that I wanted to.
“Young man, I have been doing this since before you were born. I’m telling you, it’s a little girl. Congratulations, you’re going to be a father to a little princess. I wish you the best of luck,” the doctor joked and placed his hand on Jabari’s shoulder with a smile on his face.
For almost ten minutes more, the doctor probed around, just basically checking the baby’s size and things like that. I wanted to go to the mall right after this and buy everything. This was the same baby that a couple of months ago, I planned to get rid of. God, I was so lucky that I didn’t get rid of this blessing. Prior to being with Jabari, I never wanted children. I mean, never. Don’t get me wrong, I had no problem when it came to kids, I just always doubted that I wouldn’t be able to properly raise them and love them.
My mama was a piece of work growing up. At ten years old, I was sitting around the table with her and her homegirls, listening to ‘grown people’s’ talk. There were no rules, no discipline, and because of that, I just didn’t feel like I was worthy of being a parent. Like Jabari said, I wouldn’t mind taking a few parenting classes because Lord knows I needed it.
“She’s going to be so prettyyy. I can’t wait to hold her and kiss on her,” Jashae squealed and took a seat on the empty chair.
