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Maurice scrambled to get his teammate to his feet, and they both walked out of the motel room, never to cross Diamond Reed again.
Diamond, a satisfied smile on her face, lay on the bed naked with her pumps still on and counted her money.
***
After her mother had left home, Diamond secretly missed her with a passion, but she would never tell her father that because she thought he hated Betty. She thought that was the way it was supposed to be. In school she would get mad when other students talked about their mother, or their mothers would come to the school to attend functions. She had longed for her mother all through high school as well, but never told anyone.
Instead, Diamond began to hold resentment toward her mother for walking out on them, and the animosity mounted by the day. She never knew any of her aunts, uncles, or cousins because her father had kept her away from her mother’s side of the family, and he only had a few family members, none of whom seemed to like him too much either.
Diamond eventually went off to college. But she stopped speaking to her father her sophomore year. Her father had stopped sending her money and hadn’t made a payment on her tuition in over three months, and the school was threatening to remove her from her dorm unless a payment was made.
Diamond came home that weekend, which was something she rarely did. She didn’t have to because she was living the life of a queen on campus. She had all the boys doing what she wanted them to do and taking care of her the way she wanted, so the money her father sent her was extra money for her to trick off on buying designer clothes.
She knew her father had sold the house and relocated, but she hadn’t been to the new place. In her mind she thought it was another house, but when she arrived by taxi at the rundown rooming house, she knew it had to be a mistake. But curiosity damn near killed her she entered the building and met an elderly lady.
The woman greeted her with a warm smile. “Hello, chile.”
“Yes, um, is there a Chester Reed staying here?” Diamond could barely stand looking at the woman in her dirty housedress.
“Why, yes. His room is upstairs on the second floor, second door on the left.”
Diamond could have thrown up in her mouth. She turned on her heels and proceeded to climb the stairs, making sure she stayed in the middle to avoid touching anything.
But what she saw next was enough to make a grown man cry. She walked into the open room, which smelled of stale liquor and dirty clothes, and saw her father sitting on the bed looking at a thirteen-inch black-and-white television. He had lost considerable weight and looked weary and used-up.
He looked up at her, and shame filled his eyes.
“D-Daddy, what the hell?” Diamond couldn’t even get the words out of her mouth.
Chester explained to her that once he was laid off from his job he never could find another job making the amount of money he was accustomed to. He found himself doing petty jobs here and there and moonlighting at night. He had told her he sold the house when, in all actuality, he lost the house. Chester had lost his life trying to please his daughter. He worked to pay her tuition and keep her pockets filled, but neglected his responsibilities. After that he turned to the bottle, further burying himself in debt and drowning his sorrows.
“You sorry son of a bitch! You ain’t no man! How the hell are you gonna teach me how to stay away from certain types of men, and you the same trash I’m supposed to avoid?”
With no remorse, Diamond walked out of her father’s life, never to return.
THREE
Shot
1997
The bright rays from the sun nearly blinded the three fifteen-year-olds who sat on the front steps of the three-story garden apartment building marked A. Music came from the huge speakers that sat in the open trunk of a tan Nissan Maxima. The car was parked in front of Building C, two buildings away, but with the volume raised so high, the speakers acted as surround sound for the neighborhood. They all rocked their heads to the beat as Biggie spit game.
Notorious B.I.G. did his signature call over the beat, “Uh, uh,” and the bass line dropped, sending “Hypnotize” blaring from the speakers.
The young dealers who stood in front of Building C jumped up and down and rapped along with Biggie while they smoked weed and drank beer.
The sad look on the faces of the three teens in front of Building A was because they couldn’t hang with the Building C crew. They knew the crewmembers, but they didn’t live the life that the young dealers did. In fact, they only spoke to them in passing.
“All I know is this shit is for the birds!” Trey said, looking down the street at the young dealers.
“So what you ’bout to do, kid?” his friend Al-Malik asked.
Trey, Al-Malik, and Dante were bored on this lazy summer day and wanted something to do. The neighborhood they lived in always had something going on, whether it was a street fight or a drive-by. Just about every week somebody got shot at, robbed, or killed in Newark, New Jersey. It was just the way things were.
“I’m saying, I ain’t tryna sit here all night. Ain’t nothing popping off tonight,” Trey said.
“Not so far, but give it some time,” Al-Malik said. “Somebody bound to get they shit pushed back. I mean, what you tryna get into?”
