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“Yeah,” Scott sighed, gazing out of the window. “You’re right.”
We were two houses away when I saw a familiarChevrolet Malibuillegally parked in the street. Outside, on the passenger side, a tall man in jeans, a hoodie, and sunglasses leaned against the vehicle I paid the insurance on, lighting a cigarette.
“Oh, shit,” Scott griped under his breath.
I pulled into my driveway, and observed the contortedBMWon the other side, still annoyed by the sight of it. Frustrated at life all over again, I took a deep breath.I’m built for this… Scott left the car first. I reached over to the glove compartment and fingered through papers until I found my rings. Once I managed to slip them on, I met Scott at the trunk. That’s when I noticed Billy slipping into theMalibunot wanting my wrath.
“No matter what,” Scott advised lowly, “just ignore him. You don’t need his shit right now. You just got back into town.”
“Scott, your mouth.”
Without acknowledging me, he pulled my smaller suitcase from the trunk while mumbling something incoherent beneath his breath. He then went to get his own bags from the back seat. I managed my larger luggage from the trunk, and was pulling it up the driveway, when the screen door burst open, and a six-foot, seven-inch tall, crooked tree branch filled the doorway.
Kelvin’s eyes were pink and tight. His normal, smooth, pecan-hued skin was marred with current scars and healed wounds, reddening at the neck and lower face. His thin, shapely lips appeared to be cut. Just the sight of him made my stomach twist with anxiety.
“You fucking turn your phone off, Lennox?”
“Lay off of her!” Scott spit, rounding his uncle to enter the house.
“Mind your punk ass business, boy!”
“Scott!” I ordered. “Straight to your room to unpack.”
“Do you hear me?” Kelvin demanded, following me inside when I passed him.
He didn’t bother to assist me with the large suitcase. I didn’t expect him to either. Chivalry was never really his strong suit.
As expected, his mother was on the sofa—my sofa—watching mind-numbing television per usual. She was my first stop. “I don’t ask you for much,” I began out of breath, pulse racing. “Never have. The one thing I do ask of and expect is support for his recovery. You couldn’t do that for me, Kelly-Ann?”
Her freckled faced opened in alarm. “What?”
“You picked him up from treatment is what. Is that what we’re doing now?”
“What’re you talking about?” she argued, exposing the missing tooth in the center of her bottom row. “You just came in, and I’m just here watching T.V.”
Stating the obvious was her defense?
“That’s what you should’ve been doing yesterday; but instead, you checked him out of the only program we could find him last week in a crisis?”
“He was sick. Miserable in there,” she spat back. “He’s my son!”
“Yeah. Your only living son! Is there no solidarity when it comes to his well-being?”
“Hey!” Kelvin barked from behind me. “Don’t talk to my momma like that! Who in the hell do you think you are? This is my life. I ain’t no damn kid.”
I turned to his lengthy, stick-like frame as he glowered down over me. “But you’re not well. Do you know how much your accident out there is going to cost me?”
“We have insurance, Len. That’s what the shit is for!”
“You think you driving while high, and wrapping that car around a tree in a school zone, is going to cost me only what I pay in premiums? If so, youarea kid, Kelvin!”
More than just being in the vicinity of a school, Kelvin, and one of his tweaking buddies, were on the property of a school.Scott’sschool. It was the most unlikely, inescapable situation. The incident happened while some of the students were at recess. Although cellphones were prohibited at the school, without a doubt, several students recorded the scene with the police, firefighters, and EMT pulling Kelvin from his totaledBMW, attempting to get him on a stretcher as he was high out of his goddamn mind.
Scott was justifiably humiliated and traumatized. Quite a few kids at the school knew Kelvin Richardson, the former basketballLeagueplayer, and Raleigh’s golden boy. They also knew he was Scott Richardson’s uncle. The Scott whose mother murdered his father. And that mother was currently in prison. All of that was too much for a thirteen-year-old to have to deal with.
“And you’re abitch—”
“Kelvin, don’t start your shit!” His mother warned. “She just got back in from her class reunion. Don’t nobody wanna come home to your shit.”
