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“Now, you’re talking my language.” Kleu chuckled, hopping up from the couch and heading toward the kitchen.
This was my reality now. There was no running.
SEVENTEEN
22 months later…
The Way of a Superior Man’s pages glided across my finger every minute or two as I finished another. I’d read the book three times over the course of my stay, and each time, I got a new understanding, a better understanding than I had the reading prior. It was one of the few nonfiction books that held my attention and helped me pass the time each day.
The one that had the most wear and tear didn’t tell a story or have a narrative at all. It was full of definitions, synonyms, and parts of speech. My dictionary had seen better days. I’d read it from cover to cover six times and was trying to pace myself before completing it a seventh time.
While niggas preferred recreational time, I spent my time with my head in the books, reconnecting with my roots and doing the dreadful mental work I’d been avoiding since a teenager. My days weren’t spent in the day room, watching television for hours on end. They were spent identifying my greatest flaws and fears while figuring out how to navigate life without them being hindrances.
The loud chatter came to a screeching halt when the sirens sounded throughout the unit. Footsteps scattered as everyone migrated to their cells. As the doors began to close, I rolled from the bottom bunk. I stuck my head out of the door as it continued to close the gap it shared with the wall.
“What’s going on, OG?”
Freddy was one of the oldest men in our unit. He’d been down for thirty-two years and wouldn’t be released in society without embalming fluid and missing organs. He retaliated, avenging his son’s death by killing the sons of the officer who’d shot his boy. There were three of them, from the ages of seventeen to twenty-four. His son was seven when he was gunned down during a water gunfight with his friends.
“Something in the next unit, but they’re shutting us all down. Most likely, somebody died from their injuries.”
“Nah, but almost. A nigga found out one of them niggas fucking his little piece and damn near got his top popped trying to confront the nigga,” Mookie explained.
“In here?” OG asked.
“Yeah. They jumped his stupid ass together,” Mookie tittered. “Let me slide my Black ass in before they start tripping on a nigga.”
Freddy let him slide by, still inquiring about what had gone down. I, on the other hand, had no interest. What niggas did in their spare time and when no one was looking behind the walls was none of my business. I laid back on my bunk and resumed reading until my eyes grew tired and my heart grew weary.
Turning my head slightly, I peered at the only image that hung from the wall beside me. Glacier’s smiling face had gotten me through the darkest of days. Her spirit lingered. Her love clung to me like skin. Her face, I saw it each time I closed my eyes.
Mommas.
Turning my head in the opposite direction, I landed on the small box of letters that gained a new tenant each month. Like clockwork, Glacier sent a new letter. I’d yet to read one. I wasn’t in the right head space to do so.
She weakened me. She was a drug. My drug. And once I got a hit of her, I knew how much I’d desire more. She’d easily become the focal point of my world. She was for an entire six months. But the night I was fully processed into the system was the night I eliminated that distraction.
I wasn’t sure if it had made shit any better or worsened me altogether, but I wasn’t willing to find out by reading anything she’d written me. I couldn’t afford to get wrapped up in her web. Not now, not ever again. It was better this way. We were better this way.
Without a doubt in my mind, I knew that she was living a full life, succeeding in every area. The thought turned my lips upward.
One won’t hurt.
I closed my eyes, hoping to get rid of the small voice in my head that reappeared every time my orbs landed on that fucking box.
Just one.
I lifted the book from my chest and dug in again. That box haunted me every fucking night but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it. Neither could I bring myself to read any of them. I wished she’d stop wasting her precious time and keep pushing forward. But at the same time, if she ever stopped writing me, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. Her consistency was symbolic of so many things in my world at the moment.
One, Makai.
Sighing, I found myself staring at the box again. This time, the distance wasn’t separating us. I’d pulled it toward the bed where it sat, waiting for tampering. I folded the page of the book I was reading and placed it on my bunk, face down.
I can’t. I pushed the box away, battling my thoughts.
In the same breath, I pulled it back toward me.
Just one, I bargained, removing the very first letter I’d received from Glacier. There were twenty-one of them. The last one, I’d received during mail hour this morning.
