Down With the King of the South Read online

  I couldn’t wait for her ass to have some kids of her own so she could feel what I felt. Mahogany was like a nigga, though, when it came to love. She wasn’t a sucker for love like I was. I was a lover. I loved the feeling of being in love. Trip will tell you that I love so hard. I’m talking wanting to be all in your personal space, taking a shower while you take a shit. I have no understanding of what it means to have space. As much as I love the feeling of being in love, I can say that I haven’t been with anybody since Trip started his sentence, and that was a whole ten years ago. I swear that it is cobwebs on my pussy. I get by from using toys.

  In my top drawer at home, I had all types of toys. These days, I had been feening to have something more, though. These men that were hollering at me, fine men at that, I wanted to take them up on their offer and allow them to take me on a date. I wanted to be like Mahogany and fuck one dude so he can scratch that itch of mine, but I was so scared to do that. On top of that, I was too into Trip to move on.

  Ask Trip, and he will tell you that he and I are very much in a relationship. Crazy because if someone were to ask me right now if I was single or taken, I would holler out that I was taken, even though my baby daddy would never see the light of day again. Although Trip was incarcerated, I swore that man didn’t miss shit! A few weeks ago, while I was grocery shopping for the house, a dude tried to talk to me. Later that evening, when Trip did his evening phone call, I got cursed out so bad because someone had told him that they saw me in the store talking to another dude. It wasn’t Giovonte who told his dad on me because he wasn’t there. Giovonte would snitch on me in a second, but I knew it wasn’t him.

  In the beginning, I was willing to be that ride or die girlfriend who would hold it down for my man, but after ten years of doing this hit, I didn’t want it, but I was too afraid to tell Trip that. He let it be known that if he found out that I was dealing with somebody, he could easily have them killed. I didn’t want anyone to die because of me, so for years, I wouldn’t date. I wasn’t getting any younger. I wanted love. Not the love that I’ve been getting lately where I go and see my man, and we risk me wearing a skirt, so I could get fingered under the table, or we have to sneak and kiss each other when the guards aren’t looking. I was tired of phone sex with Trip at night. I wanted someone to do all that shit to me that Trip was telling me over the phone. After a long week of work, I wanted to come home to somebody. Yes, I had my son, and yes, I had my puppy, Princess, but I wanted something more.

  “He has a drawer full. I told Giovonte that I would kill him if he makes me a grandmother at thirty,” I said, and Mahogany laughed.

  My son had left his girlfriend where she was standing and made his way over to where we were waiting for him. The moment he was close enough to me, he lifted me in the air and spun me around.

  “You saw me out there tonight, Ma? They going to have to get some bigger and faster niggas. Them niggas they making me play against, they can’t guard me! I’m too fast for them, Ma,” he boasted right after he put me down and kissed me on my cheek.

  “I saw you, baby. Keep playing like this so we can make it to the Championship. You did so good,” I said with my arms wrapped around his waist.

  “What’s up, Auntie? Don’t be trying to talk to none of the niggas on the team either. They too young for your ass,” Giovonte told Mahogany, and I popped his arm for cursing.

  Although Mahogany wasn’t his blood auntie, I swear she took on the role as if she was. Just like me, she didn’t miss a basketball game. When Trip went to prison, Mahogany stepped up. I’m talking pitching in to help pay for birthday parties, helping me with back to school clothes, shoes, and supplies, picking him up from school if I was still in the office, all of that. Mahogany was definitely Heaven sent.

  When we were kids, and I got pregnant, there really wasn’t much that she could do because she was young, still staying with her mama, and didn’t have a job. Although she couldn’t help me financially back then with Giovonte, she helped by being there and just giving me moral support. She also helped because she didn’t judge me. We were young when I found out that I was pregnant so Mahogany could have stopped being my friend, or her mother could have made her stop being my friend because she would think that I was too grown. There would always be a special place in my heart for this woman because she loved my son as if he was her own.

  “And I don’t want their young asses either, nephew. They can’t afford me. I’ll hurt one of them little ass boys,” Mahogany shot back at Giovonte, and he laughed while throwing his hands up in surrender, letting her basically know that he didn’t want none of her smoke.

  Their relationship was shits and giggles all day long. They talked shit to each other all day, but they loved each other to death.

  After standing in the parking lot talking for another ten minutes or so, we finally broke apart. Well, Mahogany did, so she could go to her car while Giovonte and I walked over to mine.

  “Ma, let me push the Lexus. I played for you tonight, so can you reward a brotha for his skills?”

  My son was referring to my brand new 2019 Lexus RX, the silver one. I’d just gotten this car two weeks ago, and I loved it so much that I didn’t mind sleeping in it. I taught Giovonte how to drive about three years ago, but I still hesitated when it came to him driving my car, especially my new baby. He was right, he did play well tonight, so I ended up taking the keys out of my black, Chanel purse, and I handed them to him.

  Like the gentlemen that I raised him to be, he came over, opened the passenger side door for me and allowed me to get in before he closed the door behind me. He placed his gym bag in the backseat, and he got into the driver’s side. Like I’d taught him, he didn’t start the car until his seatbelt was on.

  “When I go pro, Ma, Ima buy you like ten of these. Anything you want, Mama, swear Ima get it for you. If it was possible, I’d buy the world for you. You don’t spare any expense when it comes to me, so how dare I do that when it comes to you? Every year, all my basketball packages were taken care of, and I have you to thank for that. I tell you all the time that you’re one of a kind, Ma. They don’t make ’em like you no more,” my son said, making me smile.

  No matter the time of the day, Giovonte didn’t miss a chance to acknowledge his appreciativeness toward me. He was hard all day, just like Trip, but when it came to the people he loved, especially the women, he could be as soft as a teddy bear. My son had to love you, I mean really love you, for you to see his soft side.

  “The best gift you can ever give me, son, is to continue what you’re already doing. Of course, I would want you to go pro and all of that, but I want you to get an education too. Have you decided what school you’re going to yet?” I asked him now that we were on the road.

  “I like Duke, UCLA, even LSU. The hardest thing on me is going to be leaving you. I feel like I’m all you really got, and I’m not trying to take myself away from you like that, you know what I mean? Trip left. I’m not trying to do the same stuff to you,” my son told me as we approached a red light.

  His left hand was on the steering wheel, so I picked up his right hand and kissed the back of it.

  “You’re not leaving me, Giovonte. You’re doing something that’s going to help determine your future. You gotta think about yourself in this situation, not me! Trip isn’t here for a far different reason than why you won’t be here. I’m tough, baby, trust me. I’ll be fine,” I lied.

  I won’t say how I cried like a baby for weeks when my baby became a senior. I knew with his basketball skills that he would leave me when he went to college, and boy, I wasn’t ready for that. It felt like just the other day I was getting my ass beat by my grandma after finding out that I was pregnant, and now my baby was a senior and on the road to graduate soon. I needed time to slow down a little bit.

  “Yeah, ight. If you say so,” he nonchalantly said. He made a face, where his eyebrows furrowed, and God if he didn’t look like Trip! Whenever I said something that Trip didn’t like o
r necessarily agree with, I swear he would make that same face.

  “Your asthma was good tonight. I didn’t see you go for your inhaler as much,” I said, changing the subject.

  “Yeah, it was straight tonight. I didn’t feel like I was sucking in a bunch of cold air. I just don’t want my asthma to be my downfall, you know?” he asked.

  My son had asthma, which wasn’t something that neither one of us were proud of, but we worked around it. Over the years, he’d had about two asthma attacks which both scared the shit out of me when they happened, but that was years ago. He hadn’t had one of those episodes in a very long time. We took the proper precautions, like making sure his inhaler was on him at all times, his oxygen therapy, medications, and he even saw a specialist.

  Giovonte’s biggest fear was that asthma would be his downfall, but that wasn’t a fear of mine because I knew that he was going to be fine. Just as I was about to respond to him, my phone started ringing from the car’s Bluetooth. The name, Trip, with two hearts flashed across the screen, letting me know that the cellphone he had somehow managed to get into the prison was what he was calling me from.

  Trip would never tell me how he got that phone in there, but something told me that he had fucked on one of those dumb, bird brain ass correctional officers who worked there, and they were dumb enough to do it for him. Trip ran that prison; I swear he did. I didn’t know for a fact that Trip was fuckin’ the female correctional officers because he wasn’t dumb enough to tell me no shit like that, but at the same time, I knew that Trip could talk the meanest woman out of her draws. He’d probably conned his way into having someone bring a phone in for him.

  I didn’t even get a chance to answer the phone call myself because Giovonte quickly answered it.

  “What’s up, Dad?” Giovonte answered the phone.

  His face lit up every time he answered the phone for his father. He loved that man despite the reality that we had. Giovonte was seven when his father went in, so he was at an age where he knew what prison was. Giovonte and I didn’t lie to our son and tell him that Trip was off to college or in another state working because we didn’t want to leave our son with the false hope that his father was coming back when he really wasn’t.

  It was Trip who told Giovonte over the phone that he was in prison and not coming back. My baby was sick over that news for a very long time because he and his father had a bond that was so tight that it almost made you want to cry. Although Giovonte knew that Trip was in prison, we never told him for what until he was about thirteen. There were hardly any secrets that we kept from our son.

  “What’s up, baller? How your game go tonight? How many points you scored?” Trip asked, and I could hear the happiness in his voice.

  “I scored thirty points, and I had twelve rebounds. We got five more games before we make it to the championship,” he told his dad.

  “That’s what’s up. I be bragging on you in here to these niggas. I tell them that my lil man is the new Lebron James. We bet on each other’s commissary money. I took all these niggas shit the other night when you played. I got honey buns, Rice Krispie treats, Now and Laters, all that,” Trip said, and I laughed quietly while I shook my head. No matter what it was, this man would always find a way to take somebody’s money. “On some real shit, keep doing what you doing, son. I’m proud of you, man. I can’t change this shit, but just know that I wish I were there to actually watch you play, aside from hearing about it over the phone. I love you, don’t ever forget that shit,” Trip let Giovonte know.

  “I love you too, Dad,” my son replied.

  “Cool. Where your mama at?” Trip asked.

  “I’m right here,” I called out.

  “Why you ain’t say nothing then?”

  “Because I wanted you to use that time and talk to your son. What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Nothing, I’m about to turn this phone off after I finish talking to y’all. You know I got to hear your voice before I go to sleep. You still coming to see me in the morning?” he asked, and I released a sigh.

  “Really, Trip? I told you that I wasn’t going to see you until next week. I been making that drive to Orlando every week for the past six weeks. I told you I wanted a break tomorrow. We’re short staffed at the office, so every day this week, aside from tonight, I’ve really been leaving the office a little bit after 8:00,” I let him know.

  It was rare that I didn’t go to see Trip. I had to be exhausted like I felt tonight after a long weekend for me not to go and see him. It wasn’t like he was right around the corner. This man was a whole four hours away from us. I told Trip last weekend when I saw him that I wasn’t going to come this weekend, and instead, I would come next weekend, but that was just like him to hear what he wanted to hear.

  “Take me off speakerphone, Jashae,” he said, and I knew he was mad.

  The fact that he was calling me by my first name let me know that he was mad at me.

  “Trip—”

  “Yo, I don’t want to hear shit unless it’s you taking the phone off speaker and putting it to your ear. I don’t need my son to hear me say what I got to say to you!” he barked at me.

  I wasn’t scared of Trip or nothing like that. I definitely wasn’t scared with him in prison, but he was like the only person in this world who could check me. Well, him and my grandma. I took my phone out of the cupholder and took the call off the Bluetooth speaker then placed it to my ear.

  “I’m here,” I said.

  “Jashae, you know that I don’t ask you for a motha fuckin’ thing except for you and my son to come and see about a nigga one day out of the fuckin’ week. Y’all really all that a nigga got. My ole girl may come ’round this bitch once out of the month, so I depend on y’all to come and see me. I feel like I shouldn’t have to beg my own fuckin’ shorty to come and see about her nigga. I want to see you and my son,” he said.

  “Trip, I said we’re going to come, just not this week. I’m tired. Why can’t you understand that?” I asked.

  “What the fuck is so different from last week to this week? Shit, you were tired last week too, and you still managed to come and see about me! Fuck it! I won’t beg you to come and see me. I’ll have my other bitch come and check up on me then,” he said.

  I guess this was supposed to be his way of fuckin’ with my head. Trip knew how jealous I could be, especially when it came to him. This was basically him lighting a fire to my ass so that I could get up, but I wasn’t going to fall for it.

  “Giovonni, I don’t give a fuck who you call. You can call the same bitch who smuggled this phone inside that prison for you. Was that supposed to make me jealous or something? Don’t let me start hollering out about all the shit that I can do!” I yelled back at his ass.

  I was sick of this shit. I felt like every time I got on the phone with his ass, it was a fuckin’ argument. The more time went by, the harder this shit got. I knew it was all this talk about basketball, the championship, and Giovonte picking colleges that had him wishing that he was home to witness this moment too, but because he wasn’t, he tended to take his anger out on me.

  “Holler out the shit you can do, so when I see you, I can slap you in your fuckin’ mouth! Quit playing with me, Jashae, like I won’t break your motha fuckin’ neck, shorty. You feeling yourself tonight, so I’ll call you back tomorrow. Hopefully, my bitch answers the phone and not whoever this is I’m talking to right now!” With that, he hung up the phone on my ass.

  I tried to call him back, but he had already turned the phone off. The threats that Trip made went in one ear and out of the other. He would never in his life lay a hand on me, and he knew it too. Sometimes, he could be so fuckin’ insensitive to my feelings. I rarely complained of me being tired, but these days, I’d been working my ass off, and it felt like I could hardly catch a fuckin’ break. I didn’t expect Trip to pacify me because he just wasn’t that type of person, but I at least expected him to be a little bit more understanding.

  O
nce I got the hint that he wouldn’t be calling me back tonight, I just threw my phone back in the cup holder and paid attention to the road while my son drove. I hated having to get into arguments over the phone with Trip, especially in front of Giovonte, but hey, this was our reality.

  Giovonte Young

  “Baby, I want to go to the movies tonight. Ask your mom if you can use her car,” my little shorty, Taylor, said on the phone.

  It was Saturday night, and I honestly didn’t have any plans to go out. I was sitting at the foot of my bed, in a pair of my basketball shorts with the controller in my hands as I played NBA 2K19. The phone was on Facetime, propped up on a pillow so that Taylor could see me, and I had a plate of Chinse food that my ole girl had ordered.

  We’d had doubles all month for basketball. Monday through Friday, we had to be at the school at four in the morning, and we would practice until six. Right after practice, I would go into the locker room, take a shower, and throw on my school uniform to prepare for class. Right after school, we were practicing again. We had an early morning practice this morning, and the moment I got home, I showered and had just woke up a couple of hours ago.

  I wasn’t trying to do shit tonight, but my shorty wasn’t understanding of that. Her ass could never just sit the fuck down in one place. She always had to be somewhere on the move. I get it, we were teenagers, so it was expected for her to want to go out. I wasn’t your average teenager, though. Basketball and school consumed me, but when I did finally get a minute to chill out, that’s all I would want to do.

  I had been with my girl for about four months. She was a fine ass redbone with a body like those Miami bitches from the rap music videos. She had some pretty, light brown eyes on her, a fat ass, and she was fuckin’ my young ass crazy. My mama couldn’t stand Taylor. If my ole girl wouldn’t get arrested for fighting a minor, I honestly think that she would beat the fuck out of Taylor. I told my ole girl that she was just mean and didn’t like anybody, but she swore that Taylor was with me for the wrong reasons.