Page 2 of Disrespectfully, Relic
“Why you ain’t do it then?” Jahleel peered at his dad with his mouth twisted to one side. When silence met his question, he spat, “Exactly!”
Relic just chuckled because he couldn’t admit to Jahleel, it was safer to keep their distance from Kennedy. She was a liability he should’ve snuffed out the minute he got wind she was alive from Pierre, but his brother and sister-in-law vouching on her behalf had spared her life. Relic hadn’t stopped stewing on that decision since he’d made it.
“Exactly this ass whooping you’re ‘bout to get,” he quipped instead, hunching forward to prop his forearms on his thighs. Both were in full-on concentration when he pried, “So, you get a lot of beatings at your grandma’s house?”
Jahleel stalled but then went back to jabbing his thumbs against his controller buttons with inward-tucked lips. He hunched his shoulder after a while because his mother had taught him not to tell what went on in his grandmother’s house, and Relic had drilled it in his head to stop volunteering more information than necessary.
“What’d I tell you about not answering me when I ask a question?” Relic paused the game, making Jahleel push out a frustrated breath. “Open your damn mouth.”
“Spare the rod, spoil the child. The Bible says kids are supposed to get beatings, so yea.”
His son’s grandmother using scriptures to excuse her harsh tactics made Relic snort a derisive chuckle. He resumed the game but made a mental note to holler at her about it soon.
“I don’t go to church, but I know beating yo ass ain’t the only way to discipline you. Have I ever hit you?”
Jahleel shook his head, but then vocalized, “No, sir.”
“And I don’t plan to, but you still do what I tell you, for the most part. What kind of shit you get beat for over there?”
“When I don’t come in the house on time, when I get bad grades... when I sneak on the game when I’m ‘pose to be sleep. Stuff like that. I don’t get as much beatings as my sister, though.”
Relic started to chastise his son for divulging someone else’s business, but he refrained. “You think your sister deserves her beatings?” he pressed.
“Not all the time. She just be doing stuff kids her age do, like playing loud or running around. That’s why I gotta be there to remind her to sit down. Jas is hyper.”
Jahleel refusing to stay more than a few days at a time, and then declining the offer to live with him, suddenly made sense to Relic. Jahleel didn’t want to leave his sister alone with his grandmother.
“That’s not your job to look after your sister, Jah,” he stated, cursing under his breath right after because he was losing. “You don’t have any kids. You’re a kid your damn self, so focus on being that.”
“Didn’t you look after your brothers? Uncle Shabu told me, you took care of him ‘cause y’all ain’t have no daddy. Jas ain’t got no daddyormomma.”
That reminder sent a fist straight to Relic’s torso, but he shook off the blow since he believed taking away Jasmine’s mother would benefit her in the end. Jessica was a church girl turned jezebel who’d sold her soul to him for shopping sprees and a title she couldn’t handle. She would’ve corrupted the little girl, so a grandmother who whooped Jasmine’s ass because the Bible told her so was the lesser of two evils. The absent father that Jessica had fucked to create Jasmine wasn’t his concern.
His eyes tracked his player across the glaring screen while mulling over whether to address his brother feeding Jahleel lies about Joseph not being present in their lives. He neglected to address it. If it were up to Relic, the only monster Jahleel would know and love was him.
“Yea, I looked after my siblings, but shit like that can backfire,” he explained, nudging Jahleel’s arm with his knee to ensure that his son was listening.
“How?”
“Because I was so busy looking after my brothers, I forgot to look after myself. Why don’t you want to live here?”
He tossed out that question to drive home his point. Jahleel started to answer but jumped up when his life span drained from a single hit from Relic’s player.
“You’re cheating!”
“No, I’m just a fucking winner at everything I do, even playing weak ass video games. Now, tell me why you’d rather live with your grandma than me?”
“Because I don’t want to leave my sister,” Jahleel admitted without pause. A slow grin spread on his face before he added, “Plus, my granny said, she’ll never let me live in the devil’s house.”
“So, that’s what she thinks about me? That I’m the devil.”
“Yep. A blue-eyed devil. She said that you’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but I can’t see it ‘cause you’re blinding me with all this stuff.”
He waved a hand around his master bedroom that held expensive electronics, storage cabinets loaded with sneakers, and a closet of designer clothes that most boys his age with both parents didn’t possess. Anytime he told his grandmother about a new item he received from Relic; she swore that his dad was buying his affection. If he was, Jahleel didn’t mind it.
Relic sat upright, rubbing a hand across his tense neck while tossing around that offensive descriptor in his head.Blue eyed devil. Jahleel’s grandmother wasn’t the first and damn sure not the last to refer to him as such.
“You know who she sounds like? Your grann, Judith,” Relic compared, making Jahleel cracked up with a toss of his head.
