Man, if my parents got a phone call home, saying that I was expelled from school, both would have tried to kill me. I’ve been suspended before in the past for fighting, but anytime that I had to fight, it’s because I was defending myself. I was lowkey, didn’t go around looking for problems with people, so for me to be in a situation where I had to put my hands on someone, that only meant that I had been pushed to that level.
“Damn man. Expelled for what? When you get expelled from school, don’t you have to go to school in another school district or some shit like that? What school you going to go to now?” I asked him.
“Man, them crackas at that school been wanting me gone since my freshman year. All the fights and shit that I had at that school, so they been wanting me gone. I ain’t been going to school like that. Shit, last month, I missed damn near three weeks straight. They called my mama last week Thursday for a meeting with both of us, and they told me that because of the repeated truancy and suspensions, they had to let me go,” he shared with me.
All I could do was shake my head at the shit that he was saying to me.
“What your mama saying about all this?” I asked him.
Quay’s mom was raising him on her own. Her name was Ms. Tay. She did her best with him, and I remember a couple of years ago, her and my mama were on the phone, and I overheard Ms. Tay venting to my mama about Quay and his behavior, and at the time, she just seemed through with him, and as if she wantedto wash her hands with him, so I could only imagine what her energy towards the situation was right now. From what I knew about her, she liked to date the same kind of men that her son was, but obviously just older. She liked her men in the streets, breaking the law, and shit like that.
“She sick of me, man. She told me that if I didn’t want to go back to school, and that if I wanted to be a crash out, and dummy, that she was going to let me. Ima have to find an alternative school though. The only reason why I’m even going to do that is because Whip not going to let me move weight for him without being enrolled in school. I hate that he got that fuckin rule,” he snapped.
Whip was the dude that he was selling drugs for. It was so much shit that I wanted to say in response to what he just laid on me. I wanted to tell him that he sounded stupid, and that he was basically throwing his life away, but I knew that it would have us going back and forth with each other, so I kept quiet, choosing not to even respond to the bullshit that he was telling me.
“That’s not why I hit you though. What you have planned this weekend? They having the car show this weekend in Miami. I’m going to be out there with my dawgs. I wanted you to slide. We haven’t spent time with each other in a little bit,” he voiced.
After he said that, I got quiet for a little bit and just lingered on his words. From the sound of things, it was as if me and him didn’t have anything in common. Here I am, trying to keep my name clean after the shit that happened between me and Vivian. These days, the only thing that I was worried about was keeping my grades right, putting in time in the gym, so that I could be better, and stronger than ever when I got back on that field next season, and having all things lead up to being a first-round pick in the MLB draft one day.
I thought about a conversation that I had with my pops awhile back. I remember him talking to me about people beingin our life for seasons. I remember him telling me that just because I grew up with someone, it didn’t mean that I was supposed to grow old with them. My pops knew a lot of people. Even though he didn’t grow up in the hood, he was always in the hood because that’s where he would be with Dutch. With that, my pops knew a lot of niggas in the hood from his childhood, and he’s told me how he wasn’t cool with them anymore because they were just on two different waves in life. At first, I didn’t understand that shit. I thought that if I had history with a person, that I was supposed to keep that person next to me, but I swear I was seeing that shit now. He told me about the expiration dates that came with friendships, and I could tell that that’s what was happening right now with me, and Quay.
“Nah man. I remember the shooting that happened last year at that car show. Plus, I got shit planned with my pops,” I let him know, and he sucked his teeth, while shaking his head at me.
“You a funny acting ass nigga. I bet if I was one of those niggas from your baseball team that stayed in a multi- million-dollar house like you, that you would have popped out with me this weekend. Look nigga, if I don’t fit into your world, and hanging with your thug ass friend that you grew up with looks bad for your image, let me know. I don’t know what the fuck kind of nigga you take me for, but I’m not going to be kissing your ass, forcing a friendship with you. Fuck you on man?” he snapped, making my decision easier for me to leave him alone.
“And even with all that shit that you talking, I still love you like a brother. You about to go down a wrong path, man. I never cared about where you came from. I didn’t give a fuck that you lived in the hood, and I didn’t. I was a true friend to you, so I saw past all that. All I ever wanted was the best for you. All I ever wanted was for you not to become a product of your own environment. If this the kind of time that you’re going to be on, then cool. I’m not about to sit around and watch you crash out.I love you, nigga. Them streets don’t. I hope you make it to see sixteen,” is what I left him with, and then I hung the phone up on him.
I didn’t have it in me to go back and forth with my brother, so I just left him with what I was feeling and ended that conversation before it could go left.
Quay didn’t hit me back, which I wasn’t surprised about because he didn’t like when people called him out on his shit. He felt like we were trying to parent him. I went back to eating my food, laughing at videos onTikTok,and in about ten more minutes, I was done. I tossed my food out, washed my hands, and I grabbed my bookbag. I was going to go in my mama’s office to check on her.
I walked out of the breakroom, and I ran into a few of her workers, who were all happy to see me. It was mostly women that saw me, pulled me in for a hug, along with telling me how big, and handsome I was getting. I was eating that shit up, blushing and everything.
I made it to my mama’s office, and I knew the code for the door, so I keyed it in, walked inside, and the second I walked in, I could hear my mama in the restroom, and it sounded as if she was gagging again. I dropped my bookbag down on the floor, went into the restroom that she had in her office, and the door was cracked, so I pushed it open, and found her right in front of the toilet bowl, and she was throwing up. She turned her head to look at me, and right when she was getting ready to say something, she started vomiting again.
“What, you pregnant?” I asked, no longer thinking that her ass was sick.
I was putting two and two together now. For weeks, she’s been leaving the house late night, and at first, I thought that she was creeping with someone else, and had a little boyfriend, but my pops put me on game, telling me that she had been creepingto see him. All that late night creeping, and now her ass might be pregnant. I’ve overheard stories that she’s told to other women in her life about the bad morning sickness that she had when she was pregnant with me, and my brother. Plus, I remember when she was pregnant with Sarai, and she was sick. Seeing her like this, I had a feeling that me and Legend were getting ready to be big brothers again.
“Wait for me out front, Creed. Go,” she said, but I ignored her, walking further into the restroom, and I looked inside the toilet bowl, so that I could see what she’d released in there.
“It looks like it’s corn in there. What you ate?” I asked, being unfazed by the vomit.
She reached her hand out and tried to pushed me. She was able to reach up and flush the toilet. When she finished, she closed the lid, and she scooted over to where the wall was, put her back against it, and she crossed her legs that were pushed out in front of her. She was wearing a beige work dress. My mama looked so beautiful this afternoon, but I could tell that she wasn’t feeling her best. Her ass looked stressed out too.
I got down on the floor with her, sitting close to her, and put my back against the wall. Her eyes got watery, and when she blinked, a couple of tears fell. I hated to see my mama cry, so I was going to crack a joke or two, so I could get her to laugh.
“Pops told me that you be creeping over to his condo late at night. Them visits caught up to you,” I joked, not really knowing if she was going to find it funny, but I said it anyways. She rolled her eyes at me through her tears, and she laughed.
I loved my mama to death, man. I wrapped an arm around her, kissing her on her cheek, and I told her that I loved her because I felt like she needed to hear it.
“I know me, and Legend don’t always make it easy on you. Mainly me because I feel like I give you more problems than he does, but I just want you to know that you’re the best motherthat any kid could ask for. With you, I feel like I got a mom, home girl, best friend, and someone that I can always confide in all in one. I don’t know much about how pregnancy works, but I know when you carry us, you always get sick. I hope God is blessing you and pops again with another baby. It was messed up with what happened to our baby sister. If it’s a girl, maybe Sarai played her part in doing it. She knew that you’d be the best girl mom for the new baby, just like you were when she was here,” I let her know. When I said that, she cried. I used my hands to wipe her tears.
“I love you, son,” she let me know.
“I love you too,” and like that, that was it.
I didn’t even tell her about the shit with me, and Quay. I didn’t want to put that on her right now, especially when she wasn’t feeling her best. I was going to try to lighten the load for her as much as possible because I knew that I could be needy as hell and try to put all my problems on her.
