Daddy Dearest (7 page)

* * *

David Searis entered the warehouse section of Target flanked by two security guards. His plan was simple: Locate the person that he was looking for, update him on his status, and escort him off the premise.

But when he saw the man that he was looking for get knocked to the floor, he stalled his plan and watched in satisfaction as Steve rained a flurry of blows on Rafeal. He didn’t order the security guards to intervene until Rafeal started gaining control of the fight.

The guards pulled Rafeal off of Steve before he got a chance to get a punch in.

You stupid muthafucker! I told you too much talking. They set your ass up good, look at your lip!
The voice in Rafeal’s head babbled on hysterically.

Rafeal began to struggle with the guards. “Why y’all let him steal me, goddamnit!”

“You need to calm down, sir.”

“It’s over for you.” David smiled with this revelation. “And there’s not a damn thing that you can do about it.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Rafeal.

“What am I talking about? I’m talking about you being fired. I’ve been getting so many complaints about you bullying everybody you’ve come in contact with, and I just witnessed it first-hand.”

Witness these nuts, cracker! Pull your pants down and flash the jewels, Raf!

Rafeal ignored that advice. “The only thing that you just witnessed was Steve assaulting me.”

Steve began to protest but abruptly stopped when David held a hand up.

“For the record,” David began, “and I’m sure that Jeff and Fred would concur, I didn’t see Steve do anything.”

The guards nodded their heads in agreement. David continued. “So, I suggest that you come with us quietly, or we’re going to smear your black ass all over this store.”

Oh, that’s cold. Get your shit off before it’s too late.
Rafeal bit his bottom lip and averted his eyes to the ceiling. “Let me get this right. Y’all just jumped me, and going to turn around and fire me, too?”

“Call it however you see it. Just know that today is your last day employed here. You’re out of here, homeboy.”

“You, too,” Rafeal said, punching him in the nose.

Had Rafeal been a slave on a plantation, his fellow captives would have been proud of the damage he done while he was on his feet. But where the four finally wrestled him to the floor, David Searis kept his ‘smear’ promise.

* * *

“We’re getting off the exit now…A McDonald’s…Yeah, I see it now.” She turned to Ching. “Pull in the McDonald’s right there on the right.”

Cataya ended the call when they pulled beside a white Dodge Stratus. The occupant got out smiling. Cataya did the same.

“Is that my niece?” the lady asked, advancing towards Cataya with her arms extended.

“Hey, Aunt Fannie.”

“Oww, baby! I’m so glad to see you!”

“Me, too.”

Fannie let her go after her hug had worn its welcome. “Look’t you, looking like LeLe.”

Cataya didn’t know how to respond to that. She motioned for Ching to get out of the car. “Aunt Fannie, this is Ching. Ching, this is my aunt Fannie.”

“Nice meet you.”

Fannie embraced Ching in the same manner that she had embraced Cataya, only shorter. “Hey, baby. God is going to bless you for helping my niece.”

“No problem, I do anything for her.

Cataya started blushing.

“I sure wished I had a man that would do anything for me. Lord knows I need a new house and car. Are you going to follow me back there?”

“No. I go back home.”

“Okay. Let me let y’all say your good-byes. See you.”

“Bye.”

Ching and Cataya stared at each other for a long moment.

“So, I guess this is it for a while, huh?”

“I wish you stay at my house instead. It’s so big my parents never know.”

“Your house is the first place that Ron would look for me.”

Ching knew that this was true. He handed her a large wad of money from his pocket. “Take. You go buy clothes.”

“I can’t take-“

“Please. I spend anyway something dumb.”

“Thank you, but-“

“Take!”

She reluctantly took it. “Thank you, Ching. I would do anything for you, also. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Okay.”

She kissed him fully on the lips.

* * *

“He did what?!” Fannie asked, as she drove home.

Cataya repeated the run-in that she had with Ron at the hospital.

“Did you see him get up off the ground?”

“I didn’t look back to be honest with you. I was just glad that we got away in one piece.”

“I hope his ass is dead. That bastard killed my sister. I done told you to move here with me.”

“I couldn’t just up and leave Granny, it would’ve broke her heart.”

“Ole’ Mrs. Billups. I don’t have anything bad to say about her. She has always been nice to me. How’s she doing anyway?”

“Not so good. It’s going to take her three whole months to recover.”

“Dang. Are you here for good? Or are you going back when she gets better?”

Cataya cut her eyes at Fannie. “When she gets better.”

“Wow!”

“I have to go back; I got some unfinished business there.”

“I can’t tell you what to do because you’re grown. But be careful. Especially if it has something to do with Hammer and Ron. They ain’t no good. I don’t put nothing past them. Nothing!”

Fannie let that sink in before she changed the subject. “I know you heard about your uncle Bobby getting stabbed up.”

“No, I didn’t. What happened?”

“Something went down over some money, and Bobby caught the worst end of it. He say your daddy refused to help him.”

“Yeah, this is my first time hearing about that.”

“Broke my heart when I find out. Especially the part about your daddy. I guess ain’t no amount of time in the world gonna make him change his ways.”

“I guess not. Is Uncle Bobby going to be alright?”

“Yeah, he’s a survivor.”

“I had forgot all bout Uncle Bobby.”

“Bobby has his flaws, but who’s anybody to judge him? That’s God’s job. Anyway, you’re welcome to stay with us for as long as you like. I don’t have much, but you’re welcome to all of it.”

“Thank you.”

“You can’t afford to miss too many days out of school, so I’m going to enroll you in Dehila’s school Monday. She’s a senior, too.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know if you remember your uncle Ra-Ra. He’s home from the hospital.”

“I remember him.”

“He’s going to be excited to see you.”

“The only thing that I remember about him is he’s on the wild side.”

“He’s trying to change now, God bless his soul,” she said, gravely. “Some people have harder times than others.”

Cataya was unable to decipher the meaning or the cause behind the change of her aunt’s demeanor. Her mind was so preoccupied with her misfortunes that it was hard for her to focus on anything else.

Just the thought of losing another loved one stressed her out. Stress that had eventually channeled into hatred for her father.

“What’s wrong, baby? You’re frowning.”

“I…nothing.”

Fannie placed a hand on her arm. “I’m your auntie. You can talk to me about anything.”

Cataya was about to share her plan and pain with Fannie until her grandmother’s warning popped in head. Then again, Fannie had always played a supporting role in her life, so she decided to share her pain.

“Every time I talk or see a picture of you, I can’t help but to think about my mom. I vaguely remember her, so I always come up short.”

“Your mom was beautiful. She loved you to death.”

“I heard. What was she like?”

“She was a lot like me in many ways. People use to think that we was twins. The only difference between us was that LeLe was a risk taker.”

“A risk taker?” Cataya frowned at this because this was her first time hearing that.

“That’s how I would describe her. My mom use to say that she only seen the good qualities in people. Like for instance, there use to be an old man that lived across the street from us. And all during the year he use to get drunk and terrorize all the kids in the neighborhood.

“But when Christmas rolled around, he would get sober and pass out candy to the same kids he’d terrorized. LeLe always forgave him like he had simply made a mistake. She never realized how deadly her way of thinking was until Hammer started dominating every aspect of her life.

“By then, it was too late. I was with her the night she first met Hammer. I told her not to talk to him, but she didn’t listen. If only she would’ve.”

Tears filled Cataya’s eyes as her aunt wrote in the blanks of her mother’s life. “I hate him!”

“As you should. I pray every night that it’s his last.”

 –—Chapter Seven–—

The house that Fannie pulled up at sat on a lot that was twenty percent grass, sixty percent dirt, and the rest rocks. The shingles that managed to hold their position on the roof, threaten to blow off with each gust of wind.

Fannie killed the engine. “You okay?”

Cataya nodded.

“Don’t worry about nothing, everything’s going to be alright, now. Dehila will be home soon. Maybe…,” she paused in mid-sentence when she noticed two boys cutting across her yard. She quickly jumped out the car.

“How many times do I have to tell you nappy headed Negroes to quit walking across my lawn?! That’s why the shit won’t grow now!”

“You always be tripping about this sand box,” one of the shot back. “Get on my nerves!”

Fannie charged them to no avail, they were too fast. Cataya found herself smiling as she got out the car. The mischievous boys brought back memories of the summer that she had spent her five years ago.

Charlotte was equally rough as Durham, but Durham offered more of a northern atmosphere that was foreign to her. She marveled at how two cities that were so close together could be so different.

Fannie was still babbling on as she entered the house. Cataya was about to tell her that it wasn’t that serious when a gunman confronted them!

* * *

Ron lay on the hard pavement and waited for the excruciating pain of the injury that he was sure he had sustained. The pain that he felt was from the pebbles embedded in his palms. Once he plucked them free, he limped to his car highly pissed. This was the closest thing from an ass whipping he had received in over twenty years.

He had known from the beginning that his latest assignment wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, but he still somehow managed to underestimate Cataya’s rebelliousness…a trait that he would bet the ranch on that she had inherited form her mother.

And though his pride was hurt like he had been beaten up by the smallest female in the school, he was more concerned with Hammer’s reaction. His friend wasn’t big on failure.

Ron calmed his self down so he could focus on damage control. He knew that regardless of what, Hammer was going to find out. And in knowing that, he came to the conclusion that it was better for him to have Cataya when he found out, than to not have her at all. That was all that it took for him to ignore his bruised hands and ego.

* * *

Rafeal stormed into his room, kicking everything in his path. He grabbed the .357 Magnum under his mattress, and pulled out every shoebox from the closet until he found the box of bullets.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and was momentarily startled. He didn’t realize that he was looking at himself until he heard the voice in his head laughing.

Oww-wee! Them crackers must’ve been Irish, ‘cause they gave you the pumpkinhead. They smeared your ass good, too. You got discount stickers all over your ass. Damn, I wish I would’ve had a camera phone, I would’ve put that ass whipping on You-Tube.

“It’s not fucking funny!”

Don’t get mad at me ‘cause you done fell off. You might as well use that gun on yourself, Forrest Gump.

“Fuck you!” he screamed, smashing the mirror. “I told you about calling me that!”

What are you going to do about it, Forrest?

Rafeal instinctively put the gun to his head, then at the mirror. But when the complexity of the situation fully dawned on him, he dropped the gun and began to weep.

If I can’t count on nothing else in this world, I can count on your salty ass tears. That’s all your punk ass is good for. You’re a bitch!

“I’m not a bitch!”

Then prove to me you ain’t one, my nigga. Go back to Target and make the six o’clock news. Show them crackers that they ain’t the only ones that do the firing.

Rafeal’s eyes dropped to the pistol.