Authors: T Styles
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #Urban, #African American, #General
Bernie’s House
When I got to Bernie’s house the door was open and I walked inside. Niggas were trying to kill him yet he left the door open. Amazing.
“Kali.” I said softly, trying not to disturb anybody. “Ms. Bernie.” The sound of my feet pressing against the wooden floors caused it to creak.
When no one answered I walked deeper into the house until I heard a lot of panting and moaning. When I came to a door it was cracked and I saw Ms. Bernie bent over on the bed while Kali licked her ass as he beat his dick. She was moaning like crazy and I couldn’t believe how gross the scene was. Why was he doing that old ass lady like that? What really fucked me up was that it smelled like shit in the room. I backed away from the door and walked into the living room. Tired, I plopped down on the sofa. On the table was some Henny and I poured myself some in a dirty glass already there. Drinking everything in the glass, I leaned back into the cushion and looked up at the ceiling. All I kept thinking about was Glitter. When thoughts of her got too hard, I thought about Amber, and about how much I liked her smile. I pulled the cap further on my head and drifted off to sleep. When I woke up I felt something pointing in the back of my head. I knew from instinct it was a gun.
“Take your hat off.”
I did.
I looked up to see Kali standing behind me.
“That’s the second time you pulled a gun on me. Either shoot or leave me the fuck alone.”
He smiled, tucked his weapon in his waist and walked in front of me. “How long you been here?”
“Long enough”. I told him.
Wearing his boxers he smirked and rubbed his stomach. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah…and I see you already ate. You full?” I asked referring to the ass eating I saw him do earlier in the bedroom.
“I’m good.” He laughed wiping his mouth. “What you know about that?”
“Nothing.” I said thinking about the old lady. “You got me all day on that shit.” Then I thought about Glitter’s mother and bit my tongue.
“I got you on a lot of other shit too.” He said seriously. “Anyway, why it take you all them days to get over here?”
“A lot of shit happened to me.”
“At least you’re here now because we got some shit to handle today.”
“Okay, but I got some bad news. I couldn’t drive the truck back over here.”
He didn’t seem too mad when he asked, “Why not?”
“My girl was killed a few nights back. Jace was looking for you and killed my girl instead.” A tear fell down my eyes and I wiped it away.
“What I tell you about crying?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Fuck that sorry just stop crying. If you gonna hang with me you gotta toughen up.” He paused. I pushed back anymore tears. I’d cried enough at Laundromat Girl’s house anyway. It was time to move on. “Now why they kill her?”
“Because she had my baseball cap on and they thought it was you.” Then it dawned on me that if I had the cap on, I’d be dead now but I wasn’t relieved.
“Look, I’m sorry about your peeps but shit gonna be alright.” He sat next to me. “We can get another truck. We probably wasn’t gonna have that one too much longer anyway. Them niggas was gonna stay on me as long as I had it.”
“Why is Jace trying to kill you?”
He rubbed his head and said, “A long story. Let’s just say we got beef we haven’t squashed yet.”
“You think you can squash it?”
“Jace is like a brother to me.” He paused. “And basically he fucked me out of some money for a job I did for him. So if I wanted shit to be settled, I could let the debt go and all would be forgiven.”
“Why don’t you do that?”
“Cause I like the drama.”
Silence.
For a moment I thought about the conversation me and Jayden had, and how she warned me that he was trouble. For whatever reason though, the fact that he was crazy made me want the connection even more. We were just alike.
“My sister told me he doesn’t want me fucking with you. Said to stay away from you.”
“What you tell her?”
“Told her to get the fuck out of my face with that shit. I’m my own person and can’t no nigga tell me how to run my life.”
He smiled. “Look, I wanna say I’m sorry about that shit I said to you, at your crib.” He looked away. “I wouldn’t have ripped you out of that bitch’s womb if I didn’t think so.”
“You really did that shit? Why?”
“Because she wasn’t a good mother and didn’t deserve you.” I liked him even more.
“So you are my father?”
“Yeah. And I was going to tell you when you got here. I want you to call me your father too. No more of that Kali shit. We blood and I want people to know it.”
“For real?” I smiled.
“Yeah. I ain’t gonna lie, your mother got around so at first I didn’t know if you were really mine. But the more time we spend together, the more I’m sure of it.” Then he stood up. “You ready to prove you family?”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “What I got to do?”
“For starters if I ask you to do something, you gotta do it, no questions asked.” He paused. “And I never wanna see you cry again either.”
“Done.”
For some reason when he said that I was his kid, I felt a huge weight lifted off of me. I felt like I belonged to somebody and I was going to do my best to show my loyalty.
“Kid, did you see anybody following you on your way over here?”
“Trust me, nobody knows where I am. I haven’t been home in days.”
“You ain’t answer the question.”
“Nobody followed me.”
“Good, kid. That’s good.”
“I’ma call you pops. That’s okay with you?”
He smiled and said, “Yeah. But let me get dressed. We gotta stop past somewhere right quick.”
“I’m ready when you are.” I smiled. “Pops!”