“Me too.”
My pops exhaled. “How’d you end up in here for real?”
“I told you?—”
“Yeah, a bar fight but you’ve never been sloppy or rash, Stone.”
“Nigga, when you knew me I didn’t even have hair on my chest. You don’t know how I get down now.”
“I doubt your fucking personality just changed you into a completely different nigga.”
“Bitch, you the nigga doing damn near twenty-five to life. Don’t look me in my mothafuckin’ face and act like you can give me life advice when you bummin’ cigarettes from me.” I hopped to my feet. “Worry about trading honey buns for smokes, bum ass nigga.” I turned around.
“Stone!” He grabbed my arm and I spun around.
“You got two sons in jail and the other four being raised by me, nigga, and you think you can preach to me?!”
“Stone, calm the fuck down.” He hissed. “I’m just trying to talk to you, alright? I know you handled business and took care of your brothers. We all know that. We all saw it and we all appreciate it. Okay? I’ve made some fucking mistakes in lifebut that’s why I’m qualified to stand in front of you and tell you what comes after making stupid moves back to back, to warn you against the worst because I’ve done it and faced the consequences. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a little late for you to want to parent me, man.”
“It’s never too late to turn a new leaf and you’re never too old, too smart, or too rich to hear good advice and not take it. I want you to take care of yourself. You out the streets?”
“Been.”
“So what the fuck were you fighting about in a bar?”
“A woman.” I exhaled.
“You in here behind some bitch?”
“You think I won’t beat yo’ old ass up and go sit in solitary with a smile on my face?” I closed the space between us and looked at him. “Don’t call my future wife out of her name ever again. This is your one and only warning. You think I came to sit down in here for her and I won’t go sit down a few yards to the left behind her too?”
“You can’t beat everybody.” He smirked.
“It ain’t got to be everybody. Nigga, I can beat you so don’t act like you didn’t hear me.”
“Nah. I hear you, and like I said before, I don’t want to argue with you, Stone. I want to give you fatherly advice.”
“I can’t take fatherly advice from you when you’ve never been a father.” I took a step back and exhaled. “Look, man, I’m not a disrespectful ass nigga. I swear I’m not. I just… Something about you brings out the worst in me,” I admitted. “That’s why I don’t answer your calls, never write nor visit. Being around you makes me feel like I gotta push shit to the limit and I hate it,” I confessed.
“Stone—”
“You left when I needed you the most without a plan, a job, or a fucking clue with four mouths to feed and more enemies than fucking money.”
I realized my voice was shaking and I wasn’t sure how the fuck my pops always got my emotions to flare but this wasn’t new. I either hated him or felt like I was down to do whatever to get his acceptance. Sometimes I thought he was the best thing because I had a good amount of memories of us hanging out and enjoying time together but then I remembered we were hanging out because we were moving drugs.
As an adult it was hard to find compassion for someone who’d been fucking every woman he could without protection. He got partial credit for not trying to force anyone to get an abortion but he hadn’t even raised his kids and ruined several women in the process and for what?
He was a bullshit ass drug dealer trying to figure out his life and had been selfish enough to just keep bringing lives into the world that he didn’t raise or spend time with. Nah. He’d left that job to me and Elijah who’d given us everything he could, including his freedom.
I liked to think about where we would all be if we’d had a better father, if Elijah and I hadn’t turned to moving drugs to take care of our siblings. Shit. Would I have gone to college? I wasn’t stupid and I didn’t hate any of the subjects. I just knew college cost money and jumping straight into working somewhere brought it in.
“I didn’t abandon you and your brothers because I wanted to, Stone,” he said after a while. “And despite what any of you may think, I love y’all.”
“Why’d you keep having kids after Elijah?” I asked.
“I was living fast and I’m not saying it’s right or that I was a great father or that I planned all of y’all or no shit like that, but I love y’all,” he reiterated. “I wasn’t the best father, but I mean,you and Elijah turned out alright.” He took a hard puff of his cigarette. “Stone, how long are you going to hate me?”