“Bitch, you should give more fucking concern for your son instead of the same nigga that got you hooked on that shit… he put his hands on your seed, and you don’t bat an eyelash.”

“Elijah needs the discipline… he’ll be out of control without Leon to help lead him.” I took a seat on the edge of the bed next to homie.

Despite being on the cusp of an asthma attack, his ass was still smart enough to be scared and scoot away. Thea remained close to him as I extended my hand and plucked her in the mouth.

“Ouch.” Her bony hands found their way to her lips as she looked at me shocked. I didn’t put my hands on women unless they deserved it.

Even then, I preferred to get it done quickly. I was never the type to take my anger and strength out on a woman. While she held her mouth, I grabbed her by the neck and stared into her eyes.

“Go take a fucking shower with yo fishy ass. You too busy worried about getting high and this nigga’s lungs, while you over here smelling like fucking Chicken Of The Sea.” I turned my nose up and shoved her ass off the bed.

She scurried from the floor to the attached bathroom. “You… take these three pumps so you can listen to me clearly.”

I extended my hand, and he reached for the asthma pump, taking each pump slowly and inhaling the chemicals into hisbody. Just as he relaxed on the second pump, I snatched him up by his shirt and tossed him across the room.

“Aye… man…. I told you I don’t be getting her high no mo.” He copped the plea, and he wasn’t lying.

Thea had found someone else to scratch the itch that Leon could no longer scratch for her. She kept him around because she loved him. When he left out in the morning to do whatever the fuck he did, a Ford Expedition pulled into the driveway and stayed for a few hours before he was gone.

“I told you that if you put your hands on Elijah that I was gonna put mine on you… right?”

He shook his head so fast I could have sworn I saw it unscrew. On his neck’s second trip from going up and down, I punched him in the mouth, sending him flying back into the wall.

Leon was too scared to get up because he knew showing any part of me that he wanted to go toe to toe would entice me, and I would spend my morning whopping his ass all up and through this crib.

“The little nigga always in so—” His words were stopped short when I stomped his ass into the ground.

“I don’t give a fuck what he did… you put your hands on him again and I’m gonna make sure that I end you, Leon. I’ve been being nice because I’m not in the mood to catch a body in my investment property… just because I don’t want to doesn’t mean that I won’t. Clean this fucking house from top to bottom… nasty ass sleeping next to her, and she smell like fucking Joe’s Crab Shack.”

He stammered over some inaudible words before he caught his bearings. “You got it, Sim… I won’t touch em no more… I promise.”

I walked over toward the night table and took his key fob. “Don’t knock on my door until I can smell the fucking Pine Solfrom my house.” I stared down at him as I heard the shower running in the bathroom.

This was the second time that Elijah told me that Leon put his hands on him, and I had already punched his front tooth out before, warning him of what would come if he continued. You had three strikes with me, and the three strikes were more so for me and not the other person. I figured within those three strikes, the other person would get it together, and I wouldn’t have to show them who I really was.

They never learned.

The one thing I did know is that if Elijah came to my house and told me that he put his hands on him again, Thea was gonna be mourning, because her boyfriend was gonna get tossed up while she watched the shit. Once I was done, she was gonna clean up his fucking blood.

I looked down at Leon’s sorry ass and turned to leave the room while tossing his keys up and catching them. “Think I might take Elijah to school in your shit… might just take him to get breakfast and let him make a fucking mess with a chicken biscuit sandwich.”

The horror in Leon’s eyes confirmed that was exactly what I was going to do this morning. I might even run a few errands while I was already out.

Quasim

Past

Recommendation : Listen to Days Of Our Lives’ by Bones Thugs-n-Harmony

I heard the chime of the front door as I sat in the bathroom with a loaded gun to my head. Tears fell from my eyes, knowing my daughter was down the hall in her bedroom taking a nap. Chemo always wiped her out, so after, I always took her to McDonalds, which was her favorite place. She went from polishing off a full six-piece nugget, fries, and even eating some of my burger, to now barely touching her favorite meal in the world.

Despite her never finishing her food, I still took her because I wanted things to remain normal. There wasn’t shit normal about our life now, but I wanted to pretend for her. For Harley, I would pretend until I couldn’t anymore because that waswhat a father did for their children. Even with how straight forward my own father was with me and my brother, there was still this small piece of him that pretended, even knowing my mother wasn’t well.

“Yerr, where you at?” I heard Blaze.

His boots stomped as he was looking for me, not knowing that I was in here moments from ending it all. Eighteen months was all Harley had to live without me and then she would join me and her mother. I knew leaving her this way was hard, but my heart couldn’t physically take the shit. The thought of having to lower my daughter into the ground after doing the same with her mother would break me.

“You in here taking a shi?—”