Page 2 of Heavy Is The Crown

Didn’t matter.

Another door had just slammed shut in his face.

He stepped out onto the sidewalk, the soft drizzle of scattered showers landing on his hoodie. His current surroundings as bleak as his circumstances.

Southside Haven: the part of Trinity Bay that people pretended didn’t exist. The streets were cracked, uneven, littered with faded fast food wrappers and cigarette butts. Storefronts were either shuttered or hanging on by a thread. The few businesses still alive were either liquor stores, pawn shops, or beauty supply stores selling $5 lashes and cheap synthetic wigs.

Scattered everywhere were people just trying to make it. The old heads posted up on the corner, sharing a single Black & Mild, watching everything. The mothers dragging their kids down the street, looking over their shoulders. The dudes in tinted out cars, watching, always watching.

This was his old world. And if he didn’t find a way out soon it was going to be his only world again.

**********

Kenyatta’s feet felt heavy as he walked up the cracked steps of his mama’s house, the place he had been crashing since his release weeks ago.

He hated being here.

Not just because he was a grown ass man sleeping on a couch, but because every time he walked through this door, he felt like the kid he used to be.

The one nobody believed in. The one nobody expected to make it.

It wasn’t lost on him that his mama was tired. Tired of working, tired of struggling, tired of raising men who didn’t listen. Even right now, she was tired of him.

“Boy, you look like somebody just snatched your soul,” she said as soon as he stepped inside. She was standing in the kitchen, arms crossed, watching him like she already knew he had bad news.

Kenyatta dropped his keys on the counter and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “Ain’t nothing wrong with me.”

Traci let out a dry laugh. “Mmhmm. That job come through?”

Kenyatta twisted the cap off the bottle and took a long sip, staring at the floor. “Nah.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “You gotta start looking at something different, Yatta. Some of these jobs ain’t gonna take you. You might have to settle for what you can get.”

Kenyatta clenched his jaw. “I’m not about to be flipping burgers, Mama.”

Traci raised a brow. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not doing that shit.” His voice came out sharper than he intended. “I didn’t bust my ass trying to get out just to be making minimum wage.”

Traci didn’t flinch. “Oh? And what exactly do you plan on doing then?”

Silence.

Because he didn’t have an answer; Traci knew it.

She sighed, shaking her head as she wiped her hands on a dish towel before prepping her dinner. “I done worked too hard to keep a roof over my head for you to be sittin’ around here with no job, Kenyatta. You better figure something out before that pride of yours gets you in trouble again. And if your ass go that route…you gon’ need to figure out somewhere else to be. ‘Cause I don’t want that mess around here.”

Kenyatta didn’t say anything because part of him knew she was right. And that pissed him off even more. He just needed someone to give him a chance.

But every job lead: rejected. Every apartment application: denied. Every person from his past: either avoiding him or expecting him to fall back in line.

At this point he didn’t know which one was worse.

**********

Kenyatta sat on the lumpy, sunken couch in the living room, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, head down. The cushions had long lost their shape, just like everything else in this damn apartment.

The place was cramped, outdated, and carried the scent of old carpet, cheap incense, and whatever Traci had fried throughout the week. A single oscillating fan stood in the corner, whining as it turned, barely offering relief from the heat. The walls were that off-yellow shade from years of cigarette smoke and struggle.

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