Page 25 of Bern and Isley
“I know, baby… but you have to start taking your health seriously. You know sugar runs in the family. I don’t want you to end up missing a leg like me.”
“I don’t want to hear all of that… you got a hundred dollars that I can have?”
My blood boiled. I literally had to bite my lip to keep from going off.
“Now Steven, I don’t get paid until the fifteenth. You know that,” she replied.
“Can’t you just get it from Isley?”
“Excuse me?” I finally spoke.
“No, Steven. Isley does enough as it is. It’s not fair to keep asking her for money. What you need it for anyway?”
“I need some gas and to buy some food.”
“Why do you need gas? It’s not like you have a job. It’s not like you to take your mama to any of her appointments.” I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. I was fed up.
“Stay out of this, Isley,” Scrap warned.
“You literally brought my name up,” I replied. “Would it hurt you to come home and sit with your mama without having your hand out?”
“Fuck you!”
Aunt Fee’s eyes widened with surprise. “Steven! Watch your mouth. You know you’re wrong!”
“Man, fuck this!” He jumped up from the couch. “I don’t have to listen to this bullshit. If you ain’t got no money for me then ain’t no sense of me being around. I’ll make something shake on my own.”
He glared at me as he headed to the door. I stood with my arms crossed and lips pursed.
“Steven, don’t do nothing crazy. I don’t have no money to bail you out of jail.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he spat before storming out of the door and slamming it shut behind him.
“I just don’t understand him sometimes.” Aunt Fee’s voice broke.
“Oh Auntie, don’t cry.” I walked over and took a seat beside her. She laid her head on my shoulder as I wrapped my arm around her gently. “You did the best that you could. Scrap just has some more growing up to do. That frontal lobe still developing.”
She sniffled. “I know. I just pray that he straightens up soon. I worry so much about him.”
“That’s understandable. He’s your son. No matter how old he gets, he’ll always be your baby. You have to show him tough love sometimes though. Otherwise, he’ll never change.”
“Yeah. Laura Mae told me that I coddle him too much. I was so mad when she said it, but maybe she was right.”
I didn’t bother confirming. But I agreed with our neighbor Ms. Laura Mae. I was just glad that Aunt Fee was opening her eyes to Scrap’s bullshit. I only hoped that he would get himself together while his mom was still here.
Chapter 14
Bern
It had beena week since Isley confirmed her pregnancy. The idea of her possibly being a mother was still hard to fathom. All I knew was whatever she needed me to do, I was willing. I loved her.
“Ay, I just lost my money in this machine.” An old white guy with a scraggly beard approached me as I was emptying the change machine.
I had just repaired one vacuum cleaner, now another one was starting to act up. I handed the man six quarters to replace what he lost in the machine. Eventually I planned to replace all of the old vacuums with newer ones. In the meantime, I’d have to settle for just repairing them. I pulled my phone out and sent a text to the guy who fixed the other one to see when he was available to swing through. The good news was that the car wash was making good money. I was easily bringing in twenty-five hundred dollars a week. My highest was over three thousand. Purchasing the business had proven to be a great decision. I was glad that I bet on myself.
A candy apple red 1970 Chevy Impala pulled up to the working vacuum as I was putting my phone back into my jeans pocket. I recognized the nigga as soon as he stepped out of thevehicle. It was my old neighbor Broderik better known in the hood as Mook. He was dressed in an oversized black tee and baggy jeans with a black and white bandana hanging out of his pocket.
“Bern, is that you nigga?” He smiled, showing off a platinum grill.
