Page 10 of All This Love
Ivan flicked the tip of his nose. “I know I’ve been slacking lately, but you can cut out all the name calling. Don’t be disrespectful. Even when I’m down and out, I’m still that nigga.”
“Ha! You aren’t shit. A man that doesn’t take care of his child is lame as hell. Why are you here?!” I yelled, and his nostrils flared.
“I swear to God, you trying me right now, Tatum. Don’t forget the times I was on top, and I looked out for you. Did you ask me why I was here the times I paid this rent for you? What about when I gave you $1,000 for her birthday party last yearandgave you $500 for your pockets. But now, I’m down and out, and you’re talking to me like I’m beneath you.”
After sucking my teeth, I let loose a sarcastic laugh. “The first time you paid my rent, you did that because we werefucking. The second and third time you paid my rent, I thanked you. Shit, your daughter lives here too, so you didn’t just do it for me. But let’s be clear. My baby is three, and if I counted everything you’ve done for her, I just might not use all ten of my fingers. Yet you want to be treated like father of the year?”
“But you admit that I have paid your rent. I have looked out for you when I had it. Angel isn’t my only child, and I have to live too. I’m fucked up right now. Like, it’s real bad. I owe the plug money, and I got beef with some niggas. Mont is missing. No one has seen him in over twenty-four hours. I need to borrow like $1,000 if you got it. I swear to God, I’ll give it back when I get it.”
My jaw slacked as I stared at Ivan with wide eyes. His eyes weren’t red, dilated, or glassy, but he had to be high. There was no way he was sober. Not standing in front of me asking to borrow money. “You do remember that you just stood here and acknowledged that you haven’t been helping with Angel, right? I just paid her daycare bill. On top of rent and my utilities. You think I have it like that to just give you a stack? Are you crazy?”
Ivan began pacing back and forth. “This shit is crazy man. When I had it like that, I looked out for everybody. My mom, aunts, cousins, females. I gave my cousin $400 to help with her daughter’s prom. That bitch has a job making $30 an hour, and I can’t even get $100 out of her.”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” I questioned with a frown. “You haven’t done anything for Angel in at least the last four months, and I know you haven’t been down this entire time. Remember when I saw you in the club in the section popping bottles and shit? You can’t go to Target or Old Navy and get your daughter five outfits, but you have on $1,000 sneakers. Yeah, I don’t have anything for you.”
“I had babies by some sorry ass bitches,” he grumbled before yanking the door open and leaving.
Once again, I stood appalled. He was gone, but I was still staring after him, mouth hanging open, stuck on stupid. That man had really stood in my face and called me sorry, and I was the one taking care of his child. Ivan was crazier than I thought he was. I wasn’t sure what he got himself caught up in, but I couldn’t care less. Ivan was the least of my worries.
five
ivan
I sat slumpedon the couch fuming. Tracy’s bad ass kids were in their room making too much noise, and it was irritating me. I couldn’t stand a bunch of bad ass kids. Especially when they didn’t belong to me. Tracy walked into the living room blowing weed smoke from her mouth.
“The food is done. You want me to fix you a plate?”
With a glower, I drew back at the blunt she was extending toward me. I asked her to roll the blunt for me, so I expected her to hit it, but she’d smoked more than half of it. “Got damn. Were you planning to smoke the whole thing?” I snapped as I yanked the weed filled cigar from between her fingers.
“Nigga, did you just snatch that from me?” she rolled her neck. “I just cooked expensive ass oxtails that cost more for one pack than that weed, and I bought two packs! You really sitting there bitching about some weed?”
“I’m already in deep shit because of one bitch going in my shit and using it.”
“That’s on you, nigga!” Tracy pointed at me. “That’s what you get for sticking your dick in any and everything. You go mess with those coked out hoes that sell pussy for income, and then try to bring that tainted dick over here.”
“Tainted?” shooting up off the couch, I looked her up and down. “Tracy, you better really watch how you talk to me.”
“Fuck you,” she shot back and turned to walk away.
Her kids seemed to be getting louder, and I was over being at her crib. With a deep scowl, I snatched my key fob off her coffee table and exited the apartment. Fuck her oxtails. I needed bread, and I was running out of time. Shit had been going all wrong for me for more than a month, and I wanted my streak of bad luck to end expeditiously.
It took three years of me consistently buying coke from my plug for him to be comfortable enough to front me bricks. I could have afforded to pay for them straight up, but the thought of being able to flex with the money I was going to reup with had me thirsty. I blew that money in the mall, the club, and on a trip to Bali. The fifth time my plug fronted me work, I went to Miami and met a bad ass bitch that had a kid by an NFL player. She was the baddest chick I’d ever fucked with, and that bitch had my head gone for a good five days. I was spending all kinds of money on that fraud ass bitch and on the day I was supposed to return home, I realized she’d hit me for about $3,000. That didn’t include the $15,000 I had tricked on her with.
I was so pissed with her and myself that a person looking at me the wrong way could have caused me to kill them. The entire way back home, I practically foamed at the mouth. Then, I got home and found that one of the chicks I left some dope with, so she could sell it for me, had snorted a good amount of my shit. She chose the wrong day to cross me, and I beat her ass so bad she stayed in the hospital for two days. Stressed wasn’t the word. I kept taking loss after loss. Bills were due. I had baby mamas on my ass for one thing or another, and I got in too deep. Before I knew it, I owed the plug $50,000 while only having $29,000 to my name.
There were only a few big fish in Golden Waters, and I wasn’t trying to take the chance of robbing any of them. I hit a few niggas with nice clothes and jewelry, and I still only had a total of $17,000 from that. Not to mention, one of the niggas that I robbed at the store was grilling me in the club, like he knew me. He shot my homie, Tre and had him out of commission, and now, Mont’s aunt was calling me saying no one had seen or heard from the nigga. Tre was mad because he needed money and felt I owed him some, since he robbed ole boy at my urging. I didn’t have any money to give that nigga. I was still short on what I owed the plug and, in another week, or so, rent and bills would be due again.
I was trying not to let paranoia get the best of me, but something told me that the guy I robbed at the store not only knew who I was, but he was fucking with me. All of a sudden, he was this new flashy nigga on the block, and him and his lil’ crew were in town with premium weed and coke that was taking my customers. I was real close to catching a body. If the plug didn’t body my ass first.
When my cousin Logan texted me to come to her house, ASAP, I prayed she had some dirt on those niggas for me. At the club, I told her to pick a nigga from ole boy’s crew and push up on him. I needed information on them. Since they wanted to come to Golden Waters and get money, I was going to be sure to hit their pockets the same way I’d hit their friend’s. The moment she gave me the information that I needed I was going to make a move. I was only $4,000 away from having the plug’s money, and I wasn’t willing to die behind four racks. All the money I’d given bitches and tricked on them with, and I couldn’t get $4,000 out of a hoe. Bitches weren’t shit.
My baby mamas couldn’t even give me $1,000 each. They tried to say it was because I wasn’t a good father but fuck that. I did enough for my kids. They knew who I was, and they gotclothes and shoes when they needed it. It was all good though. I was going to be back on top soon, and there were a lot of people that I was gon’ make feel my ass.
When Logan opened the door for me, immediately, my jaw muscles flexed, and I knew some bullshit was coming.
“Yeah nigga,” she stated after my body stiffened. “That nigga Joey caught me going through his shit and got the girl that was with his homeboy to beat my ass.” I observed the bald spot on the side of her head from where hair had been pulled from her scalp. Her bottom lip was split down the middle, and there was a huge knot in the center of her forehead.
“You’re on your own with this shit. Mont is missing, Tre got shot, and I got my ass beat. You can go down by yourself.”
