Page 5 of Love Me

I don’t know what it was about Breshay and me, but me and that woman just didn’t see eye to eye. I felt like she didn’t believe in a nigga, and that she wasn’t supportive when it came to me wanting to open my own shop, so that played a lot in our breakup.

When it came to her and me, we did what we had to do for our children, and that was that. We strictly co-parented; nothing else or nothing more. The last time we fucked was probably a month after she gave birth to my son, which was years ago. I wasn’t the type of baby daddy where I dropped the kids off at night and had to sample her pussy on the way out the door. I didn’t let her drop down to her knees and give me head or no shit like that because I wasn’t trying to send her mixed signals. Our conversations consisted of pick up and drop off times for the kids, financial concerns, and any other thing involving my children. That’s it.

“Not tonight, Ma. You can get them tomorrow. I’m supposed to take them to the movies tonight to see The Incredibles,” I let her know.

It’s crazy because when the shit left my mouth, I ended up laughing because still to this day, I couldn’t believe that I had turned into this guy. Not to say that it was anything wrong with taking my kids to the movies or no shit like that, but eight years ago, I wasn’t this person. On a Saturday night like tonight, when I would be at the movies years ago, I would be planning a lick.

“Okay, kiss my grandbabies for me then. I’ll come over tomorrow to cook breakfast for the three of you. I love you,” she let me know.

No matter how old I got, this lady still felt like she had to come over on the weekends and cook for us. I wasn’t the best cook in the world, but I could scramble a little egg and put some sausages in the oven.

“Love you too,” I told her, and then I ended the call.

Later that night

“Is that bag heavy? Because if it is, I’ll hold it,” I asked my daughter, who was carrying a small backpack on her back from Justice with the letter J on it.

I’d gotten it for her a few months ago for her birthday. I didn’t play that buying food at the concession stand at the movies because that shit was a complete rip-off. So, on the way over, we stopped at Family Dollar, and I let them pick up all type of junk. It was all stored away in Zakiya’s book bag. Crazy thing is, I’d been cutting hair nonstop since yesterday morning until this evening, so a nigga had money, but I liked to spend my shit like I was broke. I let my kids go crazy in Family Dollar, and I still ended up just spending fifteen dollars. Had gotten our snacks from the theater, fifteen dollars would have been the cost of my shit alone.

“I got it, Daddy. I’m a big girl,” Zakiya said and playfully rolled her eyes at me while smiling at the same time.

I looked down at her, gently pulled her to me, and kissed her little forehead. Both of my kids were everything to me, and I loved them equally, but my daughter would forever have a soft spot in my heart. She was the reason why I changed my life. Zakiya was every inch of her mother as she stood there with her fresh braids in her hair that were going to the side and wearing her denim dress from Guess, with a pair of red Converse on her feet.

Like she was my little date for the night, I wrapped my arm around her and held onto my son’s hand. His little ass was damn near dragging us into the theater because he couldn’t wait to see the movie. Little ass wasn’t even alive when part one came out, but he was in such a rush to see part two. Since I booked our tickets online, all I had to do was show the lady up front the barcode, and we head toward the theater. We quickly found our seats, and I sat down in the middle of my kids.

Zakiya picked out the snacks that she wanted from the backpack, and then she handed the bag over to Jr. I laughed because it seemed like they enjoyed these snacks better than the food court anyway.

“I don’t even know why I had to come and see this movie with y’all. This movie is for kids. Look at all these little kids in here, Ma. I’m the only teenager in here,” I heard a voice behind me say.

I prayed to God that this shit talking ass teenager was not about to sit behind me. I would hate for her to be talking throughout the movie and I have to tell her bratty ass to shut the fuck up. I wasn’t wrapped too tight, so I would sure as hell do it. I felt a purse hit me on the back of the head, and I turned around. The woman who did it was too busy wrapped up in sitting two other kids down that she didn’t even realize that she’d hit me. It was just my luck that this party of four, who hadn’t even been in this bitch for a full minute yet, had managed to sit behind me. She damn near knocked my hat off my head with that big ass purse of hers, but I knew how it was to have to handle more than one child, so I didn’t say shit. I just turned my ass around and focused on the movie that was getting ready to start.

“Journey, please don’t start with me right now! You knew since this morning that you were going to come with us to the movies, so why start whining about this shit now? I don’t want to see this movie either, but the kids do. Be on your phone, take a nap, just please stop with the damn whining,” I heard a woman say.

She was trying to whisper, but her ass was loud as fuck! There was no way in hell I should know that her daughter’s name was Journey. Motha fuckas were really talking loud in this bitch like we were at a fuckin’ park. I could hear my daughter making little grunting noises, so I knew that her little ass was just as annoyed as I was. Zakiya was every piece of me when it came to my personality, so I knew that she would turn around in her seat and tell them to shut their asses up too.

Luckily, after the mom said her piece, I didn’t hear shit else from either of them. The movie started, and I threw my head back in my seat because I knew that it was only a matter of time before I fell asleep in there. I was never the type of person to sit up and watch cartoons. My grandma will tell you that I was four years old and asking her to put on Good Times or Martin. Because I was raised by my grandmother, I’d pretty much always had an old soul. Even to this day, I’ll bump a little rap music here and there, but nothing could compare to a little bit of Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendergrass, and Al Green. That was the type of music that my grandma would play around the house when she would do her routine Saturday cleaning, so that was what stuck with me.

One of my of favorite things to do was sit outside on the balcony at my apartment and face a fat ass blunt while I bumped a little old school music.

“Daddy, that little boy behind me keeps kicking my chair.” My daughter’s voice came through my ear, making me jump in my sleep.

I rubbed my hand down my face and looked at Zakiya, who was pointing behind her to a little boy, who looked as if he was my son’s age. I was getting ready to tell her to be quiet because she was loud, but I saw him kick it again, so I said something.

“Yo, can you please tell your son to stop kicking the seat? Switch places with his little ass or something,” I requested with hostility dripping from every word that escaped my lips.

I probably wasn’t really even mad at the fact that her son was kicking the seat; if anything, I was annoyed as shit because I was in a deep sleep, only for my daughter to wake me up with this shit.

“You don’t have to be fuckin rude about it! I would have understood your ass if you just simply told me that my son was kicking the seat! The last part was unnecessary!” she snapped back at my ass with just as much hostility in her voice.

It wasn’t in my nature to sit and argue with no bitch. My baby mama will tell you for a fact that fuckin’ around with me, her ass will be going back in forth with a damn wall because I wasn’t the type to waste my time, energy, nor my damn breath arguing with no female because they didn’t know how to let shit go. It was dark as hell in this theater, and all I saw was a small body that had just talked back to me, so I figured the mother must have left or some shit. Then again, she referred to him as her son, so her little ass was probably the mother.

“You and your whole family been doing a whole bunch of unnecessary shit since y’all walked in this bitch! Y’all came in here talking loud, you hit me in the back of my head with that big ass purse, and then your son is kicking my daughter’s chair. Sign his ass up for kickball or some shit if he wants to kick on shit!” I snapped back at her ass.

A few people were telling us to be quiet, but it wasn’t them that made me stop talking. It was my daughter and my son pulling on my shirt and telling me to stop that made me turn around in my chair and leave the shit alone. I didn’t need to be talking to no woman like that anyway, so I let the shit go. She must have known that she was dealing with a nigga who wasn’t wrapped too tightly either because I didn’t hear shit else back from her ass.

After that little incident, I couldn’t get back to sleep because too many thoughts were running through my head. The hood raised me, so I’ve seen some shit in my lifetime. Lil mama could have been texting her nigga and telling him the way that I just talked to her, and now I had to be alert just in case I had to beat a nigga’s ass. Lucky for her and her nigga, if she did have one, that moment never came.

The movie had finally gone off, and the lights were now coming on in the theater. I was folding up the candy bags and the bags of chips that my kids had eaten from, so I could place it back in the backpack, while almost everyone else inside the theater was leaving.

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