Page 6 of A Vicious Rumor

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TYSON

“I understand that you’re upset, Bill. But, please know that we are doing everything we can. It’s not a simple issue to fix. If you could just give us a little bit more time.” I could hear my father’s desperation clear through the office door the moment I approached it. It had been like this for a while now. Almost every time I came home, my father was on the phone, seemingly begging with a client not to walk away from the business.

It was irritating, and I felt helpless.

I understood that I was only seventeen, but still. I had a pretty good grasp on what it was that my father did for a living. He ran a real estate development company that had been passed to him from my Grandfather. I was confident that I could help turn things around if given the chance. To me it was obvious, the business needed an influx of cash.

“Just one more week,” my father begged on the phone, and I cringed. “One more week and we’ll have the plans over to you.”

I heard him let out a deep sigh. “Yes, I understand. Well, I am sorry,” he said, adding pathetic to desperate.

I heard his office phone click as he placed it back in the receiver. The door was cracked open, and he saw me try and slip up the stairs, unseen.

“Hold it right there, Tyson,” he said, his voice suddenly changing into an authoritative tone. I rolled my eyes. If only he could have this level of confidence with his clients.

“What is it?” I asked him in a bored tone.

“Guess who called just a few minutes ago?” he asked, opening the door to his office all the way.

I turned to look at him, my hand gripping the large wooden post of the stairs hard. I hated playing guessing games. He seemed to love them. “Another client leaving the business?” I said with venom.

My father looked taken aback for a moment. In the clear light of the afternoon I could see how old and tired he looked. He’d always been thin, but now he looked gaunt and his hair was starting to thin. If you put the two of us next to one another, not a single person would have ever guessed that we were related.

“The principal,” he said, finally regaining his bearing.

“Oh? What’d he want? Didn’t you tell him it’s officially summer break?” I smirked, turning and climbing a few of the stairs.

“He told me that you broke someone’s nose today,” my father called out.

I stopped and turned back around. “And?”

I was a little irritated by the whole thing, but I was trying not to show it. Scissors’ main job was to use his connections with his father to make sure that we were able to operate without getting in trouble. Maybe I would go to tomorrow’s meeting so I could ream him out for this fuck up. He probably got distracted talking to girls after the fight instead of going back to the school and making sure his father was pacified.

“And this has got to stop,” my father said, trying his best to be an authority figure in the household. Too bad for him that ended the day my ex-mother walked out of the house, and I found out that he’d lied to me about being the bastard child of a stripper. It’s not that I hated him. I just didn’t respect him.

“Sure, pops,” I said dismissively, continuing up the stairs. “I’ll get right on that.”

“This conversation isn’t done, young man,” my father called out after me. I didn’t bother responding. But, then he said something that stopped me in my tracks. “You’ll be spending the summer at your mother’s.”

I turned around and bounded down the stairs. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, old man.”

“I’m not,” he said, crossing his arms and looking as pathetic as ever.

“I haven’t spent a summer with that woman since in a while. I’m not interested.” I’d been made to spend a summer with my biological mother about two years ago. My father had to travel a lot for business at the time and that was the arrangement that had been struck. I’d been assured that mommy dearest was no longer in the profession that got her knocked up with me in the first place. That she was respectable now. That I’d have a great time.

Well, apparently old habits die hard, because mommy dearest disappeared most nights, presumably to her not so nine-to-five job, and I was left alone. If I didn’t hate people so much, I would have been pissed.

“I don’t care if you’re interested or not,” my father said.

I turned on him, my anger growing. “So, let me get this straight,” I said. “You intend to get me to, what? Stop fighting? By sending me to spend a summer with my stripper mother in Anacostia? An area infested with drugs and crime. That’s your logic? Parent of the year award, pops.”

“It’s not up for discussion,” he replied, trying to stare me down. “You need a change of pace. A different friend group. Hopefully that will help you reset so you can finish out next year without getting expelled.”

I shook my head. There was no chance of me ever being expelled. Well, not as long as Scissors did his fucking job, which apparently was proving difficult for him lately. I didn’t really pick fights outside of Rochambeau. No one was dumb enough to try and challenge me for no reason. And, I didn’t really associate with anyone enough to pick fights myself.

Rochambeau was my outlet.

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