"Hey Dom, there's someone at the door" Devante rushes into the kitchen, with a scared look on his face. I don't know what it is, or why this happens, but my heart instantly drops to my stomach. "Sit right here and don't move, ok? Don't move" I rush to the couch to put my jacket back on, not that that will help, I'm just trying to delay seeing him.
"is anybody gonna open this damn door or what" an all too familiar voice says, confirming my theory about who it is. "I'm coming, just be patient." I reluctantly say, shuffling through a few things in my drawer pretending to look for a key, hoping he'll go away. "The key is in the door Dom" Devante shouts from the kitchen, with his grilled cheese sandwich in his mouth, and because I can't keep pretending to look for keys, I open the door.
"hi dad, it's been a while" he eyes me up and down for a while, before deciding I'm of no use to him. "I'm not here for you I'm here for my son" he says, just before pushing me aside, he raises his arm up, allowing me to see it. A 21 year old bottle of whiskey, he always did have class when it came to what he drinks.
"you can't just barge in here, dad, where have you even been living?" I ask, clearing up the mess he has already made with his dusty shoes. "you dare to question me, yon ti kras?" he gently raises the hand that isn't holding a bottle of whiskey and runs his fingers through my hair. Something that I would've lived for a while ago, but now it means nothing. Just like how my heart would skip a beat when he called me 'yon ti kras' which means Little one in Haitian Creole, my language, but now it just reminds me how much I used to look up to this sperm donor of a father.
"yes, father I'm questioning you, anger your dirty hands off my face" I say, pushing his hand away, he looks taken aback by my actions, he didn't expect this, not from me. "I came here to visit my baby boy, I'm not here for your interrogation or any of that, stay out of grown folk business do you understand me?" he raises his finger to me, it sounds more like a threat than anything. "fine, father, I'll do whatever with you, just leave Dom alone, please" Devante says before I even have the chance to contest, my father nods and takes him into his arms.
"you're not going anywhere with Devante you sick twisted man, now you want to be a father? Where were you when he pulled out his first tooth and I had to use my lunch money to be his tooth fairy huh? Where were you when I had my first day of high school? What about when Faye got that internship as a journalist? Where were you?" he frowns at me after hearing all I have to say, "you talk to me like that in my house?" he says, screaming into my face.
"it stopped being your house when you left and we had to make our own money just to pay the freaking rent" I say, standing my ground, not choosing to stoop as low as him and scream, instead I let the facts speak for themselves. "Yo Dom, I just thought I'd walk you over to your shift at.." Tony is cut off by the awkwardness going on in this house right now.
He knows about my father, I stupidly poured my heart out to him when I was high one time, and I feel bad that he has to be caught up in all this. "Is this your boyfriend Dom?" father says, looking Tony up and down, trying to decide whether or not he likes Tony, Tony shakes his head no, before looking to me, almost as if he's asking whether or not I'll be ok. Normally, I'd signal that I'll be ok, but I know I won't, so I shake my head.
"Sir, with all due respect, I don't think Dev and Dom are comfortable with you being here, so it'd be best if you left" Tony says, stepping beside me, "you ignorant little boy, you come into my house and tell me that MY KIDS are not comfortable with me? Who do you think you are?" Father stands over Tony, trying to remind Tony just how small he is. "well if you don't leave, I'll call the cops on you for abuse and domestic violence, does that sound better for you?" Tony brought up the one thing that will scare my dad half to death, but after a rough exchange with Tony, he reluctantly leaves.
"Hey Dev, do you want to go to McDonald's with us?" Tony crouches down to talk to Devante, who is in tears right now, but through that, he gives us a faint smile and nods his head yes. We pack up the few things we need, and we head down to Tony's brothers car, Dev steps in, but Tony asks me if we can walk, just so we can talk, which I agree to, I have a few things I wanna talk about too.
we watch the car leave before waving to Dev, and that's when Tony pops the question I've been dreading, "hey Dom, are you ok? Genuinely, that was really tense in there" he has the audacity to ask me that after all this rubbish he's pulled on me? "What the hell was that? Tony?" I ask, not bothering to look at him or stop. "what was what?" he holds his arm against my shoulder, stopping me, forcing me to look at him and 'talk' "I mean what you did back there, talking to my father!? Who do you think you are Tony Clarke?" I look him dead in the eye, about to cry.
"what do you mean? Dom I saved you from that monster!" he responds, as if that's going to justify his nonsense. "I've said this to you before and I'll say it again, I don't need a saviour, I need support. I'm grown, I can handle my own, if I had big strong men fight all my battles for me, I'd be essentially useless, I had it under control, so just stop." I loosen myself from his grip and walk ahead of him, feeling the wind hit my face.