After doing the job for Elio, I swung by the hospital to sit with my pops. By the end of it, he was tired, but not too tired that he could still crack jokes on me. While the nurses helped him back into his bed, I checked my text messages.
Elio: Yes, I forgot to tell you while you were here that I'll be sending a driver over tonight with a suit and dress shoes for you. I have a dinner party to attend tonight and you're coming with me.
Me: Sorry. Can't. Got plans.
Elio: Didn't ask if you did. Like I said, you're coming with me. So I expect to see you tonight, Mr. Jensen.
I didn't bother to reply and shoved my phone into my pocket. The nurses made sure my pops were comfortable before they left. He turns on the TV, a nice-sized flat screen that's mounted on the wall.
"They treat black patients real well here unlike them county hospitals. If I say I'm in pain they give me something, check me out. But the county, they ain't believing a black person in pain. You faking, they think."
They give up on black patients before they even get them to a room. They just see another nigga trying to get drugs to feed their addiction. At least here my pops has a black woman for a doctor so she ain't trippin' like the white doctors do saying slick shit about how we talk that they can't understand what we saying cause we speak to hood or can you people speak proper English?
"Now you ain't gotta worry about anything," I said.
Pop's smiles and closes his eyes. Today's sunny, so his curtains were open, he's in a private suite that overlooks the medical center downtown. Pop's talks to me about Mom, how he still misses her, that he dreams of her often, and that the worst part of waking up from his dreams with her is that gaping hole of loneliness he feels.
I miss Mom too, but I ain't ever had a good relationship with her. She wanted me to go to college to do something with my life, but I chose to be in the streets during shit ain't have no business doing. And man, I regret the argument I had with her before she died. My pops beat my ass for disrespecting his wife. You think you a man now? That you can raise up on your mother like that? Be a man and fight me then.
So he showed me I wasn't a man at all that night.
"She loved you. Don't ever think she didn't."
I knew she did, but often it never felt like she did. She and my pops were the opposite, with love. My mom had a heavy hand on me while most of the time my pop's had a cool and steady hand. But I guess she didn't want her black son to be another statistic in white America.
My pops fell asleep watching ESPN. I say a prayer to him before I leave. I stopped by my barber to get my haircut so I could look nice to Yemaya. She sent me the addy of where the poetry slam would be and what time it'd start.
"Yeah, a dude got pregnant shit crazy. Cases like that are rare. It's only three cases in Asia so far. And there's an article calling it the alpha and omega effect or some shit." Mark said. He's a barber at the shop and he's always been into some weird shit.
"Shit is crazy. Like, how does a male even give birth? Like how?" Anthony asked, confused. He's a braider here.
"Through C-section," Mark said. "That's basically the only way. But anyway, if you're born with this omega-type gene, then you're a carrier, and those with the alpha gene are the only ones who can impregnate males with the omega gene."
"Lucky none of us niggas are into men," Charlie said with a laugh as he worked on my fade.
Wasn't like I was into barbershop talk. I don't share my business with them. They gossip more than the ladies at the salon I would go to with my mom when she used to get her press and curl.
"Now they wanna do studies and stuff saying it may be a mutation and that maybe in another couple of years, more males will start to appear with the omega gene and alpha gene, too. So they wanna try to open testing centers and stuff and y'all know our tax dollars are going to that shit." Mark brushed off his client.
"When ain't our tax dollars going to some unnecessary shit," Charlie grunted. "What you think of this shit, Everest?"
I shrugged. "Ain't got shit to say about it."
Mark switched over to something about the government poisoning our food, and all the liquor stores in black neighborhoods. You tear the community apart from the inside.
Earlier in the day it was warmer now that it was bleeding over into the night the air started to get cooler. That's Texas weather for you. When I arrived home and parked my car. A black SUV was parked outside my place.
The driver gets out greeting me telling me his name was Tony and that he'll be my driver for the night as requested by Elio. He gets a suit bag out the back and with a smaller bag.
"Listen, you gonna have to tell Elio I ain't coming."
Tony's eyes went wide and stepped closer to me and leaned in a bit. "Um, I can't do that. Like my boss is fucking scary when he's pissed. I'm not trying to get shot. So please um Everest, right? Just get dressed and come with me okay?"
"No, now bye."
I step around him. I hear the tapping of his expensive shoes on the concrete ground as he runs up next to me pleading with me. He tried to deebo his way inside and I slammed his hand in the door. He screams and cusses before going back to the SUV and sits outside my house.
***
"Next we have Yemaya!" The lady said. Everyone claps.
The single light shines on Yemaya and she smiles at everyone. When she spots me I see her physically relax even more.
"Tonight I'll be reciting a poem I wrote, called Love Affair With The Moon."
The chair next to me is pulled out and at first I don't pay attention since it was a stranger wanting to sit somewhere in the crowded small coffee shop. It's the strong hand on the back of my neck, and the light squeeze that makes me freeze up and shift my gaze. Elio.
"Hmm, You don't listen very well do you?" Elio lowered his face to mine.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" I whispered.
"To get you."
"I'm not going anywhere with your ass."
I feel something pressed into my side and it doesn't take me long to figure out it's his gun digging into the side of my rib cage.
"You can leave out of here on two feet or a body bag its your choice." He squeezed my neck again.
I look at the stage at Yemaya. "Man let me wait until she finishes."
And I thought Elio would threaten me, but he didn't. He puts his gun away and relaxes in the chair. He looks at Yemaya with a look of interest. Yemaya smiles when she finishes her poem and everyone claps.
Elio gets up, grabs my arm pulling me up from the chair. I tripped over my feet but Elio didn't let me fall -- I looked back at the coffee shop and Yemaya's staring out the glass door. She looked hurt and I tried to mouthed I was sorry, but Elio threw me in the back of the SUV.
In the hotel room, classical music plays. Singing along, Elio's low voice adds a rich, melodic layer to the music. He stands in the bustling living area of the hotel, while I prepare myself in the cozy bedroom section. Thankfully, he granted me a brief moment of privacy to dress, though his gaze lingered as he passed by, his eyes tracing the contours of my body as if he wanted to etch the memory of my muscles into his mind.
The last time I wore a suit was at my mom's funeral. This suit Elio got for me was custom-tailored, hugging my body perfectly. It matches the powered blue suit he's wearing. I couldn't get my tie right and Elio does it for me. He gazes into my eyes, his calloused hands gently cradling my face. I feel the texture of his rough palms against my skin.
"You look beautiful," Elio said.
"Get out my face with that shit."
I have never been called beautiful before — handsome yes but beautiful no. Hearing it come Elio made me feel like a bottom bitch.
The ride to the dinner was quiet. I'm staring at my phone with a text Yemaya sent me.
Mama: Everest I care for you deeply, but I can't mess with you if you messing around with a man like him.
"You should leave her alone," Elio said. "If you still want her breathing."
"Is that all you do is give empty threats?" I shut off my phone and placed it into the pocket of my suit.
"I can assure you, Mr. Jensen, my threats are never empty. You can fuck around and find out," he said. "She can be in a foreign country by tonight or on the black market. All it takes is a phone call."
The bastard had the nerve to smile at that shit. I punched him in the jaw.
"Like you're fucking mental! You think you have some goddamn right over me or some shit?" I yelled at him. "Don't you fucking dare do anything to Yemaya?"
Elio doesn't say anything. He's breathing heavily. The driver pulls over on the side of the road at Elio's orders. He gets out of the SUV and the passenger side door gets yanked open.
He undid my seatbelt and snatched me out of the SUV slamming me up against it.
"You fucking hit me?" he said in disgust. "Over a bitch?" He spits blood on the ground.
"And I'll do it again."
Elio steps away from me laughing. He pulled out his phone. Whoever he's talking to, it's in Italian, but I hear him say Yemaya's name. My heart beats fast against my chest and I run up to Elio and throw punches. He gets the advantage, delivering a savage blow to my stomach, causing me to collapse to the ground.
The pain is overwhelming, my breath coming out in ragged heaves as tears well up in my eyes. Saliva involuntarily escapes my mouth, mingling with the taste of fear and adrenaline. My hands instinctively clench into tight fists, feeling the coolness of the ground beneath me.
"You fucked around and found out. Now your little bitch is gone." he taunted. "Now get the fuck back in the car."