Page 1 of The Love of Priest

Prologue

Priest searedhis hooded brown eyes into the reflection in the mirror. Looking at himself, he still couldn't grasp the image everyone else saw when they approached him. He rotated his head slightly to the left to catch a glimpse of his face from the side. The tattoos that spread across his smooth golden skin like butter were the first things he noticed about himself. He didn't necessarily think the art he canvassed his body with was a bad thing, but society and blue-collar motherfuckers would think otherwise. Priest didn't want to fit the social norms. Impressing others wasn't on his itinerary of life, and he could never see himself making space for it either.

"Another day," Priest mumbled as he ran his calloused hands down his face. "Another God damned dollar."

The state of New York never slept. Priest liked to think New York was like its own little world. The population danced to the beat of its own drum. It was a state of unity. Loyalty was a merit of honor that was proudly worn. There were a few sneaky motherfuckers who would double cross family if they had to, but the lessons New York offered taught any little nigga coming up how to weed those scandalous niggas- and sometimes bitches- out. Luckily for Priest, he never had to endure the inflicted pain of discovering a snake in his grass. Everyone he associated with held loyalty and family at the same stature as he did: nothing came before it.

Taking a seat on his bed, Priest tugged the steel toed, dirt-coated work boots onto his feet. He made sure to wear a pair of thick socks to prevent any soil from seeping to his feet. Glaring down at the pair of boots, Priest was disgusted. The sight of them always triggered thoughts of what he could have done to make his life better. Focus harder in school. Follow the law. Make wise choices. Maybe if he did those things, he wouldn't have to wake up at five in the morning, put on a pair of dirty and aged steel toe boots, and go punch in on a white man's clock to do excessive labor only to be paid wages that were being drained by his New York living expenses. Discarding his thoughts at the sound of his cell, Priest glanced over to his phone and answered it.

"Yo, why the fuck you always gotta take your precious fucking time? Deadass, if I can't stop to get my bacon-egg-and-cheese ‘cause of your slow ass, I ain't sliding through tomorrow." Priest threw his head back in laughter at the sound of his buddy J'Ru chewing him out. If Priest didn't get cussed out twice a week, shit wasn't normal. He had grown used to it.

Priest slid his backpack over his shoulder. "I'm coming down now. Get out of your pussy."

"Hurry the fuck up," J'Ru rushed before banging his line.

Priest shook his head as he locked the doors to his apartment. Like every other morning, he galloped down the steps, his heavy work boots creating a thud with every step he took. Exiting his building, he could see J'Ru in his pick-up truck with the same look of annoyance slathered on his face as any other morning.

The sun had yet to come up, so the streetlights illuminated the streets just as Christmas lights would decorate a Christmas tree. Mid-March called for humidity and light wind, so once he got into the truck, Priest checked his bag for the multiple water bottles he packed the night before.

"And if I start leaving your ass, I'm a bad homie," J'Ru scoffed as he pulled away from the curb so he could start in the direction of the job they were assigned to for the next two weeks.

J'Ru and Priest were both employed by Gregory Mansfield Landscaping. The heavy labor, crazy hours, and far destinations always strained the hell out of them, but they got up every weekday morning and made sure they did what they had to do. J'Ru had worked at Mansfield Landscaping far longer than Priest had, since he was nineteen. Priest joined the crew three years after J'Ru to get his probation officer off his back. He hadn't left since. They both wanted out, but there weren’t many options for two black men with criminal records in New York.

"Nigga, fuck you," Priest chuckled. "If my license was straight, I wouldn't have to hear you bitch and groan every morning." He reclined his seat so he could relax.

J'Ru chuckled as well. "Nigga, just pay your tickets off. You stubborn as hell."

Priest shook his head defiantly. "The only way I'm paying my tickets off is if I win the lotto, and there’s a slim to nothing chance in that."

Over the years, Priest had collected a pile of tickets for reckless driving, and it had all crept up on him a few months before when his license got suspended. All he had to do was at least attempt to start paying the thousands of dollars’ worth of tickets he accumulated over the years, and they would reinstate it, but Priest felt like he saved far more cash when he didn't have a car. Getting around wasn't much of a struggle since he lived in New York. The majority of the residents didn't have cars anyway.

"As much as you play the lotto, I'm surprised you ain't won already," J'Ru laughed.

Priest side eyed him. He was a bit of a superstitious luck junkie. Priest played the same numbers faithfully every morning, midday, and evening. There were days that he was only a digit off, and there were also days that his whole set was off, but that didn't stop him from playing his numbers again the next day. J'Ru always poked fun at him about it, but Priest didn't give a damn. One of these days, he was going to hit, and he was going to shove J'Ru's cut into his wallet to shut his ass up.

"When I win, I don't wanna hear shit from you," he warned jokingly. J'Ru was going to be the first person Priest broke off. He’d been like a brother to Priest for decades.

Like always, J'Ru waved Priest off before stopping his truck in front of the 24/7 bodega called Bueno! they always stopped at in the mornings. Getting out of the Ford truck, both Priest's and J'Ru's heavy boots made contact with the littered cement ground. In unison, they slammed the doors of the truck before making their way toward the entrance of Bueno!.

Like every other morning, J'Ru claimed his spot in the line at the deli counter, waiting to order his usual order of two bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches with extra bacon. Priest, on the other hand, lingered toward the back of the bodega where he grabbed a few Little Debbie cakes and various snacks to help him survive the day in the hot-ass sun. He paid at the counter, making sure to play his numbers while he was at it. 13, 27, 60, 06, 42.

"You're gonna win this time, baby. I believe in you." Mrs. Cox smiled her faithful smile at Priest from behind the counter like she did every morning.

Priest paid for his items and lotto ticket with a smile. "‘Preciate it, Mrs. Cox. This the only spot I'll play my numbers at."

She threw her head back with a little laugh at Priest’s superstitions before wishing him a good day at work. At the end of every workday, J'Ru made sure to slide back through Bueno! to grab him a chopped cheese, and Priest would do the same. By then, Mrs. Cox would be long gone and replaced by Carlito who always gave J'Ru a hard time for holding up his line. Bueno! was a staple for the two men. It was their hangout when they were coming up, and now, it provided them the same hearty, greasy food and affordable snacks as it had back in the day.

Once they got all they needed in Bueno!, J'Ru and Priest got back into the truck and resumed the drive toward their assigned work destination, Inwood Hill Park.

"You know," J'Ru began after he swallowed down the massive bite he had just taken from his sandwich. "Your pops get out in a few weeks."

At the reminder of his father fulfilling his fifteen-year sentence at Rikers Island, Priest's stomach churned. The thought of seeing his father instantly caused his mood to shift and digress into a stagnant feeling of confusion. There wasn't much Priest could tell anyone about his pops. Everything he knew was from word of mouth. He was supposedly some well-respected nigga who ended up getting jammed. His twenty-year sentence had gotten cut to fifteen a few years prior. Priest hardly knew the man, but he couldn’t keep track of the number of people who came up to him congratulating him on the fact that his father was coming home soon.

Growing up, Priest considered himself a statistic. His father didn't have much of an impact on his life since he was never around. His lack of mentorship and guidance ignited a fire within Priest to get into everything he shouldn't have. Priest single parent household didn't provide him with the attention he needed, so he went and got it elsewhere. Shit got worse when his mother, Sylvia, called herself moving on from his ain't-shit father to a nigga who was even worse. Priest went from getting in trouble in school so he could stay home to getting in trouble in the streets in hopes that someone would find his living situation unfit so he wouldn't have to stay home at all.

The mentally, physically and emotionally abusive environment Priest had to live in was all he really knew since the State never got involved in his life. His life honestly wasn't that bad. He just couldn't stand the fact that he had to share his mother with a man who disrespected her constantly. Even at a young age, Priest knew his mother's relationship with her new husband didn't feel right. Shit seemed to never change, though.

Priest always longed for his father. He drilled his mother with questions about him when he was around seven or eight years old. Sylvia made sure to answer every question Priest had pertaining to his father to the best of her ability, but she struggled herself since his father was always a fuzzy memory she desperately tried to forget. Her honesty quickly came to an end when Priest asked her where his father was. She had no clue, so she lied and told him he was dead. Priest believed his mother until he was about twelve when, after a full night of two six packs and a few heated rounds of dominoes, his grandfather confessed that his father wasn't dead physically, but more so mentally since he was locked up in Rikers. Priest took it upon himself to do some digging in the streets, and that was when he sat down with a neighborhood old head, Roy, who filled him in on all he needed to know about his father, Leonard Priest Justice.

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