Page 24 of Are You Going to Love Me

Eden buried her face in her hands and scratched her scalp before conceding. “Fine, but don’t expect me to leave this apartment, though. They’ve called me everything but a Child of God.”

“Man, fuck them people, they don’t know you,” Staysha rebutted as Eden pulled away and curled up in the corner of the couch. She was still ingesting all of the blogs, comments, and think pieces.

One read: Let’s talk about pulling a hoe from the other side of the tracks. All they know is hustle, so when they get over here, they’re going to hustle us too. @GardenofEden had us all fooled. That soft spoken, cute face, pretty smile was all bullshit. She been fucking on Rico. Every time they were near each other, you could see it. Had the nerve to be holding Natavia’s hand on the red carpet with Rico’s dick on her breath.

Eden scoffed and began sobbing again. “I’ve never even so much as smiled too hard at that man.”

Staysha snatched her phone out of her hand and shook her head. “No. Nope, Nah. Uh uh. We are not going to feed into this bullshit. We’re going to eat and unbox all that shit by the door.”

Eden sorrowfully wiped her face and snot with the back of her hand and stood up. She dragged herself back down the hall, not doing anything, Staysha said. She wanted to disappear, and if that meant crawling back in bed, pulling the covers over herhead, and sleeping until it was all over, that’s what she was going to do.

She lost track of the seconds, minutes, and hours that passed. When she was awakened, it was by Staysha with a grease-stained brown paper bag, the smell of fried chicken, fried potatoes, and onions wafting from it. In her other hand were two grape sodas.

“Scoot over,” Staysha ordered, kicking off her shoes and getting into the bed with her sister.

“You went to Trae Way to pick up Rodney’s?”

“I did. Rodney also cussed me out for not coming by in a year and some change. Said we switched up and whenever you bring your ass back to see him, he got something for you too,” Staysha semi-laughed as she shared the words from the owner of Big Rodney’s Fried Chicken Shack. “After he did all of that, he gave us some extra Big Rod sauce and said if you say the word, he’ll handle that Rico shit for you.”

Eden sat up and chuckled. Rodney had been the neighborhood father. It didn’t matter if you were hustling, a Trae Way Gangsta, an E Way Goon, or anything in between. He treated everyone with respect, honored them, and poured into them. Rodney gave Eden her first job under the table when their mother left. It took one grease burn and almost-fire for him to realize that Eden wasn’t allowed in the kitchen or anywhere near his day-to-day operations. While he couldn’t pay her for doing nothing, anytime they needed a meal, he took care of them. All these years and nothing had changed.

“I figured since you’re not with MRA, you can have some fried food smothered in Big Rod sauce. We can watch reality TV, day drink, and lie in bed for two days. After that, we have to get up and keep moving. Okay?”

“We have to?”

“We have to. You can get a break, but you got to remember who you are, Eden. And you ain’t never been a sucker and yournever took your licks laying down. Don’t let four years of comfort make you soft. We are from Trae Way.”

Staysha started twisting up her fingers as if either of them were affiliated with the E Way Goons.

“Girl, relax, you have never been an EWG.”

“Daddy was,” Staysha said with a shrug.

Eden rolled her eyes as she took the bag and tore it open. The fried onions and potatoes were piping hot, covered with the right amount of seasoning salt. The same with the chicken – crunchy, flavorful, and juicy. Home in a box. Comfort in a grease-stained brown paper bag.

“Daddy was a lot of things. Crazy how he was what he was, and Poppi ran Trae Way.”

“You ever think about how different it would have been if he didn’t die?”

Eden groaned. Those were memories she could keep at bay. Well, memories she kept at bay for the last four years. Every so often, she could still smell the gun powder, see the black bandana’s and feel the heat of the blood. But those were all demons she kept within herself. She didn’t talk about it, tried not to think about it, and no one outside of Staysha knew.

“I don’t know. Maybe Mom would’ve stayed. Maybe she wouldn’t. I don’t think about that anymore. Like you said, forward motion.”

The rest of the day went as planned, in bed mixing tequila with their grape soda, smashing their chicken, and watching two seasons of Courtside Wives and Love&Rap. The sister time and escape from the real world was just what the doctor ordered.

eleven

. . .

25thand Trae Way Blvd.

Maximus stood outside his mother’s house and scanned the block. In the years he’d been gone, not much had changed. The pavement was still cracked and in need of major repair, houses were falling apart, but somehow the hustlers still served curbs, and the fiends still bought. Police only showed up when the arrest was worth public acknowledgement and when they were featured in newspaper articles that praised them for cleaning up the street and making Waynesville beautiful.

If everyone ever looked at Trae Way in its entirety, they would find the beauty, the history, the love that oozed even in the chaos. He turned from the street and started up the three shabby steps to his mother’s home. The porch obviously rotting with multiple soft spots. He frowned. For a woman who kept a nigga laying up in her house, she never put them to work.

He tapped his knuckles against the rusty screen door and stepped back, gingerly awaiting her answer. Almost two minutes later, she pulled the creaky front door open, squinting her eyes at the sight of her youngest child. Nothing special, his large coils pulled into an untamed bun on top of his head, facial hair overgrown, his sandy brown skin in need of some sun and a deep cleanse, plain white tee and sweats, Keon had filled the duffle bag with.

“Maximus,” she stated as if she were surprised and frightened to see him. “Y-your home.”

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