Page 3 of Off the Charts
“Don’t put your fucking hands on me! I will kick and scream, nigga until these white folks come and lock yo’ trifling ass up!Please try me!” I warned, and he took a step back. “Is he such a hell of a man that he is worth your family Solomon?”
He didn’t respond. I scoffed.
“The fishing dates, uncle and nephew shit is no more. Until you are man enough to have the conversation with our son about who he really is to you, you willnotsee him when Victor is around.”
I tried to walk away but he snatched me back to him by the elbow. “What? Fuck that! You not keeping my son from me!”
“Sucking dick got your hearing fucked up I see. I said Zion won’t be around you two while yall playing Barbie, Ken, and Ken. It’s one thing to lie to me, but lying to Zy will not happen. Victor is not to be around him until you are honest,” I broke it down as if he was a toddler and I meant it.
Solomon held my elbow tighter with a devious smirk on his face. “What the fuck authority do you have Jersei? Huh? You don’t run a fucking thing. Nobody will ever believe you when you tell them what you saw today. You have no credentials, power, or name for yourself,” he gritted. My heart dropped hearing someone speak what I’d been telling myself. “Victor is a part of my life, so that means he is part of our son’s life too. If I want to go on a date with my man and my son, I will because I pay the cost to be the fucking boss.”
I blinked rapidly as I looked between his eyes. The anger running through my veins had my body trembling.
“Solomon, if it wasn’t for my son, I would shoot the shit out of you right here right now,” I turned to Victor. “You too! Holding my son, kissing him on the forehead with my nigga’s balls on your tongue? What the fuck? In my hou?—”
“Your house?” Solomon interjected, throwing his head back laughing hard as fuck. Victor joined in. “Your name ain’t on shit, Jersei. You leave me and what are you going to do? Huh? Go live with your mama? Everything of yours is attached to me.Everything. I own you, little girl. Did you forget that? So, you either accept this for what it is and keep your fucking mouth closed, or option A. With the life I give you versus the one you never will have, there are no other options. Who the fuck is going to want a stay-at-home mom? You have nothing to offer anybody but three warm holes and that’s not enough. Can’t you tell? You won’t have shit without me, and you know that.”
There it was. The source confirmed the voices that had been echoing in my head for years. Solomon was hanging it over me as if he was waiting for the moment to drop on my head all along. My head was spinning with emotions, ears ringing with anger and hurt. I felt humiliated, lower than the scum of the earth because everything he said was right. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and scream.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, refusing to fold in front of them. “Paying bills doesn’t make you a man. It makes you my sponsor,” I looked past him. “And Victor that makes you the sponsor’s hoe.” Their eyes widened and I smiled, snatching away from him so hard that he stumbled. “Don’t forget I know everything about you and all the ways you dig deep to get these deals. You think the CEO is going to love finding out what his chairman and VP are doing on their lunch break?” I looked between the two of them, watching how my words landed. They were skating on thin ice and if I wanted to take a step and break it, I could.
“You know like…the books that I have access to of yours and the side deals you talk the customers into when bribery is completely against company policy? It would be a shame if someone were to find out about that. Wouldn’t it?”
“Nah,” Solomon shook his head. “You wouldn’t do that.”
I stepped a little closer, but not too close because I didn’t want to smell the dick on his breath. “Try me, nigga. I will expose yo rabbit ass just as sure as my name is what it is, ‘causethat’s all I got, right? You don’t have to have money to have proof. This stay-at-home mom will go down to the court and file child support on your dog ass to-fucking-morrow. Potted meat, saltine crackers, and Caprisuns will become your new best friend next to your precious Victor.” I took a deep breath, looking between the two of them. “I’m taking my son, my dignity, and the satisfaction of knowing that I could bury you with three sentences if I wanted to.”
Solomon swallowed hard, but he kept his firm posture. “You’ll regret this. You need me, Jersei. You know that,” he rambled as I was preparing to walk away.
“Need you?” I narrowed my eyes on Solomon.
Ten minutes ago, you couldn’t have paid me a million dollars to believe the man I’d been with for almost a decade would do or say anything of this caliber. Looking in his eyes was enough to make me flutter, but as I stood here, I saw nothing but deceit. Piece by piece, I could physically feel my heart shattering and everything in me was becoming unstable, my life included. Including the walk to the car, I had another five minutes or so before I could crumble in peace.
“The only thing I need for you to do is to be a father to our son. You better hope that when I’m done with you, Zion’s not going to be the only family you have left.” I cut my eyes between him and Victor one last time. “Yall can finish now,” I took some steps backwards. “It seems like this is the only time you’ll ever finish with me in the room. Fuck you, nigga.”
In the palm of
(6 MonthsLater)
“I have four daddies.”
My brow raised. “You have four dads?”
“Mhmm, four,” my student Shai sassed, folding her arms against her chest. “Some of them come over in the daytime, some when I am out of school. When I leave in the morning, mama has one of my daddies over, but when I get home, one of the other ones be there. And Mr. Denver, sometimes I be asking her why we can’t have a sleepover with everybody because sometimes I be getting confused. She be telling me that their work schedules are different and I just don’t get that.”
“I bet they are,” I mumbled, quickly putting two and two together as I typed her weekly digital notes into her chart. We had a system called Pea Drive, that housed all the student’s information from write-ups, family trees, medical and behavioral charts plus more. It was HIPAA protected and the best way to know about any student or faculty member.
“What did you say, Mr. Denver?”
“I was repeating what you said aloud so I can enter it,” I lied, giving her a smile and my full attention again. “Are all your dads nice to you?”
Her head nodded rapidly. “Yeap! Especially my daddy that gets me from school. We go to my grandma’s house. We get ice cream. The one that be there when I get home, he don’t really say much. Him and my mama be in the room with the door closed all the time,” she shook her head. “The one that drops me off at school always gets me gifts. I think he is my favorite daddy. That’s why when I get my mama’s age, my kids will have a lot of daddies too.”
“Or you can be different from your mom and have one daddy. You don’t have to do what she does. You can be even better than the superhero that you’ve made your mom to be in your head,” her brows dipped, then she nodded. “But children are a long, long time from now,” I pointed in the distance to show her how far. Shai laughed.
From the smiles on her face, I knew she was happy, but my job as her counselor was to make sure she was protected in and outside of the school walls. Although my next question was heavier, I had to ask in a manner that was respectful and understanding for the brain of an eleven-year-old.
“I want you to know that it’s a good thing to have people around you that protect and love you. Outside of the fun and ice cream, has anyone ever done or said anything at home that made you uncomfortable or made you feel yucky?”
