Page 40 of Stay Dangerous

I didn’t even know why I needed her. I couldn’t even say it was for Fredo, or Ty-Ty, or Nan.Ineeded Ma here. In her room. Even if she never came out. Even if we just talked on the phone every afternoon. Even when Ty-Ty would send me random pictures of them hanging out, since she was just as much his mother as she was his aunt.

The phone rang and rang in my ear as pressure built in my eyes. “C’mon, nigga, answer the fucking phone,” I whispered to myself.

I hung up and tried again.

Each time his phone kept ringing and ringing. The answering machine felt like a bullet to my head every time it picked up.

During the fourth time I called, I heard her door slam. I didn’t even know she’d gotten up.

Abandoning my phone, I ran to the hallway.

“I swear to God, something happens, I’ma kill–”

Just as I reached her door, I heard a gunshot.

A roar ripped out of my chest as I ran my shoulder into her door. It splintered on the second try, before the third time knocked it off the hinges.

Blood covered the wall behind her headboard.

I stumbled backward, until I could catch my footing. Then, my feet led me out of the hallway, through the living room, and out of the apartment.

“Ricky, what was that?” Ms. Sheryl, my neighbor, whispered as I passed her.

I stopped and turned. She was clutching a shotgun of her own, an essential to living in the Birch. It must have been a rare night she had off from her job.

Lil’ Sean, her son, peeked from behind her. He knew exactly what sound that was, since he’d been put on recently; one of the youngest niggas we had.

Something in my face made her gasp. She handed her shotgun to Sean and ran toward my crib, bypassing the opened front door.

“You good?” Sean whispered.

My feet picked back up as we stared each other down. When Ms. Sheryl screamed at the top of her lungs, I fell into the wall.

Ma survived the gunshot, just to die three times on the table.

She didn’t come back after the fourth.

Whoever was in charge of the hospital knew Pooh, so they got to clean her up, and put her in a private room, so we could say goodbye.

Rone and Lala had to carry Ty-Ty out.

Nan, already fucked up from being woken up after taking her sleeping pills, was admitted as soon as we heard about Ma.

Still, no one could get ahold of Pooh.

It was just me and Fredo, each bracketing Ma’s bed. Each holding a stiff, cold hand.

Fredo didn’t have anything to say for once. He lay with his cheek on her hip. I would think he was dead if he didn’t sniffle every now and again.

Grief lay heavy as fuck in the sterilized room. And despair. Panic was licking at our ankles.

And something else. Something Fredo couldn’t feel, but I did. He’d always blame himself for her leaving, especially since he wasn’t there. This was a failure for him.

They were always closer. He never voiced it, but he and Ty-Ty felt they could love her out of whatever dark hole she was in.Catering to all her needs, never telling her no, making sure she knew she was loved and mattered.

I knew from a young age, only one person mattered to her.

The one muthafucka who hadn’t come.