Page 6 of Mr. Calloway

However, the way my mother was talking made it seem as if she had never had a dream bigger than this here house. After my daddy died from the poison he got at the mill, my mother had never been the same. The small town had become everything those cracker-ass white folks wanted it to be. It was filled with a bunch of niggas with no dreams and nothing more than a pot to piss in and a window to throw it out of, and she had become one of them.

There was only a small portion of the town where who my mother called the “high-class coloreds” lived, and that spanned about two blocks. The rest of the town had proven that even after being free, they’d never manage to get past three hots and a cot. With every door slammed in my daddy’s face, he had given up on trying to put himself into spaces where colored folk didn’t belong.

Me? I was going to do the opposite. I was going to walk into prestigious rooms, breaking the barrier of segregation. In my mind, colored folk deserved just as good of a chance as those crackers did, even if it meant we had to cheat, lie and steal.

My mother pulled herself up off the dusty couch and stumbled toward me, pointing her finger in my face, splashing the tinge of whiskey on the only good suit I had.

“You think them white folk going to let a nigga like you in their fancy buildings? They’re gonna do you just like they did Clarence. You’ll see,” she hissed as she began mocking a celebration dance. “Shuck and jiving for those crackers—” she paused, now staring down into her glass, “—only to end up at a goddamn steel mill bringing home a sack of potatoes and letting that cancer eat away at your life.”

Anger filled me because the house that had once been loving became a nightmare and loveless. I had been working at Mr.Larry’s butcher shop since I was a boy to help my mother since my daddy died. Hell, even stole sometimes to make sure we had a pot of beans and rice, and here she was talking to me like I meant nothing.

She glanced up at me with a sarcastic grin. “I’s heard about you. What you been doing up there at that college? Scheming, plotting, finding ways to make yourself look prestigious. Clark, you ain’t fooling nobody. You’re the damn devil, and your time gone?—”

My hands itched as my diploma fell to the floor. Before I knew it, my hands were wrapped around her neck. My mother’s eyes widened with fear caught in her throat. Her favorite glass, with the last bit of whiskey in it, crashed alongside the paper I had worked hard for. I shook her as the only color I saw was black. Dark as the day my father died. Dark as the spirit that had taken over my mother. Dark as I was becoming from her ungrateful mouth. She should have had the cancer.

“I will be somebody!” I gritted. “I will never be like you or my daddy. I don’t care if I have to cheat, kill, and steal. I would never—” I paused as my grip grew tighter. “—And I mean never be like you.”

By the time I released her, my mother’s limp body slowly hit the floor. I knew she was dead, and not a single tear left me. I needed to get out of Toussaint and start anew somewhere else because if I didn’t, it was either jail or death, and I didn’t want either.

***

My hands moved smoothly across my desk. Knowing I had missed most of the semester while trying to find a way to reclaimmy name only made me feel further from it. I chuckled at the photo of Cecily and her nephew in front of me.How did she think she would become the dean permanently?It was even more insulting to realize they had placed her in my seat as a placeholder. Cecily had always been bitter, ever since the day I didn’t choose her.

My lips curled at the thought because Hendricks stabbed me in the back and was still rising above. “Bobby, Cecily, Sandra, Cynthia, James, Naheem, Fiona, and thefucking tyrant,” I mumbled as I picked up the photo of her and her nephew.

Jesaiah, whom I thought was worth the space in Chi Kappa Chi, was merely a little boy who couldn’t do a big man's job. Dionysus Jackson was not to cross over because the thought of having someone close to the Tyrant was dangerous. I knew I had to be prepared to face off with my grandson because if he was anything like me, he wouldn’t stop until vengeance was his. However, little did he know, I was just as much of a savage as he was. The only difference was that my savagery was playing chess; his was taking lives. It was now a matter of which king would reign over the kingdom. He was smart, calculated, and very much a devil, and the only way I was going to be able to defeat him would be with the help of others.

I needed a pack. I needed a group of people with no souls, such as myself.

June’s Entry

Place: New Orleans

Year: 2025

Time: 12:07 pm

Sweetheart,

It’s a nigga’s birthday, and I’m not sure how I feel. With the cancer growing stronger, I’m surprised I even woke up. Each day the fight becomes harder, but each day the scent of mint mixed with orange citrus tells me you are still by my side. I never thought I would be here trying to fight for my life. A life that has been so unfair to me.

With each thought of how rough the road has been that crosses my mind, it makes me angry. It makes me not want to give a fuck about anyone or anything. What’s the purpose of fighting for life when life didn’t fight for me? Then there is you. You came into my life and shifted my thinking. Now a nigga wants to live. I want to fight for a life. I don’t know what the future looks like on the other side, but with you, it has to be the greenest kind of grass there is.

The day you took a chance on me by traveling from California to New Orleans was the day I knew I would stand by you from then to the afterlife. Now, it’s time for my confession: my memory is fading. No, the guys don’t know, and I don’t want them to. I just want to get through this chemo, hoping the shit works and we can live happily ever after. However, if it doesn’t, sweetheart, know I tried.

I saw you struggling in the bathroom the other day. If I had to guess, a baby is swimming inside you. I’m smiling because even though God is having a hard time deciding if He wants to keep me on earth, He was generous enough to allow my bloodline to continue. Honestly, I’m not mad at it because He picked the perfect suitor to bear my child.

I want to be honest with you, though. I don’t know if having a child is a good or bad thing. The man you're choosing to havea child with doesn’t know the first thing about being a parent. There is a difference between coming from a two-parent home and coming from a place where everyone is your “Parent.” What if I’m not good at it? What if the things I’ve been subjected to somehow seep through the cracks? What if my love isn’t good enough? What if the cancer finds them? What if I fuck up?

The man you see on the outside is nothing but a boy still growing inside. There it is. That’s the truth; however, I’m going to die trying to be the best nigga for you and our baby. I will always be there, I will always fight, and I will always love you. It’s a love that has been in me since the day I saw you moving into that fucked up bookstore café.

Anyways, tonight we celebrate Zoo-style. I told you it’s a real nigga’s birthday, one I don’t want you to ever forget.

I Love You, Zaria, soon-to-be Calloway.

Signed,

Mr. Fucking Calloway