Page 32 of On You 2

Sitting in the driver’s seat with the windows cracked, I watched her younger son dribble a basketball up and down the sidewalk like the little nigga was training for the league already. The way he stayed focused on the rhythm of the ball and the control in his arms let me know he actually took that shit seriously. Every time the ball hit his foot or rolled too far away from him, he’d get mad as fuck before starting over again.

Watching him was strange for me.

The idea of having more siblings had honestly never crossed my mind before all of this. You would think I’d be scared of that shit or angry about it, but I wasn’t. Siblings like him were all I ever wanted. Neither one of my brothers had ever looked so innocent, and any time one had a basketball, they were throwing it at somebody’s head.

While staring at him, I noticed a group of little niggas coming down the street. They were the complete opposite of what he seemed to be. Smoke floated around them from a blunt one of them had hanging from his lips, their pants sagged damn near to their knees, and their white tees looked dingy like they’d been slept in for days.

Instead of passing him by, they stopped right in front of him and started saying something to him while laughing at each other and bumping shoulders. I couldn’t hear their words from inside the car, but I saw one of them snatch the basketball straight from little dude’s hands out of nowhere, and that made me roll my window down.

“Aye, give my shit back,” he said, reaching for it.

One of the taller boys laughed and bounced the ball hard against the sidewalk before tossing it over the little dude’s head to one of his homeboys.

“Nigga, this is our ball.”

“The fuck it is,” Erika’s son shot back, trying to grab it again.

Another one shoved him lightly in the chest, making him stumble back a step while they laughed, and circled him like little vultures.

I watched it for a second, seeing how he was going to handle himself, but there was only so much a little dude could do with three niggas around him, all bigger than him.

I already knew I didn’t need my heat, but I grabbed it anyway because guns don’t have an age limit these days. I tucked it into my back pocket, pushed the car door open, and stepped out. The slam of the door echoed down the block.

The little niggas looked over one by one as I crossed the street toward them. Their laughing slowly died down the closer I got.

“Yo, what the fuck y’all doing over here?”

“Just getting our ball. The fuck does it have to do with you?” one of them mumbled.

“It’s not your ball, man. It’s my ball,” the little dude complained, trying to move around them again.

“It’s not, and you can’t prove it.”

I looked down at the nigga holding the basketball.

“How about I prove these bullets hot?”

They all got quiet.

“He doesn’t have to prove shit to you because he had this ball when I pulled up about an hour ago. Ain’t no way in hell that’s y’all’s ball, so leave him the fuck alone, aight?”

“Damn,” one of them said, sucking his teeth. “Who the fuck are you? Super Save a Hoe?”

“Nah,” I replied, gripping the handle of my pistol through my shirt, “I’m Mr. Make A Ghost. Now get the fuck out of my face, and if I ever hear about y’all fucking with him again, I will prove that shit to each and every one of you?”

Their eyes instantly dropped to my waistband.

One of them grabbed the blunt from his mouth. “Man, come on, let’s go.”

The three of them took off down the street, talking under their breath, looking back over their shoulders every few seconds to make sure I wasn’t about to put something hot in their asses.

“Thanks, man.”

The little dude rubbed the back of his head awkwardly while I looked down at him. He had curly hair, but it was cut low, and its brown color looked exactly like mine used to when I was younger. For a second, I caught myself staring too hard at him. I couldn’t tell if he got that shit from our mother or if it was a trait Mecca had passed down.

“You're the same dude that came over here a minute ago, ain’t you?” he asked, finally putting two and two together.

“Yeah, I am. You alright though?”