Chapter 1: The Willis Family
CHARMAINE
I knew he wanted a quickie.
My boyfriend, Lamont, always wakes up with a hard dick. I felt him grindin’ up against me from behind, his erection rubbin’ on my ass cheeks through the thin fabric of his silk boxers as he started nibbling softly on the back of my neck. I had to admit, it was turnin’ me on, but I had an early day at the salon and I wasn’t about to risk being late—not even for a piece of that nice thick rod of his.
“Mmm, good morning, baby,” I moaned and smiled as he reached over and cupped my left breast through my navy blue satin teddy.
“Good morning,” he breathed against my neck and kissed it again.
His lips were so soft and he always knew just how to get me excited. I could already feel my slit becoming moist with arousal, but I couldn’t risk being late again—not twice in the same week.
“Why you always gotta start fuckin’ wit me right before I gotta get to work?” I asked him, teasingly, reaching behind me to stroke his throbbing erection with my hand.
He sighed with pleasure at my touch and moaned against my neck. Shit! He knew that was my spot! Damn, I wanted that quickie bad! I knew he could make me cum fast if he played with my clit while he fucked me from behind. It would be so nice to start my day with a good, hard, relaxing…Wait what the fuck was I thinkin’? This was the shit that had me late for work three days ago! I pulled my hand away from his boxers and threw the light blue cotton bed sheet over my legs.
“Aww, come on, baby! You gonna let all this good, hard dick go to waste?”
I sat up and turned around to look at him before hopping up out of the bed. He had pulled his dick out of the little hole in the front of his boxers and was holding it in his hand, shaking it at me. Damn, that nigga gotta big-ass dick! The head was already slightly moist with a little bit of pre-cum. Mmm, just looking at it made my juices start to flow again.
“Mm mmn,” I replied, shaking my head as I stood up, still glancing down at that thick rod of his. He was still stroking it while looking at me with lust in his eyes.
“Oh, come on, baby, it’ll only take a couple minutes,” he pleaded. “You just look so damn sexy in the morning—got a nigga dick harder than a muthafucka.”
He was on his knees on the bed in nothing but his boxers, stroking that beautiful huge dong of his and looking at me with those sexy, light brown bedroom eyes…I had to shake myself out of my trance.
Mesmerized by the dick.
“Uh-uh, baby I gotta go! If I’m late again, Ms. Tasha gon start docking my pay!”
I turned around and started heading toward the bathroom.
And if yo ass would finally get yo shit together, I wouldn’t have to work so goddamn much! I thought to myself, rolling my eyes as I started the water for my shower.
I loved Lamont with all my heart and I do know he’s honestly trying. He’s been working at the auto shop now for almost a whole year, and I know he’s trying to save up some money to open his own mechanic shop and be his own boss, but he just can’t seem to stay out of his brother’s drama! I swear if that dick wasn’t so goddamn good, I woulda prolly left his ass by now!
I stripped down and stepped into the shower, letting the hot, steamy water run down over my body. It always helped me wake up in the mornings when I had to get to work. I worked Tuesday thru Saturday at Ms. Tasha’s Hair Salon, and I’d been there ever since I graduated beauty school over six months ago. I was starting to really build up my clientele and I truly was talented when it came to my beautician skills.
Me and Lamont been together for the past two years and we had just got a place together a few months ago. He was living with a roommate when I met him, but he and his roommate didn’t get along. Lamont don’t do drugs and he rarely drinks, but his roommate was a drug dealer and always had people in and out of the crib all hours of the day and night.
That’s one thing I loved about Lamont. He tries to do the right thing. Not only is he fine as hell, standing 6’2”, with smooth chocolate brown skin, a perfectly muscular body, with a neatly-trimmed mustache and goatee. He keeps his hair cut low and he’s got four tattoos, one on each arm, one on his chest and one on his back. He was going to a technical school when we first met, studying how to fix cars and shit. He said he watched his daddy get caught up in the street life and he saw what it did to him, and he didn’t wanna go down that road.
I was raised by my momma in the projects and I knew I didn’t wanna be in the projects forever. I watched my momma work two jobs for several years trying to raise me and my little sister by herself ’cause my daddy wasn’t shit. He left us when I was six years old and I never saw him again. He never paid a dime in child support or helped my momma take care of me or my sister in any way. My younger sister’s name is Sheena and she still lives with my mom. She’s in her last year of high school and is planning to go to college to become an elementary school teacher.
My mom finally met a good guy named Calvin and they’ve been together for the past ten years. He’s a foreman at a huge factory downtown and makes decent money. He helped my mom get us out the projects and into a nice house. I call him my stepdad even though he and my momma ain’t legally married. She keep asking him when he gonna make a honest woman out of her. He keep sayin’ that he wanna save up enough money to give her the wedding of her dreams, but my momma always say she don’t need no big ole wedding. She’d be happy goin’ right down to the courthouse and getting married there.
Personally, I’ve never seen the big deal over getting married. I know when my momma use to take us to church, the pastor always used to say how it was so important to be married and how that’s the way God wants it. I honestly never really saw what the big deal was. Calvin loves my momma and treats her good. He don’t’ fool around on her and he helped her finish raising me and my sister, who ain’t even his kids. He ain’t never tried to touch us or nothin’ and always been like the father we never had. So I feel like he don’t need to be married to my momma to be my step daddy. He already my step daddy in my heart.
I had just finished rinsing off when Calvin pulled back the shower curtain and climbed in behind me.
“Mm, baby you look so fuckin’ hot with all that water drippin’ all over your body,” he mumbled in my ear.
“Monte, I told you I ain’t got time for this, this morning. I’m already runnin’ late,” I said, as he came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my wet skin.
“Come on, baby,” he coaxed. “You know you want some of this good dick.”
He grabbed my breast with one hand slid the other down between my thighs. I moaned as he applied pressure to my clit and started sucking on my ear lobe. He knew how to get me to give in—and he was right, I found his sexy ass absolutely irresistible. I wanted him and he knew it. He continued to fondle my nipples as his tongue twirled in circles against my neck. I sighed as his fingers found my wet slit and he teased my entrance, making it slick with my juices.
“Fuck it,” I finally said as I arched my back and parted my legs, placing one hand against the shower stall wall to keep my balance.
He groaned with pleasure as he slid the head of his dick inside me and we both started panting as he moved in and out of me, plunging harder, faster and deeper with every thrust.
“Oh, God, yes!” I cried out as his fingers stroked my bulb faster and faster, bringing me right up to the edge my climax.
“Mmm baby, this pussy feels so good. Ohhh!”
He grunted as his dick swelled inside of me and I knew he was close to finishing. One thing I loved about my Lamont, he was a fantastic lover. He made sure that he satisfied me every single time we had sex, even if it was just a quickie. He never left me hanging. In fact, he enjoyed it more when I came before he did. Maybe that was part of the reason I was so addicted to him.
I cried out, calling his name as I leaned forward, backing up into him, grabbing his hand and pressing it against my clit as I felt my orgasm peaking. Panting and groaning, he pushed me over the edge, and as my juices exploded on his dick, his body tensed up and he shoved himself into me, deep and hard, one final time, grunting loudly and squeezin’ my ass cheek with his free hand as he came inside of me. I sighed with pleasure as I felt his dick jerk slightly inside me with every spurt of his essence, until he was completely spent.
As his meat finally began to soften, he slid out of me with a satisfied groan and kissed the back of my neck tenderly.
“See baby, I told you it wouldn’t take long,” he breathed, panting against my ear. He gave my ass cheek a slap and kissed me again.
LAMONT
Charmaine is the best girlfriend I ever had.
She bad, too. 5’5”, 145 lbs, a coffee brown skin with thick thighs and hips, and a perfectly curvy ass—a ghetto booty for real. She always wear a bad-ass hairstyle ’cause that’s what she do. She’s a hair stylist and she always changing her shit up and making it look hot. She stay wearing hot shoes, and always got on a pair of sexy stilettos. She keep her nails and toes done too, very fashion-savvy. That probably comes with the fact that she’s in the beauty industry.
She always on her business, too. She been workin’ at a nice salon in the downtown area ever since she graduated from beauty school. Another thing I love about her is that she a straight up freak in the bedroom. She walk around like a sexy sophisticated lady all day long, but when we get up in them sheets, the freak comes all the way outta her.
She the type of woman that make a dude wanna step his muthafuckin’ game up and be a better man. We been together for almost two years now, but we only been living together for the past few months. We finally got a place together after she graduated and got a full time job, and I went full-time at the auto shop I work at.
I wanna save up some money and open my own car mechanic shop one day. The dude I work for, his name is Danny, a down-ass older white dude who smokes like chimney and don’t take no shit from nobody. He’s pretty good to me. He gives me good hours and pays me pretty well, but I would really rather have my own shit, you know, and be my own boss.
Charmaine has been really supportive of my goals as a man and I wanna be on the same level as my woman if we gonna be together forever. I mean, I ain’t got no problem with my lady workin’ and doin’ her thang, but I don’t wanna be no raggedy-ass dude who’s lady is holdin’ him down instead of the other way around and shit.
I had it kinda rough growin’ up. My momma had me and my twin brother Lamar when she was pretty young and we grew up in the projects, poor as shit. Our gramma helped out whenever she could, but she was on disability and only had so much money comin’ in every month.
My daddy was a drug dealer, but he was also a drug addict and he overdosed on some bad heroin when me and my brother were only five years old. My momma been raisin’ us basically on her own ever since, and I wanted more outta life. I want to be a man she can be proud to say is her son. I wanna show her that all her strugglin’ wasn’t for nothin’, you know?
My brother, on the other hand, is pretty much exactly the opposite of me in every way. Even though he know the street life killed our daddy, he can’t help but to be drawn to it, for some reason. Maybe it’s the seemingly-easy money and the fact that he ain’t gotta get up off his lazy ass every morning and go to work for a low wage, or maybe it’s just that he don’t wanna quit smokin’ weed and shit long enough to pass a goddamn drug test. Or maybe it’s a combination of all dat shit, but it seem like no matter how much me and momma try to help his ass out, he just keep fuckin’ up, over and over again.
He only twenty-five and already got three kids by three different women, and he don’t really take care of none of ‘em. They mommas is all ghetto as hell, livin’ in the projects and not tryin’ to do nothing to better themselves or their lives. Well, one of ‘em ain’t that bad. She will keep a job, but she always end up losin’ it because of my brother doing some stupid shit like stayin’ out wit her car and not comin’ back in time for her to get to work on time and shit—dumb shit. I’ll give her credit, she did finally kick his ass to the curb. But the other two are young and they ain’t really motivated to do shit with their lives. Maybe they waitin’ on some dope boy to come and save they ass, I don’t know.
All I know is, I love my baby Charmaine and I want us to have a good life together.
Me and Char hardly ever fight, but whenever we do, it’s usually over some shit that his immature-ass brother done did. Like the first time me and her tried to get a place together. We agreed to go half on the security deposit and split the rent. Well, I ended up havin’ to back out at the last minute cuz my boneheaded-ass brother got locked up and my momma ain’t have enough money to bail him out. He swore up and down that he was innocent and that he’d been set up and framed. The first time, me and moms was dumb enough to believe his ass, and I had to give my moms the money I’d saved up to bail him out.
We was sposed to get it back when he went to court—and he promised us in tears that he was gonna get a lawyer and go to court, but his stupid ass jumped bail, and never went back, so there went all the money I had saved up. I had go crawlin’ back to Char wit my tail between my legs and shit—all because of his ignorant ass.
The last time we got into it was a few weeks ago. Me and Char had a date night planned and she had gone thru a lot to make it special for us. Well, right before I got off work and we was supposed to go out, I got a call from my momma and she cryin’ and shit talkin’ about how my brother was stranded in another state, and he had got robbed and beat up and she needed me to go wit’ her to pick him up and take him to the hospital. What was I sposed to do? Let my momma cry and worry about her son? I tried to explain the shit to Char, but she wasn’t tryin’ to hear it. Once again, I had to use some of my money to drive my momma all the way out to another state and pick his ass up and bring him home.
Come to find out, he had been involved in a drug run that had gone bad. I found the shit out from one of the dope boys that always brings his car to Mr. Danny’s garage for maintenance work and shit. Man, I was heated as fuck! I wanted to punch my brother in his goddamn head!
So many times, I’ve wanted to beat some goddamn sense into him, but my momma would always cry and tell me I was breakin’ her heart every time I’d get in his face and yell at him about his behavior. She always goin’ on about how she can’t stand to see her only children fightin’ and how we all she’s got left and blah blah blah, so I always back down, but one day, I swear I’m gonna have to beat that nigga’s ass—brother or not. I can’t let him be the reason I lose the best thing that ever happened to me—and that’s my lady Char.
LAMAR
Man, these streets is hard on a nigga, for real.
I been tryin’ to get my hustle up and make sum of that real dope boy money, but every time I try to make a come-up , some foul shit always seem to end up goin’ down. These niggas in these streets is shady and these hoes ain’t about shit, but I got three kids I gotta take care of and shit. The fuck I look like flippin’ burgers at some fast food joint? Or moppin’ up floors at some office building? Naw, fuck that! I need to make some real money, real fast, but a nigga can’t seem to catch a fuckin’ break in these streets.
The hood life is the good life, but you gotta hustle hard as fuck to get there. I keep tryin’ to tell these hoes that I’m tryin’ to make this money, but it seem like they ass can’t understand that shit.
My oldest daughter, Aaliyah, just turned five and her momma’s name is Janelle. I tried to make shit work wit her. She already had her own place—even if it was in a housing project. She had a little waitressin’ job or whatever and even had a l’il hooptie to get her back and forth to work and shit. I told her how I wanted to have my own business one day, maybe invest in some real estate or learn the stock market and shit.
But she was on some other shit. She wanna smoke weed all day and drink all night, but then wanted a nigga to get real job and shit. I kept tellin’ her I was lookin’ for one, but I got priors, I dropped out of school in the 11th grade, and I can’t pass a drug test, neither. So I was able to keep her danglin’ for a while wit’ that “ain’t nobody tryin’ to give a nigga a chance” line for a while.
I sold some weed here and there, but me and her always ended up smokin’ more than we was actually sellin’, so I had to start coppin’ some of that harder shit. My nigga Loc hooked me up wit’ a dude who sold weight and he put me on wit four and half ounces of dope. That’s how I got started in the dope game.
Eventually, though, there would always be dry spouts, and I couldn’t make enough money to help Janelle wit the bills and shit. So then she started trippin’ again, and this time she came out talkin’ about she was pregnant wit my baby.
She showed me the pregnancy test and that was that. I tried to do the right thing and stick around until my daughter was born, but all me and Janelle did was fight. I would make money in the streets for a few months, and then the streets would go dry for a month or two and a nigga would be broke for a while. By the time our daughter was six months old, she was sick of me, tellin’ me I wasn’t gonna ever have no “stability” and shit. She finally kicked me out for good when she caught me wit my son’s mom, Shaunte’.
Shaunte’ was young. She had just turned eighteen when I met her, fresh, young and pretty as hell. She seemed like one of them good girl types, but I found out real soon that she wasn’t no different from them other money-grubbin’-ass types.
I was on when I first met her, making at least $1000 a week and shit. She liked that shit. She even put up wit me sendin’ money to Janelle for my daughter, as long she got to spend the rest of it. Everything was going well for a few months, but then her ass turned up pregnant, too. All these hoes tellin’ a nigga they on birth control and shit, so how all they asses somehow gettin’ pregnant?
I started gettin’ smarter and strappin’ up when I started fuckin’ around on Janelle. She was able to get her own place after she got pregnant, in one of the housing projects on the opposite side of town from the one Janelle lived in, thank God. My son , Devin, is three years old, now, and me and his momma still fight like cats and dogs. The only time she’ll even let me see him is if I show up wit some money and shit.
When I met my most recent baby momma, Taya, I honestly thought she was the one. She was young, too. Only eighteen when I met her. She was one of them slim thick high yellow broads, skinny up top but still had a nice round apple bottom and shit. She was real cute in the face, too, even though I wasn’t really into them red bone broads all like that.
We started kickin’ it and I was back at my mom’s crib after me and Janelle had broke up for good. I was fuckin’ this broad for six months before I dared to hit it raw, but once I did, I never wanted to strap up again. She was a freak and I liked that shit. But Taya loved money more than she loved me. She only wanted me around when I had money, as soon as the streets went dry and a nigga got short on cash, she’d kick me out the apartment I helped her ass get.
She was on Section 8. She ain’t live in the projects, she lived in a little two-bedroom townhouse. But just ‘cause you take a hoe out the projects, don’t mean you take the projects out the hoe. She was still ghetto as fuck and we still go back and forth to this day. My youngest daughter is only a year old and just like Shaunte’, Taya ass only want me around when I show up wit some money.
Janelle, she done moved on and got some other nigga livin’ up in the crib. Sometimes we get into it cuz I don’t like her havin’ mark-ass niggas around my daughter. She always talkin’ ‘bout I ain’t go no say who get to be around my daughter cuz I don’t hardly do shit for her no way. But whenever I call her up and wanna see her, Janelle be on that, you got somethin’ for her? Your daughter need this and your daughter need that. I’m like, well shit, you the one kicked me out. Don’t you gotta job? Where all your money goin’? Probably in the pocket of whoever that nigga is she got livin’ up in her crib. Long as don’t nothin’ happen to my little girl, I could care less who she fuckin’ any damn way. All I know is that my li’l girl better not tell me any of them punk-ass niggas ever touch her the wrong way—that’s all I know.
SHAUNA
My twin sons are all I have left.
I had them when I was kinda young—too young, really. They daddy was five years older than me and he got me out my momma’s house. My momma used to be a drug addict and we was always poor growin’ up. She finally did get clean, but by then, her brain was so far gone, that she was on disability. That check ain’t never go very far when it came to raisin’ me and my sister.
Lamont and Lamar’s daddy was a drug dealer when I met him, but he was spendin’ more money on me than I had ever seen livin’ wit my mom. He got us a nice little townhouse out in the suburbs and, at first, things was cool for a while. But then, he eventually started becoming abusive, especially when he would drink. He would always make up for it by buyin’ me some expensive present the next day and come crawlin’ back to me apologizin’ and shit.
I put up wit it for the first couple of years, but when he started usin’ more of his product than he was sellin’, that’s when things really started gettin’ bad. I got pregnant with the twins by surprise. I had been on birth control for a while, but I had got a bad cold and the doctor gave me an antibiotic. They ain’t tell me that antibiotics can make your birth control not work—surprise, surprise.
So, when I found out I was pregnant, at first I was scared to tell Damir—the twins’ dad, because he was already stressed out over his money comin’ up short more and more often. But, yet, his drug habit continued to get worse and worse. One night, he tried to force me to do some heroin wit him, and he started gettin’ mad when I wouldn’t do it. I started cryin’ and he raised his hand to hit me. That’s when I grabbed a pillow and put it between me and him, cowering down to protect my belly.
He looked at me funny for a moment and then asked me what the fuck was wrong. I broke down in tears and told him I was pregnant. To my surprise, his whole entire demeanor changed. Instead of hittin’ me, he wrapped me in his arms and started rubbin’ my belly and kissin’ it. I could hardly believe it!
He took me to the doctor and we found out I was already three months along and that there were two babies—another surprise. Damir was over the moon, but his drug use didn’t slow down much. He stopped beatin’ on me while I was pregnant though, and never forced me to drink or do any drugs wit him.
The twins were born a little bit early, and had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks. He took me up to see them every day and I breastfed both of them as much as possible—while also hopin’ that would help his new, nicer demeanor to stick. I had to be well enough to breastfeed, I couldn’t do drugs or drink and I couldn’t breastfeed them if I was all beaten up.
It lasted for a while, but his money kept gettin’ shorter and shorter because the twins needed a lot of shit: pampers, clothes, baby supplies, bottles, etc.. and he started stressin’ over his money again within a few months after the twins came home.
Well, his drug use got worse and worse. And even though he had stopped beatin’ on me, he would still get mean sometimes and cuss at me and call me names, punch walls, and slam doors and a few times, he even broke a window. I was just glad he wasn’t beatin’ on my ass no more.
He wasn’t much help wit the boys because he stayed gone most of the day. Probably out gettin’ high, because when they got old enough to start movin’ around, I begged him to stop doin’ and keepin’ drugs out around the house.
He would come home late at night and kiss me and the babies and coax me into havin’ sex with him and then fall off to sleep. This went on until he went to jail when the boys were a year old. He only did a year, thanks to his lawyer, but while he was locked up, me and the twins ran out of money and ended up losin’ the apartment.
When he got outta jail a year later, the twins were almost three. He started hustlin’ again and had us a new place and out of my momma’s tiny little house within one month. He stayed clean for another month or two after that, but, he was so determined to get his money situation back up to where it had been before he went to jail that he started hustilin’ outta control. Unfortunately, he soon started doin’ more drugs than he was dealin’ and things got rough. He was gone all the time and losin’ weight and I knew he was back on that stuff hard.
He started leavin’ out during the day and comin’ home late at night again. The twins were in preschool, so I got a part-time job to help with the bills. I would try to wait up for him at night, but I usually ended up fallin’ asleep. He would wake me up sometimes when he got home, sometimes he’d just pass out.
But one night, when the twins were five years old, he never came home. They were supposed to be starting their first day of kindergarten the next day, so he told me he would be home early so he could get up and help me see them off. I woke up the next morning and he still hadn’t come home. He hadn’t called or nothin’. So I got the boys ready and out to the bus, and then, I started callin’ around to ask if anybody had seen him, but nobody had.
I had taken the day off of work for the boys’ first day of kindergarten, and when they got off the bus after school, Damir still hadn’t come home yet. I was startin’ to get really worried that somethin’ had happened to him. I started callin’ hospitals and jails, trying to see if he had been arrested or in some kind of accident, but still nothin’.
I took the boys to my mom’s house so I could go lookin’ for him. A few hours later, I finally spotted his car parked outside of a crack house.
The whole house looked empty, though. No one was goin’ in or out, and it was one of the main spots that I knew Damir usually hung out at to do and sell his dope. He never just left his car somewhere, though, so I knew he had to still be there.
Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed my pocket knife and can of mace—just in case, and went inside. I knew that Damir would be mad if I walked up in there with the police, so I didn’t dare call them—yet. Thinking he might be passed out in one of the bedrooms, I called out for him as I trudged around the run-down, messy, dilapidated two-story dwelling.
Creepin’ up the rickety, worn-out stairs, I yelled his name over and over. When I got to the second bedroom, the door was closed. When I opened that door, I nearly fell to the ground, weak in the knees from a combination of both shock and sheer horror.
Damir, the love of my life and father of my children, was wrapped up in a dirty, ragged, old comforter lying stiff and lifeless against the back wall, halfway in and halfway out of a small, empty closet.
Someone had seen that he’d OD’d and they’d panicked, not knowin’ what else to do, and not wantin’ to get in no trouble. They had wrapped him up and tried to shove his body in a closet, but apparently couldn’t get it to fit, so they’d run off and hadn’t said a word to nobody—hadn’t even called for help or nothin’!
I screamed and dropped to my knees. I knew that he was dead and had been dead for quite some time. His eyes were wide open sunken into their sockets, and his skin was bloated and wrinkly, a sure sign that rigor mortis was already starting to set in. I knew there was nothin’ I could do for him and that you not sposed to fuck wit a crime scene, so I immediately ran out the house, knocked on the door across the street and begged them to call 9-1-1.
It was a complete fuckin’ nightmare. The cops came and questioned me and the coroner said he’d been dead for at least eighteen hours, already. I had no idea how I was gonna explain this shit to my boys. How do you tell two five year olds that they daddy is dead?
His momma and family handled the funeral because he and I weren’t legally married. Afterward, I started goin’ to counseling, in secret, not wantin’ my friends to know and shit. Through my church, I found a support group for women who had lost their significant others to addiction, and I made some new friends who were very understanding and supportive.
I been a single mom ever since, raising my boys all on my own. We had to move to a smaller apartment in a housing project ’cause my part-time job alone wasn’t enough to keep our place, and Damir hadn’t left no money for us ’cause he had put it all up his nose while he’d still been alive.
We struggled for a while and times got hard, but somehow, we always found a way to make ends meet. We at least had enough to get by. I couldn’t afford the expensive clothes and shoes or anything for my boys, but I did what I could. They always had clean clothes and I got on food stamps so always had plenty to eat. The church I went to sometimes would donate clothes, school supplies, and other household items to us when we needed them. They were especially helpful on holidays.
When my boys got older, I took on a second job because I wanted to be able to buy them nicer clothes and shoes. They would complain that other kids at school would bully them about their shoes and outfits, so I tried to buy them more brand name stuff. I always warned them not to get caught up in the streets and constantly reminded them that that was how they daddy died and I didn’t want that to happen to them, too.
They watched me work like hell and still struggle with money problems. I told them that as long they didn’t make bad choices they would never have to struggle like I do.
Lamont seemed to get the message. He did very well in school. He graduated from high school with honors and went to a local community college to get certified as an auto mechanic. Lamar, however, has always been my “problem child.” He dropped out of high school in 11th grade. He just quit going. I did make him get his GED, though.
He never seemed motivated to do anything productive. The minute he turned eighteen, he left my house and moved in wit some girl. I kept tryin’ to urge him to go back to school or get a decent job somewhere, but he never seemed interested. I knew he was sellin’ drugs, I just didn’t know what he was sellin’ or how deep into it he was gettin’.
I warned him every chance I got about that lifestyle and reminded him about his father’s fate, but it seemed to go in one ear and out the other. He would sometimes say shit like: “I ain’t my daddy!” or “I ain’t no junkie like he was!” and other shit like that.
Then, he started havin’ babies wit these young, ghetto-ass project chicks, and wasn’t takin’ care of none of ’em. Couldn’t keep a girlfriend around ‘cause he was lazy and unfaithful. I would shake my head and tell him that I taught him better than this shit, but he would just walk away mumblin’ shit under his breath.
And, now that my boys are grown, I wanna start datin’ again and shit, but what decent man is gonna wanna put up wit a woman whose grown-ass son still live wit her and always in and out of some bullshit?
He done been in and outta jail over the past several years. He’s got felonies on his record and refuses to get a real job or go back to school to learn a trade or somethin’. He’s always in trouble and causin’ all kinds of unnecessary stress on both me and his brother Lamont. I’m gettin’ to the point where I don’t know what the fuck else to do, but I can’t just throw my son out onto the street, right?
