I was laid out at the foot of my bed with my feet splayed at the head and my books spread out in front of me. With narrowed eyes, I glared at her impatience. Michelle was nearly done with her undergraduate studies; I’d had another year to go.
It was three years later and I was a junior in college. Michelle was preparing to graduate in three weeks and move back out to California. Since I’d left Jersey that June three years prior, I would only return to visit Caldwell Prison to visit Akeem. I would schedule my flights around his hourly visits and be on my way back to the Carolinas within the blink of an eye.
I never contacted anyone from home, only Akeem and occasionally Chyna and my grandparents. Akeem would always fill me in on the happenings of the hood. I had no idea where O was, though Akeem did. As far as I was concerned, it was over. According to Akeem, it was Keysha who told O the lie about J-Boog and me messing around. I recalled people telling me not to trust everyone. Akeem also informed me that LaTavia had mailed a baby shower invitation to our apartment, out of malevolence, six weeks after I’d left. The baby did belong to O. They had been sleeping together for months, few people knew.
Keysha was another one of O’s bedding victims. Keysha wasn’t his choice; he hated sleeping with his girl’s best friend but she blackmailed him. She told him that if he didn’t comply with her wishes, she’d tell me everything she knew about his late night creeping. She’d especially tell about the time when he wouldn’t have sex with me for over a month because he had gotten crabs from an older girl named Lisa. So he fucked her two or three times and when he refused to continue she told him a lie that would permanently scar him. She told him that I’d been sleeping with J-Boog, hence his fatal confrontation. Hypercritical, yet true.
Akeem would encourage me to contact our mother—let the past be the past is what he’d always say. I tried to explain it wasn’t that simple and not go much further than that. But the truth of the matter was that my mother, Samantha, represented a dark aspect of life that I didn’t want to revisit. It was one thing to know your mother got high, but it was a disgrace to know your one and only true love was her supplier. Yes. That was the reason why Akeem grew less supportive of my and O’s relationship. He had gotten wind of the news but had no proof. That night of the shooting, Akeem and J-Boog were going to confront O anyway. Unfortunately, O got to J-Boog first.
No one but Akeem could get in touch with me. I’d made arrangements for Chyna to visit me a handful of times but that would eventually cease. For the most part, Chyna loved being with our grandparents and had become a part of their world as much as she was theirs. My mother, Samantha, on the other hand was still struggling to get clean. The last I’d heard she was moving out of the Malcolm X Housing Projects, but I had no knowledge of it ever happening.
As for my father, Eric, he visited Akeem a few times when he was first incarcerated. From what Akeem would speak of it, the two were very distant during each visit, but I’m sure at the prompting of my grandmother, Eric felt that the least he could do was visit his son who he basically abandoned on unredeemable soil.