Jada’s stepfather Charles was a tall wiry man with a thick grey goatee. He wore a dirt colored shirt and jeans that were too big for him. He stood there smiling, revealing several missing teeth. He invited her inside the tiny apartment on the West End of Atlanta. An old sofa and an armchair filled the tiny room along with an old school floor model television. Jada swatted a roach that had dove onto her shoulder when she entered the house. “Who the hell is that Charles?” Louise yelled from the back room.
“Jada Simone.”
“What the hell does she want?” Louise asked.
Jada began to have second thoughts about coming over. Why had she listened to Shamari. She should have just stayed at home and blocked out any memory of a family. She hated this hand she was dealt. Seconds later Louise entered the room with a forty ounce Colt .45. “What the fuck do you want, bitch?”
“I love you too, Mom.”
Charles said, “Louise, don’t be mean. You haven’t seen Jada in ages.”
Louise took a swig of beer and said, “Fuck you and fuck this bitch.” She then stared at Charles. “And if you want to defend this bitch, you can take yo ass to the Atlanta men’s shelter. I pay the cost to be the boss in this motherfucker, and don’t you forget it.”
Charles sat his skinny ass on the sofa without uttering so much as another word to Louise. He knew when she was drunk not to say much because she would often become violent, and the first thing she would do would be to crack him upside his head with the forty-ounce bottle.
Louise turned her attention to Jada. “What the hell brings you here, Jada Simone?”
“Well, if you must know, I came to see how you’re doing. Shamari told me to check on you.”
“How is he doing?’
“Good.”
Charles reached for Louise’s forty ounce and she refused. “Get your own, motherfucker. There ain’t no telling where your mouth has been.”
Jada sat on the armchair. “So you plan on staying?”
“Mom, why are you acting like this?”
“Like what?”
“I mean I’m coming over here to check on you and you act like you can care less about me.”
“That’s because I don’t give a damn about yo ass.”
Jada stood up from the chair; there was no way she was going to sit there and take too much more of Louise’s abuse.
Louise said, “That’s what the fuck I thought.”
Jada said, “Why must every second word be a curse word?”
She stared at Jada then said, “Like I told Charles, I pay the cost to be the boss.”
“I heard that every day when I was a little girl.”
Louise said, “I raised you. I may not have been the best mama in the world, but I raised you and Lisa the best way I could and you ask me why I don’t give a fuck about you?” She smacked Charles on his shoulder and said, “Scoot yo ass over.” Charles moved to the very edge of the tiny sofa because Louise was a wide woman. Short in stature with a humongous ass and a cute brown face and a slight mustache that needed to be waxed.
Jada said, “Mom you gonna keep living in the past. There is no way we can repair what happened in the past.”
“You the one keep holding my past against me—”
Charles had the nerve to turn the volume up on the TV and when Louise was drowned out, she slapped him in the mouth so hard that his lip started bleeding.
“Turn that goddamned TV down! Can’t you see me and my daughter is talking. As a matter of fact, get the hell out of here!”
Charles stood, pants falling off his rail thin body. He said to Jada, “Good seeing you again.”
“Likewise.”
When he was gone, Louse said, “You think you’re better than me and Lisa. You always have.”
“That’s not true, Mom.”
“Well why don’t you come see us? I tell you why, because you think you’re better than us.” Louise finished off the beer then burped loudly. “Well, I got news for you, Ms. White Woman, you ain’t no better than us. You can live in that big house and drive all those expensive cars, but at the end of the day you still a nigger.”
Jada sat back on the armchair. “I never thought I was better than nobody. But how you think I felt having a big sister on crack and a Mama that’s an alcoholic.”
“Lisa just got out of rehab and she has a job. You would know these things if you were part of the family.”
“Well that’s good.”
“And the court gave her custody of Niya.”
Niya was Jada’s niece. Niya had been in and out of group homes because of Lisa’s struggles with her drug addiction.
“How old is Niya now?”
Louise said, “That’s a goddamned shame you don’t know how old your own niece is.”
“Well I haven’t seen her in like three years.”
“She’s twelve, I think,” Louise said then she yelled, “Charles come here.”
Charles appeared with a wet spot on the front of his jeans.
Louise said, “Did you piss in yo clothes, nigga?”
Charles looked down and when he saw the wet spot he said, “I’ll be damned.”
“How old is Niya?”
“Eight.”
“Hell no, Niya ain’t eight! She got to be at least eleven or twelve. Lisa had her when she was twenty and she’s 31 now.”
“Oh yeah,” Charles said staring down at the piss spot. Feeling embarrassed only because Jada was there.
Louise said, “Make yourself useful and grab me another beer.”
Charles took off toward the kitchen and Louise said, “Not before you wash yo damn hands. Didn’t you say you just pissed?”
Jada laughed. Her mama was a trip. Same old Louise paying the cost to be the boss. At that moment she realized how much she’d missed her mom.
When Louise saw Jada laughing, she smiled. “If this nigga had a brain, he’d be dangerous.”
“Mama, you’re crazy.”
“And you’re crazy too.”
“The apple don’t fall too far from the tree.”
Louise smiled and said, “Come here and give me a damn hug.”
Jada made her way over to the sofa and gave her Mama a big hug.
Louise said, “I know I wasn’t the best mama in the world. But I tried my ass off. When yo no good ass daddy left me, I did what I had to do to put food on the table even if that meant selling ass. I made sure y’all had the best of everything.”
Jada didn’t want to hear about her mama selling ass but she knew that it was true. She remembered the men coming in and out of the house every day when she was growing up. But she and Lisa always had the best of everything growing up. The best clothes. They kept their hair done. Always the latest Jordan’s when she was in the Tom-Boy phase of her life.
“Mama, I don’t want to hear about you selling ass.”
Louise smiled. “You know what I don’t want to hear about?”
“What?”
“I don’t want to hear about how life was fucked up for you growing up? That’s the past. Can we work on the future?”
Jada said, “I guess we can.”
Louise and Jada hugged each other, neither wanting to let each other go.
Charles appeared with the beer. Standing there looking dumb. Finally he twisted the top off the beer. Louise let go of Jada and said, “Motherfucker, I wish you would put your lips on my goddamned beer.”