“Well, what has been happening?” Lyulle questioned.
“I am broke. I don’t have any money.”
“How, Jericho? How don’t you have any money? I need you to send me two hundred dollars so I can go to the store.”
“I’ll have it sent you on Thursday next week when I get paid—”
“When you get paid? I gave you five thousand dollars. Where is that money?”
“I made a bad investment. It did not pan out well.”
“How much?”
“Two thousand dollars.”
“Jericho! Two thousand dollars?”
“Yes, and I cannot get it back.”
“What did you do?”
I had to tell Lyulle what I had done, and he was not gonna be happy. The flipside to it all was maybe he’d be able to see things my way because many of his moneymaking decisions had also led to empty pockets.
“I met this drug dealer, and I asked him to flip some money for me.”
“A drug dealer? What does he sell?”
“Weed. He told me he sells a lot of weed.”
“Weed does not move that fast, Jericho.”
“Well, I met with him to give him the first grand, and I made sure he knew it was an investment and that I needed the money back as soon as he could get it for me. He has money, Lyulle.”
“How do you know he has money? What made you think he has money?”
“He told me he did, and he said he was a hustler. I was tryna make some easy money.”
“So what happened to the rest of it?”
“He called me one day and said, ‘Jericho, I’m tryna get you five thousand dollars on this flip, but I need another thousand dollars.’ He was talking fast, and I had to make an executive decision. So I gave it to him.”
“Where did you give it to him, and who was there?”
“We met at the club both times when I gave it to him.”
“What club?”
“The bar I go to all the time.”
“Oh. Is he always there?”
“Yeah, he works as management and as a bartender from time to time. He knows the business, so I was thinking I could maybe introduce the two of you, and you could also learn the business for when we open our club.”
“Hmph. Has he been to our house?”
“Huh?”
“Has he been to our house?”
My whole body winced, and I had to decide right then whether to go forward or backward. The truth was I needed to tell Lyulle so that he could help me get myself out of this shit, so I would tell him as much as I could without telling the whole truth—a lie.
“Yes, he has been over a few times.”
“Oh yeah, what did y’all do?”
Immediately, a flashback of the three-way we’d had with my good friend came into my head.
“We hung out. We talked about our families and drank a little bit.”
“Where did you meet him?”
All of these questions were relevant to the situation at hand, but I was nervous. I slipped up at every turn, preparing Lyulle for his next questions. I was agitated and nervous. It was in my voice, off balance and unable to stand on the truth because I couldn’t fully reveal it.
“I met him at the mall, at work. I work with his mother. He invited me to the bar a while ago, but I never went.” A lie. I had gone before on a night when Lyulle and I went to chill at a late season barbeque with his friends right before he was locked up.
We were broke and fighting, but Lyulle had tried any way he could to squeeze out fun from anywhere. We had gone over at his buddy’s house, and I did not want to be there. All of those muthafuckas had known that he was fooling around with Whatley, and they were still smiling in my face. I didn’t give a fuck about being there or Lyulle’s attempts. He could enjoy this event without me. I had convinced him to let me return home early and that he’d get a ride home or that I’d come back over to get him, whichever option gave me a way outta there, and as soon as he said it was cool, I was gone.
I had texted Dion and asked where he was. I wanted to see him. He had texted back, “The patio at the club.”
I had gone straight there. A few words had been exchanged, and when I had left, we kissed. I had been fully engaged in the kiss with him. I needed it. I wanted to be kissed. Lyulle and I had long quit that. All the affection had left our relationship with the arrival of Whatley.
“When was the first time you went?”
“I went the first time when I met him to discuss the business proposition about flipping the money.”
“Was that the first time you seen him out?”
“Yes.”
“What did y’all do?”
“We talked quickly about flipping the money. We had a few drinks, and I left.”
“Did y’all exchange numbers?”
“I had already had his number. He’d given it to me a long time ago but never called.” Another lie. I had called a few times. He did not answer, but after that kiss, he’d texted me all the time. Lyulle and I shared a flip cell phone in addition to his main phones. Luckily, I had it when Dion texted the first time. I had to tell him that I had a family and that my boyfriend-slash-baby’s-daddy was not cool.
He understood. “Okay, but you didn’t tell me he has your phone.” I didn’t because I did not expect him to call me. That was the beginning.
“So all y’all did at the house was talk and drink?”
“Well, yeah.” Another lie.
“So how are you gonna get the money back?”
“I do not know. I have been calling him, and he is not answering any of my calls.”
“When are you bringing Brooklyn home?”
“I don’t know, and especially not now because I do not have any money.”
I could hear the tension building through the telephone poles and lines and into my ears and puncturing my heart. I still did not want to hurt Lyulle with the truth, but he wanted the truth. He’d pull it out of me, and that’s exactly what he would have to do—pull it.
“So you can’t send me any money, you’re not bringing Brooklyn home, you are tired all the time, you’re working at Macy’s, and you don’t even have to work there. What are you doing? You are a terrible mother. You never have your child, and you go to the club every night. Ugh!”
He was letting me have it. He was right. I was in shambles and so was my life and so was his life. I had fucked up, and the guilt was eating me away inside.
I zoned out but began to cry, and the tyrant Lyulle had gone on. All that stuck out to me was, “I am a bad mother.” Had I really not been putting Brooklyn’s needs first?
While I was trying to get a grip on life, I had left him in good-enough, capable hands, the very hands that raised a child phenomenon—myself. I would get Brooklyn when I was ready. It was okay.
He cursed me out and made me feel as worthless as he was, sitting caged and in a steel box. I was fifty-two stupid bitches and so many hoes. I stopped counting.
I would make everything right and then go see him on his next visit day.
He said, “And you’re gonna tell me what y’all did at the house too.”
“I am not gonna tell you anything different from what I have already told you.”
What had I told him? Too many lies were what I had told him, and I could not keep track of them all. His mind was now flooded with the possibility that I had been lying to him all along, and I had been. I’d felt justified in my actions.
It was the defensiveness in which I stated that I was not going to tell him anything that led to his next statement.
“You are gonna tell me the truth. I already know anyway. I had cameras in the house.” The phone slammed, and the dial tone was what I heard next.
I was petrified. It had never dawned on me that Lyulle could be watching me in the house that we lived in together. What had he seen? What did he know? Oh my god. This was terrible. My mind was racing, and my heart was out of my chest cavity somewhere, nearing my small intestine. I was gonna shit my heart out when I arrived at Nana’s house. I was scared. He knew everything.
Sweating bullets and nervous as hell, I walked into my grandmother’s apartment. I could imagine what my countenance said before I even opened my mouth—teary-eyed, warm, red, hungover, and out of my mind with fear and shame. I began to talk to her.
My first mistake was even going there in that mental state. It would have alarmed anyone who laid eyes on me. I should have taken my ass back down the road to the apartment and slept it off. I should have locked myself in a room and talked it out with Lyulle all night long to deal with the situation that day.
I told my grandmother what Lyulle had said to me and what I had planned to do. By this time, my family speculated the abuse and was waiting for any type of opportunity to get me away from him. They’d go through any cost to make sure I did not stay with Lyulle. I had told Mema that he hit me back when I was pregnant with Brooklyn because she was my mother. I had to tell someone. But for some reason, I thought she would keep the shit a secret. Shit, she was my first friend. Maybe I thought she would be my friend and keep my secret.
My grandmother, Brooklyn’s Nana, heard me say that I was gonna allow Brooklyn to stay with Lyulle once he was released from prison and that I was gonna leave to get myself together, and she lost it.
“Jericho, you will not do that, and I cannot let him go home with you if you are talking this way. Well, we have a while until Lyulle is released from prison for me to decide what I will do.”
I had shared with her that Lyulle said I was a bad mother and that I was just like Gem. He’d threatened my life that night. I knew he would kill me. I was thwarted into a mental state of catastrophe, and more was on the way.
I did not answer the phone anymore that night while in Akron. My phone continuously buzzed. I ignored it, which I had grown accustomed to doing when Lyulle called me from jail. I’ll deal with this tomorrow. Tonight, I am chilling with Brooklyn, my subconscious spoke for me, speaking directly to the resentment I was filled with that had fueled my very actions up until that very moment.
I had gotten a call in the middle of the night from an ex-boyfriend who was also in the city at that time. We were supposed to hook up that night as we had done most times we were both in the city. I was too fucked up mentally to even see him, proof to myself that I was really low. He called, and I answered.
“Uhhh, I am sorry. I am with my son tonight. I’ll talk to you later.” Click.
I did not care about the rebuttal or him having an opinion. If he wanted to fuck that night, he’d have to find someone else.