If it Aint One Thing it's Another

Darnell came to the phone in a heartbeat. ”What’s up, Dad?” He hadn’t spoken to Petie in a while, and he was happy to hear from him. ”I miss you, Dad. When I’ma see you?”

”I miss you, too. Your mother’s actin’ like a real snowflake. She won’t take my calls, and she’s trying to keep me from seeing you,” he said, knowing that he was planting a seed in Darnell’s mind.

”Why she actin’ like that, Dad? What’s wrong with her?” Darnell asked. Petie knew Darnell was going to ride with him.

”I don’t know. I think she’s goin’ through some kind of crisis. Listen to me, Darnell: no matter what your mother tells you, and I don’t care what it is, always know that I love you to death—ya heard? No matter what, know that your father is a lieutenant. And don’t let your mother turn you into no wuss. The streets is military, so you gotta be a soldier. And if anything happens to me you gotta take care of Dante, because he’s soft like your mother. You hear me?” Petie said.

”Dad, why you talkin’ like you’re about to die or something? Stop talking like that; you’re scaring me. Anyway, when am I gonna see you?”

Petie hated the fact that he hadn’t seen his sons in weeks. The last time he saw Darnell was when he was in the hospital. ”Soon,” was all Petie could say. He really didn’t know when he would see him again.

Darnell told Petie that every day all the kids at school talked about his picture being on TV. He said it kind of turned him into a celebrity. And he said that whenever he was asked about him, he’d just say, ”Yeah, that’s my dad. He ‘bout it like that.” Petie listened to Darnell and thought about how much he sounded like him. Damn, he wanted to be in his boys’ lives so badly, but the way things were going he didn’t know if he ever would.

”Outside with some girl from school,” Darnell replied. Petie thought that maybe Dante wouldn’t be a wuss after all.

Petie told Darnell that if he needed anything at all to call him, even to just talk. He could tell that Darnell didn’t want to get off the phone, so he told him to call him tomorrow when he came in from school.

Darnell hung up the phone and went outside with Dante. He didn’t want to be in the house with his aunt, and he definitely didn’t want to be around his mother. They were the enemy as far as he was concerned; anybody trying to keep his father away from him was an enemy.

Petie thought about the conversation he had with Darnell. He smiled to himself. He knew it was just a matter of time before Darnell flipped on Renee. He could see Darnell now, spazzin’ out on her. Dante would turn on her eventually, but it would take some time.

He thought about Ladelle fucking Renee, and it no longer made him angry. Petie always knew Ladelle was a pussy playa, but he violated when he crossed that line. However, it wasn’t like Ladelle had put a gun to her head and took it. Nah, that wasn’t the case. Renee gave that shit up willingly. Now he knew why she hadn’t been giving him any pussy.

Petie turned on the news and saw a picture of his Navigator plastered across the screen. He sat in shock as the reporter gave a full description of his vehicle along with the license plate number. Oh shit, he thought. They were closing in on him for real. He knew he’d be captured. It was just a matter of time.

He called Roz on her cell phone to tell her what he had just seen on the tube. She was in Jamaica with her peeps. Petie told her he was going to need a set of wheels quickly. Roz had all kinds of connections, so she could make that happen. ”I bet your grimy-ass wife told the cops something for your shit to be on the news like that.” Petie thought that maybe she was right.

”I don’t think she would go out like that,” he said trying to defend her, even though he didn’t believe what he was saying. Maybe she would do something like that, considering the way she had been acting lately.

”Oh, you don’t think she’d do that? Well, then, why all of a sudden they got your shit on the air? I bet you a brick they threatened her and she sold you out. They applied some pressure and she broke,” Roz said making a lot of sense to Petie.

Petie thought about Renee saying he should turn himself in and all that other bullshit he wasn’t trying to hear. Maybe she did sell me out. Who knows? he thought.

”Aiight, but I gotta be in Manhattan by nine-thirty, so have shit together by then,” Petie said before hanging up the phone. He had to meet Patrice back at the hotel, and he didn’t want to miss her. She was a stress reliever. If his time wasn’t limited, he would take her under his wing and mold her. She wouldn’t be getting high anymore, fa sho. He hoped she showed up; he was feeling aggressive and wanted to beat something. He really wanted to be up in something right this second, and he decided to go outside and see if he could find the chick he had seen the last few days hanging around.

Petie was wearing his do-rag and a pair of Roz’s sunglasses. He looked around, making sure the coast was clear. Then finally he saw her. He walked up to her and said, ”Can I speak to you for a minute?”

”No, your sister. Of course I’m talking to you; who else you see standing there?” She approached him slowly and he said, ”Let’s take a walk.” They went over to a nearby building and waited for someone to come outside. When a man walked out, they went inside the building, took the elevator to the top floor and then went up to the roof. Petie pulled the python out on her.

”Where you gonna put that?” the chick asked. Petie went in his pocket and took out two dimes and gave them to her. He stood in front of her and stroked himself.

”Come on, ma, let’s do this,” he said. She pulled her pants down to her ankles and leaned over the railing. Petie spread her cheeks and didn’t like what he saw. She also had bumps all over her legs, like roaches had bitten her. The skin between her thighs was wrinkled, and it looked like it needed to be ironed. He looked at her with disgust. He just wanted to get this over with. Without hesitating any further, he slid up in her.

When he pulled out, there was cottage cheese on his dick. It smelled like cat food that had been in the bowl for too long. ”Let me see what your gums feel like,” he said. She went to work, damn near sucking his skin off. Petie should have known she was a head nurse by the stretch marks around her mouth. He busted off and she swallowed it all. He gave her another dime and a dollar. ”Forget my face and take that dollar and buy a douche,” he said and bounced.