URBAN: In Love with A Boss Nigga (29 page)

“Ok. I know that.” She still had a bit of an attitude, but at least she was hearing him out.

She waited for his apology but she wasn’t saying anything. Her arms were crossed. He didn’t know what else to say, but he did all that he could. Maybe after some sleep, she’ll be a bit more reasonable then.

“Want to come in and crash?” He asked her. She shook her head and walked away.

“I don’t need someplace safe to sleep now.” She opened the apartment door to her temporary home. “It’s a little too late for that.”

Lionel made his way to Antwon’s apartment. He knocked on the door but there was no answer. He knocked on it again, and still there was no answer. He started chuckling to himself remembering that sometimes his friend would be occupied with a female. He hoped that wasn’t the situation now. The last thing he needed early that Monday morning was his friend calling him a “cockblock”. He just wanted to check up on his friend and see where his head was.

Ever since that night he called Lionel, Antwon has pretty much kept to himself. Lionel reached out, but Antwon always had some excuse about being busy or just not in the mood to talk. Lionel thought it would be best just to pop up on his friend. He’s done it times before when Antwon was drunk from a hard night of partying and he lost his phone. He knew his friend wouldn’t mind him coming to see him. As long as he was there as a friend, Antwon would be alright with a surprise visit.

Lionel knocked on the door again, but there was still no answer. He shrugged his shoulders and thought that maybe his friend was either sleeping over at some woman’s house, or maybe he just missed him. He turned to leave when he heard the door’s locks move around.

“What you doing here?” Antwon asked. His eyes were bloodshot red and he had huge dark circles beneath them. It was obvious to Lionel that his friend hadn’t been sleeping or at least not sleeping that well.

“Damn, what happened to you?” Was the first thing he could say to him.

“I asked you a question.” Antwon ignored him. “What are you doing here?”

“What? Do I need permission to come and see you?”

“I just wasn’t expecting you.”

“Is that why it took you so long to answer your door?”

“I didn’t know who it was.”

“Well damn.” Lionel shook his head. They stood there for a few seconds. He noticed his friend wasn’t even moving. “So, am I going to have to push you in order to get inside?” Antwon didn’t answer, he just simply moved to the side.

The inside of the apartment which was always fairly neat and decorated nicely, was almost vacant. He used to have a three piece living room set, but now that was gone and replaced with three folding chairs. Lionel looked over and saw that his huge 50 inch tv was gone. In fact his whole place almost looked like he’d just moved in as opposed to him living there for three years. After all the money he got from drug dealing and anything else, he was so proud of his apartment, but looking at it now, it was hard to tell.

“What’s going on?” Lionel still was taking a tour of what looked like to be Antwon’s new apartment. “Where is all your stuff?”

“I sold it.”

“You sold it?” Lionel’s mouth dropped open. “Why would you do that? You put in all that time to get this place looking nice and then you sell most of your stuff.”

“I didn’t need it.” Antwon shrugged.

“Don’t need it?” Lionel asked. He looked at his friend. He still wasn’t used to the new hair color, but his friend looked like a shadow of himself. “What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing.” He barely answered back. He dragged his feet to his bed in the bedroom. He plopped down.

“Son, you look horrible.” He told his friend point blank. “I’ve never seen you looking like this.”

“I’m just having a hard time sleeping.”

“Why do you think so?”

“I don’t fucking know.” Antwon yawned. “What’s up? Why did you come here?”

“I really need a reason to check up on you?”

“No, I just mean why aren’t you with your wife?”

Lionel rolled his eyes. The argument and fight that he had with Giselle was still fresh on his mind. He put it to the backburner a bit so that he could check on his friend, but now that he mentioned it, Lionel could feel a headache coming on.

“Man, let’s not even go there. First of all, she’s not my wife. Secondly, she’s doing the most lately. She did some shit that I’m just not cool with.”

“What?” Antwon yawned again. “She try to stick her pinky in your booty hole?” He chuckled almost looking like his old self.

“The fuck? Nah nigga, not at all.” Lionel laughed. “But seriously, she said some shit about my Uncle.”

“What did she say?” His voice was getting quieter.

“She said that me losing an uncle wasn’t the same as her losing her parents. You believe that shit? She tried to compare our pain.”

“Damn, how did ya even get there?”

“Yo, you know how sometimes I stick my foot in my mouth and say dumb shit.”

“All the time.” He chuckled again and started to close his eyes.

“Well when she was talking about her birthday, I told her to be happy and grateful and that somehow meant I was disrespecting her parents.”

“What?” He turned over.

“Yeah. It was just so much. It was like the conversation was happening at this crazy fast speed. By the time I realized that I should have slowed down and shut up, it was too late. Now every time I talk to her, she got some sort of attitude. She’s so mad at me that she’s making it seem like I did it on purpose. But you know how I feel about death so I would never do that to her. I keep apologizing but she’s not trying to hear it. I know you always hate to talk to dudes about their girl. I know your ass is probably going to tell me to fuck some other girl and move on, but I like her. I’m not going to lie, I’m feeling her a lot, but this whole talking to a brick wall shit has got to end. What do you think I should do? You think I should try to talk to her again?”

Lionel waited for an answer, but only got the soft sounds of Antwon falling asleep. He was about to wake him, but it looked like he was already in a deep slumber. From what he could tell, Antwon really needed the sleep. He let his friend go and then went back to the living room. Seeing it so empty still shocked him. He walked over to the kitchen and opened the fridge. When he saw that it was completely empty, that’s when he knew something was really wrong. Antwon loved food. He always had his fridge stocked up. He may not cook, but he always had food. But when Lionel opened that fridge, there wasn’t even a bottle of water.

“What the fuck?” He said to himself. He started to shake his head. “Nah, he can’t go on like this. He needs food in his place.” He stood up and decided then and there that he would go grocery shopping. He got up and and left the apartment unlocked. He went across the street where there was this huge supermarket. He popped in his earbuds and blasted hip hop as he got in. He grabbed a shopping cart and went off into the market.

He grabbed a bunch of bread, cheese, milk, and whatever else his friend needed. Shopping at the supermarket brought back memories of his childhood. He remembered his mom just dragging him around the supermarket. He would scream out about how he was bored, but his mother didn’t care. She was trying to teach her son life skills.

“Come on.” She told him while taking a young Lionel around the supermarket.

“I don’t want to.” He whined.

“Did I ask you if you wanted to?” She rolled her eyes. “Now, come on.”

“Why can’t you do this by yourself?”

“Oh shop by myself? Do I eat the groceries by myself?” Yvette laughed. “Listen, I know you hate doing this, but you’re going to thank me one day.”

“Thank you? Why?” Ten year old Lionel asked.

“Who do you think is going to do your grocery shopping for you?”

“My girlfriend.” He smiled.

“You’re going to be single and starve to death if that’s going to be your mentality.”

Lionel laughed in the present. His mother was right. He wasn’t one of those men that were lost when they went shopping. He could do things on his own. He finished grocery shopping for his friend. He went on to the checkout line with the music still blasting in his ears. He saw a bunch of people buying the newspaper and talking by the checkout line. He just ignored them and loaded his groceries on top of the conveyor belt. After he finished paying, his music stopped briefly.

“I can’t believe someone was murdered right in front of a strip club.” He heard someone say, he whipped around and saw that it was one of the people who were around the newspapers. He wanted to listen more, but his music came back on.

He walked out of the supermarket in a daze. It was too much of a coincidence. What happened. Did something happen at the club? It’s possible that it could be a different strip club. He didn’t know the story for sure.

“Hey there stranger.” Tasha tapped his shoulder as she bumped into him. Lionel hadn’t seen Tasha ever since he borrowed her car. He hated to admit that she looked good and as close as she stood next to him, she smelled so good too.

“Stranger? We are not strangers.” He laughed.

“Then what are we?” She chuckled. When there was a bit of silence, she just continued. “How are you?”

“I’m good. How are you? Where are you off to?”

“I was just going to the supermarket, but it looks like you purchased everything.” She joked looking at his hands that were full. “Do you need any help?” She asked already reaching for some of the grocery bags.

“No, it’s okay. I’m only going across the street. You don’t have to help me.”

“I insist.” She was holding some bags. “Right across the street?”

“Yeah.” He pointed to the brown and white building. “You sure you want to do this?”

“I just thought that you needed help. Shouldn’t you help people that need help?”

“I guess you should.” He smiled.

It didn’t take long for them to feel comfortable around each other. There was something there that they weren’t quite sure of.

“So, you’re not going to be needing my car soon?” She poked a little fun at him.

“No, no.” He laughed. “Why? Do you miss me?”

“I don’t miss you per se, but it was nice for someone else to do the driving for once.”

“You know they have these things called cabs. Maybe you should look into them. I heard that they drive people around. What do I know? I think that it might be a great fit for you.”

“Oh you funny funny man.” She said through her teeth.

They got to the front of the building. He was taking the bags from her.

“You don’t need any help bringing it up?” She asked.

“No, not really. Besides, it’s my friend’s apartment.”

“Ok, I just wanted to help.”

“I really appreciate that.” He smiled. “It’s refreshing.”

“I guess I’ll see you later.” She kissed his cheek and ran back across the street.

He watched her for a second. It was like he was stuck in a daze. It wasn’t until he heard the noise from the Brooklyn, New York Streets that he snapped out of it. He ran up the stairs and went into his friend’s apartment. He started to put the groceries away quietly. He suddenly remembered hearing about a strip club shooting.

“What are you doing?” Antwon asked behind him. He still looked like a sad version of himself.

“Just got you some food.” He put his phone away. “Your fridge was looking real sad.” Lionel tried to laugh but his friend didn’t join in.

“Whatever.”

“Yo, what’s going on with you?” Lionel asked. “You look like shit. And look at your place, it’s practically fucking empty.”

“I know that. I just wanted to get rid of the things. Just sell some of my stuff.”

“Do you need money? Is that what this is all about?” Lionel sighed. He didn’t want to but the next thing he knew…. “Do you want to get back into business?”

Lionel hated the drug business. It was easy money, but it came with a lot of stress. Money was the only perk that he enjoyed. From all the money that he made from the business with Antwon, he was depositing it into a bank account under his mom’s name. She didn’t know about it and he didn’t know when he was going to tell her. He knew that once she found out how much money was in it, she would know about his drug dealing. He didn’t want to get back into it, but maybe if Antwon got some money, he would get back to his old self.

“No!” Antwon protested. “I don’t want to do anything that could get us any type of attention.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look, I got shot -”

“Yeah, but you always wanted to get back into it.” Lionel looked at him. “What’s going on?”

“I just want to stay home.” Antwon said. Lionel took a glance around at the empty apartment.

“And do what? There is nothing here.” Lionel pointed out. His eyes squinted and he asked the question that was in his head. “Did you hear that there was a shooting at a strip club?”

Antwon’s eye went into small little slits. He sat down on one of the folding chairs.

“Oh okay. So what are you asking me?” He leaned back.

“I’m just telling you I heard that there was a shooting at the club.”

“At the same strip club?”

“I don’t even know.”

“So?”

“What do you think about it?”

“I don’t.”

Antwon yawned. His eyes weren’t as bloodshot as before, but it was clear that he still needed to rest. Lionel was about to ask more questions, but he was tired of all the tension. First there was Giselle and now there was Antwon.

“You know what? How about you call me when you’re ready to tell the truth?”

Lionel walked out of the apartment building. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. Antwon was going crazy over something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He had his suspicions but he didn’t know anything for sure. He wasn’t one to accuse somebody of something without having all of the information.

“Twice in one day?” Tasha smiled bumping into Lionel. Isn’t this my luck?”

He looked at her smile and for the first time that day, he felt great.

The sounds of high school students chatting in the hallways started to drown out as she walked towards the guidance counselor's office. She decided to take Laura’s advice. She had some tough decisions to make and she needed to know where to start.