<damon george>

Sunday
June 18
2ish am

"𝖄𝖔𝖚 really got me outside like this, girl." Mo chuckled. "You see how niggas is staring me down?"

"Cause you look good."

"Nah, that ain't why." He smirked at her. She didn't know why everyone was staring at him. She thought it was because of his scarred face. But, he had a reputation that spilled beyond the streets. Even regular people knew who he was. He loved that she didn't. "I must got something on my face." He bit his lip as he watched the door. The freeform dreads hanging below the shoulders of a leather jacket was what caught his attention about five minutes ago, but the man had disappeared. Him and Kalis had made two laps around the gallery and still hadn't run into who he thought he saw and his blood was boiling at every second that passed.

His mind couldn't get past knowing Cobe died in that nigga's arms— he couldn't get past that nigga being the reason Cobe had to die at all.

"There he go." He mumbled to himself as he saw the yellow boned man reenter the venue.

"What?" Kalis asked him to repeat himself.

He sneered which came off to her as a smile. "I gotta go— to the bathroom." He told her, watching where Q was headed, making sure to leave moments between them but not too many where he'd lose sight of him.

"I always regretted not killing you when i caught you fucking my nigga." His raspy voice sent chills up Q's spine as he looked up to see Mo in the elevator with him. He tried to push the button for the next floor but Mo moved right between him and the control panel. "We going to your room."

"Who are you?"

He laughed, "So we gone play like that?"

"I don't recognize you."

"You know who the fuck I am nigga. Stop playing games 'fore i kill you right here." He whispered. "You had the audacity to show up to my baba's house with my nigga? My boyfriend. And you thought i'd let that shit fly? I warned you to never see him again. You think ion know you was still fucking him?"

"I don't know what you talking about."

"Q..." he pandered. "This is your last night alive." He furrowed his brows. "But I gotta see what was so good about this ass first." He reached his hand across Q's bottom, squeezing his flesh through the denim jeans.

Q looked Mo in his one good eye, "How imma let you see that before Cobe?"

Mo let go and shoved Q against the metal wall, shaking the elevator. He got close to him again, "I'm the only one who fucked that nigga. Shut'cho bitch ass up."

Q laughed. "If you wanna see what kept him cumming you gonna have to bend over for daddy." He grinned, not breaking eye contact.

Half of Mo's bottom lip was taken between his teeth in frustration. He nodded as the elevator dinged, "13th floor." The euro specific voice chimed.

"How unlucky." Mo grumbled as he stared at Q, waiting for him to exit the elevator. Taking too long, Mo grabbed his arms, throwing him from the elevator. "Lead the mufuckin way nigga."

It wasn't two hours later when Jah received a knock on his door. It had to be close to four in the morning. He trudged through the hall, grabbing his gun on the way to the door. Peeking through the windows as someone continued to bang on the door. He opened it, relaxing his hand with the gun at his side as he unlocked the door.

"I need your help." Dame said as soon as the door was opened. "Get dressed."

"Come in." He offered, closing the door after Dame was inside. "I just need a second. Throw on some clothes."

Dame took it among himself to tour the house. He went straight down the hall. The first door was cracked. He saw his brother, Lonnie, asleep with blue airpod-max's on his head. Not moving, he stood, watching his big brother in silence.

"He had a bad two days. That nigga just fell asleep about an hour ago. Been walking around yelling and talking to himself." Jah fussed. "I'm used to it. But he was doing too much tonight. I had to drug his ass. He kept coming to my room to ask me crazy ass shit while i'm trying to sleep. Mind you, we got home like around 9. Thats like six hours of nonstop yelling. I'm glad Makaveli wasn't here. We wouldn't have known what was going on."

"You drugged him?"

"Hell yeah. He wasn't going to stop." Jah complained. "He can go on for fucking days."

Dame walked back to the front of the house. "Where Makaveli?"

Jah shrugged. "I ain't seen his ass all day. But he grown now. They both act like they don't want me in they business no more."

"I'm sure they never did."

"Nah, the three of us was stuck together ever since Black came around. Even after Mak went to prison, me and Black was almost never apart." He went on.

"It's alright to leave him alone?"

"He cool for at least the next twelve hours for real. Once he wake up, he should be back to normal."

Dame huffed as he unlocked the car, waiting for Jah as he closed up the house.

"So." Dame started, "You remember Q?"

Jah nodded, not ever having forgotten a face or a name.

"He— well we— ran into Mo tonight. I told him we should respect Oz's wishes and leave him alone. I got Cheyenne outta there and took her home. But Q stayed since it was his event. They got into it. Mo followed him into the elevator and to his hotel room. I guess he thought he was going to kill Q. But Q held his own."

"What? He dead?"

Dame nodded. "I'm assuming so. I don't know why else he would call me so late."

"Why you here then?"

"I was gone call you but I ain't want to say nothing over the phone incase it's as bad as I think."

"They listening whether you on the line on not." He told him. "Which is illegal and can't be used in court. I know from experience."

"Well—"

"Anyway. Why he call you? Y'all friends?"

"I told him we got his back because of what he did for Cobe and Lonnie. With the phone."

"Right. I forgot about that." Jah nodded. "He came through."

Dame agreed with a hum.

"Where he at? Downtown?" He interrupted their conversation answering a call from his uncle. "Hey Unc, why you up?" He asked, looking at the time before putting the phone back to his ear.

"He don't got nothing to do with my daddy." He laughed. "You already know he ain't fucking wit'im right now."

"Yeah, I seen Dame." Jah looked over at his cousin sitting right beside him on the porch. He smacked his teeth at his uncle's comment. "How i'm getting him in trouble when he the one came to me?"

He nodded, "Nah, he ain't cool." He responded to questions of Lonnie's whereabouts. "He in the house sleep now but he's stressing about something. Not really listening to nobody. I haven't seen him like this in a long time Unc." He nodded, "You're right, I don't know what they did to him. I'll make sure to bring him by. Yeah, Dame too." He looked over. "Yeah, Unc."

"He was just calling to check on Black. Said he ain't been answering his phone last few days."

Dame cleared his throat. Jah looked at him. "So everybody knows something is wrong but y'all all cool wit'it?"

"Um—"

"With my brother. It kinda seems like y'all just blowing it off. If he ain't well, he need to get some help."

"He don't need no help. He just— he aight."

"If you had to," he put his fingers up in quotation, "drug him up—" he put his hands down, "then he's not cool. What's wrong with him?"

"Why you acting like you care about Black? You killed him, remember?"

"I made a mistake. But you went along with the lie so."

"Right. Which is why he don't fuck with me either."

"But he still talks to you. You wanna know how many times me and him talked since I been around? Probably like six times. In three years. And he's supposed to be my big brother."

Jah laughed. "Damn."

"And you my big cousin."

Jah nodded, still smiling. "And I gotcho back." He hit his shoulder with an open palm. "I'll talk to him for you. And I hear you. Trust me, I feel the same way about Black. I been saying they need to get him some help.  I almost got knocked clean out by my daddy for saying it out loud. He hate for anybody to speak on Black mental at all." Jah complained. "He think keeping eyes on him is enough. And I do that. I been doing that. But whatever it is, it's high key only getting worse as we get older. I'm the only person who see's it since he done wrote off the whole family and moved away."

"Even before he moved, I was still the only one who saw most of his bad days. First time my daddy realized how bad it was, he immediately called Uncle Maverik to get help with him, and that nigga did what he always does. Nothing." He was thinking of ending his rant there, but Jah couldn't resist the opportunity to express his disdain for Cole. "You know it's your boy that convinced him his family isn't good for him." He scoffed, "The very niggas who took him in and cared for his ass, Cole convinced him to reject."

"Don't start." Dame sighed.

"It ain't no way he didn't know Lonnie has issues. Cole took advantage of him. Trying to isolate him from us like —"

"I said don't start nigga." Dame cut him off. "Stop talking about Lonnie like he LD. Lonnie ain't blind, deaf, or dumb; he know what the fuck going on. And, he never had a problem isolating himself. He don't need Cole to help him do that. If Cole ain't say shit, he still woulda figured out a different reason to leave y'all alone. It's who he is."

"The way you went from 'he needs help' to 'this is who he is' is crazy as hell." Jah dismissed everything Dame just said. "You just like yo daddy."

Dame chuckled, his heart rate speeding up at the comment. "That's wild."

"I mean, he does the same shit. Apple didn't fall far."

"Likewise, Daddy's boy." Dame cleared his throat just as he read a new text from Quincy saying that Mo was gone. He called him, "What do you mean? How is he gone?"

"You can't think someone is dead, either he is or he isn't."

"What you want me to do now?" Dame asked with an attitude. "Alright, but you need to go home though. Just leave." He instructed.

"So, it was a false alarm." Jah concluded, hearing only Dame's side of the conversation.

"This nigga got superpowers or something?" Dame asked Jah, seriously. "How the fuck he wont die?"

Jah shrugged, "Ain't his time. What you about to do now then? You going back home?"

"Everybody I know either grew up with a mom or a dad but you grew up with both. And they was married."

"Mhm."

"How was that?"

"What made you ask?"

Dame shrugged, although having very specific reasons. "I ain't grow up with either parent, you know. Except for the first few years before my mom died."

"Then you was with uncle Mav for like two or three years after that though."

"You could say that I guess."

"But, it was alright as much as it could be. You know I grew up different. Not the most family sort of family dynamic, really."

"But other than that, like, do you feel like it helped you to have both parents?"

"I don't have anything to compare it to to really say whether it was good or bad or better. I just know what I know and seen what I seen."

Dame nodded his head.

"You know, Black got the same experience as me. Two parent household and all. Your daddy do too. If you wanted to talk to either of them about it."

"Yeah, so does Maurice, but that's not the only reason I came over here."

"Oh."

"You know Cole, he got his lil problem with the pills and shit."

Jah nodded.

"And I seen what the hard stuff does while I was growing up." He explained. "So i'm not really trying to get into all'at."

"What you want?"

"I don't know. I smoke but, it just don't hit the same. It's like i'm numb or some shit."

"Well I don't sell. I ain't did that in years. You might need to take a break from it though if it doesn't do anything for you anymore. You know that's that's how the hard shit becomes addicting."

"I know and that's what i'm trying to avoid. But, I cannot just be like idle minded. And it's just a lot going on. I cant even sleep."

"What's going on?"

Dame shrugged.

"Did something happen recently or...?"

"I wish something had happened recently, then I would know why I feel like this. I mean, the whole thing with Cole isn't serious enough for it to be the reason. Plus it's been like before Lonnie came back so."

"You sure it's not that? Because the whole 'Lonnie's dead' shit is causing a lot of division in this house right here."

"Really?"

"He don't trust me no more. He even thought I tried to set up Maki cause I gave him his gun." Jah admitted to him. "He don't believe he got a family no more."

"All cause of one little lie?"

"Nah, that was a big lie, cuz. And no it ain't only because of that. But, you probably a lot like him. He hold onto shit for years— collecting traumatic events until they spill over. Thats probably what's happening to you right now."

"And what about you? You figured out how not to carry it all?"

"I just figured out how to make sure everything's organized so it never overflows. But I don't have a choice but to do that. Everything would fall apart if I fell apart."

"Same. Always gotta be responsible and resilient while people like Cole and Lonnie get to cry and breakdown and have episodes and become drug addicts and shit."

"Everybody got their place."

Dame rubbed his chin, "How we supposed to know what our place is?"

"You just exist— where you are is your place."

Looking at Dame who was looking up at the stars, leaned back on the stairs, Jah opened his mouth to let out a thoughtful sigh. And with the company of his cousin, Dame sat comforted and the calmest he'd been in months. The only thing that ran through his mind was why he hadn't come to find this solace sooner.

Though the night still wasn't over for some, for others the sun was soon coming up and a rough evening would turn into an odd sort of rising...

November 12, 2024