in jail so that I can have my man back” or some stupid shit like, “The only way I can trust you to be where you say you’re at, Dre, is when you’re in jail.” She meant it when she said it. I could see the realness that lay painfully in her eyes.
I had an exit plan on getting out of the dope game, but I never thought I’d be forced to execute it. The part I don’t understand is what the fuck I did to have her change up on me. I wasn’t the perfect nigga, but I was close. When I wasn’t practicing medicine via the streets, I had my ass home with her and my son. It was me who did all the cooking and cleaning while her ass sat on her throne of designer name bags and clothes, pretending to be something she was not. Tasha grew up with me in Jo Johnson projects. She didn’t come from money, but she had no problem adjusting to it. I watched her taste go from five dollars Old Navy holiday tees to different designers’ seasonal collections. There was a time when Tasha’s gelled down ponytail was all she needed. Now, she can’t step out without hair touching her ass.
I got that bitch out of New Balances and put her in Off Broadway heels, and look how she repaid me. My boy Mike told me he had seen her in the club a few months before that happened. She was with some nigga, smiling and grinning in his face like she was single, and I let it go. I told myself not to react off the words of others. If she were living funky, I’d smell it.
Breaking up with me would have been a lot easier, but that would have been too normal for Tasha. In all honesty, she was crazy. My mama said I made her that way, but I refuse to take the blame for it. I only did what she allowed me to do, and the cheating in our relationship went both ways. I started it, but Tasha made sure to finish it. Her mental health should have been under suspicion before I got with her. She was crazy, and that’s the truth. She found a way to cut off my visitation with my son while we lived under the same roof. How her crazy ass pulled that off I’ll never understand.
“I put this shit on everything I love... Until you treat me better, you’ll never see your son again. I bet my life on that,” she screamed and then threw our son’s bottle at me.
“Shut that shit up. You ain’t going nowhere with my son. He’s staying right here in this house with his daddy, and so are you.”
“I never said we were leaving this raggedy motherfucka, Dre. I said you won’t see your son again.”
She told me I couldn’t see our son and did everything she could to keep me away from him when he was lying in the bedroom next to mines. I don’t know how she pulled it off, but whenever I was home, he was asleep, and if I decided to stay in the house for the day, he’d always get shipped off somewhere before I told her of my decision to stay indoors.
“You gotta move around to somebody else with the dumb shit. I can’t see my son, but I’m supposed to keep giving you money and the dick? That ain’t gon’ work.”
So, I cut her ass off and started fucking the streets. I watched my money triple in three weeks of not coming home. I’m sure she thought I was with another bitch, but that wasn’t the case. I turned an eight-hour shift of grinding into a seventy-two-hour one. Money was stacking, but my son was suffering. He spent more time with my mama than he spent with his mother or me. There are just some things I’m caveman about, and one is a mother takes care of her kids, and they see granny on the weekends. Tasha had Andre Jr. with my mama Tuesday through Sunday and only had him Sunday night to Tuesday morning. Tasha ain’t working, trying to work, or nothing like that, but she ain’t got time for my son? Fuck that. I slowed down to take care of mines, and when Tasha saw that, she was ready to stay at home and be a parent too, which was cool, but I still cut her off. After the shit she pulled, my dick wasn’t going to get hard for her. I’m not trying to be cold about it, but ain’t nothing sexy about a woman who doesn’t take care of her kids. And to top it off, it was my son. She was really cut off. I couldn’t have sex with her if I wanted to. It wouldn’t get hard, and I wasn’t about to force it to.
Hearing Ryan on my voicemail now wasn’t a welcoming thing, and I knew I had to call him back ASAP, but Savannah’s needs came first again.
Trisha had left Savannah a voicemail saying, “I love you, but fuck you.” She was thanking Savannah for not stopping the money transfer and wanted her to know that first thing Monday morning, she’d have her cash in hand. She told Savannah she could get with Royce to get her notebook and movies of revenge back, and she wished her all the best in life. Before the length of the voicemail cut her off, she managed to get out one last sentence.
“Oh, Savannah, you need to watch Dre.”
That bitch Trisha was cold for that one. She gave her daughter a warning about me like I wasn’t to be trusted. After all the shit Savannah had done to me, I felt like I deserved to plot against her. I was protecting Savannah, and Trisha knew it, but she turned me into enemy number one. I played it off like I didn’t hear the message because Savannah had started dialing, and I knew she was calling the bank. When she verified she was broke by the pending transfer, she began stressing away. I hated to see her all upset over it, but she left me no choice. My heart was black when it came to it. If she wasn’t cheating and living sloppy, her mama wouldn’t have been able to blackmail her. I even went as far as to fuck with her about it.
“What’s wrong, baby? You keep pacing.”
Savannah quickly said, “Nothing, daddy, just thinking about work.”
“What about work, baby? You look like you’re stressed out.”
“Um, just wondering how this shit is going to play out with Stephanie being back at the home office. That’s all.”
I knew she couldn’t tell me the truth because it would convict her of sleeping with Royce. I kept asking her the same question to remind her of what caused all this in the first place. That little thing was too hot in between her legs and had caused her to go broke. I wanted that fact to marinate in her head the next time she thought about cheating or using sex to get revenge.
I’m not completely heartless, so I jumped in my Hummer and ran to the store to get some cigars. I wanted to get her mind off of it for a while, and weed had the most promising results. When I made it back home, we smoked, then hopped right back in the bed. I was drained, so we only went one round, which knocked us both out. If it hadn’t been vibrating under my back, I wouldn’t have known my cell phone was ringing. I checked the caller ID and it read International. It was Peaches calling. I slid out of bed to get away from Savannah and went to Sade’s room before I answered.
“What?” I yelled into the phone but not loud enough to wake Savannah. “It’s 4:47 in the morning here, Peaches. What the hell you want now?”
Peaches tried to pretend like she was shocked that she had forgotten about the time difference, but I could hear the lack of care in her voice as she continued the call. “Well, good morning to you too, Mr. Grumpy. I was calling to find out how my daughter was behaving. Is she the tamed animal you wanted her to be yet?” Peaches asked in between chuckles.
I wasn’t in the mood to play with her. I was sleepy, and my body was tired. “What do you want, Peaches?”
She heard the irritation in my voice but didn’t let up. Bullshit was still active in her voice. “I wanted to talk to my son-in-law and make sure everything was all right, Dre. How is Savannah doing? Is she holding up well?” Her laughter started back up, and the school-girlish sound coming out of her mouth had me ready to hang up in her face.
“I’m gone. I ain’t got time for your dumb shit.”
As I started removing the phone from my ear, I heard her yell, “Don’t you hang up on me, bastard! Did you really think this was over?” I eased the phone back over my ear and listened. Her voice went from sixth-grade school yard to fairy-tale evil villain in a matter of seconds. “Dre, did you really think that I would let you plot against my child, and there be no repercussion? Tsk-tsk-tsk. So smart yet so stupid, aren’t you, Dre?”
What the fuck is this bitch talking about now? I thought as my text message alert went off in my ear. I was too caught up in her words to check it. She had so much anger in her voice that I wouldn’t