Alsina's Boys

Career Goals

A3 POV -

"You have nothing to say?" My mother asked me.

"No because every time I say something you cut me off." I sat with my arms folded in the chair while my parents grilled me.

"I'mma cut you off alright. August I have had it up to here with you and your antics. Every time we turn around we are getting you out of some shit. I'm tired. I'm tired. Get your shit and get out of my house." My mother walked out the living room.

"What?" I got up and followed my mother upstairs.

"You heard me." She stopped in the middle of the stairs, pointed her finger in my face and spoke in a serious, low threatening tone.

"That's some bullshit man. Y'all didn't even let me fucking explain." I said coming down the stairs.

My mother ran after me and started hitting me hard with her fist.

"Amb! Amb! Get off of him baby." My father pulled her off of me trying to calm her down. She yanked away from him and fixed her hair.

I touched my lip and saw it was bleeding.

"Get out." She looked at me with cold eyes. The type of eyes with no compassion or love, and she turned her back and walked up the stairs.

I looked at my dad to say something to at least defend me, but he just looked at me and walked upstairs behind my mother.

The roles in our house had changed ever since my mother retired while we were young. My mother became the disciplinarian as we got older, mainly because she sacrificed her career to be a stay at home mom. She taught law for a while, but retired when Amiri started having bad seizures at around three.

It's a problem they said stemmed from his birth, something my parents didn't discuss. And we didn't have a clue what happened. All we knew was that while my mother was pregnant with him she experienced trauma. That trauma affected his brain and as a result he became an epileptic.

And somewhere along the lines, I went from being her favorite man. To her worse enemy. I like to exaggerate that Amiri was her favorite. Of course she had to give him more care because of his epilepsy.

So it wasn't totally true that, that was the reason why our relationship was fractured. It all started when I was in high school and got arrested for drugs.

No I wasn't using or selling. I was riding in the car with my friend. We got stopped and got arrested. My friend needed the money to take care of him and his sister. Their mother abandoned them with nothing. If he went to jail, his little sister would have nobody.

So I took the wrap. Luckily my mother was a lawyer and she got me off. But ever since then, it's like we haven't been right. And I always seem to find myself in more trouble, which just slowly puts us more and more at odds.

And it hurt me to core because I just wanted my mother back. For her to look me in my eyes with the same love she did before all the drama.

I went in the bathroom to first wipe the blood from my mouth.

"Shit." I looked at how big my lip was. I ran the cool water on the clean towel off the rack and put it to my lip.

I then went in my room to pack my things.

"My bad Auggie. I didn't mean to let that slip out." Miri came to my door.

"Get away from my door."

"Damn man. I'm trying to apologize."

"I don't want your fucking apology." I slammed my door and locked it. Finished packing my things and left.

-----

"Auggie I know you in there crying." My sister Assata knocked on her guest room door where I was staying.

Her husband, Octavain, was on a business trip in Italy to market his shaving system design for men of color. The man was a genius. Always had been. And now he was meeting with Johnson and Johnson because they wanted to buy his company for 500 million. 500 million? Isn't that crazy? We gon be in the money. Imagining my eyes blinking dollar signs.

And I say we, cause I just know my sister was going to hook me up with at least 400 of those million. Nah I'm joking, but I know bro can hook me up with a job if school doesn't work out. Which it's looking like it's not.

"I ain't crying." I sniffed and wiped my eyes. I was crying.

"Boy stop lying." She opened the door to me in the dark and flipped on the lights.

I put the covers over my head.

"August you are so damn sensitive. I wonder where you get it from?"

"I'm not sensitive I'm just in touch with my feelings." I blew my nose loudly.

"Are you ready to talk?"

"No. I'm not. That's why I came here and not grandma's because I don't want to talk. Besides your mother damn near bust my lip, it hurts to talk."

"Aww it hurt." Sata sat on the bed and said to me like a little kid, pulling the covers off of me.

"Let me see your whittle lip." She poked her lip out with an icepack in her hands.

I gave her a stale face. She laughed and put the ice on my lip.

"You know you are the only one that makes mommy crazy. I never heard her curse the way she does now before you started getting into mess."

"Whose side are you on?" I moved her hand and held the ice on my lip myself.

"Auggie I don't agree with mommy hitting you, but academic probation? Fareal?"

"That shit is hard Sata. All that political science shit."

"If I can do it. You can. It's not complicated. I think I know what the real issue is."

"What?"

"You depressed."

"Why would I be depressed?"

"Because Rahiel broke up with you and you never thought she would leave."

"Psh. Please. I ain't never fretting over no bitch period. Who? Aug? Pleazzzzzzze. When one leave, I got ten mo."

She rolled her eyes. "If you say so."

"Yeah I say so. She the one that missed out! You hear that Rahiel! I'm gone and I'm not coming back. Believe that!" I said in a new Orleans accent.

"Stop. you're not from new Orleans."

"My daddy is, that's enough. And don't be saying that shit out loud man. All my heauxs think I'm from there. They be like say, "baybeh."

"See this is why I don't feel sorry you. You don't take school or life serious."

"I do take life serious."

"What about school?"

"I told you I take life serious."

"August." Sata chuckled.

"School ain't for me man. I told you what I want to do."

"Finding a rich wife is not a career."

"Women make it a career. Why can't I? It's plenty of Oprah's out there that need dick in they life. And a nigga cook too? Ooooooo I'mma catch. And I'm fine as a mutha-fucka so I'm making my life's goal from now on to be an "Instagram model." Like ol girl Miracle Watts. I'mma be the male Miracle Watts." I did the birdman hand rub.

"Wow career goals." Sata stale faced me.

"Don't knock Miracle hustle. Us Instagram models have to get it how we live."

"Goodbye August." She threw a pillow at me and got up.

"you can be my photographer."

"Sorry I have a real job." She closed the door.

"That's how you do your brother?" I yelled.

I looked at the ceiling and sighed. My mind is just blank right now. I hope things get better.