Keep It On The Real

24 #CLK

He sighed. "If you wanna believe that, then okay. But I know she does, she ain't in the right state of mind."

I nodded even though I wasn't hearing shit he was saying about my mama caring about me. If she truly cared for me, she would've gotten clean and took care of me when I needed to be taken care of. She wouldn't have allowed her sister to take me because she was on drugs. She would've taken that as a wake up call and gotten cleaned up.

But nah, once Cork died, she relied more on drugs than anything. She used to be so weak to even walk to the couch, so she'd pass out on the floor and sleep. I had to be the adult and take care of her, when I could barely do shit for myself. Shorty was fucked up, all the way. She ain't give a shit bout nobody but her damn self.

Shoot, I wouldn't even say that considering she was on damn near every drug, which could've and should've killed her. I ain't wishing death on her, but I'm surprised she still alive. Mayne, I really don't even know if she dead right now.

"Anyway, how you holdin up?" I asked, changing the subject.

"You know yo old man is gucci, just pumping iron out here and reading." He spoke.

I smirked. "Yeah foo, you getting hella big."

"Look at you, Jr. Getting tall and shit, looking just like me when I was your age. I've been locked up for a majority of your life and I'm making a promise to you that when I get out, Ima be on all clean shit. Leaving all the extras behind me." He spoke since he got locked up for selling crack, getting seven years and a $10,000 fine I paid off last year.

He's been gone since I was 15, and now has 2 years left. Even before that, he was in and out of jail for other shit.

"I mean, you been gone but I turned out ight." I shrugged.

"But it could've been easier for you-"

"But it made me the man I am today. Shit, we'd prolly still be living inna More. I'm pretty sure the same shit would've happen eventually, we wasn't on no clean shit."

"I feel like your mother wouldn't have been sprung out-"

"Nah, she did that shit on her own." I shook my head since he was trying to blame himself. "Nothin was your fault, dawg! You did everything you could to take care of me and Cork."

I have so much respect for my father, even if some may say he was a bad example. He may blame himself for a lot but, in my eyes, he didn't do shit wrong. He only wanted to make a better life for me and my brother, who wasn't even his son.

He did what he had to do to put me and Cork in a private school and get us away from our hood. But after he was locked up, we couldn't pay for it anymore and eventually got kicked out. It didn't matter because a few days after he got locked up, we stopped going so we could make money and buy ramen noodles and koolaid mix for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Cork even upgraded to crack to keep the lights on.

Nothing they taught me up in that school would help me with my life now anyway. I really just needed to know how to add, subtract and multiply, since I knew I was gon have to slang. Mamé always talks to me about getting into a program so I could get my GED.

I've been considering it, now that I have money and shit, it wouldn't hurt. Plus, I wanna be able to tell my kids that both their parents atleast graduated high school, so they wouldn't pull that "But you didn't-" Bullshit as an excuse to slack off in school.