Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“Yeah, I remember that. Little kings.” He turned the corner, almost home.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Tarik, Legend. I know I shoulda been payin’ attention more the day he died, but you don’t remember what really happened that day.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I know you were troubled by seein’ it happen. You were just a baby yourself, only four years old, so you couldn’t possibly remember what—”
“I remember. I remember everything. No matter how much weed I smoked in the past, how many bottles of liquor and alcohol I’ve downed, my memory is intact. I remember shit nobody else does. My mind is a steel trap. Nothin’ gets past me, even when I was only four.”
“Yeah, you’ve always had a good memory, Legend, but I think ’cause things were so crazy and chaotic that day, you might have thought you saw things you didn’t.”
“Nah, I’m not delusional or silly. I see the evil. I remember the details just fine. Keep tellin’ yourself that though, if you must.”
“I didn’t call to argue with you. I will say this: the fact that you remembered what happened at such a young age lets me know that it affected you.”
“Oh? You don’t say?” He rolled his eyes and kept driving until he approached a red light.
“Parents ain’t perfect, but this wasn’t no neglect. I was never charged.”
“I wasn’t charged for a lotta shit I did, either. Didn’t mean I didn’t do it. If I got busted for every time I broke the law, I’d have fifty life sentences and be up under the jail.”
“Legend… just listen. Here’s what happened. I turned away and—”
“Funny how you wanna talk about Tarik now, but you never wanted to discuss it with me before? I begged you. You told me you ain’t wanna talk about it, ’specially because I blamed you for it. I still do, so why the change?”
“Because I think it’ll help. I was saying to you that I turned away to do somethin’, and he was messin’ around by the window wit’ his toys. He did that all the time. He liked lookin’ outside at the cars going by ’nd such. I went into the bedroom with my phone—it was a cordless one—and I heard bangin’. He’d never beat on that window before. I ’magine he must’ve saw something or someone that interested him, and he was trying to get their attention.”
“It was an insect. There was a bug on the window. I remember him tellin’ me to come look.”
Mama drew quiet for a moment, then continued.
“All right, well, thank you for letting me know, ’cause I never did know what he was looking at or doing. By the time I came out to grab him and stop him from bangin’ on that window… he… he’d gone through it. I then had to chase you…”
He could hear the tears in her voice. He saw his apartment building in the near distance and slowed down. He wanted to hear her talk, even though he was certain most of the words that came out of her mouth were excuses and exaggerations. Time seemed to be slowing down, too, as she spoke, and his body followed suit.
“Why’d you chase after me?” That part of the memory was blank for him. Just a black vacuum of nothingness.
“’Cause you was screamin’ and tryna go after him!” She was crying much harder now, and it became increasingly more difficult for him to keep his cool.
He pulled into the driveway and put his truck in park. He reached for a cigarette, then thought better of it.
“In your little mind, you thought you could save him. You was screamin’, ‘Mama! Tarry,’ ’cause you couldn’t pronounce Tarik right. Then you said, ‘Tarry fall out the window!’ And you were pointin’ and cryin’ and carryin’ on! I had to grab you and bear-hug you, ’cause you was tryin’ with all your little might to jump down there and get him. You really believed you could save him. You thought you were Superman.”
He blinked a few good times, then closed his eyes altogether.
“I was trapped in a bad dream. I kept sayin’, ‘This can’t be real… this can’t be happening.’ I couldn’t look out the window because you were in my arms, and I ain’t want you to see your brother down there. I almost lost two babies in one day. To make matters worse, your father was fiddlin’ with other women, and had the damn nerve to come to the hospital where your brother was at, cursin’ me out. Screamin’ at me. He wasn’t even workin’ or doing anything to help support us. It was all on me. I was on the phone, with your sister in my belly. I didn’t know I was pregnant again at the time, yet, doing it all on my lonesome. We was murried, but he acted single around that time. All ’cause we was havin’ fights. I was on the phone with a manager at a store who wanted me to come in for an interview. I needed that job. I wasn’t under no man, Legend! I wasn’t goofin’ off or asleep!”