dragged... (Part 30)

                   Mamma Say

                   Mamma Saw

My mother always managed to appear at the right time.  I’m sure my sister was too distraught over her foiled wedding day to embrace the accidental discovery of her groom to be and me as being better then than later.  I mean, I’m not a monster, I just feel that even though she had to discover that her man was tipping on the down low on their wedding day, it was best that she found out then instead of walking down the aisle, doing the honeymoon thing, buying a house, and having children. I saved her from further disgrace by outing him before had the chance to really start building a life of deceit with her.  The way I figure it is, if it hadn’t have been me, then it would have been some other man.   

She may be mad with me, but hell, I’m mad with that bitch for not thanking me for saving her upstanding, pretentious, face.  My mother told me that she eventually did get married to some officer in the armed forces.  I suppose she wanted to make sure that she had a real man this time, because everyone knows that homosexuals aren’t in the military right? 

Yea, go on and laugh, you know I was just being facetious. 

Anyway, like I was saying before I drifted off track, my mother always managed to appear at the right time.  When she clobbered Maddox upside the head with that cast iron skillet, I thought for sure that she had killed him, but she assured me that when her and her latest beau, Clinton, dumped him out of the car on the side of the road in the hills somewhere, he was still breathing.  I was glad too because I didn’t want to be affiliated in any way with a murder, because with all that new fangled forensic equipment on tap for the law, the trail always led back to the place of origin, no matter how many gloves are worn or much bleach gets used, the law enforcement always got their man (or woman). 

“Sunny, I see you are still stirring up trouble, girl.  Now who was that crazy ass nigga anyway?  The way he was tearing away at you I could tell that you had tipped his scales to 51/50,” My mother said, taking a drag off of her Newport 100 cigarette. 

“Mama, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m a good girl, I don’t mess with people, people mess with me.  His name is Maddox McNair and I stole him away from this bitch at Lilly’s, but I had no idea that once I gave him some of my man-bush that he’d lose his mind, but then, I didn’t know that he was a coke fiend either,” I told her, grabbing her cigarette from her hand. 

When I took a drag from it she said, “Bitch, I see you still don’t believe in purchasing your own cigarettes.  Yes, some things never change and I know my daughter very well, you pushed his buttons and couldn’t find the off switch,” she said, laughing her ass off and snatching the cigarette back from my hand. 

I looked at her with a grin on my bandaged face, and winced with pain.  “Shut up, can’t you see it hurts when I try to laugh,” I told her, holding my face, trying to keep the muscles in it from stretching. 

“Damn, he didn’t even care about you looking like a damn mummy either, he was still trying to get some of that sunshine, girl,” she said, tapping her cigarette in one of my flower pots (a habit she does even at her own house). 

“Where did your man go?” I asked her, after noticing that we were alone in my condo.   

She paused, looked at me with this “get-real” expression on her face and then said, “Bitch I trust you about as much as I trust the next bitch; you’ll never get a chance to seduce my nigga…I mean he says he’s straight but in this day and age I ain’t leavin shit to chance…you know what I mean,” she said, slapping me on the knee. 

Now, in all honesty, I couldn’t even be mad at her for that comment because I did have a reputation for turning men on and then out.  Hey, I ain’t a fake bitch, if the shoe fits then I was going to wear the fuck out of that motherfucker, but then you knew I had to put on a façade. 

“Why, mother dear, I don’t know what you’re talking about?” I told her, playfully brushing up against her with my body. 

“Daughter dear, I know you very well…better than I know myself,” she said, cackling away, taking drags off her cigarette which was now practically down to the filter. 

I linked my arm with hers and leaned backwards on the couch, pulling her back along with me.  “I love you, mama, I have missed you.  I’m glad you came to stay with me until I get better,” I said, as tears welled up in my eyes.

Yea, as hard core as I am, I have always been a baby when I was around my mother, and she ate it up.  I suppose even though I wasn’t born a woman, in her eyes I have always been her little girl.  When I got to be a certain age we became friends and my sister couldn’t stand the relationship that we had, but my mother told her that she was too much of a snob for her own good.  “Bitch you grew up in the ghetto just like the rest of us,” my mother would always tell her. 

My sister hated it when my mother said that because, in many ways, she did throw that damn weave around like it was her real hair.  I’m not saying that using proper English is bad, but damn, that snobby way she spoke it always had that extra nerve digger to it – it was a tone that had many a sistah around the way wanting to slap her uppity ass.  Whenever she came running home after getting her ass kicked my mother would always tell her, “If you took your nose out of the air some then you might keep all them damn feet out of yo ass, bitch.”

Now that, children, still cracked me up to this day.  My mother could cut a piece of iron with her sharp ass tongue.  My sister was more of my father’s protégée, and my mother even accused him one day of wanting to fuck his own daughter.  Children, I remember that day just like it was yesterday because the look on his face told it all.  He left later that night and never came back.  He swore my mother was evil, but I knew better; she just called it like she saw it.   

I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as I reflected on those moments.  I was a combination of the good and bad in both my mother and father.  She ribbed me and asked what I was thinking about.  I told her that I was just reminiscing on our family.  She scoffed and said, “Yea, Sunny, there were some laughable times baby, I tell you.  Now, you tell me, who disfigured that lovely face of yours, my baby?” she asked, delicately stroking the side of my bandaged cheek. 

“Stanley Simon, mama. Can you believe that lousy bastard tracked me down and did this to me?  That’s okay, I’ve got something for his ass though,” I told her, leaning into her, gently touching her head with mine. 

          She rubbed me on the top of my hands lightly, and said, “You better not let that coward ass motherfucker get away with this, now, without getting too detailed, fill me in on the low down and dirty.”

          “Mama, do you remember that roughneck I used to fool around with….?”

          Oh, yes, and I had something for Maddox McNair’s ass too…

          After all the dominoes fell, a couple of brothas were going to taste all of the fury that is…

          Sunny Skies…