Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil by Lezley McSpadden

Author:Lezley McSpadden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regan Arts.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

GROWING PAINS

Late one night, I was flipping through channels and found myself watching the movie Boyz n the Hood again. It got to me. I thought about how hard it had been for Mama to raise us. I understood why she’d sent Bernard to live with Granny and Aunt Bobbie. Thinking about my life I was scared. I wondered, Will I always be a single parent strugglin’ in the hood?

I had two sons now. Mike Mike was getting older, and it was dangerous out there. Mike Mike wasn’t a thug. He wasn’t a street dude. He wasn’t a hood kid running around. You weren’t going to see him walking down the street bouncing a ball on the way to the corner store. No, that wasn’t my son. Then coming back, getting on his bike and hitting a couple corners, causing chaos with no roughnecks. No, that wasn’t my son! I was doing my best raising him with the help of his grandparents.

I had just finished a catering job for work and my phone rang. It was Mike Mike.

“Hey, Mike Mike. Whassup, baby?”

There was a long strange pause, then in a muffled voice he said, “Mama, I’m hungry. I don’t like what Granny cooked.”

“I’m on my way, baby.”

I hung up with an uneasy feeling. Ten minutes later I was running up Mrs. Brown’s front steps and banged on the door. It felt like it was taking forever for somebody to open the door. Before Mrs. Brown could invite me in good, I was looking around her and saw Mike Mike sitting on the couch. He was crying, holding his face. I ran to him, kneeling, taking his face in my hands to check him out. His eyes were swollen and black-and-blue, his lip was busted, he had a knot the size of a small egg on his head, and his cheek had been scraped.

“What the hell happened? Mike Mike, what happened?” My voice was rising, my eyes darting between Mrs. Brown and Mike Mike. I stood up, ran into the kitchen, and got some ice, wrapped it in a paper towel, and gently put it on Mike Mike’s head.

“Well, see Nette,” Mrs. Brown stammered. “I didn’t wanna call you.”

“Call me? This is my son, Mrs. Brown. If something happen to him, I need to know before anybody else do!” I said, taking his hand and placing it on the makeshift ice pack. I started pacing the floor, demanding answers. “Mike Mike, what happened?”

Mike Mike had been at the park two blocks down the street from the Browns’ house. The park where his bike had been stolen years before, the park that was still off-limits. I didn’t even like calling it a park, because it didn’t have swings or slides or a trail. It was like a deserted lot on the side of a barbershop with leftover playground parts.

Mike Mike was big for his age, had been since he was young, and this one boy was always trying to coerce Mike Mike into being in his gang.

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