I was fully dressed, but I could not for the life of me bring myself to tie my shoes. I sat at the foot of my bed and listened to my Mother bark instructions to my father and the twins downstairs. For some stupid reason, I almost believed that the funeral would not happen as long as my shoes remained untied.
“Be careful!” I heard my Mama yell after the twins as they bolted upstairs to find me.
“Daddy,” said Quamie peeping his head into my room. “Daddy, why are your shoes untied; you want us to do it for you?” He made his way into my room followed by Quame. They both looked super cute in their matching black dress slacks, white shirts, and vests.
“Don’t worry Daddy, we will tie them for you,” said Quame tying my right shoe, while Quamie tied my left one. Each inspected the other’s work. Both nodded their curly heads in approval. They were so proud of the fact that they knew how to tie their shoes.
“Now you’re all ready to go see Uncle Cooley go to heaven.” Smiled Quamie.
Man, I started bawling. I could hear my Mama running up the stairs. I was her only child and she never under any circumstances was going to hear me cry and not come to my aid.
“Y’all go on downstairs and wait with your Pop- Pop.” Mama instructed Quamie and Quame.
I could tell my little riders wanted to stay and make sure that I was alright, but they knew better than to disobey any elder, especially their grandmother. Mama waited until they were completely downstairs before she cradled me in her arms like she did for way too long in spite of my Daddy’s insistence that she was spoiling me and making me soft.
She didn’t have to say anything. Her just cradling me in her arms was enough to soothe me. She wiped away my tears with her handkerchief,
“Alright now Baby, we have to do this. It is time to send your cousin home.”
“I don’t want to.” I sobbed
“You have to,” she said sternly. “Cooley fought a good fight and now it is his time to rest. Come on now.”
Like a reluctant child, I allowed my Mama to guide me by the hand. I still held onto her hand as we walked downstairs.
“Son, are you oaky?” asked Dad.
I nodded, but I never let go of my Mama’s hand.
My Aunties, My Mama, and Vashti gave another soul stirring gospel recital at Cooley’s funeral, but the part that damn near took everybody out was when Jabari, whose goofy ass I completely forgot could sing, sang a beautiful rendition of Cooley’s favorite song, “Tears in Heaven,” by Eric Clapton.
They rolled the casket up the aisle towards the exit for the viewing, and I quickly left out of the church. I had spent most of the prior evening getting him ready, and then at his wake. I did not need to see him again, especially knowing that it would be the last time ever.
I was barely down the church steps when I heard blood curdling screaming. Thinking that it might have been Cooley’s wife, Jacqueline or his Mama, my Aunt Bernadette, I bolted up the steps just as Jabari, Jayson, and Cooley’s oldest son, Taheim escorted a frantically wailing Chris out of the church.
“I’m sorry! “I’m sorry!” Chris shouted to the top of his lungs. Jabari’s eyes were as wide as saucers out of fear of what would come out of Chris’s mouth next. I quickly embraced Chris, holding him close and muffling his screams.
“Chris, it’s me, Quamie. You need to calm down.” I said. “Y’all go on back in, in case some of the women need you, I got him.” Jabari understood the assignment and immediately ushered the other two back inside.
Chris had stopped wailing and screaming, but he was sobbing like crazy.
“This is all my fault, Quamie.”
“Cooley was sick, Chris. You cannot blame yourself for that.”
“You know we are all paying for____”
“Shut the hell up, or I am going to change my mind about asking you to sleep over tonight.”
I know it is fucked up, but I learned when we were young that sex was the one thing I could always use to get Chris to do what I wanted him to do. And just like that Chris was quiet as a church mouse the rest of the evening.
Chapter Four
“I am so sorry Breon did not make it home for the funeral, Bernadette.” Said Aunt Fendi fixing herself a plate of the food that she had helped Vashti and my Mama prepare the day before.
“Is everything alright?” asked Aunt Bernadette. “I was wondering why him, Takeisha, and little BJ weren’t at the funeral.”
“That damn Takeisha is playing games. Supposedly she’s missing.”
“What?” asked Aunt Bernadette and Vashti
“Oh, ain’t nothing to be worried about. I told Breon he needs to pack up and bring his son on back home. That old whore is somewhere getting her back blown out, that’s all.”
“Miss Fendi, the girl could really be in trouble. She is pregnant.” Said Vashti
“And I told Breon he better not claim what’s in her stomach until they’ve had a DNA test. That girl was fucking like 95 going south the whole while my son was missing and I don’t believe she ever stopped. She’s a THOT just like her mama.”
“Aunt Fendi,” I said “Breon called me last night, he sounded really worried about her.”
“Of course he did. He has always had a blind spot when it came to that trick. To tell you the truth, Bernadette, Cooley, and Chris are the only ones who married and had children with quality women. My boy picked a Ho, Quamie picked a trifling ass female who abandoned her children, and God knows I never could stand that skinny gold-digging bitch that Vivian’s boy, Jerod married, she makes me fucken itch.”
“Wow,” said Jerod’s widow, Krista who had been standing right behind Aunt Fendi “Miss Bernadette I am sorry for your loss, Vashti, thank you for the plate.” You could hear the hurt in her voice as she hung her head and quickly exited the kitchen through the back door.
“Miss Fendi, please do not put other women down to uplift me.” Said Vashti.
“I am sorry baby, but I cannot stand that thing that walked out that door. Ask Viviane how often she brings Jerod’s children over to visit, plus she said I was being unreasonable because I didn’t want to make no damn hummingbird cake for her child’s birthday when my son was missing.”
“Miss Fendi, I love you to death, but you can hold a grudge like nobody I’ve ever known.” Said Vashti.
“But wait, Auntie, you really think old girl is playing games?” I asked
“Lord, Baby, you’re still on that? I done told Breon to bring me my Grandbaby and if he wants to go back and look for that slut bucket, so be it. He is supposed to be coming tomorrow.”
“Aunt Fendi____” Vashti gave me a look that pleaded with me to drop the subject all together. “Um… tell Breon to hit me up before he heads back to Atlanta.”
“I sure will, Baby. Now, if y’all will excuse me, I am going to head on home myself. Bernadette, I’m going to call you before I go to bed tonight.” Aunt Fendi gave each of us a hug and made her exit with her covered plate.
“Now, I am going to have to call Krista to apologize and let her know that I did not mean for her to be disrespected in my home.” Said Vashti
“Baby, it ain’t your responsibility to right everybody’s wrongs.” Said Aunt Bernadette.
“Sometimes, I feel like that’s all I do. I grew up in so much dysfunction, I just became the peacekeeper, you know.
“And that is a sure- fire way to disturb your own internal peace.” Warned Aunt Bernadette.
“God, don’t I know it.” Said Vashti nervously wiping down the already pristinely clean countertop. “I need to go check on Micha; I am sure his Daddy nor his brothers are paying him any attention.” Vashti hurried from the kitchen.
“That poor baby,” Sighed Aunt Bernadette “She is always making sure everybody else is fine when she is the one really going through it.”
Aunt Bernadette’s gaze nearly burned through me. I don’t know what she knew, but she damn sure she knew something.
“Cooley told me some things before he passed that I wish he had taken to his grave.” Tears began to roll down her face. “I pray to God that my son made it right and asked Jesus for forgiveness. I will carry what he told me to my grave, because like that child that just walked out of here, I am not trying to break peace within the family, especially for you and your Mama.”
The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. God only knows what Cooley said when he was in pain and near death, and to whom he said it. Whatever Cooley had told his mother in his dying days, my name had definitely been called in it and judging by Aunt Bernadette’s overwhelming sympathy for Vashti, it isn’t a far leap that Chris’s name, possibly Jabari’s and Jayson’s as well, had been mentioned.
“I just thank God; Harold is long passed away.” Said Aunt Bernadette referring to Cooley’s father, Uncle Harold, who had been dead for ten years. “Harold was a shitty husband to me, but he loved his son, and if he had heard what Cooley confessed to me, there would have been some more slow singing and flower bringing. Lord knows there would.”
My stomach was in knots. My Aunt knew something about her deceased son that would affect me and my Mama and drive Cooley’s father to murder were he still alive. Man, what the fuck did Cooley confess to Aunt Bernadette? Damn, another secret, and another layer of shit to worry about, made even more worrisome by the fact that I did not rightfully know what the fuck my Aunt actually knew.
Chapter Five
I Needed A Nut!!! Between grieving Cooley, losing my dignity with Olivier, and damn near losing my mind with worry over what the hell Aunt Bernadette knew, I was stressed the fuck out. In spite of what I had promised Chris to silence his meltdown at Cooley’s funeral, my plan was for him to drink himself into a stupor and I just dip without him, but Vashti changed that plan.
Around 9:30, family members decided that they had shared enough memories of Cooley, and eaten and drank their fill, so it was best to go on home. Mind you, none of them thought to give Vashti a hand with cleaning up. Utilizing the manners that my Mama and Daddy gave me; I grabbed a broom and started to sweep up the crumbs and spilled bits of food that grown ass people and their children had not bothered to clean up.
“Quamie, thank you Baby, but I got that.” Said Vashti taking the broom away from me.
“There is so much to clean up.” I protested “I did not want you to have to do it all alone.”
“If you really want to help, please take your worrisome, drunk ass cousin to your house and keep him there for a couple of days. It would be nice not having to deal with him vomiting and shitting on himself while going off on hours long nonsensical rants on top of trying to get this house in order, manage the restaurant, and deal with these rambunctious ass kids of ours.”
“Okay, let me get him.” I said too scared to ask Vashti if she was alright. There was clearly something going on within her, but I wasn’t ready to hear what it was. I know that is shitty as hell, because every fucken body, me included, goes to Vashti to unload their problems.
The warm water from my shower loosened Chris’s curls. He moaned loudly as I scrubbed every inch of his body. The bergamot scented candles that burned on the counter combined with the smell of cherry tobacco body wash was a stark contrast to Chris’s Hennesy infused breath. To say that he was aroused was a major fucken understatement.
“Quamie, it has been too long.” He groaned as my mouth swallowed the throbbing monster between his legs.
The large amounts of alcohol he had consumed over the past God only knows how many days was seeping through his pores. I could taste it on his dick. Clearly not as pleasant as Olivier’s pineapple Jolly Rancher flavored cock, but it was attached to someone who loved me with all his heart and would literally draw his last breath to be with me. This was what I needed.
He bent me over in the shower.
“Goddamn!” we both exclaimed when he entered me. A year of celibacy had me tight as a mother fucker. Chris, even drunk as hell, knew how to adapt to my body’s needs. He usually loved it rough and animalistic, but slow rolling was very necessary, at least for this go around.
“Why did you do me like that Quamie?” asked Chris as he leisurely thrusted inside of me. I could not see it, but I could tell from his voice that he was crying. “Do you know how many times I thought I was going to die from thinking that you didn’t love me anymore, that you did not want me anymore.”
Chris pulled me out. He straightened me up and turned me around to face him. His tongue was acrid from his binger, but I could not refuse his kiss. We feverishly explored each other with our hands and ultimately, I gripped Chris’s throbbing cock while he gripped mine. We kissed and stroked each other the way that we did many years ago when we were two curious, horny teenage boys. Those beautiful tear- filled grey eyes stared into my light brown ones as we declared our love one another. Somehow, I felt the presence of Cooley, smelt his Amber White cologne over the bergamot candles and cherry tobacco body wash. I felt his eyes as if he were right there watching and encouraging us while pleasuring himself. Chris sensed it too, because we both stopped and looked at each other for a second, silently inquiring “Do you sense that; is it him?”
The smell of Amber white grew stronger as Chris, and I resumed jacking each other off. My cock grew longer and harder and Chris’s hand and his did in mine. We erupted at the same time, each staining the other’s chest and abdomen, We didn’t just embrace we crashed into each other and clung for dear life.
“I love you, Quamie.”
“I love you, Chris.”
“We love you, Cooley!” we loudly declared as the scent of Amber white faded from the room.
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