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Nikura
I look up startled as someone pounds on the front door. I immediately got up thinking something was wrong. I open the door not bothering to look through the peep hole and roll my eyes. "I thought something was wrong Joy."
Joy scoffs, "Something is wrong, why aren't you dressed?"
I sit back down in my previous position on the couch, "I'm not going." I shrug. I watch as her jaw drops, "what?"
I sigh, "Von didn't go to school on Thursday, he lied to me about being in the streets, so I'm not going to reward him by seeing him play basketball."
"Wait what? What happened?" she asks confused sitting beside me.
"On Thursday he left here around six in the morning and didn't come back until eleven that same night! He had me worried. Especially because I had gotten a phone call from his school saying he didn't go."
"In his defense, those teachers spend half the time working against him, that ain't a dead giveaway he's selling with dem other guys."
"I'm not done." Joy put her hands up in defense and I continue, "then, I got a call from his basketball coach asking if Von was going to the game because they really needed him."
"Your brother is a killer on the court," she reminds.
"Well that's good for him. He asked me for money MONTHS ago to be on that team. You have to pay a fee to be on the team, you know, to go to the other teams schools and for jerseys? When I asked Von where he had gotten the money and he gave me some whack response, I put two and two together."
"Nikura, you really aren't punishing your brother for following the path that's around him, are you? I mean, there's no other influence. I was just walking over here and six people offered me crack. I was almost about to take it too."
I roll my eyes and she went on giggling at her own antics, "I'm just saying he sees the fast money, he sees why Bull did it, he sees you hurting and all he is trying to do is help out. He's a teenage boy, he isn't thinking about the possible outcome of what he's doing, in his mind, he's going to be better and smarter at what Bull did and not end up in a body bag."
You live by the gun and you die by the gun. Mama always said that.
"I understand that, but most those kids on the streets don't have mothers or sisters to encourage them to do better. He does! If he wants to help so bad, why can't he get a regular job?"
"At the liquor store or the gun shop?"
I put my head in my hands trying to figure out why I was so upset with Von being out there, I mean, everyone in the hood was doing the exact same thing and I damn well can't judge him for trying to follow the crowd. He never had no pops, and maybe I just wasn't enough, "I made Benny promise me he'd never get Von caught up in that and he'd give him a way out."
