Against All Odds

AAO | FirstDayOut | 1

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First Day Out
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"I'm gone be big time ma, I promise. It might not be how you want me to be, but I'm gone be something. I'm gone get mine by any means necessary, just how you taught me too and showed me." - Benjiman Cartier Gotti
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Thursday | January 1 | Present Day

The long awaited day had finally arrived for Benji. It was his first day out and boy was he looking forward to his future on the outside of those gates that taken all of his teenage years away from him. Over the few years of his bid in the penitentiary, he'd caught true hell and finally it seemed to be over for him. With his pride, his dozen of pictures that captured his Queen, and all the memories he'd made thus far, he left with goals and that would shape his life for the better.

Despite it being his twenty first birthday, it was not a day of celebration for him like most people. It'd only continued to be a reminder of the worst day in life. It was the day he lost the one true love of his life and it killed him to the core. For that reason, he never even looked at it as a celebratory day and he vowed that it wouldn't ever be. How could he celebrate a day that marked his mother's passing, he couldn't.

Benjiman took off from the jail upon his release in the black joggers, white dingy and torn tank, and the hoodie that the state had spared him. It was all he'd had, being that when he got sent away he was just a young boy. BG didn't let much phase him now at this point though, he set out for one destination and one only. He didn't quite remember how to get there, but he allowed his feet to guide him in the right direction and hopefully he'd meet his destination soon. It was early in the morning and the cool Winter air nipped at his soft brown skin, causing him to wrap himself tighter in the thin clothes that he wore.

In little to no time he met the cemetery where mama Brenda had been laid to rest. Once there, it took him not even a second thought to find the small patch of grass that claimed his mother's body. There wasn't a headstone or anything, but he knew it was her. After stealing red roses from another woman's grave, he'd laid them out over where his mother was buried.

Once he'd cleaned off the small patch of grass, he sat down and pulled his knees up to his chest. With not a single word in mind, he sat staring at the ground in hopes that the right words would he spoken. Coming out here had been the one thing he'd looked forward to the most and now that he was here, he didn't even know where to begin or how to begin talking.

"I've been waitin on this day for years. Now, I can't even seem to find the words to say to you, shit crazy ma." Benji said in his deep voice, more to himself. It was followed by a small laugh as he shook his head. BG was never one to freeze up or not have anything to say, so this was both awkward and foreign to him.

After sitting there letting about twenty minutes pass, he finally began to just allow his heart to speak. "I'm just gone talk and pray to God you hear me. As crazy as it sounds." He sighed roughly and ran a hand over his face. "I just need to vent ma and you the only one I know that wouldn't ever judge me other than God. I made it out tho' ma. I finally made it out of the hell that I've been living in since that nigga took you." He spoke and then rubbed the crumbs from his eyes.

This felt so weird for him. No, it wasn't his first time talking to his mother's spirit, but this time it felt all too real like she was really here. "Since you left, I've been empty. I don't know my purpose, at this point I feel like I'm just here.  My life has been crazy as hell, for real. All the shit you taught me brought me here through it tho' and I can't thank you enough for all that you gave me before you left. You gave me all the game early and now it's my time to make you proud. It's my time to show you all those times you thought I wasn't listening, I really was. All things you told me are engraved on my skull and I'm gone apply it to my new life. It's only right that I get my shit together, for me, for you. I owe that to you." He said finally taking a moment to catch his breath and think.