A Secret To Treasure

Treasure Brooks

As I waited for the valet to bring my car around, it was taking everything in my power not to go back there and whip Mon'Keese's ass all around that apartment. I wanted to whip my own ass for trusting him. Something told me I should've asked or even demanded he'd taken a drug test from the very beginning. I should've been upfront but my guilt from hiding our daughter, Keyani, from him made me hold my tongue. My mind, my logic, kept telling me he couldn't be still using that shit.
As my car pulled up, I turned to LaLa, my pathetic baby daddy's assistant who is also pregnant by him. That's some ghetto ass shit but not my business. Lala looked like she'd lost her best friend. Hell, she looked like she'd lost herself. I couldn't fix the problem for her. What I could do is provide her a little insight.
"Hop in." I called out to her, breaking her from her thoughts.
Hesitantly, she climbed into the front seat of my Range Rover. Taking off, we rode in a suffocating silence. Before I could pull off, Mon'Keese came running down with Keyani in his arms. He tapped on Lala's window.
"I need to be the one to tell her." He said. "We can drop babydoll to Joy."
I unlocked the door and he placed Key in her car seat before sliding in the back. As I headed to Pearland, the silence in the car was deafening filled with unspoken frustration, tension, and anxiety. Glancing back at Mon'Keese, his face was filled with sorrow. As badly as I wanted to reach out and console him, it's time to put a stop to this bullshit. Turning into my sister's driveway, Keese gently removed Keyani from her car seat as she slept. Placing a kiss on her forehead before laying her head on his shoulder that she'd claimed as hers, he carried her into the house.
Joy, my sister, stepped outside and approached my car.
"Is everything okay?" She asked with a face full of concern.
"Not really. I'll call you later." Looking over at LaLa, Joy nodded and returned into her home.
Realizing I was supposed to be meeting my boyfriend, DayQuan back at the home he'd gotten for us after dropping my daughter to her father. I shot Day a text letting him know I was going to be late.
I discovered Mon'Keese had been using heroine, we had some things that we needed to clear up. My intentions were to just talk to LaLa to get the inside scoop but I guess Mon'Keese felt he owed her some sort of explanation as to how his life turned out like this.
"Imagine that, one of the best players in the NFL, addicted to heroine. How bad is it LaLa? Be real because I know you know." I asked her.
"I thought it was bad in New York but it's been worse since he's gotten back to Houston. I don't even see how he manages. On days when Keyani is around, he hasn't been using but when she leaves or goes with Ms. Brooks for the day, he uses."
"Ms. Brooks? I bet she eating that shit up. She think because he's back here she can control him again. Where does he get the drugs?" I already knew but I asked to humor myself.
"You know, I ask myself that all the time. When we were in New York, he was a lot more sociable than he is here. He just sits in the house most days. The only person that comes and goes is-"

"Tiny old conniving ass. And he been letting that bitch take my baby! That's all a ploy. Tiny doping his ass up to get what she wants from him. His need for his mama is so strong that he probably makes you play it while he's begging and bending to Tiny because she the one who need to be his damn mama. She been using his ass for years and she gone keep using him until he don't have nothing left. I'm putting a stop to that shit today." I screamed.

In the days that Mon'Keese and I were together, he confided in me about the things that Tiny had put him through. I got an inside look at the ways she manipulated him into doing some of the worst thing a child shouldn't even be subjected to let alone doing. Just for her to reward him with drugs.
She kept him high. In the beginning, it was weed, then syrup, pills, and finally heroine. I did all I could do to get him clean, keep him sober, make sure he went to school every day, keep him in football camps during the summer that were out of state, anything I could do to keep him away from her. Yet, he loved that worthless bitch. By all means, you should love your parents regardless, but Tiny wasn't a mother to him. She saw him as her meal ticket and she rode on him as she did with most of the ballers that passed through our hood. Keese was the only one who owed her something. The only one to stick around.

As soon as Keese got Key settled, he dragged himself back into the car. I can tell he'd rather be anywhere but here right now. But, I wasn't about to allow him to drag himself any further down this haunted path.
"You ready Keese?" I asked.
"Lets just get this shit over with. I got workouts in the morning."
With a head nod, I put the car in reverse and headed back to Third Ward in silence until LaLa finally spoke up.
"Where are we going?"
"Back to where this all started..." Mon'Keese replied.