Red Bull

Red Bull Chapter 13

Chapter 13

I'm watching from the living room and that's where I see Sean and Eva sitting with my mother. Sean is off to the side. He doesn't talk to my mother or try to get close. It's strange to see her back after all this time. It's strange to have her back in the house.

"Mom..." I ask.

She's so busy with the kids that she barely hears me. When she does she turns slowly to us. All four of her kids are standing at the doorway with me. Our Uncle and his children are standing behind the sofa that my mother is sitting on. They are just as confused as everyone else is at the fact that my mother said I sent her.

"Eva, come here," Joshua falls his daughter away from our mother.

His daughter is always well behaved and knows to go when her father comes calling. There is an awkward mood when he takes his daughter away from her grandmother. My mother is left just looking like a balloon with the air let out when it happens. She wasn't going to get that love from Sean. And that was for sure.

"You really think God spoke to you?" I ask.

"Don't look at me like that, my Joy," my mother says, "I came here for a reason. God speaks to us in mysterious ways."

"What'd he say?" Uncle Regis asks.

I'm not even sure where Uncle Regis is coming from and honestly its Joshua who has a problem with all this.

"Are you all fucking serious?" he doesn't look specifically at me when he asks the question, because he means it for all of us, "This woman comes out of nowhere and..."

"This woman is our mother," I argue.

Joshua isn't having it, "This woman comes out of nowhere after abandoning us and she says she has a message from God."

He has this look of abandonment on his face. I knew the look. I think all of us felt some type of way when he looked at them in that sort of way. Looking at him I could tell that he was really not even interested in having this conversation.

I give my little brother a strong look, "Funny, I remember another family member leaving all of us and making us feel abandoned only to come back with some good news..."

"What good news?" Joshua asks, "I came back and helped rebuild the Marchioness."

"Sounds like good news to me. Sounds like you spoke to God to me," I offer with a shrug, "But who knows?"

I can see the pain on Joshua's face. The look on his face tells me that he is plagued with memories of things that happened in the past that perhaps changed the person who he was now. It's clear that this pain, no matter how shallow I may think it is, really had a deep root inside of him. This is a deep root that he is desperately is holding onto and perhaps I can't blame him.

"You turning on me, now, Joyous?" Joshua asks me.

"Joshua...I get how you may have your guard up," I tell him, "I would too if I were you..."

"But you aren't me, are you!" Joshua rages as he almost gets in my face, "You felt curious, for what? A few weeks at most. I've been gay my whole life and I meant nothing to this woman."

"I can leave if now isn't a good time," my mother states.

"That won't be necessary," Joshua corrects her, "I'm leaving."

"Joshua please," Jamila begs.

She's not the only one. Joshua knows me and he knows that I'm not the type to beg. I'm not the type to just let him get away with things without checking him and I knew that the time was right to check him.

Joshua pauses at the door and I can tell that it taking everything in him not to walk out of the door but he doesn't leave. He takes a few breaths.

"She has one sentence to convince me whatever message she got is worth the time," He assures the rest of the house.

My mother looks over at Sean.

"We must reconcile with your father and bring him back..."

The sentence was odd. Very odd. See the thing about reconciling with our father was that our father was dead. How the hell do you reconcile with a dead man?

I knew it was ridiculous when I literally see Joyous go to the closet and get his and Eva's coats. He looks as though he isn't going to waste any time at all leaving the house.

I slam the door of the closet, "Let her finish Joshua, Goddamit."

"He only cares about himself," Jamison crosses his arms, "Let him leave."

I didn't want to believe that about Joshua. He doesn't defend himself against Jamison. He doesn't even try to stop what Jamison is saying. Joshua just zips tries to reach for the door again.

"Move Joyous."

I swallow my spit, "No."

"I swear to God if you don't move right now."

"What you gonna do if I don't move?"

He was being forceful but I was always the stronger brother. The thing is this was Joshua and even though every part of me would prefer to push him down in the seat and make him stay, but with Joshua, I felt as though I had to baby him. It wasn't anything that he'd done, nor was it specifically because of his sexuality. I had to baby him because I knew he'd been through more things than I could possibly ever imagine and it felt as though gentleness was finally due to him.

I wanted to be the person who gave Joshua a bit more of the gentleness that I never had.

But he seems to know I'm thinking this because automatically he turns his face to me showing two red cheeks flushed with tears.

"You were all there. Every last one of you when that woman watched that man torture me. You were all there. Joyous you look the most like her but they say I look like our father but I don't think that. I have nothing in common with this family and perhaps that fine."

I had a feeling in those moments that Joshua was at his breaking point. Something told me that if I let Joshua out of that door that he would never come back. Out of nowhere, I make a wild dash for the door, brushing past him and that's when I see them: two plane tickets printed on a sheet of paper had hit the ground and upon picking them up I see that these were confirmation tickets for a one-way pass to New York.

"What's this?" I ask.

He doesn't reply but instead just looks away as though allowing me to come to the realization of what is happening in these moments. Sheila is the only one that comes over to see exactly what was printed on that paper. The rest of us probably knew that this day was coming the moment that shit went wrong.

"He's leaving. He's doing what he does best," Jamison grunts.

"Joshua please let me speak," our mother says, "I have a message. A message about forgiveness and reconciling."

"Bitch fuck you!" Joshua hisses.

It's almost reactionary when I haul my wrist and slap the dog shit out of Joshua. Blood spits from his mouth the moment I hit him and he just holds his face surprised that it is happening and staring at me with this wide-eyed look.

I feel bad at this moment when the blood hits the ground. I feel bad when he draws up his face and not only looks at me but looks at the rest of the family as well.

"There it is," Joshua explains, "The attack from the Wallace family always comes no matter what I do. I've given too much for this family. You've taken too much from me. The only thing. I have left is my Eva. We leave tomorrow night. Me and my daughter are leaving and you'll never see us again."

I'm stuck at that moment and my hand is trembling. I wanna apologize for striking him but it was second nature. Hitting was always my way to make people listen when they wouldn't listen but this was a mistake. I shouldn't have hit him.

After he leaves the silence falls over the room. We all know that Joshua isn't like Jamila to make some false promises in a moment of passion.

"I should go after him," I state.

"Let mama talk," Jamison corrects me.

My mother shakes her head, "No Joyous is right. This is something that Joshua has to be here for. I want to make sure that this message is for everyone. So I will not explain how you need to reconcile with your father without your return."

I look at how my mother says it. I knew my mother and she'd never wanted this much attention. She was always beautiful but my father would have her wear so many clothes growing up. He wanted to make sure people didn't give her too much attention. Now for some reason, she had this glow to her and the fact that she was speaking at a family meeting was unique in itself. My mother never spoke at a family meeting because she felt like traditionally it was best for a woman to remain in the shadow of her husband completely.

Something was significant with how she was speaking and I knew whatever message was definitely meant something. It meant something big.

~

Faith was a hell of a thing and at this point, I didn't know how to get past this flood. I didn't have a club anymore. I had a sister who was still on drugs, I had another brother who had become a religious fanatic and another brother who is ready to abandon all of us once and for all. The flood had come and I had no idea how to fix it.

"Hello," I say arriving at Meek's house.

I find myself the only place that faith could take me. I was knocking on the door of a small studio apartment on the Eastside of Compton. It was a run-down neighborhood but it was getting fixed up slowly.

"How'd you find where I stay?" is what he asks.

"If I'm disturbing----"

"No, come in. Come in."

His apartment is full of boxes when I walk in. I can tell that he hasn't had the chance to empty those boxes.

"Marcella told me she hooked you up with an apartment and well, the thing is she kind of wanted me to come to see you anyway. She really wants to give me the opportunity to `explore myself' or so she says."

"She's a great girl."

It's strange to know that the man who was beginning to steal my attention away from Marcella was now complimenting Marcella's character. The truth was that he was right. When I called Marcella and told her that I needed to see Meek and needed help getting in contact with him, she didn't blink an eye. She provided his contact information and she made sure that I knew exactly how to find him. Any other girl would have felt betrayed with me leaving. Any other girl would have gone out of her way to make sure that whatever was going to build between Meek and I failed immediately.

"It's a great start," I state.

"I'm not staying," he responds, "This is just an in-between apartment. She hooked me up with a nicer one, but the thing is...it's not in Compton..."

"You moving to the Valleys or something?"

"Nah...New York."

I pause at that moment, "You too?" I ask.

"Yeah, I'm leaving," he explains, "In a few weeks. To be honest I was going to call and tell you that. I had so much to tell you but wanted to do it in person. And funny how you just show up at my door right when I needed to speak to you most."

"God works in mysterious ways."

"He does, doesn't he?" Meek says.

We stand there and look at each other for a moment. Knowing that Meek was going to leave made me feel as though I needed to really take in this moment and understand him. It made me feel like I really wanted to be able to remember these moments for some reason.

"So you wanted to reach out, but what was it for?"

"I have something for you," he says.

He reaches down and hands me a phone. I look down at the phone looking a little confused at what is happening but when I hit play it all makes sense. On the other end of the line, I can hear two voices. One is Meek. The other voice belongs to none other than Pastor Simpson.

Pastor Simpson's voice is clear on the recording, "Of course I burnt down the Marchioness. Those kids were going down the wrong path with that club and that lifestyle. I had to do what I could. I had to save them..."

My mouth drops when I heard it.

"You got a confession."

I don't know why I do it but I reach over and hug him. It's not a little hug. It's a huge hug. Our bodies are pressed up against each other. There is a warmth at this moment. It's something that I don't expect. Long are a strong word and shit. I'm a tough dude and there's no way that I am just going to throw that word around lightly, but I had to admit that I had a love for him.

After we are done hugging, he doesn't step back and retreat surprisingly. Instead, he just puts his hand on my arm. He moves it slightly up and down. It calms me in a way making me feel like maybe being this close to a man isn't so bad and so unnatural. The rhythmic stroking makes me feel as though I might actually enjoy being this close to another man.

"He just started talking. I didn't even have to pull the confession out of him. He's obsessed with you and your family."

"He was lovers with my father," I blurt out.

"It's not a surprise, but it is scary," he explains to me, "Living your whole life denying who you are and denying what you want...that's enough to kill a man..."

He looks down at his hand. I look down as well. He's somehow made the hairs on my arm stand up on end. That isn't the only thing standing up. Slowly we look between us and the space between us has been filled.

I look down realizing my dick is fully on hard.

"Damn, I didn't even notice," I point out.

I swallow my spit feeling embarrassed that I allowed myself to feel this moment of weakness. I turn trying to walk away but he blocks my way, skidding between me and the door right before I open it.

"Wait, don't leave..."

"You don't want me to...?"

"Nah."

There is silence. A tiny understanding at that moment that I didn't want to leave. We exchange looks and the heat of the moment causes me to stop in my tracks. Slowly I turn to him and it happens.

I kiss him. My tongue goes straight into his mouth and at first, I think I'll be disgusted and regret doing it, but I don't. When I kiss him he seems to expect it. His mouth is warm and welcoming letting me take the lead. I shove my tongue deep into his mouth and massage it. My hand follows the smalls of his back finally getting to his ass. This ass of his was something else. It was plump and stern. I feel the roundness in my hands.

"Damn your ass is phat," I admit.

I don't remember ever saying this or even thinking about another man besides him. Knowing how gay I sounded made me feel a moment of retreat even though I don't move. He seems to see the look of retreat in my eyes because he grasps my hand and guides it closer towards his crack.

"Keep your hands on me. I want you to."

His crack has a few bits of moisture on it. I don't know how his pants come down but they manage to come down while we exchange a few more kisses. We're moving now towards the bed and I know this is happening quickly. Before I know it he's on the bed completely naked. His abs have crunched and I swear that there at 8 of them looking back at me. He looks up from me at the bed.

He continues, "You are so damn fine..."

"That's exactly what I was just thinking about you," I admit.

Girls have told me a million times how attractive I was. They told me how I looked just like my mother and that was something that definitely always stuck out in my mind because my mother was beyond beauty. I'm completely dressed looking down on him but a part of me doesn't want to get completely naked. I just want to experience him. I wanted to stare at him. I wanted to realize that at this moment I was about to do a very gay act and I didn't regret wanting to do this act.

"Turn around," I order him.

He bites his lips, "Yessir."

Hearing him call me bae is actually a turn on. Having him obey my orders is making precum pull from the tip of my dick. He turned me on so much. When he turns around he gives me a better look of his round perfect ass. I look down at the ass and my mouth waters. I bend down slowly and begin to taste him. Either his ass or my mouth is incredibly wet because I realize there are almost waterworks spilling from the sides of my mouth. I lean in eating his ass in the same way that I would eat a pussy.

My long tongue curves around his insides teasing him as I reach up on his back and worship the muscles on his body. I keep exploring his body with my hands until I get to his dick. All of a sudden I pull back and he turns to me with a look of surprise.

"Not ready for all that," I admit, after touching his dick.

He smiles, "It's OK. I want to do whatever you're comfortable with. This is all about you."

"You sure you want that...?"

"I'm sure."

I lower my pants. He looks down at me as though shocked when I let my dick out of my pants. I hold it in my hands slapping it a few times.

He looks at me with a solid look, "Damn...you've grown since we were kids."

He's on his knees before I know it with his mouth open. I serve my dick in between his teeth giving it a hard jerk so that my precum drips onto his tongue. He eats it up as though it tastes good, letting his lips relax. And then he begins to suck and I swear I almost lose my mind.

"Oh, shit bra...niggas give head like that?"

He has a mouthful so he doesn't answer his question but he moans loudly in acknowledgment. It's as though he knows exactly what to touch and exactly what to do. I guess it would make sense that he was such a good dick sucker. He'd probably had his dick sucked by more people than I could ever imagine, boy and girl. So he probably knew what to touch and how to touch it. I was shocked halfway through how mind-blowing his head was.

And when he was done he turns over, puts one leg up on a bed and lets the other remain comfortable on his side.

I reach into my pocket and pull out a condom. I slide the condom on and my dick is so wet that it's tough to even put on my dick. He waits patiently turning back at me and somehow that is able to make me beyond comfortable. As soon as I begin to fuck him we immediately get into a rhythm. He is so tight and it's easy to see that he hasn't been fucked in a very long time if not ever. I know he probably won't admit something like that to me if he wanted but I see him clenching his teeth bearing the pain for a bit.

After a few moments, we've both gotten the rhythm of it. He looks back at me and we're both pressed up against one another. My body shivers the moment I'm about to cum but I'm surprised when he shoots first. He cums all over his bed, spraying his man juice out as though it was a hose. He unleashes the hose and the thick white goose empties all over his bed, unlike anything I've ever seen. It turns me on so much that I find myself grabbing his dick, finally and letting the wet juice ooze between my fingertips. It sends me over the edge completely so that I cum inside of him...trying to push every ounce into the condom.

When we are done we collapse on one another and fall asleep.

~

The next morning I wake up to him. He's pressed upon the bedsheets. He looks amazing. We're both naked at this point and our bodies are intertwined. I don't know what's happening but for some reason, I'm thinking about Marcella and I'm not completely sure why. She keeps popping up in my mind. I wouldn't have been here without Marcella. I wouldn't have been exploring my options in life the way that I am. I look down at the sheets.

"You're thinking about her...aren't you?" he asks me.

"How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

I shrug, "You know, read my mind like that?"

He laughs at the idea. He was completely right. It wasn't that I regret what happened last night but at the same time a part of me wished Marcella was here to finish things off in the same way that she started. It felt almost like betraying her to do this without her even though I knew she probably would have been supportive.

"I guess it's a man thing," he shrugs, "Where are the two of you now...in your situation-ship?"

"Lost and confused. The same way I am with you."

We both laugh because that describes our situation-ship a lot more than any other description. We were lost and confused. And it seems as though we aren't getting any better.

"Listen about last night. That was..." I start.

"Dope..." he finishes.

I nod, "A lot of people say I look like my mother but I take up after my father. He was a unique man who never really showed any sort of love to his kids. I like to think I'm not that type of person. Sometimes I couldn't even relate to the way he thought..."

He takes the words right out of my mouth as we collapse on one another. I look down at that moment and realize I've gotten a ton of missed calls.

I'm confused but then I hear it. It's Jamila.

Why was she calling back to back like that? What the hell was happening?

I reach out to the phone at that moment and call back, "Jamila? Jamila, what's wrong?"

When I pick up the phone, I can hear the panic in Jamila's voice. Usually, Jamila was high when she panicked like this. I can hear however that she wasn't high. She was actually making sense and maybe that was scarier.

"Joy, Joy where are you?" she asks.

"Calm down Jamila. What's wrong?"

My sister wasn't good at describing things. She wasn't good at doing much of anything.

"It's Jamison..."

I'm confused.

"What about Jamison?"

My sister pauses, "He has a gun, Joyous. He's talking about he's going to kill himself. He's talking about he's going to end it right in Big Mama's house right now. You need to get over here as quickly as possible."

—————-

I arrive at the house. Meek is by my side even though I swore that I wouldn't let him be. As I stand there I know that something has happened. Something is wrong with Jamison and I can tell this is the case because Sheila and Lionel are outside. Uncle Regis hasn't even arrived yet. My family had been through a lot and for the most part, it took a hell of a lot to surprise us but I'm not sure this is the case in this situation. Seeing the look on Jamila's face from the door I'm concerned that something has gone completely wrong.

Was my brother in there? Had something happened?

"I can't stop him," Jamila states.

Something has gone wrong. What was it that Jamison had done with the gun?

I run over to Jamila and in all honesty, I am afraid to go into the house at this point. I'm afraid something is going to happen. The house seemed curse for a moment. It seemed like this was where the flood actually was.

I walk into the house. It's an eerie feeling. Jamila is standing outside. As I get into the hallway I also notice the Uncle Regis and his kids are crowded in the hallway keeping a far distance from where the action is taking place. They look frightened and unsure. By the nods I'm getting as I'm walking in the house it's clear they were waiting for me to arrive to help the situation.

One person who I'm not surprised has shown up is Marcella. She's standing off outside of Jamison's old room which is a small tiny room at the bottom of the stairs. Growing up I knew that it used to be a closet but Jamison was so stuck on having his own room that my parents converted it for him. It wasn't a hard decision back then as my father believed that two boys shouldn't be sleeping in the same room anyway, regardless of if they were brothers or not. That's how my father used to think. He probably thought Jamison would mess around with Joshua or something sick in that nature. I wouldn't have put it past him.

"It's bad," Marcella states.

When Marcella says something is bad, it's bad. She never allowed anything to shock her. I stare at her amazed that she would be here now supporting Jamison of all people in a way that my own family wasn't. Jamila was all the way outside of the house for godsakes.

"Is he in there alone?"

"Joshua's with him and...your mother.."

I swallow my spit. Joshua and Jamison were never a good mix. I'm shocked that Joshua wasn't getting ready to leave Compton once and for all and never look back. The idea that Joshua was the one talking Jamison off the edge right now blew my mind. Then there was the thought of my mother, who was clearly unstable at times, being in there with him and what that would mean.

I give Marcella a firm nod and she steps aside giving me access to Jamison's windowless room. When I walk in the room the first thing I noticed was all the posters that Jamison had up on his wall. They were all posters of girls. The girls were pretty much nude and I knew they'd been up for almost 20 years at the minimum. My dad didn't care about things like that growing up. As long as they weren't pictures of little boys he was cool with it. I remember Jamison admitting to my dad once that he had a porn addiction. My dad took a look at his porn collection and just added a couple more. As long as it wasn't gay porn, my father didn't really care about things like that. It as probably a proud moment.

I get in the room and it's bad. Jamison has fastened a gun around his lips. He's pressed his entire body up against the wall of nude women. He has this bulging look in his eyes.

"Jamison---bro, talk to me."

As I approach he fastens his hands on the grip so quickly that I think he's going to pull it. That stops me in my tracks. I look over at Joshua and I'm quite surprised that Joshua has tears in his eyes. Joshua wasn't a crier. He'd grown out of it, I guess. Apart from me felt like he'd shed enough tears growing up with our abusive father that he didn't have any left to give. I was wrong about that assumption because tears were streaming down his face.

I feel broken.

"He's not going to say anything," my mother offers, holding herself in those minutes as though a chill had come over her, which is strange because it's so stuffy in this room.

"What triggered this?" I ask.

There is silence. Jamison's eyes dart from me to my mother. He isn't crying but his eyes are bloodshot red which makes me think he's spent a lot of time crying. More time than imaginable.

"I told him that we needed to reconcile with your father," my mother explains.

I'm confused and lost.

"He's dead Ma," I offer her, "We buried him already."

"No, he isn't," Joshua offers, before turning to my mother, "Tell Joyous what you told us, mother..."

My mother swallows her spit, "I knew your father had urges. There were times...I allowed him to fulfill those urges. There were times we allowed someone else in our bed..."

I'm confused, "What?"

"Threesomes...they were having threesomes," Joshua blurts out as directly as I'd ever seen him blurt something out.

My mother continues to explain, "The man you know as your father couldn't have children. He wanted to have sex with a man and I wanted children. So we worked out a...situation. I got pregnant...several times over...to the man you all know as..."

She doesn't have to finish it. I figured this much. I figured this much because of how obsessed he was with my family.

I finish the words for her, "Father Simpson is our actual real father..."

To read the next chapter in advance go to www.crushedcrown.com