Night Before Dawn

2. Brick By Brick

As my keys jingled in the dull doorknob, I softly push the door open, knowing Grandma Jamie would be asleep on the recliner I'm not trying to make much noise. To my dismay the house was masked with the stench of cigarettes and rotten to-go platters. 

"Damn this house dirty as shi-"

 Before I could finish my sentence, I glance down at my Nana who somehow found peace within this trash. Something has to get cleaned. I glance over to the kitchen's sink that was filled with dishes. Groggily walking over to the mess, I reach for the dish detergent. While my hands are still frozen from the harsh winds of the winter, I watched it fall underneath a pile of dirty pots. 

"Come on, what the fuck."

 I mumbled to myself before attempting to reach in the dirty dish water, but to my horror I seen not just one but three dead roaches floating in the sink.

"What the fuck." Restraining my frustrations I rush to my bedroom from at this point seemed like the last tolerable room in this house. I toss my black puffer to the wooden patched floor and flop in my bed with not only disgust but frustration.

"Grandma Jamie isn't going to make it another week in a house like this I gotta deep clean this shit sometime tomorrow."

~

I roll over to see my coat on the floor and my Sonic posters that Mir drew for me pinned to the wall. By how silent the house was Grandma Jamie was probably still resting. I glanced at my cracked xr to check the time, and it was 9:03 am. For it to be my day off I was running at a decent pace. 

"So far no missed calls from Nia.." I sunk deeper within the thin sheets and begin scrolling on Instagram. Sometimes when no one was around I would scroll just to see the vision of the life I wanted for my Babygirl and Nia. Although me and her never see eye to eye, she will forever be the mother of my child and my first love.

Interrupted from my daydream I got a call from Rodney AKA Shizz. We've been friends since the sandbox he's the only friend who knows who I once was and also the man I'm trying to become.

 "Yo Shizz, wassup?"

"Get your ass up dawg, let's go shovel in Darby they gonna pay us something real nice." He was grinning ear to ear.

I chuckled quietly. 

"As fun as that sounds Shizz, I gotta go back down south philly and then I gotta clean Nana's crib this place disgusting I'm not even gonna hold you."

He narrowed his eyes.

"I've been telling you to move Nia and Brooke in so this ain't a problem, no matter what y'all got going on that's ya wife at the end of the day. Fix that shit so my Nana can have a good place to lay her head at."

"Nia not trying to get back with me, she really convinced that I'm fucking with other bitches bro this shits a burnout, and it's not helping that Brooklyn is growing up I don't know what the fuck to do Shizz." I argued back.

Shizz frowned before looking away. 

"Just do what you can brodie, I'll call you in a bit. If I make a dub, I'll cash app you."

The phone suddenly hung up. And as annoyed as I was, I am doing what I can but it's not enough what more do I need to do? The fuck.

Tapping to my Bank of America app trying to see if I even had the bus fare for the 7-bus route, my shit over drafted by -$4.00.  I'm not gonna say this is my breaking point because nothing will ever compare to the loss of my brother Jamir. But this shit got me questioning my manhood.

I started running my brass hands across my lopsided fro. Before I knew it, I heard the cash app notification. The sound of change jingling in my pocket got me extremely curious. 

CASHAPP: $1,000 has been deposited into your cash log from USER 01 

Extremely alarmed I rushed straight to the app to read my logs this was definitely a confirmed transaction.

The message that followed it

FOR: JUST FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS & IT'S YOURZ.