The Perplexed Procurer

14

'Sweetness' Adoni Smith

I feel...no.

I know I had reverted back to a place I'd fought hard to never return to.

Something similar to grief had taken over me. The drugs replaced Toni's touch, her hazel eyes had become unhygienic nights in New Orleans, her love now something I chased with every sniff I'd taken of the ivory.

My phone sat on my shoulder, the ringing constant and never ending.

I was met with the voicemail once again, for the thousandth time. Anything to hear her voice, anything to feed the delusions in my mind that it was still 1994 and Toni was the most understanding thing on this earth.

Even if it were for her own personal reasons or gain, it was still reciprocal.

Maybe not reciprocal but polarizing in some ways that helped me more than I had ever been helped before. It wasn't fair who I was, what disposition I had been given in this world.

A freak.

I laughed as the cigarette trembled between my lips. After all of the conquering of the coastline, the women and men that fell at my feet, hell, even the liberation to walk around being the anomaly I was;

It didn't measure up to her love.

And her love couldn't fix my innermost fears or turmoil. It took me years, terrible experiences and this heavy, dark cloud above my head to realize I was my own worst enemy this entire time.

And the fact that the two women and children that loved me unconditionally couldn't even get me at my best made me realize it was Sweetness's time to die.

There couldn't exist a devil no longer, I had spent over a quarter of my century abandoning myself and now my wife and children because of childhood trauma that had been the only force I couldn't conquer.

The phone rang again as I pressed the digits I knew in my sleep once again.

This time I was successful though.

I felt my baby before I heard my baby, Page.

"Smith's residence, may I ask who is calling?"

The cigarette had gone soggy from the tears falling like rain. I opened my mouth, my voice scratchy, irritating even to my own ears. "Baby girl," I managed to get out.

"Doni," Page exclaimed. I could hear the smile in her voice, a sight I had been banned from seeing for 61 days now. "Doni when are you coming home, my tooth fell out! June is being bad. Minnie is being not nice to me because we keep asking about you. We miss our Doni."

"Baby girl, I miss you more, I love you so much...I love y'all so much." I cried into my elbow, pulling the receiver away from my face. I sniffed quickly and opened my mouth to speak before I heard Minnie in the background.

"What did Mommy tell you about answering the landline, P? You're going to be punished if you don't listen, who is that!?" Minnie authorized with that fire and drive I know I'd given her if blood could've made us closer. But, that was all Toni.

And that's why she was chosen to be my wife. I always knew of her greatness, even beyond my succumbing to my flesh and ego.