Once a Dog Always a Dog!

Chapter 9

By the next day, Tuesday, I had managed to return the numerous amount of phone calls that I had received from people who had seen the news and were checking up on me just to see if I was all right. My agent had called me, my editor had called, DJ, Kierra called, Layla called, my sister called, my moms had called, all of the authors that I was cool with had called me. It was crazy. One by one I had managed to call everybody back and I made sure to make note of everybody who had chosen not to reach out to me. I did this because I wanted to take note of who was really riding with me and who I would have to remove from my life once this whole ordeal was behind me. Most notably, out of all people, I was surprised that Toni hadn't called. I mean, I knew that she had long since moved on and was in a different space from the space that we had occupied when I was cheating with her. But I still had a five-year-old daughter by her and just on the strength of our daughter—whose name was Sahara—she could have called me. It was all good, though. Toni was living the good life with her super successful husband and she was always coming across as if she didn't have the time of day for anybody. But I was sure that eventually the bad karma that she was throwing off would catch up to her and smack her ass with a dose of humble reality. 

Around eight-thirty in the evening, my cell phone rang, and it was Cheyenne calling me from her cell phone. I had to think twice about picking up, because I didn't want to later have to deal with any okey dokey bullshit. "Cheyenne, you're calling me, so I don't wanna hear no shit about me violating this stupid order of protection you got," I said as I answered the phone. "Kha'Darious, I know that. But listen, Derrick got suspended from school today because apparently somebody called you a jailbird, and he didn't like that, so Derrick jumped on the kid and beat him down." I shook my head and blew a whole lot of air into the phone. It took everything inside of me to restrain myself from flipping out on Cheyenne because this whole episode with Derrick could have easily been avoided had she not be so unreasonable. "Well, what do you want me to say? If I come by the house and speak to him, I'm going back to jail. If I call my own house that's harassment. Cheyenne, why don't you tell me exactly how to handle this situation since you wanna wear the pants." "Kha'Darious, listen, I know I might have went overboard—" "You might have?" I sarcastically said as I cut Cheyenne off. "Yeah, just hear me out. I been really praying and fasting about us and our marriage, and just about everything in general and now with this incident with Derrick, I know that God is trying to show me something."

 I kept quiet because I knew that once Cheyenne got on her God told me this, God told me that soapbox, there was no use in trying to get in a word edgewise because it would simply go on deaf ears, so I kept my mouth shut until she was finished. "And so your point is?" I asked sarcastically when she was done. Cheyenne sucked her teeth and said, "Kha'Darious, my point is that I realize where I was wrong, but you know, you could show a little humility yourself and admit where you were wrong too." "Cheyenne, show me my error? You falsely accuse me of cheating—with no evidence, I might add— you throw me out of my own house, and get me locked up for it, and you want me to show you where I was wrong?" There was silence on the phone, and then Cheyenne asked me if I would come by the house later that evening so that we could both talk with Derrick. "Let me call my lawyer first and see if it's all right for me to do that. No, matter of fact, why don't you type up a letter authorizing me to come to my own house and sign it, then scan it and e-mail it to my phone. When I get that, then I'll come through." "Kha'Darious, come on now." "What do you mean, Kha'Darious, come on now? 

Hello! I was just locked up for five days and I'm not trying to go back to jail, so if you want me to come through then sign off on that and e-mail it to me! You created this nonsense, not me!" "Okay, Kha'Darious, fine, I'll e-mail you a signed letter okaying you to come by the house." I remained quiet because I was still heated, and all of the feelings that I had been feeling when I was sitting in jail were all starting to creep back up and make me even madder. I mean, it was absolutely ridiculous that I had even been locked up and put through the system. And although I didn't have a short fuse, having had my freedom taken away from me was something that didn't sit well with me and it never would, especially when it was over some bullshit. "Well, listen, why you waited until eight-thirty at night to call me and tell me this, that I don't know ..." "Kha'Darious, you know I go to church on Tuesday nights; I just got out and I'm on my way back to the house." "Well, like I was getting ready to say, T.L. is having an album release party tonight at Guesthouse in the city and I'm getting ready to head to that, so being that it's already late, why don't I just come by in the morning before you leave for work and we can talk with him then." I would always drop anything at any moment for my son, but I had a feeling that I would have to deal with some added bullshit from Nicole and so once again I had to make a shit-or-get-off-of-the-pot decision, and at that moment, I decided to shit on my situation once again.