Truth Is

Family Comes First

In Mosby Court everybody knows everybody. Love is shared among the closest neighbors. My closest neighbor was Mrs. Parrish. She had been living here since she was 17 in 1970, when her mother and father moved in when the Court had just been built. She was kinda crazy but I mean who am I to judge her beliefs. I just live next to the woman.
"Jarrett can you please come do me a favor?", I heard come from the window above me.
"What ya need Miss Parrish?"
"It's Misses Parrish and please come take this trash out. Lionel must've forgotten about it when he left."
Lionel was Mrs. Parrish's son. I have never met him, nor have I seen him. I have noticed a military formal photo of what looks like a young man in a blue uniform, but his name tag read Barrett.
"Yes ma'am, I gotchu." I felt bad for her all alone in her upstairs apartment. She was delusional as well. She often talked about her husband, Ricky, saying hello to me. Her husband died in a car accident the same year I was born, everyone knew that. That was 17 years ago.
"Mrs. Parrish, the door is locked," I yelled through to the door at the top of the narrow stairwell.
"Hold on Junior, I'm coming."
There was always a new name I was being called in this neighborhood. I just decided to ignore most of them.
"Mrs. Parrish, it's Jarrett, not Junior," I told her when she finally opened the door.
"I know your name boy."
I smelled the trash can shortly after I entered. I assumed it was her breathe because she had just said something when I walked through the door. Eventually I discovered a mess of a kitchen.

Spaghetti sauce or some type of tomato product covered the wall, roaches rush across the counter, flies have rule over the air, and my shoes were pealed from the sticky floor with every step. As much as I wanted to grab the trash and go, I asked Mrs. Parrish why she called me Junior. She looked at me and laughed. I grinned so that I didn't make her feel like her inside joke wasn't funny. I starred around the tiny living room awkwardly waiting for her to give me an explanation and I saw the picture of the young soldier again. She then spreaded her barracuda lips and said "Aren't ya goin to the eleventh grade boy?" I then laughed and rushed out the door. Before I stepped down three stairs I heard the door slam and lock behind me.

I tossed the huge black bag in the dumpster, and at the same time I felt a liquid splash onto my arm. Then before I made a full turn around I smelled this horrible stinch and I knew it was whatever was on my arm. But once I looked up from my disgusting arm, I saw the one thing that made my summer in Mosby Court feel like a vacation to heaven and beyond. Kenyé Pearson is this bad girl that I had had my eye on since I moved to the Court. She was this lil 5'7 light skin thang with curves, attitude, and a brain.

Earlier, when I said that the hood was full of girls who had pretty much been ran through, I was referring to every girl with the exception of this beautiful afro queen. She was as pure as a cloud crafted by god's very own hands. She was also walkin my way,wearing this sexy lil pair of shorts with vertical stripes on them and a green tank top with a smile like always, and watching me stare at her from a distance. I just stood there. I wasn't ready to talk to her yet. Just when I was about to have a major anxiety attack, I heard "yé yé" come from my left and she turned and ran to her ratchet friend, Chandelier Johnson. I continued to stare and watch them do their own little greeting. Kenyé's beautiful, natural curls bounced around on her head as she and her friend jumped around.
"Damn look at that fat ass bouncin around. Cover ya boner up boi." I recognized the voice almost instantly. It was my cousin Patrick. I knew that meant I was about to have a good time. I turned around and laughed at him and gave him our usual greeting which was a handshake all my cousins knew.
"Wassup Nigga!!!!!"
"Ain't shit up lil man."
I loved time with Pat, he was my favorite cousin because he was the only one that didn't pressure me to be like him. He doesn't pick on me because I don't curse, I go to church, and I say no to weed.
"That's wassup Cuzzo. What brings you out to Mosby?"
"I had a package to drop off to my boy, Tip."
Tip was the Mosby Court drug distributor. Patrick was a mover for the drugs. There was some man out in Church Hill that ran a major drug network across Richmond. Patrick was a transporter for that man and he drove around takin packages to the local distributors.
"Oh so you on yo way back across town?"
"Yeah, wanna take a ride?"
"Don't you got one or two more deliveries? It's only 3 o'clock."
"Nigga I know what time it is. Family comes first."
"That's something Uncle Tyler would've said."
Uncle Tyler was the one family man left in our lives. Until a car accident on Mother's Day two years ago.