The Life We Live

Renae

I lay on my bed as I think back to when I was younger, before I knew the real meaning of life and the darkness it held. Back when I was happy and innocent, before I knew the life that had become of me and the life I dreamed of. It wasn't so bad, my father , Rean, being the kingpin he was had its ups to it. I mean I had all the fancy stuff people dreamed of. Nice house , well nice for being in the hood,  the backyard with a built in pool in it. Balcony to see the city of New York which wasn't too far from my home town of Newark New Jersey.

My father was Spanish and mixed with black and my mother was Jamaican and Asian and black. I had quite a few ethnicities making me the mutt I am. I was glad for the different races for numerous reasons, not only the languages I learned (Asian not being one of them) but for the difference in the everyday lifestyle. My father and mother were so different, my mother with her bronze skin and home manners. I was a few shades darker than her somehow. When I was a baby people would mistake me for being asian or Spanish until my melanin kicked in.

My father was light , people called him Bright Rean, not only for his skin complexion but the knowledge he gave the streets as well. He was a cold stone killer , but an intelligent and brilliant one at that. He was raised different than my mother, being in the hood sense he was born. I couldn't blame him for his actions of taking over the streets. People were slayed dead and he had his community on the worse drugs possible.

"I didn't force them to get on the shit," he would say in his defense.

He had the streets on lock and the respect nagas could only dream of. It made my life pleasant as well as dangerous cause a few nagas would try to test him. Once they were all gone and diminished into the after life , people got the picture that he was unstoppable, either get on board or get ran over. That was his motto.

I looked up to my door from someone knocking on it, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Come in," I replied to the knocks as I layed on my king sized bed covered in a 'Pink" comforter. My older brother walked in ,Ryan, is what we called him. He was named after my father but because as a child I couldn't pronounce "Rean" and called him Ryan or "Ryry"everybody just stuck with that name.

"What you in here doing?" He questions as he makes his way over to the foot of my bed plopping down on it. I raised my eyebrow looking at him with annoyance. He knows I do not like people sitting on my bed with their outside clothes on. He ignores my face expression and looks at me with a questioning one.

"Laying down, obviously." I reply with the annoyance in my voice.

"ObvIOusly," he mocks chuckling the words. "I was just checking up on you, you've been a weirdo just staying in your room." He says smacking my thigh over the cover.

"I just been thinking." I tell him looking into his hazel eyes. He was a spitting image of our father, literally, it scared me when I looked back at my fathers old pictures and how Ryan looks like him in every last one of them.

"Bout what?" He asks making it obvious that he doesn't plan on leaving me alone anytime soon.

"Everything." I reply with the devastation in my voice. My brothers best friend Davon was laying on his deathbed in this very moment. My brother had followed my father's footsteps into the streets. My father was against it at first but after seeing how it was imprinted into Ryan's blood, he allowed it and told him he had to come home to my father's set. My family was neutral , they fucked with the crips and grapes , but slime was where they belonged. He had allowed my brother to be blessed in, but my brother being exactly like my father denied it and instead got jumped in along with completing a few tasks.

He was trying to make a name for himself and not just being known as "Rean Bright the Kingpin's" son. In doing so he had definitely made a name for himself bringing other beefs into the drama that already existed under my father. Also resulting in his right hand man, his brother, getting shot Up.

"He's gone pull thru." Ryan sighs somehow reading my thoughts. The expression on his face tells me that he wouldn't be surprised if he was wrong. He was just as clueless as I was to how Davon's life status would play out, I knew he was just trying to comfort me.

I sat up on my bed moving down to where my brother was and wrapped my arms around his waist tightly as I layed my head on his chest feeling the tears spill down my cheeks. I held him for dear life , he was my rock in this moment. It was selfish of me to be so sensitive in this moment knowing he is more hurt than me, we have known Davon since my brother was in 3rd grade. All his nagas around him had known him since grade school, he didn't trust anyone else, sometimes questioning the ones in his circle, another trait he had gained from our father.

"It's okay Nae," he soothes me the tone in his voice calm, but I could hear the pain. He rubs his hand over my hair, his chin on the top of my head. "We gone get the nagas that did this." He assured me as if that made the situation any  better.

"I don't want you to go to jail." I sob squeezing my brother even tighter feeling the front of his shirt soaked from my tears.

"You know me better than that Nae." He says viciously causing me to look up at him and the image I see of his face in my head matches his tone as well as the savage smirk on his face.