Red Bull

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"I'm convinced we are cursed," I finally said, "Remember how Ma left? Remember what she said when she left?"

I am talking to Jamila and Joshua at that moment. We're standing outside. There are swarms of other people out there as well. I look at my family's legacy. I look at the club that supported not only us but our entire community. And I realize that it has been burnt to the ground. All that's left is an engulfed shell of what it used to be.

People come, they give their condolences and they leave. But for me, these people couldn't care less. All they were there for was the spectacle. All they were there for is to dwell in the downfall of the Wallace family.

"Fuck what Ma said when she left," Joshua explains to me, "Shit like this happens. Bad things happen in the world all the time."

Jamila isn't convinced, "You saying this was an accident?"

He replies quickly with a deep, loud sigh, "I don't know what this was..."

I'm standing there completely shaken by this.

"If it weren't an accident who could have done this?"

Joshua shrugs his shoulders, "I don't know.

~

Sitting out there watching the rest of the club burn down reminds me of the day Ma left. My father was abusive. He always was and my mother...well my mother was an enabler. I loved her dearly, probably more so than my brothers or even my sister, who always held a special place to my mother. My mother never knew how to raise boys and being a traditionalist she made sure that my father's word was law in the house. She was so domesticated that there were times she wouldn't go out showing any skin, including wearing gloves to cover her hands.

She was so angry when my father was killed. It was self-defense for the most part but my brother Jamison was the one who ended up doing the deed.

My mother went into a depression back then.

"This family aint' shit...this family ain't shit," she kept repeating.

I tried not to take her serious but that was hard because she'd lost it when he died. She started speaking in tongues and swearing that everyone would go to hell for every other reason. It all culminated to what we called her mental break.

It all culminated to her coming downstairs while the rest of us were having a family meeting.

"I'm going," she stated.

And that was right before she left. She meant it. But not until she left us a warning. She said that an angel came to her in a dream.

"Until you all do right by your father, everything you touch will fail," she said back then.

And then she walked out. Rumors had it she changed her name. There were worse rumors than that. I remember her saying a lot of things that night. I excused them to her just being sick but for some reason all those things that she said came surfacing back up in this moment.

Everything we touched would fail.

Here was the failure right in front of our eyes.

~

"You good?"

I arrive back at my apartment surprised to see that Meek was still there. He was just standing just in my living room. His face squinting down at me.

"You stayed here?" I ask.

He shrugs, "I wanted to make sure you were OK before I left. Marcella told me what happened. I'm so sorry..."