Two weeks later and it was official, I was accepted into the New Beginning program and I would be heading over there tomorrow. That was the best news I had heard all day. According to Mr. Gibson, they had a very long waiting list so I might not have to stay in there as long as I thought. It really didn’t matter to me either way. Doing six months in a rehab facility was better than doing two and a half years in prison. “Pass the ball nigga!” Quan yelled to me from across the yard. We were outside playing basketball and I was standing there daydreaming in the middle of the game. “My bad, I’m thinking about tomorrow,” I said passing him the ball. “That’s what’s up. I’m happy you getting the hell up out of here,” Quan said. I was more than happy. The sooner I started the program, the sooner I would be able to get home. I talked to my brother earlier and he and my sister had my clothes packed already. He told me they purchased all of my hygiene items and everything would be waiting for me when I got there. The facility was only about a twenty minute drive from my condo so that was perfect. “There they go,” Lil Mike said, walking over to us. He was referring to a group of men who were walking in our direction. There was an area on the yard that I was told to never go into when I first arrived. I never asked why and I never went over there either. The area was hidden by an old iron door that blocked off the people who occipied the area. I saw Bentley go back there a few times so I knew it couldn’t have been good. “What the hell do they be doing back there?” I asked Quan and Lil Mike. “Everything,” Quan replied like it was nothing. “Man, anything goes in the cut,” Mike said. “If you want to get high, get some head, or anything else, that’s the place to be.” I looked at him like he was crazy. I wasn’t green to doing time, but this was like being in another world. I never saw a prison that lets the prisoners run the show like this. “So them niggas getting they dick sucked by another man while the rest of them standing there watching like that?” I asked, laughing. “Yep, and ole boy be on that foul shit right along with them,” Mike replied. As if on cue, Bentley came walking on the yard and headed straight for the danger zone with two other dudes following right behind him. He was released from the hospital last week, but that didn’t stop him from falling back into his old habits. “Man, I know his stupid ass ain’t in here playing with no lil boys,” I said in shock. During the entire time I ran with Bentley I would have never suspected him of being a dick sucking ass nigga. He had just as many side chicks as me most of the time. At one point, I assumed he was on dope, but this was a whole new game he was playing. “What? He’s the ring leader. Why you think he got moved from the other dorm? He was fighting every other day and fucking every other night,” Mike said as he and Quan fell out laughing. I thought back to the comment that Duke made a few weeks ago about, ‘his girls’, being mad when he got beat up and it all made sense to me now. “That nigga gay?” I asked the question more to myself. “I guess he go both ways since he like girls too,” Quan said. “That’s fucked up, Tori don’t even know who she’s sleeping with.” It was fucked up for me too, since we ran in the same circle for years and I didn’t even know. Honestly, I didn’t feel bad for Tori at all. She was so busy minding everybody else’s business, she was blind to what was going on under her own roof. I no longer had a desire to play ball so I sat down and watched as everybody else ran up and down the yard doing their thing. It was like nobody was who I thought they were. Bentley was an undercover homo, and Beyonce rat ass straight up abandoned me when I was at my lowest point. Tori was so sneaky, I didn’t know what she was capable of anymore. The list of people that I trusted was getting smaller and smaller by the minute. I didn’t even know where to start with Courtney. I hadn’t heard from her since she came to visit me a while ago. This whole pregnancy thing had me feeling some kind of way. I didn’t want her no more, so having more kids with her was the last thing I wanted to do. My sister Tyra was trying to tell me something about her being in the hospital, but I cut her off before she could finish talking. I made it crystal clear to her that if it wasn’t about my kids, I didn’t want to hear anything about Courtney. If I was proven to be the new baby’s father, I would handle my business with this one just like I did with the others. “Look at this clown,” Quan said, breaking me from my thoughts. I looked up and saw Bentley coming from behind the iron door, followed by the same two dudes that he was back there with. His belt was undone and he was fixing his pants while he walked. That was enough confirmation for me to know that something wasn’t right with him. He looked up at me and I smirked at him while shaking my head in disgust. He quickly looked away and kept walking towards the other side of the yard. The look of guilt and shame on his face was not to be mistaken. “I told y’all he was foul,” Lil Mike said while dribbling the ball between his legs. “You learn something new every day,” I said, standing to my feet. That was one saying that was very true.
