Marcellos
Marcellos sat in the living room of his house mostly remembering the party from the night before, though he tried not to give too much of his attention to the incident with Katrina and Yayo. There was no way he would ever fight Yayo over Katrina , but his didn’t like the fact that Yayo had touched him in the first place. After he had shaken that part off he recalled how the rest of his night had went. After getting into the party and having a few drinks he was gaving a good time and he eventually left with two women for a long lust filled night.
It was a pretty quiet day, but it usually was around his place, and he was deciding if he would stay in or get out for a while when his phone rang. The phone screen showed that it was his mother and he answered the call.
“What’s happening momma,” he said into the receiver.
“Boy you know better than to answer that phone like that, talkin’ bout some what’s happening,” his mother replied. “I know what’s gon’ be happening the next time you answer my call like that.”
“Momma it’s Sunday, and you talking junk ‘bout what you goin’ do to somebody. I’mma tell Deacon Gerald.”
“Me and Gerald are just friends, and he can’t control what I say or do.”
“Ai’ight we’ll see.”
“Boy I ain’t got time to be messin’ wit’ you, anyway, this Katrina girl is over here with a baby talkin’ ‘bout it’s yours and that she told you already.”
Hearing that took Marcellos for a loop. He thought he and Katrina were on the same page as far as getting a blood test before anything else took place, but apparently she had other ideas.
“I just saw that boy for the first time a few days ago and I ain’t know nothing ‘bout him before that,” Marcellos said. “I told you I left her in Atlanta and I just happened to run into her at the Wolfchase, and she claimed it was mine. I don’t know if I really believe her though because of everythang that happened.”
“Well don’t none of that change the fact that she said it’s yours and I’m not sure if she ain’t right,” Marcellos mother said. “He don’t look a lot like you, but I can see some of yo’ daddy in him.”
“So what you expect me to do momma, jump in and start playin’ daddy. I told her let’s wait until we got a blood test, then we could see what was gon’ happen from there, but right now I ain’t really tryng to deal with her or that situation.”
“That’s just like you negroes nowadays. If you want a blood test so bad why haven’t you went and got one already?”
“I planned on doing it soon ma, the right time just ain’t came along yet.”
“Well I don’t want to see it put off too much longer. If this is your son, and my grandson, we are going to be in his life, period. So you can go pick up one of those home DNA kits from one of these stores, Walgreens or somewhere, and we can get to the bottom of this right now.”
Marcellos didn’t like the fact that Katrina had run to his mother with whatever ideas she had to pull her into her plotting, but his mother had a point. It would be better to go ahead and get the resulst to a test sooner rather than later, and although some people had disputed the accuracy of the tests, right now anything was better than nothing.
“Okay momma. I’m going to the store and then I’m gon’ come over. Did Katrina tell you to get a test?” Marcellos asked wondering if Katrina has been so confident that he was the father that she had suggested a test to his mother.
“No, she didn’t,” his mother said. “I’m in the bathroom and she’s in the family room with Kaylin. That boy is so cute.”
“That don’t make ‘em mine momma.”
“Boy don’t you think I know that. Get that test and bring yo’ butt on here, bye.”
“Bye momma.”
Marcellos got dressed and went to several stores before he found the test he was looking for. He spent the entire ride to his mother’s house wondering what the test would say and what the future could possibly hold for him if the boy was actually his. He started to become more and more anxious as he got closer to the house
Once Marcellos arrived his mother, Katrina, and Kaylin were all in the kitchen. The women were talking while Kaylin sat on the floor playing with one of his toys. Marcelllos could see the uneasiness that was in Katrina’s face as the two eyed one another.
“Hi Marcellos,” Katrina said in an unusually low tone.
“Wassup Katrina, hey momma,” Marcellos said.
“Hey baby what took yo’ knuckle head butt so long,” his mother said trying to lighten the mood in the room.
“I had to make a few stops.”
Marcellos reached into the bag and pulled out the test. Katrina shifted uneasily in the chair, but remained silent.
“This the DNA test, let’s go ‘head and get this out of the way,” Marcellos said.
“Ya’ll know these things ain’t always right,” Katrina said, which drew sidelong looks from both Marcellos and his mother.
“They work fine enough, they’re still selling them,” Marcellos’ mother said. “If they weren’t any good no one would buy them.”
Katrina took a deep breath and then let out a heavy sigh. “Let’s go ahead and get this over with then,” she said and then stood up, walked over to the boy, and picked him up off the floor. “How do the instructions say it work?”
“You just have to do a swab on whoever’s being tested,” Marcellos said as he read from the box.
He opened the test box and sat it on the kitchen table, then pulled the contents out. He swabbed both himself and Kaylin, and then followed the rest of the instructions on the box. The instructions said that it would take about thirty minutes before there was a conclusion and the adults all sat around in apprehension while they waited with hardly a word being said. With about ten minutes left Katrina’s phone rang which broke a particularly long stretch of silence.
“Hello,” Katrina said. “Oh my god, are you okay?...How long ago?...Is he still there?...Did you call the police yet?...Why not?...I’m on my way momma…I need to be there. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in a little bit. You need to at least call to report what happened so the insurance people wil pay for the door…Okay. I’ll see you in a minute.
Katrina put her phone away and walked over to gather up Kaylin and his things.
“What’s the matter baby, is everything okay?” Marcellos mother asked with genuine concern.
“Some guy I used to talk to has broken down my mother’s door looking for me,” Katrina said. “He does crazy stuff like that when he’s on drugs. He thought I was still living there, but I moved to my own place recently. I have to go check on my mother; we can do this some other time.”
Marcellos and his mother could only look on as Katrina got her things together and headed out the door.
“You need to go with her,” Marcellos’ mother said to him.
“For what? They drama ain’t my business ma, and I ain’t trying to make it.”
“Boy somethin’ might happen to that girl and more importantly that baby, and if he’s ours and you let him get hurt how are you going to live with that? Get past you and her for a minute and worry about the well being of that boy.”
Knowing his mother was right Marcellos couldn’t really continue to argue. “I don’t know why men always let ya’ll trick us into feeling guilty,” he said, which drew a smile from his mother.
“That’s just another one of our many gifts, now go ahead. I have to get ready to go to late services anyway. We can get to this later, it ain’t going nowhere baby.”
“Ai’ght momma, I’mma go. I’ll call you later.”
Marcellos took off to catch up with Katrina, but she was already pulling away.
“Shit,” he said and then jumped in his car to follow behind her. He called er phone and she quckly answered it.
“Yeah, what is it Marcellos?” Katrina asked.
“For one, you need to slow down with that boy in the car, and two I’m following you to make sho’ ya’ll ai’ight. Dude might pop up and start tripping or somethin’.”
“Thank you, ‘cause this nigga be buggin’ when get too high. He be snortin’ cocaine and pills, and that’s when he gets like this. I just try to avoid him then, that’s part of the reason I left Atlanta.”
“He be hittin’ on you and shit?”
“He have before, but he only do it when he high, and I know he is right now.”
With that Marcellos was glad that he had his gun, just incase Yayo wanted to flip out today.
“I thought ya’ll two ain’t have nothing going on?”
“We not in a relationship, but at first I would see him from time to time, but things just kept getting worse and worse. But that don’t even matter right now, so I don’t want to talk abut it.”
“Ai’ight, but slow yo’ ass down. I’m just behind you. Do yo’ momma still stay in the same place?”
“Yeah, she still there.”
“Okay. We’ll talk when we get there and get this shit straightened out.”
Marcellos hung up the phone and followed Katrina, who would slow down for amoment, but then speed up again. Marcellos didn’t like the fact that the boy wasn’t in a car seat, and was even standing up from time to time. When they arrived at Katrina’s mother’s house the police were there, so Marcellos left his gun in the car, which by it being an Aston Martin still drew stares from the present onlookers. Katrina made her way inside with the baby closely followed by Marcellos.
“Momma,” Katrina called out.
“In the kitchen,” a woman’s voice responded loud enough to be heard.
The three went into the kitchen, where two police stood, both writing in their note pads.
“You okay momma?” Katrina asked.
“Gurl I’m fine. That fool just scared me and tore my door up,” Katrina’s mother, Kasandra, responded.
“Is this the daughter you spoke of ma’am?” one of the officers asked.
“Yes.”
“Ma’am, your mother has given us a statement of the events that have taken place, and not just today’s. We won’t tell you what to do on your own behalf, but could you tell us the name of this man who’s been over here?” the officer asked while looking at Marcellos suspiciously.
“Clarence Genkins,” Katrina said. “But he doesn’t live in Memphis.”
“Your mother has already told us that part ma’am. All we needed was a name. We’ll take it from here and put out a warrant for his arrest for aggravated burglary and vandalism, so if he’s still in the city he’ll go to jail no matter where he’s from,” the other officer said and then the two left.
Katrina’s mother attention then turned to Marcellos. “Baby it’s so good to see you. I see you on the televisoin all the time, and you seem to be doing pretty good for yourself.”
“Yeah, I can’t really complain,” Marcellos responded. “It’s been a pretty good two and a half years.”
“I hate to open up a can of old worms, but I told this girl she was gon’ regret messin’ wit’ that boy after ya’ll seperated.”
“Momma, now ain’t the time for that,” Katrina cut in not wanting the conversation to go down that road when she had at least a little compassion from Marcellos, for the moment anyway. “What happened?”
“Nothing girl, he just beat on the door for a while, and then the crazy nigga kicked it in. I had a good ol’ butcher knife waiting on his ass too, and when he saw that he changed his mind. He might be crazy, but his ass ain’t that stupid.”
“I’m sorry my mess came over here momma.”
“Girl we can’t help it if some of theses niggas go crazy after they get a little of this Sanders goodness,” Kasandra said and then laughed to herself.
“What I need to do now is get me another door put up, ‘cause I ain’t trying to go to bed wit’ no damn door in front of my house,” Kasandra said.
“What’s broke on the door momma?” Katrina asked. “Is it more of the door or the wall?”
“Luckily it was just the door and the frame didn’t tear up. I need to get to Home Depot or something real fast. I’m still waitin’ on these sorry insurance people to show up, but they ass give you all types of hell if you late with the damn payments.”
“How long have it been since you called ‘em?” Marcellos asked
“Right after I called the police, and can you believe the police showed up in a reasonable amount of time.”
“Well then they could be here at anytime now,” Katrina said. “We can go pick up a door for you while you stay here and wait for them. I’ll pay for it, so don’t worry about that. I feel like this is partly my fault, so it’s the least I could do.”
“Hell I ain’t gon’ try to argue,”Katrina’s mother informed her. “Feel free to spend yo’ money. Get the same color as the one on there, and get a screwdriver to take it down, ‘cause ain’t none around here.”
Marcellos wasn’t really cool with being volunteered to do more than necessary, but he kept quiet and went along. They took Katrina’s mother’s Ford Explorer since neither of their cars was really large enough to carry such a large item with ease.
After they went and got the door and got it put up, they spent a while talking with Katrina’s mother before Katrina decided she was ready to go home. She asked Marcellos to follow her there to at least make sure she got inside safely. With both women’s urging, he once again went along knowing that his mother would say it was the right thing to do, at least for the boy.
The two left, each driving their own cars again, and during the drive Marcellos called his mother’s cell phone to ask her about the results of the test, but she told him she wasn’t back home yet.
When they made it to Katrina’s apartment Marcellos could tell she was a little spooked, so when she asked him did he want to see the inside he agreed. He told her he could only stay for a few minutes, even though he really had nowhere to be. Marcellos spent a little time checking out the mostly empty apartment, which had only one bed in the master bedroom as the only furniture.
“I still need to go shopping, but I was gon’ do it tomorrow,” Katrina said.
Katrina ended up dragging out a conversation for a lot longer than he planned on staying, but after a while he was ready to leave and did. As Marcellos walked back to his car his mind was mostly occupied with thoughts of making it back to his mother’s house when he just happened to look back toward Katrina’ apartment and saw a man banging on her door. He knew it was Yayo, and he went on to his car to get his gun just in case he needed it on hand.
As Marcellos approached Katrina’ apartment, Yayo happened to look up at him.
“What the fuck you doin’ ova here punk ass nigga?” Yayo yelled.
Marcellos could cleary tell that he was high, and that made him more wary of the man.
“Aye my nigga, you need to roll on. Shawty ain’t tryin’ to fuck wit’ you right now, especially while you fucked up and lil dude in there,” Marcellos said.
“Nigga don’t tell me shit ‘bout my bitch or my son, and get the fuck on ‘fo I fuck you up.”
“Leave Clarence!” Katrina yelled from behind the door, which Yayo responded to by beating on it more.
“Bitch open this door, you always playin’ fuckin’ games. If you don’t come out I’mma kill this nigga out here!” Yayo yelled becoming angrier by the moment.
“Aye nigga don’t be issuing no threats ‘bout what you gon’ do,” Marcellos said taking offense to the words though he didn’t pull his gun out.
That caused Yayo to turn his full attention to Marcellos, and he pulled a pocket knife out of his jeans and flashed the blade at him.
“Nigga you must don’t know where you at,” Marcellos said as he quickly upped his gun, which caused Yayo to stop in his tracks.
“Put that gun down and fight like a man,” Yayo said despite the fact that he drew a weapon first.
“Nigga if you don’t go ‘head wit’ that stupid shit I’m gon’ put yo’ ass down. I’m not ‘bout to stand here and go back and forth wit’ yo’ ass neither,” Marcellos responded.
Yayo only stood there eyeing him for a moment, and, becoming agitated, Marcellos fired the gun at the ground behind him, which finally got his attention.
“Ai’ight my nigga, you got that, but this the last time you gon’ pull a gun on me and not use it,” Yayo said and stepped backwards then walked off.