Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 122609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 409(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 409(@300wpm)
“My father told me that regardless of my mother and him not being on good terms and not living together anymore, he would always be there for me. And he was. He kept his word. He made sure I got to school on time. Was picked up afterwards, too. Had lunch money. He also taught me to always stand up for myself. He never let me be alone with any of his friends… he didn’t trust people, just like you don’t. He encouraged me to be great. Despite his path in life—my father hadn’t even finished high school—he stressed to me how I would be college bound because I’m smart. He used to tell me, ‘With your mother’s good looks and my brain, you’ve got the world on a platter.’ He enrolled me in karate and taught me how to fight. He would literally make me hit him, and he’d show me what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong with my form and delivery. He was into me being a kid, having a nice life, but he was realistic, too. We talked about almost everything, even boys. He said he didn’t want me or Tony to end up like him. Tony unfortunately had fallen in his footsteps. My father was raised in a really dysfunctional family.
“Lots of abuse… drugs… violence in the streets, things like that. He didn’t even know who his father was. His mother, my maternal grandmother, was a United Methodist preacher. He didn’t talk to me much about her, but my mother said his mother was strict and used to be really rough on him. She used to quote the Bible instead of sitting down and talking to him about things, and unfortunately, a boy growin’ up in a rough neighborhood like my father did, Watts in Los Angeles, California needed more than that.”
“I’ve heard about Watts.”
“Yes, it’s been the scene of many national news stories, most of them not too positive. He was almost doomed from the start. He needed a strong father figure, too. Though his choices do rest on his own shoulders, he was an adult who needed healing and therapy. He knew it too, but that would have been seen as a weakness. My grandmother died before I was born, so I never met her in order to see what she was like for myself. Despite everything, he was one of the most loving men I’d ever known, Archer. Yeah.” She smiled sadly. “My father, the gangbanger, was loving. He was really smart, too, part of the reason he earned the name ‘The Prophet.’ He was wise beyond his years, my mother used to say. A real history buff. One day though, my view of him changed…
“I remember being in my room, in his apartment, playing. My bedroom was lime green, pink and yellow.” Her eyes lit up. “Stuffed animals, the latest toys, dolls and games. A new radio playing all the songs I loved. Costume jewelry in a glittery trinket box, clothing in the closet, some pieces with the tags still on them, and a white basket full of snacks just for me. That was common. That was my life when I was with my dad. A vacation. A fairytale. He told me this particular night to stay in my room and not leave it. He said he had company coming over. Tony wasn’t there this time. I forget why.” She shrugged. “My daddy was kind to me, he rarely spanked me, but when he told you to do something, you did it. He rarely told me I couldn’t leave my room, so maybe I didn’t take it as seriously. I don’t know.
“Well, I wanted something to drink. I had a basket full of snacks, potato chips and pretzels, candy, but no water or juice. I decided to come out of my room to ask him for some juice. I figured it would be okay if I did it real fast. I opened the door, and heard him yelling at someone. See, the way this apartment was, it was more like a duplex. There was an upstairs and downstairs. So, I crept closer to the steps to see who he was cursing out, and I saw all of these men around him, Archer. Men with tattoos. Muscles. Guns. I recognized some of them from parties he’d had, things like that. His friends. Kind of like what I saw at your warehouse that night… Two guys were holding this other guy up, and the man was pleading for his life. He was literally crying.
“My little child-like mind couldn’t wrap itself around any of this. I couldn’t understand what was going on. What I was seeing. I figured, this guy must’ve made my daddy really mad because I’d never heard him yelling like this before. While this man was whimpering and begging for mercy, my father, with no expression on his face, pulled out a gun and shot this guy three times in the head and chest. I heard it! The bang! Bang! Bang! I screamed!” She swallowed. Closed her eyes. Took a breath.