joked about the
cloudy smoke.
I caught my breath and noticed that a couple
of them I recognized from being "friends" with my brother on The
Site. It was weird because this was my first time seeing them, yet
I felt like I knew half of them because I had frequented their
pages so much. The dark-skinned guy sitting on the couch in sweats
and Nike slides was named Oyeah Mason on his Site page, and I knew
almost his whole life story—he graduated from Lincoln Prep four
years ago, got seven college credits from Rockhurst before being
expelled for drugs; his baby momma's father got him a job at UPS
(which was still listed as his place of employment on The Site ),
but he got fired six months ago for, in his own words, "doing my
job fuck them I'm not doing nobody else's work." And according to a
status update posted by his baby momma last week, he was also
delinquent on child support payments. But I checked a county court
website that was updated daily and saw that he was only behind a
hundred and fifty bucks. His baby momma always tried to make him
seem worse than he really was.
I could have probably named three more people
in this weed spot by their Site names, if not on the first guess
then the second.
"Where's my brother?" I asked. I singled
Oyeah Mason out with my question because he was the most familiar.
And the most handsome.
"Upstairs," he said, pointing down the
hall.
He didn't question who I was. That let me
know he knew my business too. The Site worked both ways.
As I marched down the hall, I heard the
female moans of sex, and I could smell it too. It wasn't a bad
smell or a good smell, it was just ... unsettling. Probably because
I knew it was a half mix of my brother's scent. I knocked on the
door where the moans were coming from. I beat on the door hard.
"Who is it?" Milo. Angry. And the sex had
stopped.
"It's Monifa," I said, trying to sound
heartbroken. "Milo, I need to talk to you please." I was in
character, about to put on a show. Like I said, I knew how to work
my brother's emotions. I took a deep breath, trying to gather
tears. "It's your sister. Are you busy?"
"Hold on."
A second later the door thrust open. My tall,
handsome brother was standing there panting in complete nudity. I
hadn't seen him naked since we bathed together as kids, and that
was millennia ago. His wiener, which was dreadfully darker than the
rest of his brown skin, began to slowly pulse-shrink as the seconds
passed. I stared, lost in the magic of male shrinkage, as an odd
thought occurred to me: I wonder if this is what our
daddy's penis looks like.
"Monifa, up here."
I looked up. "Huh?"
"What's wrong?"
I looked past him at the girl on the bed he'd
been fucking. She had a cute sew-in and innocent doe-like eyes, and
from what I could see of her body that wasn't covered up by the
sheets, she was also full-figured. My brother had a thing for thick
women.
"I'm sorry I came here," I said, and
sniffled. "You're busy."
I turned to leave and he grabbed my arm and
pulled me into the room, just like I knew he would. He snapped his
fingers at his plaything, jerked his thumb toward the door and she
sprang to her feet and collected her clothes and scurried out of
the room. Milo was pulling on a pair of dark jeans when he asked me
again to tell him what was wrong.
"It's about Coras," I said sadly.
"What? He get shot or somethin'?" Milo was
halfway into pulling his shirt on when he saw me shake my head no.
He paused, then slid his shirt all the way on and sat me down on
the bed. "He hit you?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"He cheated on me."
Milo sighed, then pulled me into his arms. He
held me and kissed my forehead.
"I'm sorry to hear that," he said.
"I know you told him that if he ever broke my
heart you were gonna fuck him up but please don't do anything to
him."
I was smiling inside. Reverse
psychology.
"You don't want me to fuck him up?"
"No," I whimpered.
"Okay," he said, "are you gon' be
a'ight?"
Did he just say okay?
I pulled