CHAPTER TEN
MERLIN MILLS
Brushing past my brother, I headed for the bar in our living room. I needed a drink in the worst way. Gavin reached out and grabbed my arm, but I batted his hand away. I wasn’t ready to deal with his ass just yet; I needed to wrap my mind around what had just happened. In my entire life, I had never put my hands on a female. I was deeply ashamed of myself.
I grabbed a glass from the hanging rack and filled it to the brim with Absolut. I didn’t even bother going into the kitchen to get some ice, I just turned up the glass and drank the whole thing. The liquor burned all the way down my throat and landed in a fiery ball in my stomach, but it did not dull the pain that I felt in my heart. I quickly refilled my glass, but this time I began to sip it. I walked over to the sofa and took a seat.
In our bedroom, I could still hear Cojo sobbing, but I could not force myself to get up and go comfort her. I felt like she had betrayed me even if it was by mistake. “Lord, if it would have been anybody else, but my damn brother.” I didn’t bother to wipe the tears that flowed from my eyes.
“You talking to yourself, bro?” Gavin had walked into the living room. He wore a satisfied smile on his face.
It was all I could do not to leap over the sofa and bust him dead in his mouth. “Not now, Gavin,” I said between clenched teeth.
“If not now, then when? We haven’t seen each other in ages. Don’t you want to catch up?”
“Look, haven’t you done enough already?”
“What did I do?” He looked at me with his big, round eyes, which looked so much like mine that it just made my stomach hurt.
“Man, fuck you.” I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to be left alone to wallow in my misery. I could not believe he had come back into my life and ruined the only thing that belonged to me. I wished they would have left him in prison forever. Seven years just wasn’t long enough.
“Damn, dude, are you crying?”
I threw back my glass and finished off the rest of my drink.
Gavin said, “Hey, do you think I can get some of that?”
My brother had some big-ass balls. Any other man would have gotten the hell out of dodge as soon as he found out that he had fucked another man’s wife and he knew it. He was lucky I wasn’t wearing my service weapon. I do believe that at that moment I would have shot first and asked the questions later that I needed answers to. “Gavin, I’m about ten seconds from killing your ass so you need to get the fuck up out of my house.”
“Shit, I said I was sorry. What the hell do you expect me to do, kiss your ass?”
I could feel the rage building behind my eyes. I just wanted to be left alone so that I could think. “Stop playin’, Gavin, I said enough. I am way past my breaking point so please leave it alone.”
“Or what? I ain’t scared of your punk ass. You won’t be putting your hands on me like you did your wife.”
I could not believe he was still goading me. I felt like I was a child all over again. “Not now, Gavin,” I warned. I was burning on a slow fuse and I knew that if he actually touched me, I would have punched him square in the mouth.
Gavin had always been the bane of my existence, and even though I loved him, most times I couldn’t stand him. As a child he was always getting into trouble and I wound up getting punished for it.
“You think this is a fucking joke.” I snatched my glass and went back to the bar to refill it. I tilted the glass up to my lips, anticipating the burn.
Cojo was still crying in our bedroom and I tuned her out. Although my head knew it was not her fault that my brother had deceived her, my heart wasn’t trying to hear it. Putting my feet up on the coffee table, I picked up the remote, hoping to drown out the sounds coming from my bedroom.
Gavin came over to me and kicked my feet off the coffee table.
“Fuck off, Gavin, I ain’t in the mood.”
“Stop acting like a punk, man. This ain’t the first time that we’ve shared some pussy. Remember Kim?”
I pointed toward my bedroom. “That pussy belongs to my wife.” It took everything in me not to bash him upside the head with my glass.
“Damn, my bad. But I still don’t see why you’re getting so upset. How was I supposed to know that you were married?”
My head jerked up. I just stared at him. I could not believe that he was taking this so lightly. “What are you doing here, Gavin?”
“Damn, I’ve been in the joint all those years, not one letter or visit from you. Can’t a brother come see about his kin?”
Any other time, I would have been happy to see him, but he’d ruined our reunion when he slept with my wife. “How did you find me?”
“Moms; she gave me your address when I showed up at her house.” Gavin let out a wicked laugh, but I failed to see any humor in the situation.
“Remind me to thank her if I ever speak to her again.” I went and got the bottle and brought it back to the sofa with me.
Gavin mentioning Gina brought up another bone of contention. Thinking about my mother only made me depressed.
“What? So you mad now?” Gavin pushed his foot against the table, causing me to spill some of the booze on the table.
“Why shouldn’t I be? I sulked.
“Man, I said I was sorry,” Gavin replied.
“No, you didn’t. You said ‘my bad.”
“Same difference.” Gavin picked up the bottle and turned it up to his lips.
“I see prison hasn’t changed much for you.” I snatched the bottle back from him and wiped it off.
“Bro, you need to lighten up. If you keep treating me like this, I am going to get a complex.”
“Fuck you and your complex. That’s the problem with your ass now. Everybody babied your ass and you believed people owed you something for nothing.”
“Nigga, please, ain’t nobody babied me. It was your ass that was always running around trying to suck on Momma’s tit.”
“I’m not going to argue with your ass. Tell me what you want and leave.”
“Oh, it’s like that?”
I threw my hands up in the air in frustration. Gavin was a superior manipulator. Whenever I went against him, I came out with the shorter end of the stick.
“Gavin, I am in no mood for your games.”
“I need a place to stay.” Gavin reached for the bottle again, but I quickly moved it out of his reach.
“Get your own bottle,” I said, pointing to the bar in the dining room.
“I like yours better,” Gavin said as he faked a left and moved right and grabbed the bottle out of my hand. Although he was laughing when he said it, he had never spoken truer words. He always liked what I had, but the bigger part of the problem was that he always got it. I buried my head in my hands. Part of me wanted to just have it out with my brother, but the saner me knew that I couldn’t win.
“You can’t stay here,” I spoke into my hands. It hurt me to my heart to tell him no, but there was no way that I was going to allow him to stay with me after what he had done to my wife.
“Why not?”
I fought the urge to scream at him because I knew it wouldn’t do any good. Gavin was the type of guy who got off on getting somebody else rattled—especially me.
“Hello, you just fucked my wife!”
“Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten about that.” He started laughing.
Before I could stop myself, I lunged at him, but Gavin pushed me aside before I could wrap my hands around his neck.
“Stop playing.” He brushed himself off as if I had somehow soiled him.
Cojo’s sobs got louder when she opened our bedroom door. She was holding a rag to the right side of her face with one hand and her suitcase with the other. For a moment, I forgot about being mad at my brother.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
She looked at me as if I had just bumped my head. “None of your business.” She walked into the kitchen with me close on her heels.
“Cojo, I asked you a question.”
“And I gave you an answer.” She continued looking around the table as if I weren’t standing there.
It was bad enough that she’d admitted to screwing my brother, but my ego couldn’t take her clowning me in front of him, too. I reached out to grab her arm, and she snatched it away from me.
“Don’t you dare touch me.” She pulled down the rag and allowed me to see what I’d done to her in my rage.
My heart clenched as I looked at her swollen jaw. My anger dissolved immediately. I forgot about the macho image I was trying to maintain. “Ah, damn, baby, I’m sorry.” I took a step forward. I wanted to take her in my arms and comfort her.
“You damn right you’re sorry. You lucky I don’t have your ass locked up.”
I took a step back. I didn’t take kindly to being threatened with the law. But truth be told, in this instance I deserved it. I swallowed my pride. “I understand how you feel; there is no excuse for what I’ve done.”
She stopped searching the table and looked at me. I guess I surprised her with my admission, but the words were coming from my heart.
“Tell it to my lawyer.”
If she was trying to hurt me, she was doing a damn good job. Despite what had happened here today, I didn’t want a divorce and I didn’t want her to leave me. “Baby, please, can we just sit down and talk about this?”
“Oh, now you want to talk after you tried to bash my brains in?
“Babe, I said I was sorry and I meant it.”
She just stared at me. But I felt hopeful because she hadn’t left the house. I knew that if she left me, she would never come back. She would go home to her mother and, since she didn’t like me anyway, it would be a wrap.
“I think I need some time by myself to think.” Her voice was barely over a whisper so I had to lean in close to hear her.
“Can’t you do your thinking here?”
“The sight of you sickens me.”
I was about to respond until Gavin walked into the kitchen.
“Yo, bro, I know you ain’t begging that bitch to stay.”
Cojo and I both swung around and stared at Gavin. I’d forgotten he was even here.
“You . . . rat . . . bastard,” Cojo yelled. She grabbed a knife and was heading straight for my brother.
I said, “No, Cojo.”
Gavin was backing out the kitchen with his hands up in the air. He was smiling as if this were all a big joke. I grabbed her arm but, once again, she snatched it away from me.
“I told you to keep your hands off of me.” She wielded the knife at me.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you. I just didn’t want you to do something you would regret for the rest of your life.”
“What? You think I care about that fucker? After what he did to me?”
“Put the knife down, Cojo,” I pleaded.
“Punk ass,” Gavin replied.
I could not believe he was still egging her on instead of keeping his mouth shut and letting me diffuse the situation. “Shut up, Gavin. You’re not helping matters.”
Acting like Billy Bad Ass, he turned his back and walked away, almost daring Cojo to put him out of his misery.
She whirled around and faced me. “I’ll stay, but that motherfucker has to go.” She lowered the knife, but she didn’t put it in the sink, so I wasn’t out of the woods yet.
“Baby, he just got out of prison and he doesn’t have any place to go.”
“And am I supposed to care?”
I knew exactly how she felt, but putting him out would be easier said than done.
“Look, stay here. I’ll be right back.”
She turned away from me, but I was happy that she didn’t just say fuck it and leave. I went back into the living room.
“Man, you ain’t going to be able to stay here.”
“You letting that bitch tell you how to treat your own family?” He hawked up a bunch of spit as if he was going to expel it on the carpet. “Man, we ain’t talked or seen each other in seven years. We’re brothers.”
“Kill that noise; it ain’t even about her. I don’t want you here.”
Gavin raised his eyebrows, as if he hadn’t heard me correctly. There was no way that I was going to side with him over my wife.
“I guess I got to go back to Mom’s and tell her you wouldn’t help me out. Gavin got up off the sofa and walked toward the door.
I looked around the room for his bags but I didn’t see any. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you tell our mother, but you can’t stay here.” I slammed my hand on the coffee table just to let him know I meant business. He had manipulated me enough. I was done. I pulled out my wallet. I had just gotten paid so I was going to give him a few bucks to tide him over. Counting out $200, I folded up the bills in my hand. “Gavin, wait.”
“You changed your mind?” He turned around all smiles.