Page 113 of Heart Of A Goon II

“Uh huh… get your butt to my car and unpack so we can have a good dinner. Spent all day cooking all this.”

“Let me roll my bike into the garage,” he spoke.

Had I not been drinking so much, I would have heard the engine of his motorcycle. Corleon had always been obsessed with bikes and hung around biker crews.

“Corleon, he’s in here drunk,” Kora announced.

“And your edges is gone,” I spat.

She folded her arms. “And your hands are raw, bitch.”

She swung the rest of her hair over her shoulder and left me to my misery. I leaned back on the bed, not wanting to accept the help. I felt less than accepting fucking help from Linda.

She wasn’t responsible for us and shouldn’t have had to go out her way. Her son was grown and making money on his own. Fuck was wrong with me and why couldn’t I muster up the energy to do what needed to be done?

Because I was so dependent on what my uncle was telling me.

Promising me.

I heard a knock on the door and looked over at the door with my brow raised. Linda Bruster stood there with her hand on her thick hip, and had her lips pursed.

“You know I can smell you down the hallway?”

I shrugged. “Happens when you drink.”

What else was I supposed to say? I didn’t have an excuse for me to defend my drinking, or the fact that I was drunk in the middle of the day. She came further into the room.

“I dated this man that would drink every time he was in his feelings or had an inconvenience in life. I’d come home and he would be halfway through a bottle. At first, I thought it was fair, life does beat us up, huh?” she nudged me while chuckling lightly.

I remained quiet.

“As our relationship grew, more issues happened in his life, and he became a regular at the liquor store. Would walk around smelling like he had climbed out of a bottle. I love a stiff drink after a hard day. When Corleon got that damn tattoo on his face, I had me three drinks that night. It’s alright to take one back every now and then, but as a man, when you turn your problem solving to the bottom of a bottle, you’re fucking weak.” She held the empty bottle of vodka up. “And then vodka is your choice?”

Linda was blunt.

She never held shit back and told you exactly was on her mind. It was her honesty that I appreciated, because I was so used to everyone staring in my face while lying.

“I’ll be sure to get tequila next,” I sarcastically mumbled.

She snatched my face in her hands and looked me in the eyes. “Maverick, you aren’t fucking weak and you will never be. This is a major step back, yes, but you are not weak and you aren’t alone. Let us be there for you. There will come a time when I’ll need you to be there for my baby like he’s trying to be for you. Accepting help doesn’t make us think less of you… mainly because I know you’ll pay that back. The man you’re becoming doesn’t accept handouts and doesn’t get his back washed without washing someone else’s.”

She released my face and stood up, walking towards the door. “Easier said than done, Linda.”

I watched as she laughed. “Then make it harder said than done, Maverick… and scotch. Drink fucking scotch.”

ZOYA

The older I became, the more I realized that there were families who cherished Thanksgiving. I had always considered the holiday a genocide, which it was, but it was more than that to the Black community.

It was less about the murderous freaky Pilgrams and the native Americans. This holiday was about being around your family. All day you starved because you know the one and only meal that mattered was being prepared by your grandmother, Nana, or whatever you called them.

Cousins you hadn’t seen in a while came into town, and things took off like no time had passed between you both. Memaw usually had less birthdays ahead, so everyone cherished her cooking while spending what could be her last holiday with the family.

The Caselli’s didn’t do holidays.

For the first time, we all celebrated Thanksgiving because of Stevie. I had to admit, sharing food with my family and spending time with them felt foreign. Not a bad foreign, but a feeling that I wouldn’t mind experiencing again.

It was something that I took for granted and filed on a list of things I didn’t care to celebrate. That was until I witnessed Sharon’s tears while hugging both her boys. One was usually in prison while the other ran the streets, so I could understand where her emotions came from.