Eastside by Caleb Alexander Page B

had been trying to hide. Holding it in the air like a cigarette, she turned and sashayed away from him, switching her curvaceous hips. On the way back to her spot on the porch, she lifted the joint to her full red lips and drew from it.
    â€œMomma!” Romeo called out to her. “What are you doing smoking weed?”
    â€œI smoke weed all the time. Or at least whenever I can steal it from your brother’s hiding spot in the backyard.”
    Capone’s cheeks flushed red with embarrassment, and he quickly shifted his gaze to the ground.
    â€œHaaa, Mrs. C is down, boy!” Lil Fade shouted.
    â€œSay, Mrs. C, I wish my moms was down like you,” Lil Bling told her.
    â€œWhere is that little girl you was talking to?” Chicken asked. “What was her name? Niesha? I like her, she is so sweet, and cute too.”
    Lil Bling shook his head. “Man, she be trippin’, Mrs. C. She don’t want to give me none. She talkin’ about wait until she thinks it’s right.”
    Chicken leaned back against the porch banister. “Why should she? All those girls you be messin’ with. Boy, what if you gave her something, or got her pregnant? You ain’t got no job, no house, no nothing.” Chicken pointed toward his thick gold herringbone necklace. “And that little hustle you got, it ain’t gonna last too long.”
    Chicken waved her well-manicured hand at Lil Bling, dismissing him. “Boy, you crazy, that ought to be the one you want to keep. That tells you that she ain’t no hot-tail little girl.”
    Lil Bling nodded. “Yeah, Mrs. C, I know you right. I’ll just hang on to her, and dip with somebody else.”
    Chicken slapped him across his shoulder. “Boy, that ain’t what I said!”
    The boys gathered around the porch broke into laughter.
    â€œMrs. C got all the answers,” Lil Fade declared.
    Chicken puffed on the joint, and exhaled seductively into the air. “I’m thirty-six years old, with a nineteen-year-old daughter, an eighteen-year-old daughter, a seventeen-year-old son, and a sixteen-year-old son. Child, I do not have all of the answers. As you grow older, you’ll make mistakes, but you’ll learn from them.”
    Travon opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. If his Aunt Chicken wanted to play the wise old sage, then he had a problem that he wanted to present to her.
    â€œAunt Chicken, Momma be trippin’,” Travon announced. “I tried to give her some money that Too-Low left, but she won’t take it. Can you talk to her for me?”
    â€œTre, baby, your momma is very proud, and very stubborn,” Chicken told him. “She’s been that way since we was little girls. If she don’t want to take the money, ain’t nothing I can say that will change her mind.”
    Travon shook his head and looked down.
    â€œTre, the only thing that I can tell you is to get a job and give her the money little by little, like you’re getting it from your paycheck,” Chicken added.
    Travon lifted his head and smiled.
    â€œEl don’t have to know how much you make, or where the money is really coming from, sweetie,” Chicken continued. “Hell, you can just tell her that you got a job, and give it to her little by little.”
    Travon squinted and peered off into the distance. Damn , he thought, she really did have all the answers.
    Lil Fade turned up the volume on the CD player, and Chicken quickly made her way onto the grass, where she began dancing.
    â€œSay, Mrs. C,” Lil Fade called out. “Anybody ever tell you that you look like Vanessa Williams’ identical twin?”
    â€œChild, Vanessa’s titties and ass ain’t as big as mines,” Chicken replied.
    â€œMomma! You need to cut that shit out!” Romeo yelled.
    Chicken smiled devilishly. “It’s the truth.”
    Travon seated himself on the porch banister and examined