Wrong Ways Down by Stacia Kane

want her there?” Felice sounded even more annoyed. “Are you actually saying you want to take my daughter into that part of town?”
    “My daughter, too.” The second the words left his mouth he regretted them, knowing what would come next, knowing he’d just turned a disagreement into a fight.
    “Not legally. Not according to her birth certificate, she’s not. Don’t forget, you see her because we let you see her. And you just try going to court and proving paternity. You don’t even fucking exist as far as the Church is concerned, do you? And I somehow doubt you want them getting your fingerprints and DNA on file.”
    He tried not to think of Felice as a bitch. She weren’t a bitch. She were just tryna do her best, and keep Katie safe, which he could get behind all the way. And sometimes—most of the time—they could still smile and have a chatter and get along fine.  
    But other times … other times he just wanted to start breaking shit. “Happy taking my money, aye? Ain’t see you complain on what you getting, or on she college account, or—”
    “So you help support the child you made and that means I should let you take her into drug dens, or to hang out with thieves and prostitutes or that sleazy pimp you work for?”
    “ What ? You thinking I—” He took a deep breath, tried to stay calm. Which weren’t easy. Felice thought he’d take Katie to the fucking piperooms or some shit? That he’d take Katie there? What the fuck? “Quit with that shit, aye? You know I ain’t do that. Never saying I think she oughta be down here, neither. Only sayin I ain’t should be the only one giving her the no. Quit fuckin leaving it all on me, dig? Makin me the bad guy.”
    Silence. He was glad of it, too; gave him a chance to get heself calmed down a minute. Hard enough figuring what to say when he weren’t pissed off.
    Finally Felice spoke. “You’re right. You shouldn’t be the only one.”
    Felt like she were waiting for him to answer, but he was still too mad, and figured anything he might say could start another fight, too.
    She sighed, loud and heavy through the phone. “Look, I didn’t call to argue. I guess we need to figure out something to tell her together. And I know you wouldn’t take her to hang out with prostitutes. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
    “Ain’t should have got mad myself,” he said. It still stung; it stung because he knew, deep down, that Felice did think he might take Katie to the piperooms or to hang out at Bump’s place with porn on the walls. That she thought he were so dumb he ain’t knew what was right for a little girl to see.
    But then, it weren’t really right for a little girl to be spending time with somebody like him, was it? Even if she was his, the only one he’d ever have, and she were tall like him and smiled when she saw him. Even if she were the only totally clean, totally pure thing in he entire life. Closest other thing he had to it was Chess, how she made him feel, cepting of course most of the thoughts he had about Chess—the things he wanted to do to Chess—weren’t clean or pure at all.
    “Okay, well, look,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow you can stop by while she’s at school. And you can go pick her up, if you want. And we’ll figure out a way to explain to her that she is not going to be spending any nights with you. Because you know that’s not going to happen. Not as long as you live where you live, and do for a living what you do.”
    “Aye,” he said. “Aye, I know.”

    Nobody on the streets, least not anybody with owes. Which fucking sucked, because after he finally got off the phone with Felice—after she got pissed he couldn’t be at hers the next day, after she got pissed he weren’t certain when he could be at hers, after she got pissed in general—he could have done with some collecting. He was tense and annoyed and anxious, felt stuck in place and wanted to move. Wanted to get rid of it, that tension