Camaron, Chelsea Morrison

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.Beginner’s luck, they all laughed.The next day, I showed up late to school, wearing a brand-new leather jacket.I grabbed a brand-new chick, tossed Annie my old phone, pulled my new prepaid smartphone out of the jacket, and gave the new chick my digits.After that, I played cards with the boys whenever the old man passed out.I made bank enough to get the shit I wanted and get Jagger some shit, too.But my proudest moment was when I handed Momma her Mother’s Day gift—a Tiffany necklace straight from the online store.No secondhand shit for her—or for me.Never again.And no looking back, either.A year later, my old man bet on an underground fighter because he was fighting a brand-new unknown—Jagger, then a junior in high school.He lost the bar, and he lost it to Hendrix.It was fucking beautiful.My old man is a piece of shit.He’s a drunk, a gambler, and a heavy-handed asshole who takes pleasure in hurting and degrading everyone around him.But he has taught me and my brothers a lot.Hendrix now owns a bar, I travel around playing cards, and Jagger is a fighter.Some may say—hell, many have said—that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.But the tree’s roots are as strong as Momma’s, tainted with his spill or not, so we are good boys.We may have the old man’s bad habits, but we have Momma’s heart.On her deathbed, she told us she was proud of us.She told us she loved us, apologized for how we were brought up, and made us promise to be the good in a world of bad.Momma died because that fucker couldn’t keep it in his pants and gave her HPV.She was too stubborn to go to the doctors when she was feeling like hell.We lost Momma, but knowing she was proud of us three boys, none of which hold a degree or work traditional jobs, made us all feel good.It also made us determined.First Hendrix caught the old man’s hand in the till, then he found him fucking a used-up old barmaid, and finally he kicked him to the curb.Without the old man around, what I have learned in the few months I have been back is that nothing is stronger than the brotherhood Hendrix, Jagger, and I share.I’m not anyone’s bitch, never have been.But when you live with a real monster—and not just the childlike notion that one is living under your bed, but the real deal—you are never truly living out loud; you are just surviving.This place of horrors and hell no longer feels so bad, though.Detroit Rock City no longer holds the same cold and bitter feeling it always did before.It feels like a sanctuary, a place to go when I feel alone, a place I want to drive to, not from.This is a place where, when the shit hits the fan, I know that as brothers the three of us can get through it together.Without the old man, this bar, this city, this place is now a place my brothers and I want to live.Now we can live.Today, as I hop in my Escalade and pull my John Varvatos Aviator sunglasses off my head to cover my eyes, I wave goodbye to my brothers and my new sister-in-law, Livi, then head back to the desert.I need a fix, a score, a few good hands dealt my way.I need to stash some cash so the next time I return to Detroit, I can stay longer.I stop in front of the cemetery to say “See ya” to Momma before heading to the airport.It doesn’t seem right not to.Then I hop back in the Escalade and hit the playlist: Kid Ink, “Carry On.” Mmm, can’t wait to carry on.Chapter 2HaileyAt seventeen, I was trying to escape my mother’s world.At twenty-four, I am trying to escape my own.Monte let me leave the room the night I lost it all.He allowed me to believe I got away with my hustle.I left the table with my pulse racing, my head pounding, and my silent prayers being answered, or so I thought.The memories hit me hard.Fuck! This is not how it was supposed to happen.How did he hustle the hustler? I was a sure thing to win that hand.How did it all go wrong?The smoke in the room makes me dizzy, or maybe it’s the fear running through my veins.I never lose.Truly, I am not prepared.This isn’t a backroom game with a pimp.The stakes are too high, and then I go bust.Born to a hooker, raised under the lights, the glam, and the life of the Vegas Strip, I survive.One hand at a time, I get by.For me and for my momma, I do what needs to be done.Tonight was for her.She had me at sixteen.As a runaway, she saw the illusion of fame as a showgirl quickly fade and reality kick in.She worked the streets.She survived.Her pimp took her virginity, knocked her up with me, and kept her under his thumb all these years.It could be worse.He doesn’t beat on us, and he keeps a roof over our heads.I have clothes.I have food.First and foremost, I have to remember he let her keep me.Sometimes, though, I wonder if Momma wishes he would have asked her for an abortion, because keeping me has forced her to stay with him and in this life.As a child, I wasn’t permitted to call him “Dad.” Truth be told, that was fine by me.He wasn’t a father; he was a sperm donor.Fuck that—he was a rapist.Momma calls life with him her penance for poor choices, one that she had to endure until her time was served.“Atonement,” she would say.He mind-fucked her as much as he actually fucked her, which was a lot, so he had the power even when I begged her to leave.He held all the cards.Warped.Fucking warped.What does a woman do when she is dealt a shitty hand?Play the fucking cards she’s dealt until she can find a way out.I may be what tied Momma down, but on the flip side of that chip, I am her way out.Me and Momma, a Bonnie and Clyde of our own damn making.After years of watching, years of waiting, my patience is finally paying off.Momma worked to get the connection.Then we hustled for the two-thousand-dollar buy-in, and here I sit, at the underground table with the ballers in the back room of a stuffy hotel.The smoke fills my lungs, the window curtains are drawn, and the door is locked until the final hand is played.Ante up.Call the bluff.Everyone folds but me and him.Sean “Monte” Timmons.Some call him dangerous; others say he is sex walking [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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