Faces of the Game (23 page)

              Chonda was bored, she scrolled down her call log and decided to call the other gossip queen out of her family Vette.  Vette was known to gossip about any and every one at any given time, she knew a lot but she lied a lot too.  You never could tell what was what with her, and that’s exactly what Chonda was looking for someone who didn’t mind getting the word out.  Chonda had an evil streak in her and it was very active, she didn’t want her sister to outshine her and things were getting down to the wire.  Although she had a soft spot in her heart and she didn’t want her sister to be in a rut, she didn’t want her daddy to be more proud of her little sister than he was of her.  She always had an urge to be her daddy’s favorite, and truth be told he loved all of his children equally, nothing could ever change that. 

“Hey what’s up?”  Chonda said into the phone when Vette finally answered.  “Nothing girl, talking to Hick crazy ass, hold on.”  Chonda held on the phone for 5 solid minutes before Vette got back on the phone.  “My bad, I’m back man I swear he is on drugs.”  Vette said when she clicked back over.  Chonda laughed a ridiculously silly ass laugh.  “You crazy, what’s up though cuz?”  “Girl so you know Chelle supposed to be graduating in May.  I don’t know how though, she ain’t never in Greensboro to go to school, she don’t do no work and what she going to school for, I heard that you don’t even make any money in it.”  Chonda was on a roll, she knew she could get a hype conversation out of Vette if nobody else went for it.     “Girl, I know and you know she got caught on campus with that weed that time, I thought she got kicked out of school what happened that time?”  Vette said back with venom on her tongue.  They both got comfortable and prepared to talk shit for a while.  “Chelle don’t even know what she want to do, I thought she wanted to be a teacher.  Whatever happened to that?”  Chonda asked rhetorically.  “Exactly, girl and you know she use to mess with Chip or Clip whatever his name is.  I heard them boys looking’ for him and she better stay away from his ass or she’ll be locked up too.”  Vette was on a roll.  “Girl you know she used to go up and down that highway for them, she better hope she don’t get locked up for some shit she did.”  Chonda said excited at the idea alone.  They went on and on for almost three hours about one person, Chelle. 

Vette called their aunt, Snooks.  “Hey are you busy?”  Vette said into the phone when Snooks answered.  “No girl, what’s going on?”  “Nothing, Chonda called and told me the whole scoop with Chelle, she ain’t no Angel I tell you that much.”  Vette said, starting the conversation off.  “Oh I know that, you know Neese told Spunk that Chelle was somewhere stripping’.”  Snooks said, adding fuel to the wildfire that had Chelle’s name spelled out.  “Whaaat, I ain’t heard that one yet.  How about she used to go up and down the highway and her boyfriend is on the run.”  Vette was in unspoken cahoots with Chonda to defame Chelle’s name and possibly fuck up her future.  “Girl, I can believe it.  She always trying to act all innocent ain’t nothing innocent about her ass.”  Snooks said, she was just as bitter because they felt inferior over nothing.  The bad thing is, Chelle felt equal to them.  She felt like all people were created equal and everyone chooses different paths, her relatives on the other hand always said she thought she was better than them when the truth of the matter was, they felt as if she was better than them.  It ate them up; it seemed as if every time someone brought up her name they all had nothing but negative things to say about her.  They told lies, they exaggerated truths and moreover they spreaded rumors about her to people in the community out of malevolence.

Snooks called Spunk, they gossiped about repetitive shit that was untrue.  Spunk called Neese, and Neese called Tera.  Once the news got to Tera, she ended it right there as far as the family went.  “First of all, I think Chelle is going through enough as it is.  I mean, no I don’t know how the fuck she is graduating because her little ass is never at home but she has been going through a lot of stressful shit and the last thing she needs is her family talking shit about her.  I know how that shit feels, everyone was talking shit about me when I was going through all of that stuff with Cory and I didn’t like it but at the end of the day, none of them motherfuckers are paying my bills and if the shit gets back to Chelle, I’ll just have to tell her to look at it that way.  But y’all need to stop that shit man, it ain’t right.”  Tera snapped, she was tired of the family always antagonizing them one-by-one, she hated the fact that her family was so disloyal when it came to certain situations.  “Yeah, I know.  I didn’t say anything about her, you know I don’t be caring about none of that stuff shoot, I got my own shit going on.”  Neese said nervous that Tera would tell Chelle what she had said.  “Well, let me call you back I’m doing my hair.”  Tera hung up the phone, although she was a little disoriented about Chelle graduating, she was overall a very loyal cousin and friend. 

Neese called Chelle, “girl, why was Vette and Snooks sitting around talking about you, they said your sister was talking shit too.”  “What’s new?”  Chelle said as if the life was drained from her.

She stretched out across her bed exhausted, it was almost 1am and she had been up all day.  She hadn’t been to work in a few days, she witnessed her student getting handcuffed and she was so afraid that they were there to possibly recruit her for questioning; she didn’t know what to do.  Turns out, one of the students was moving a lot of weight to be such as youngster.  Chelle was appalled.  This all replayed in Chelle’s head as she heard her cousin talking about all the rumors that had been said about her and where they came from.   Chelle hardly heard anything Neese said, she was thinking about that poor kid and what he was going through at home that made him want to live such a dangerous lifestyle.  That incident just made Chelle want to take a few days off to relax, do homework and relax even more.  Her thoughts were interrupted with a question.  She had no idea what Neese had just said but she heard a question mark at the end of the sentence.  “Huh?”  Chelle said trying to play it off.  “Did you hear me?”  Neese asked.  “Yeah, some of it, my phone was going in and out.”  “Girl they are a trip.”  Neese said, speaking of Chonda, Vette and Snooks.  “Who?” Chelle asked, she felt bad but not really.  “Your family fool” Neese said.  “Oh duh, hahahaa” Chelle gave a slight chuckle and said “can I live?”  Quoting a Jay-Z song title.  “When do you have class?  I was thinking that we could probably link up and do lunch or something one day this week when you’re free.”  Neese seemed as if she was probing for Chelle’s schedule to relay the information back to the family.  “Girl, I have classes every day.”  Chelle replied, omitting the fact that they were all online. 
Let them talk shit, who cares they need entertainment.
  She didn’t care much about what Neese was talking about, and she knew deep down inside that Neese probably added a tad bit of fuel if for no other reason than to be accepted by a family who treated her just as dirty.  Chelle was confused as to why her family was the way they were but she had too much going on to give it much thought.  Just as Neese was changing the subject, Chelle’s mother called
saved by the bell, yes Lord.
  “Hey, let me call you right back.”  Chelle clicked over without waiting for her cousins’ response.  She loved that girl dearly, but sometimes she just didn’t feel like her cousin had the same love for her.  At other times, Chelle felt like Neese was one of the only cousins who had her back.  She had no idea why her family was so confusing, or even how they seemed to confuse her tremendously. 

“Hey ma, what’s going on?”  Chelle and her mother kicked off a two hour conversation while Chelle logged onto the computer to do her classwork.  They discussed the drama that Chelle’s Father’s family had stirred up, and she explained to Chelle the difference between family and relatives.  Although the two words literally meant the same thing, she explained that family sticks together and uplifts one another while relatives are merely associated by the same bloodline.  Food for thought…

Clearance and Finals

              Chelle paced back and forth throughout the Communications Building at school, trying to make sure all of her ducks were in a row before taking her papers to the dean of the department to be cleared for graduation.  She had 133 credits and she only needed 128 to graduate, she was more than ready to depart from her University.  Chelle called Neese, “Guess what” she said in an animated tone, “what?” Neese responded.  “I’m graduating!  I just got cleared,
whew
girl that was a long hard journey.”  “Oh, that’s good” Neese said trying to sound excited for Chelle.  She was proud of her, but she didn’t want anyone to outshine her either.  Neese started to become a little upset, not realizing that she was a year and a half younger than Chelle and her path was a tad bit different than Chelle.  She got over it, and she wouldn’t dare allow her feelings to cause her not to support her cousin, she loved her to death and she admired her ambition.  “Well girl, I’ll call you back.”  Chelle called her Mom, her Dad, her Granny, her sister, Vae and Ash; they all showed the upmost excitement and joy.  Her father wasn’t very expressive, but he was proud.  He asked her if she needed any money to get her graduation clearance straight.  Chelle didn’t really need anything, she was fine. 

Chelle spent the rest of the day circling the campus; she went to the parking garage and spoke to a few people.  Chelle had accumulated 12 parking tickets, that was a total of about $300 but the generous man in the garage only made her pay for one of them.  “Listen little lady, I know how expensive graduation is.  Consider this a gift, congratulations.”  Chelle’s mouth dropped, “are you serious?”  He kindly nodded and wrote her a final bill.  Chelle paid the $25 ticket and graciously said thank you.  He definitely didn’t have to be nice to her, he didn’t even know her.  She was very thankful; she just looked up and thanked God. 

              Next she went to the registrar’s office, she found out that her tuition was paid and everything was up-to-date.  The only thing she had to pay was graduation dues that only totaled to $125.  Although she didn’t really know what consisted of these fees, she was more than glad to swipe her debit card.  She then went to get information about her cap and gown and decided to get fitted for a class ring.  She called her dad and told him that her class ring was the only thing she needed money for, it was $423 but it was so worth it.  Chelle didn’t want to take cap and gown pictures, she didn’t really want a big graduation party but she did think that the ring would be worth it.  She wanted to feel like a true Alumni when she walked into the doors of corporate America. 

“Surprise, let’s go to Tokyo for dinner on me” Chelle said walking into her parents’ house.  “Oh dinner is on you, your ring is on me?”  Her dad said laughing, he leaned over and gave her the biggest hug he could and kissed her on the cheek.  “Congratulations baby girl” she smiled “thank you dada”.  “What are you doing here?”  Chelle’s mom asked, she laughed a little.  She was so proud of her daughter it brought tears to her eyes.  Chelle was one of the only children in the family that had enough strength to pry her way through college without any children, any interruptions and any other mishaps.  It was rough, and she fell short of making her parents proud a few times, but she always told them she would make them happy and by all means she would.  More than that, she wanted to chase the American dream with all of her might.

                                                        
Three Months Two Deaths

              Chelle wasn’t hurt, she was comforted when her Papa passed, and he was her Mother’s Dad.  He was old and he had Alzheimer’s, he had suffered long enough.  Chelle could remember going into his room at the rest home and asking him if he knew her Granny, he said “I better not forget who that is” and laughed.  The thought brought tears of joy to Chelle’s eyes that reminded her of those old love stories.  She couldn’t believe some of the stories her grandmother told her because her grandfather was never as unruly as he was described in his younger years.  The night after his funeral, Chelle had a dream that her grandfather sat in the round chair diagonal from her bed and told her to tell her grandmother that everything was going to be alright.  The dream felt so real that Chelle was quite sure her grandfather was an angel and he was really there at that time.  Chelle was comforted rather than scared, and normally this would have scared the life out of her.

              Not even a full three months later, Chelle’s grandfather on her dads side of the family passed away.  At the funeral, her family had their sad moments because it’s always hurtful when someone passes away.  Chelle and Neese whispered to each other the entire time until Tera walked in, they were all shocked to see their cousin walk in with shirt tied in a knot in the front of her shirt, but it was cute.  She came over and sat beside them, “hey y’all, do I look crazy?”  She giggled, she was underlying rebellious at times.   “No” they all replied in unison, unsure of what to say.  Vette was always a gossiping savage, “girl what does she have on?”  She whispered in Chelle’s ear.  Chelle dramatically shrugged and continued talking to Neese.  Because they knew all of the pain that their grandfather put on their grandmother that they truly loved, Neese and Chelle couldn’t feel the same pain that a few of their older cousins expressed.  Vae and her mother walked in a few moments after the service started and sat closer to the back, Chelle discreetly looked back and gave Vae an air hug.  The service seemed to be long and drawn out, so after a while Vae started whispering again.  “Girl I heard what was going on with Chip, where is he?”  She leaned in closer to Chelle making sure not to miss a syllable.  “I don’t know girl, I haven’t talked to him since the other day and we really didn’t discuss his whereabouts.”  Chelle was skeptical of why Vette was asking her this, but she decided to go with the flow and not worry too much.  “What kind of number did he call from?”  Vette probed. 
Is this bitch trying to get some reward money or something. 
“Girl I have no earthly idea, honestly.  I think it was a 310 number.  That’s somewhere in Cali girl.”  Chelle had just told a boldface lie in Church, she was tempted to exchange seats with Neese her nerves were being pounced on and anything made Chelle tick from time-to-time.