Apple Brown Betty by Phillip Thomas Duck Page B

“I’m feeling you though. I know what you thinking. Thinking there ain’t any of that skuzzy glass dick worshipping shit up in you.”
    â€œYou read minds now?”
    Slay leaned back in the chair, scratched at his scalp, that lopsided smile still on his face. “She shames you—you think you so much better than her.”
    Cydney got up from the couch, stomped to the kitchen, the carpet swallowing the echo of her footfalls. Slay got up and followed on her heels.
    â€œAlways were a runner when the heat was on,” he said.
    Cydney opened a cabinet above her stove, the door swinging hard against another cabinet. She pulled down a box of hot-chocolate mix, slammed the door shut again and tossed the box of mix on the counter. Then she opened the refrigerator and plucked out a carton of milk.
    â€œYou ain’t gotta use milk, you can make that cocoa with hot water,” Slay told her.
    â€œI like to make it with milk, okay, motherfucker?” Cydney barked.
    Slay’s tone softened. “You’re cursing. Damn, I upset you?”
    Cydney huffed, waved the carton of milk at him like a sword as she spoke. “Just because I wanted to better myself and not stay—” She stopped, shook her head, sighed and moved to her lower cabinet to get a boiling pot.
    â€œNot stay what?” Slay asked as she stood upright again, boiling pot in her hand.
    Cydney didn’t answer.
    â€œNot stay what?” he repeated. He thought back on his experience at Mainland University, stung by the memory, stung by the look of disgust on his sister’s face now. It was the same look that stupid trick bitch Pamela shot his way. Seeing it again made his blood boil. “You better answer me, Cydney.”
    Cydney rinsed the pot, poured the milk in it, ignoring him. She placed the pot of milk on a burner and lit the flame, then turned to grab the cocoa mix. Before he knew he’d done it, Slay had knocked the pot of milk onto the floor. Cydney wheeled on him, started throwing punches into his chest. His muscles easily deflected the punches. He wrapped his arms around his sister and she began to shake in his clutch. He could feel her wet warm tears on him. They felt good, like an unexpected flash rain during the heat of summer. He thought all was recovered between his sister and him. But he was wrong.
    Cydney pried herself from his grip. Her eyes were streaked with black smudges, but she was still so beautiful to him. “You are right, you know,” Cydney said. “I am ashamed of her—can’t even say Mama without my insides churning. I don’t want anything to do with her, as awful as that might seem. I want to go on with my new life and pretend you guys don’t exist—just erase you away.”
    Slay laughed nervously. “You said, ‘you guys.’ You meant Mama, right?”
    Cydney shook her head. “You too, Slay. That’s who you are, you know. You’re Slay. I try to make you out to be Shammond, but you’re Slay.”
    He moved a step toward her, but she pointed a knife at him that stopped him in his tracks. Where did that come from? “Watch yourself with that, sis,” he said. “Your head ain’t clear right about now.”
    â€œMy head is very clear, Slay, ” she mocked, sounding like Pamela again. “And if you come near me I will cut your sorry ass from ear to ear.”
    â€œOh, I’m sorry now?”
    â€œAlways have been,” she said matter-of-factly.
    Slay sighed, looked around the kitchen as if it were his first time here. “You forget a lot of shit, Cydney. My loot’s helping you with college, and this place. I’ve been good to you.”
    â€œBlood money,” she said. “I never should have taken it. You think you own me now because of it.”
    Slay gazed at her again. “We’re family. I ain’t looking to own you. I love you. Truth is, all we’ve got is each