“I just came to see how long you were in town for?” Polo knew that the Diamond family needed Young Carter now more than ever.
“I’m ghost tomorrow. Ain’t nothing here for me.”
Polo had predicted this reaction from Young Carter. He didn’t expect him to feel any sense of responsibility to his family at first, but he knew that if he could convince Carter to stay around long enough, the attachment would eventually grow.
“I know this is a lot to put on your heart right now, but your family needs you.”
Carter was quick in his response. “They don’t even know me,” he stated with disdain. “That’s not my fam. I’ve only known one woman my whole life, and she the only family I need, nah mean?”
“Nah, I don’t know what you mean, Young Carter. I saw the look in your eyes today when that Haitian mu’fucka had your baby sister at gunpoint. Only a man who had love in his heart would get at them niggas the way you did. It was instinct for you to protect her. Whether you want to admit it or not, that is your family, and they need you, especially Breeze.”
“Ain’t nobody tried to protect me my entire life. I’ve been out for self from the time I was old enough to understand the rules of the game. I don’t have time to baby-sit. That’s not my responsibility.” Carter wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t trying to get to know the Diamond family, didn’t want to be around them.
Seeing their expensive house and luxury vehicles just made him resent his father even more. While he grew up in Flint, Michigan, a city that was known as the murder capital, the man that made him was taking care of the family that he had abandoned his first-born for. The pain of growing up without a father had left a bad taste in his mouth.
Polo stood and shook his head from side to side. “Everything isn’t always as it seems, Young Carter. Your father had his reasons for leaving you and your mother, and it wasn’t because he didn’t love you.”
“It really doesn’t matter now. That man is in the ground, and it doesn’t affect me. I just came to pay my respects. I didn’t come here for nothing more or nothing less. That man has never done a damn thing for me, so I’m not gon’ even hold you up and say that I feel obligated to step up and take care of his family. A better man might be able to, but that’s not me.”
“I understand you are frustrated Young Carter. You come here and see how happy your siblings are, and you feel cheated. I know you’re asking yourself why you didn’t have the same upbringing, but believe me, your father did the best he could under the circumstances,” Polo stated, defending his best friend.
When Carter didn’t reply he continued, “Your father-” “I don’t have a father. The nigga got my mother pregnant and then left us for dead to come play house with another bitch.”
“Look, you need to watch your mouth.” Polo, enraged by Young Carter’s blasphemous statements, had to set the record straight. “I can’t just sit here and allow you to disrespect my man like that. You don’t know shit about nothing. If it wasn’t for your father, you and your mother would have been dead a long time ago. He had to leave you in order to protect you.”
“Fuck is you talking about?” Carter asked, hostility and anger in his tone.
Polo could see that the young man’s temper was beginning to flare and then remembered that Young Carter had a valid reason to be upset. He took a deep breath and calmed himself down, to de-escalate the situation. “Look, Young Carter, I’m not here to bump heads with you. As your father’s best friend, I’ve got nothing but respect for you. You have a misconception about the man that your pops was. I’m not saying that every decision he made regarding you and your mother was right, but he did the best that he could. Think about it, young’un. Your mother worked as a CNA since you were young. She’s bringing home thirty stacks a year at the most, but you grew up in a two-hundred-thousand-dollar house in the suburbs of Flint. Who do you think purchased that house? Who paid those bills? Use your head, young fella. How many fourteen-year-old boys you know kept a thousand dollars a week in his pocket? When you graduated you were pushing a limited edition Mercedes. Who do you think copped that car for you? Let me tell you, it wasn’t Mommy.”
Polo’s words were enough to silence Carter and make him think. His mother never told him about his father. She had never even talked about him and would explain their living situation by saying that she worked overtime, sometimes double-time, to allow them to live the way that they did. She often claimed to hit big at the casino or to have the winning lotto number. She had given her son every excuse in the book to explain the extra income. All this time my father was sending money back home to take care of me? Carter tried to wrap his mind around the fact that his father had never forgotten him.
“Your father never missed a beat in your life, son. You may not have gotten the chance to meet him, but he knew everything about you. It was nothing for him to fly in and out of Flint in the same day just so he could be at your Friday night football games. Remember that game you ran three hundred yards against Southwestern?”
Carter nodded his head as he placed it in his hands. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Your father was there. I know he was there because he dragged my black ass with him every week. Every touchdown, every awards assembly, your graduation, he was there for all of that. When you got into that trouble with the law as a juvenile, he made sure that the case was thrown out. Fifty grand made that little mishap disappear from your record.
“Your father loved you very much, but he was a hustler too. He met your mother when she was fifteen and he was seventeen. They dated throughout his senior year in high school, and when it was time for him to go to college, he regretfully left her to better himself. Your mother was so upset with him that when he moved down here she stopped contacting him. He tried to call her, but she would never return his calls. A couple years later he met Taryn. She was beautiful, unlike any woman he had ever met, and they fell in love quickly. She is a full-blooded Dominican though, and they don’t play that interracial dating shit. He had to prove himself time and time again just to be with her. If it weren’t for his persistence and her refusal to leave him alone, they never would have been allowed to stay together. He knew that she was the daughter of Emilio Estes.”
Carter lifted his head in surprise at the notorious drug lord’s name. His eyebrows rose in speculation as he thought, I know this nigga ain’t talking bout-
Before Carter could finish his thought, Polo said, “Yeah, I’m talking about the Emilio Estes.”
“Damn!”
“Emilio took Carter under his wing. His coke connect allowed Carter to establish The Cartel as the most notorious and prosperous illegal enterprise Miami has ever seen. Emilio was clear in his concerns though. He told Carter that if he wanted to be with his daughter then he would have to keep up the lifestyle that she was accustomed to. Emilio told him that his family had to come first and that if he ever disgraced his daughter in any way then it would be the death of him.”
“So he deserted me and my moms. He chose his family in Miami over me.”
“Your father didn’t even know about you until you were a young child. Your mother didn’t even tell him that she was pregnant. When he found out, Taryn was pregnant with the twins, and if Emilio ever found out, you and your mother would have been put in direct danger. Knowing that he could trust his wife, he told her about you and your mother. Although she was upset at first, he explained that he had never cheated on her. She agreed to never tell her father, and they sent your mother money to support you from that day forth. It pained him that he couldn’t get to know you. He wanted to be a part of your life, but his connections with the Dominican Mafia prevented that from happening. You are his first-born. You look just like him. He loved you wholeheartedly.”