The Diamond Syndicate

Diamond opened the door and walked inside. Dante was sitting on his bed, looking in one of his textbooks. He appeared to be reading. He was nineteen and in his second year in community college.

He looked up at her. “What’s up?” he asked, exasperation written all over his face.

“No, the question is: What’s up with you?” She sat down next to him on the bed.

“I’m straight.” He downplayed his mood and buried his head back into his textbook.

“You’re definitely not straight, Dante.” Diamond pulled the book from his hand and set it on the bed behind them.

Dante sighed, not caring for the interruption. He was trying to study.

Diamond sat there staring at him, waiting for him to speak.

He finally noticed her motherly stare. “What?”

“Don’t play with me, boy. What’s wrong with you?”

“A’ight, since you want to know so bad, I’m gonna tell you. First, you start off sleeping with all my friends and the rest of these young cats around here. I eventually accepted that because I realized that maybe that was your way of staying young. Then I find out you basically pimping these cats and got them running after you, paying your bills and shit.”

Diamond tossed her eyes upward.

Dante noticed the look. “OK, so, yeah, you shared the wealth with me, and I know I told you I was OK with it. But, to be honest, it’s killing me to know my mother is having sex with dudes my age.” Dante stood and walked over to the window, peering outside. “And what really fucked me up was when I found out you and my boy Trey was fucking.”

Dante had learned from Al-Malik that his mother was fucking Trey. Although Al-Malik had joined his mother’s crew, a.k.a. the Diamond Syndicate, he still stopped by to kick it with Dante from time to time, and kept him updated on all the street news. Dante was sick to his stomach when he heard the news about his mother’s affair with Trey. For a long time he avoided Trey. He knew that if he saw Trey, the meeting would result in something very violent, and he refused to allow himself to stoop to Trey’s level.

“Watch your mouth, boy,” she said, ignoring what he’d just said about Trey. Diamond had no idea how he’d found out about her and Trey. She had sworn all the boys from the syndicate to secrecy on that, aware that such knowledge would hurt him more than any of her other exploits.

“You know what? It’s stuff like that that pisses me off. You tell me to watch my mouth, but you hang around them niggas all the time, and all they do is talk like that. I ain’t a kid anymore, Ma.”

“Dante, it’s—”

“I’m not finished. You spend all your time with them, never coming home. You don’t even know how I’m doing in college. I’m at the top of my class, Ma. Did you know that? Come on, Ma, Trey and them are straight-up in the drug game, so no matter what, if they get got, so do you, whether you sell it or not. Did you think about that?” Trey walked over and stood in front of his mother. “Do you have any idea how I feel when I gotta hear how my moms is running around with a crew of young niggas? Do you know how it makes me feel, when I do kick it with my boys, that I gotta hear about how cool everybody is with you? They talk about you all the time. They talk about how you got the best pussy and shit. That shit driving me bananas!”

Diamond was about to speak, but Dante stopped her.

“Hold up. You wanted to know what was bothering me, so let me finish. I’m your son. I have done everything you told me to do all my life. I have nothing but respect for you and would do anything for you. We are blood”—He pointed to himself and then to her—“Not them other niggas. I grew up with you hitting on me, punishing me, half the time for no reason, or because you mad at my father.” Dante frowned, showing his pain. “Do you know how much I suffered then and now? Do you have any idea how many times I wanted to kill myself because I thought you didn’t love me? Why do you think I did whatever you told me to do? Because I thought that would make you love me!” His eyes showed sincerity. “Do you love me the way I love you?”

Diamond was at a loss for words. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him; she just didn’t know how to love. She was raised to think to love was to provide, and when you did wrong, you got beat. She always longed for real love, but since she never got it, she didn’t know how to give it.

When she didn’t respond to his questions, Dante said, “I thought so.”

Snapping out of her stupor, Diamond stood. “First of all, let me tell you something. I raised you, and you will respect me.”

“You know what, Ma? I already know that. You raise

d me by yourself, and I ruined your freedom. I get it. It’s in here.” He tapped his temple with his index finger.

Diamond could have breathed fire at that moment. For a few moments, she couldn’t hear anything that Dante said to her. She wanted to straight slap the shit out of him, but standing there looking up at him, she thought about the last time she’d laid hands on him when she had to pull out her gun because he overpowered her. Plus Dante was a young man now and he could easily overpower her. His physique had definitely developed.

She decided to go another route this time, realizing she was losing the control she had over him. She slowly sat back down on the bed and crossed her legs. “What do you want me to do?” she asked calmly.

Dante shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and shrugged.

“I’m sorry, son. I didn’t know you felt that way,” she said, pretending to be sincere.

Dante studied her face, trying to make out who she really was. His mother had never been the calm, understanding type. Maybe she’s changed, he thought. Naw. He quickly dismissed the idea. He knew his mother had dual personalities, a bipolar-type attitude.

“You could start by spending more time with me,” he said.