Lovers & Haters Read Online Free Page B

can’t be late. So I’m afraid that your pipe dream has to be put on hold.”
    Ne Ne was in the kitchen walking around in a navy blue housecoat, slippers, and a green bandanna. She was cooking grub, and Xavier knew exactly what that meant: Her boyfriend, Nathaniel “Nate” Fisher, had stopped in for a late-evening breakfast. Xavier didn’t like to use the word hate because it was so permanent, but he couldn’t stand Nate, Ne Ne’s new flavor of the month. The dude was a bum who dressed mostly in sweat suits and Air Jordan sneakers, and he was older than her by five years. Nate was always drinking and he never gave Ne Ne any money even though he ate at their house like a starved homeless man with a free pass at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Nate was using Xavier’s mother and Xavier hated it.
    Ne Ne was light-skinned, a little on the thick side but shapely, and she obeyed Nate like a faithful Rottweiler.
    Ne Ne had finished cooking and was now stacking the dirty dishes in the sink with the rest. For as long as Xavier could remember, his mother kept a filthy house. It was one of her trifling habits that had kept his father and mother at each other’s throats. Ne Ne walked over to the refrigerator and removed a tub of butter. She moved across to a kitchen cabinet over the sink and took out a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s.
    Annoyed, Xavier challenged, “Ma, why does it have to be a pipe dream? A guy can’t have a dream?”
    â€œWhat did I tell you about calling me Ma ?” she corrected him, hands on her hips with attitude.
    â€œYou said some crap about it making you feel old, and for me and Alfonso to call you by your first name.”
    â€œRight. It’s Ne Ne to you. I’m too young to be a Ma . As far as your dream, Xavier, let me tell you about reality.” She spread butter over the top of the huge stack of pancakes. “The reality is that your daddy went to jail and didn’t leave us with any money. This house don’t operate—”
    â€œThat’s doesn’t operate—”
    â€œâ€”don’t ever correct me again, Joe College!” She rolled her eyes at her son. “Anyway, like I was saying, this house don’t operate on dreams. It runs by the almighty dollar. I told you, you have to get your butt out there and hustle to help me inside here—that’s the only dream I’m interested in. I told you that young black males can only make it out of the ghetto by hustling, going to jail, or getting killed.” The heat from the pancakes mixed the syrup in with the melted butter, which ran over the sides, pooling into a rich and sticky deliciousness.
    â€œSounds like some garbage to me,” Xavier said.
    Ne Ne aggressively pointed the butter knife at her son. “I will stick this in your ear if you ever talk to me like that again.”
    He could easily predict in which direction the conversation was headed. Xavier glanced down at his raggedy gear.
    â€œDon’t you want better for yourself? New clothes, fresh sneakers? I’m sure you do. Well, I cannot get them for you. My job is to put food on the table and pay the bills.”
    â€œDon’t you get a check for Alfonso?”
    His mother never stopped preparing Nate’s grub. Xavier thought that she would fly into a rage at the mention of Alfonso’s disability check. Instead, she was rather calm.
    â€œThat’s right. I’m not like one of them mothers who gets a check for her disabled child and blows it at the hairdresser, shopping malls, and nail salons. If I were you I would forget about your dreams. I got some people who could put you down with some prescription painkillers. OxyContin . . . you can get ten dollars a pill for a bottle with a hundred and twenty tablets. Get your LL Cool J-looking butt out on the street and hustle. That’s the way Hunter men have always done it. FYI, your landlord, your friend and next-door