My cousin Roger wasn’t like his mother; she wanted one man for life. Roger preferred a different man every hour.
After his mother died, Roger really changed. It was nothing to walk in my house and see 10 men hanging around. They’d look at me like I was the intruder! One even used the word “fish” under his breath. “Fish” is a gay man’s word for women.
One night I came home from work to a house full of men and went off. I got the hammer out of the drawer, started swinging it and yelling, “Get the fuck out!”
In no time flat, my home was clear. Even Roger was afraid to come back in, so he spent the night in his car across the street. I put him out the very next day. I rented him a room until I found him an apt.
After he settled in, I did visit a couple times to make sure he was alright. That’s how I found out he was into serious criminal activities. Roger, another cousin and several other guys were selling drugs, prostituting, scamming the state for large sums of welfare and food stamps.
Their operation got too big for the apt, so they rented a large house with several bedrooms and bathrooms. The house was dark and very run down, in a terrible neighborhood. The condition of the house matched the low down activities that went on inside of it. Besides drugs and prostitution, they provided rooms and meals for men dying of AIDS. Once the men died, they’d use their social security numbers to get credit cards, merchandise, cash and state services.
A couple of times I drove by and parked, just to see. Men were coming and going like flies. I saw several expensive cars and some had baby seats. My cousins confirmed that most of their ‘booty call clients’ were married men, with kids. Many were professional men in high raking positions. No one asked any questions and no one gave any names. It was cash and dash!
I tried to stop them before they got busted, but they genuinely enjoyed what they were doing. I reminded Roger that he had diabetes. I told them clearly that if Roger went to prison, he’d die in there.
Roger responded by saying, “We all got to die sometime.”
I took a long hard look at him. In that moment, I knew. And I was flabbergasted!
Although he didn’t say it out loud, it was written all over him; Roger actually wanted to go to prison! He wanted to live in a world without women. The only place for that was in PRISON, with thousands of men.
Once I knew that, I didn’t bother with him anymore. A month later, I bought a new minivan, rented out my house and traveled for a while.
A few years later when I returned to that city, I called around to find out how he was doing. Roger had continued doing wrong, got busted and did 3 years in prison!
By the time I got that news, it was too late. He had already violated parole and was back in prison for the second time. I called the prison and was told that Roger was suffering from kidney failure due to his diabetes. The hospital couldn’t help him anymore so they sent him back to the prison. Before I could call officials and petition that he be sent home, it was over.
My cousin died in prison at the age of 32. But his dream did come true; for a few years, he was
the Queen Bee.
