Misfit(39)
“Dig!” Rule repeated, grinning. After sleeping the entire way home, he was wide awake. “As-fuck.”
“Ash,” CJ corrected. “Say ashfuck.”
“Yo.” Pretending he didn’t hear CJ instruct Rule, Christopher snatched the magazine, a quarterly about guns and ammunition. Respectable, unlike the day of Christopher’s downfall when he’d read a magazine about babies. Still, this was what his club had been reduced to. Reading. Play dates at parks. Babysitting.
“Hey, Prez.” Digger grabbed his cigarette from the ashtray and jammed it in the corner of his mouth. He squinted around the smoke and nodded to CJ. “Hey, lil’ dude.” They fist-bumped, CJ’s smaller fist ramming the SAA’s larger one. “You a violent lil’ motherfucker.”
“And you a ashfuck,” CJ retorted, climbing onto one of the seats, while Rule mirrored CJ in his greeting to Digger.
Whether or not his kid said ashfuck because he couldn’t say assfuck yet, Christopher wasn’t sure and didn’t give a fuck. What did fucking matter wasn’t what he’d said as much as it was being grammatically correct. “Say an assfuck, boy.”
“An ashfuck?”
Fuck, what the fuck had that boring ass motherfucker taught Christopher when he’d been in fucking school? Something about which fucking articles needed to be used in front of words that began with vowel sounds and the ones that began with consonant sounds. Christopher didn’t remember enough to give CJ a reason why he should use ‘an’. One thing he’d never forget was that motherfucker yelling to the class that the use of articles wasn’t based on the spelling but the sound. Christopher had wanted to fuck him up so bad. He’d been a condescending fuckhead.
“Why an?” CJ asked, just as Christopher expected.
“Why an?” Rule echoed.
He shrugged. “Cuz, that’s the right fuckin’ way. Okay?”
“Uh-huh.” CJ grinned at Digger. “You an ashfuck, Dig. I’ma violent motherfucker.” Leaning back, he swung his legs. “Ma a mother. Rory say mother for ma.”
Closing his magazine, Digger tapped out his cigarette. “What the fuck I’m missing?”
“That a ma a mother,” CJ stressed with exasperation.
“He…he’s,” Christopher corrected, attempting to keep a straight face, “tryin’ to say he found out a mother different from a motherfucker.”
CJ nodded with pride.
Digger howled with laughter and Christopher lost it too, while CJ shrieked with happiness.
“He gotta clean his fuckin’ mouth up before he start school,” Christopher said finally.
“Mommie say not to use fuck, shit, damn, hell, ashfuck, and motherfucker no more. Cuz if I say them words at school, she’ll be mad at me.” CJ squirmed in his seat. “I don’t like mommie mad at me. She ain’t let me on my tablet and I can’t play with Harley.”
“So no fuckin’ cussin’ no more, son?” Christopher asked, wondering if he should try and correct CJ’s speech again.
CJ shook his head in his exaggerated manner, hard enough to move his entire body. It surprised him that his kid didn’t rattle the fuck out of his brain. “No fuckin’ cussin’ no more, ‘Law.”
Though wrong like a motherfucker, Christopher laughed at his boy’s statement. Recovering, he looked at Digger. “Anything to know before I go home?”
“Nope. Situation the same it’s been for almost five fucking months. Quiet like a motherfucker.”
“Everything settled down,” Christopher pointed out. “Operations runnin’ smooth. Ain’t no motherfucker fuckin’ with us.” Except for that one motherfucker Mort had to see to. “It’s just fuckin’ domestic shit.”
“Domestic problems easy. Almost no fun. Once me and Bunny talk shit out, boom, it’s settled. No fucking strategizing. Staking motherfuckers out. Most problems we having right now is my fucking wedding and those goddamn tuxedos Bunny want us to wear.”
“She already know I ain’t wearin’ a fuckin’ monkey suit, Digger. I did it one fuckin’ time for Megan. Ain’t no other bitch gettin’ me in one.”
“Mommie a bitch?”
Christopher smoothed the hair at the nape of his neck. “No, boy. Ain’t meant that.”
Well, fuck. CJ being in school wasn’t such a bad thing. He wouldn’t be around to listen to adult conversations. See adult situations. Also, he’d have fucking professionals teaching him the proper language. It was too goddamn much trouble for Christopher.