After spending some real quality time with my siblings, I decided to take my mom and her husband, Elio Müller, out for dinner.
Jesus Christ, his name sounds so fucking foreign as hell. But he was a good dude.
We didn’t go anywhere very fancy. We pretty much just hopped around different, locally owned spots. Some of them still had Choco Tacos—those chocolate ice cream tacos—which I absolutely love. I still don’t even know why Klondike discontinued those hoes. They were delicious, and I used to eat them up all the time. But finding a local spot that still carried them was a major dub.
But then, I decided to take them to a really nice, fancy restaurant. One of those expensive-ass places. You know, the kind of spot where they don’t expect someone of a different ethnicity to walk through the door. Yeah, we went straight into an upscale, predominantly white restaurant with a solid five-star rating.
Did I absolutely have to go in there? Hell no. I just went there to flex, to let those old-money crackers know that Black people can make just as much cash as they do.
Okay, to be fair, I’m currently moving darknet bricks of cocaine to pay off a cartel debt... but you get the point!We sat down and started eating.
“So... it’s nice to finally meet you,” Elio said, taking a sip of his wine. “Your mom has told me a lot about you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said, cutting into my steak. “I’m pretty sure it was all good stuff.”
“Only good stuff, really,” Elio nodded. “Ever since she lost you to the foster system, you’re pretty much all she ever talked about.”
That caught me completely off guard. I paused, my fork hovering in the air. “Ever since?”
“Yes...” my mom said softly, looking down at her plate. “I know I treated you like complete shit for years. But the moment they took you away from me, it was like a wake-up call. I realized how much I actually missed you. I know it sounds ridiculous, especially after all the horrible things I used to say to you—”
I cut her off by laughing. “Oh, yeah. You know the good old saying:
you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
Guess that one hit home. But I do wonder... how long did it actually take you guys to meet after I got sent to foster care?”
They looked at each other.
“About six months, actually,” Elio said.
I almost spit out my food. “SIX?! Holy shit. That’s not even a rebound. That’s like dodging the bullet of rebounds, if you ask me.”
“Well, it’s a long story,” Elio smiled. “You see, I worked at the local church near where you guys used to live.”
“What kind of church?” I asked.
“The Catholic one,” Elio said. “I know you two don’t really practice the same religion anymore...”
“I’m in the Nation of Islam,” I said, leaning back. “Mainly Black African Americans who became Black Muslims. We don’t disagree with the Bible entirely. We pretty much think the Bible plagiarizes a lot from the Quran anyway. We still believe in the same God, we just take different stances. So yeah, basically, we’re all Christians, if you get my interpretation.”
They both looked surprised.
“Huh...” Elio said, setting his glass down. “I didn’t expect you to have such an open mind about scripture.”
“I am forever adapting,” I said, leaning back. “If you don’t have an open mind and flow like water, you can never reach true enlightenment or peace.”
Elio shook his head, looking impressed. “He’s only twenty-six, Zola, and he speaks wiser than most pastors. I am truly impressed that God blessed you with such wisdom.”
“But the sad thing about wisdom,” I said quietly, “is that it can be a blessing and a curse at the exact same time.”
My mom looked up. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, if wisdom is actually a blessing, then why did God forbid us from eating from the Tree of Knowledge in the first place?” I asked. “Knowledge can be very good, as we can see. We’ve progressed so far as a species. Now we have artificial intelligence that used to only exist in science fiction. We’re designing cars that can fly, and some dude even made a car that runs on pure water—until the government poisoned his ass to protect the oil companies, that is. So yeah. There are a lot of perks to wisdom. But it’s also a curse, because humanity can take objective truth and completely deny it. They’ll try to fill the world with lies and deceit just to fuel their own narratives.”
Elio smiled, though I could tell he didn’t entirely agree with some of the points I was making. He folded his napkin, setting it beside his plate.
“That is one way of looking at it, Rico,” Elio said gently. “But scripture actually warns us about this. In the Book of Daniel, it says that in the end times, knowledge will increase. But in the letters of Timothy, it says that as men become more intelligent, they will also become more closed-off and deaf to God's message. They get so smart they think they don’t need Him anymore. They become blind to the truth because of their own pride.”
I looked at him, quiet, letting his words settle.
“But,” Elio continued, his eyes warm, “that is exactly why people of faith exist. It is up to believers like us—the ones who still see the light—to help people find their way back to God’s path, even when they’ve wandered far down the tunnel. We have to be the guides.”
I let out a dry, bitter laugh, leaning forward over the table.
“But how can they be the guides,” I clapped back, “when the people who are supposed to lead us down the right path are completely corrupt? The laws we make in this country don’t support a person’s faith at all. The people in charge of keeping us safe don’t even have a legal obligation to do it. And then you have politicians trying to take away your right to bear arms just because a few crazy motherfuckers shoot up a public place. They know good and goddamn well that if a criminal wants a gun, they’re gonna get a gun. All disarming people does is make them defenseless targets.”
I took a sip of my water, my eyes locking onto Elio.
“And don’t even get me started on the history of this country. Gangs weren’t always the criminal enterprises they are today. Originally, minorities in the inner cities were getting so sick of being brutalized by their own government that they formed neighborhood coalitions. They did it to watch out for each other and protect their communities from the police. But what did the system do? The state flooded those Black and Latino neighborhoods with drugs and illegal weapons. They did it deliberately to destroy us from the inside out, just to keep the status quo afloat.”
My mother and Elio just stared at me, the silence at our table heavy.
“That’s the main reason why I despise humans as a species,” I said, my voice dropping into a cold, flat tone. “In nature, there is no right or wrong. There is no good and evil. There is only survival. You can’t call a predator evil because they feed on prey. If they don’t eat, they die. And you can’t call the prey innocent, either, because those same animals will brutally kill each other over territory or mating rights. Humans are the only species of animal on this entire planet that will murder something just because they
want
to. Not because they have to eat, and not because their lives are in danger. Just because they feel like it. That is what makes humans the absolute cruelest animals on Earth.”
Elio shook his head, his brow furrowing. “I cannot agree with that, Rico. I do not believe in evolution. We are not animals.”
“You don’t have to believe in evolution to see the truth,” I shot back instantly, not giving him an inch. “No matter how intelligent an animal is, it is still an animal. If another species on this planet suddenly developed the exact same intelligence as a human, it wouldn’t make them any less of an animal. So why does that logic not apply to us, by your standards? We’re still driven by the same primal instincts. We just have better tools to destroy each other.”
My mom raised her hands, trying to diffuse the tension.
“Okay, fellows,” she smiled, looking between us. “No need to ruin a good dinner by talking about faith and points of view now. Can’t we just agree to disagree?”
“There was no problem, Mom,” I said, leaning back. “I like debating my points of view. I find it very fun.”
“Yeah,” Elio agreed, giving me a warm smile. “You have a very intelligent son, honey. You should be proud.”
From the table right next to us, a loud, sneering voice cut through the air.
“About time.”
Both Elio and I turned around, our eyes locking onto a middle-aged white guy sitting with his wife. He was glaring at our table.
“Can’t me and my wife enjoy our dinner,” the guy muttered, loud enough for half the dining room to hear, “without you guys bringing in Black politics or whatever other nonsense you were talking about?”
My blood instantly began to simmer.
“Wait, who is
you
?” I asked, my voice dropping into a flat, dangerous register. “Why are you listening so hard to our table anyway?”
My mom stood up, her hand slamming onto the table as she glared at the guy. “Why are you in our conversation? We’re having a nice family dinner, and you’re over here sticking your nose in my son and husband's business!”
The guy scoffed, looking at Elio, then at me, and finally back at my mom.
“Oh,” he sneered, a nasty, condescending grin spreading across his face. “Some foreign man stepped up to the plate to be his father? Typical.”
Elio shot up from his chair, his face turning red as his hand slammed onto the wooden table. “HEY! Don’t talk to my wife like that!”
I stood up right beside him, my hand slipping inside the fold of my thobe.
“Yeah, don’t talk to my mama like that!” I growled, getting dead in his space. “Fuck is wrong with you?!”
Within ten seconds, the restaurant manager and a waiter rushed over to our section. But of course, they immediately took the other guy's side, even though we’d just been minding our own business and he was the one who started throwing shots. They treated us like the aggressors, completely ignoring the fact that his bigoted ass had targeted my family first.
The guy saw the staff backing him up, and under his breath, he muttered another slick, nasty insult about my mom.
I let out a low, cold laugh. I didn’t care about the manager or the fancy surroundings. I stepped right up to his table and let him have it verbally, my voice echoing across the silent dining room.
“This white nigga is just upset because his own family doesn’t get along,” I said, my voice dripping with pure venom.
“You live in that nice, wealthy suburban household with absolutely no love. What, did your mom and daddy not raise you right? They left you with fucking nannies, and you grew more attached to them than your own parents—just to find out your nannies weren’t shit either and were only treating you right because they were getting paid. It must feel real bad to know that nobody actually loves you, but they pretend they do just to get some of your daddy’s money.”
The roast hit him like a physical blow. His face went from pale to a deep, bruised purple. Before his wife or the manager could stop him, he lost his mind, lunged forward, and threw a wild, desperate punch straight at my face.
BAM!
His knuckles connected clean with my jaw. But thanks to my years of taking hits from the twins and a trained MMA fighter, his punch felt like a baby tapping my cheek.
I didn’t even flinch. I just stood there, slowly turned my head back toward him, and let a slow, terrifying smile spread across my face.
Oh, it is absolutely on now,
my second voice laughed, completely taking the wheel.
Before he could even draw his hand back, I stepped in and completely destroyed him. I hit him with a hard, quick two-piece, followed by a sweeping low kick that took his legs out from under him. He crashed onto the floor, knocking over his table and shattering his wine glasses.
I stood over him, my chest heaving as he groaned on the floor. It was instantly obvious that this motherfucker had never been in a real fight in his entire life.
Of course, the restaurant staff immediately called the cops.
When the officers finally rolled up, they took one look at my black ass in my traditional thobe and immediately assumed I was the one who had attacked him. But luckily for me, the other diners in the restaurant and the security cameras proved otherwise. They all showed that the dude had lunged forward and hit me first.
It was a textbook case of self-defense.
The funny part was, the cops ended up feeling bad for the guy instead of me. Because of how badly I had dismantled him on the floor, the officer taking my statement just looked at me, completely bewildered.
“Look, I get that he swung first,” the cop said, scratching his head as he looked over at the guy being loaded onto a stretcher. “But why did you have to beat him
so
bad?”
I shrugged, keeping my face completely blank. “Equal and opposite reaction, officer. Newton's third law.”
They had no choice but to let us go. I walked out of the restaurant, my mom and my stepdad, Elio, walking right beside me.
As we got back into the Uber, I looked out the window and couldn’t help but chuckle.
I’d gone into that place just trying to have a nice family dinner. But after that absolute, soul-destroying ass-whooping I had just handed that man in front of his wife... I realized something.
I’ve probably just made that motherfucker want to carry a gun for the rest of his life.
Yep. My bad, y’all.