Hunt For Her: Black & White by Xyla Turner

Chapter Twelve

Kizzy

The next semester,I signed up for three core classes and another elective. This made me full-time, which meant that I was able to get more benefits and if I kept up the pace. Then I could transfer to a four-year college and get my bachelor's degree. Hunt said he was going to do the same thing because that was a part of our plan. What had been happening to us over the past few weeks had been nothing short of a miracle.

Hunt finally told me what happened with his club friends. The man didn’t go into details, because he probably knew I could not handle that shit. I mean, I had been talking to a counselor about the shit he and I were in. Sometimes, we would find ourselves in a conundrum of a conversation, especially with the political climate. One day in class, because we took another African American Studies called The Global History of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Well, Mr. Hunter Ford, who suddenly was best friends with Professor Cullen, brings him in on our argument from the night before. Nothing to do with the slave trade, mind you.

“Cullen, tell Kizzy that the fact that black people were slaves means they can still have a slave mentality.” He raised his hand, as the man wanted to sit closer to the front these days.

Nodding his head, Professor Cullen smirked and said, “This is true. It is also true that white people can have white slave master mentalities as well.”

I jerked around to face Hunt and said, “Exactly!”

“But that’s not what we were talking about the other night. You said that anyone can have a slave mentality, no matter the color.” Hunt pointed out.

“She’s right too. A slave could be anything or anyone. A crack fiend is a slave to the drug and can have a mentality to this. In the context of this class and black people, who had been slaves, yes. That’s right as well.” Cullen chimed in. Then he turned towards the class and said, “I should get professor of the year, I got the happy couple arguing about my class over dinner.”

The class laughed and Hunt swung his arm around me and pulled me into his chest, while kissing my forehead.

“We’re a happy couple,” he laughed.

“Are we?” I sniped back.

“Damn right, we are,” he replied as his eyes went wide with steely determination.

The man was not to be played with about our relationship status. I think this was what I needed to know. It was more than quirting his club and continued in the coursework, but even trying to understand. He was reading a lot more about Malcolm X and all these different black history books. I think I thought he had a class project that he had to do every week. He was quiet about it, so I assumed he needed more help than I could provide. Though he was making great progress, passing his quizzes and his test. The man even got a higher grade than me in the African American Studies courses. I could not believe that shit. It was two questions that I was confused, but when I asked him about it, he said he got lucky. I’m like, Bro, we studied together.

That’s when he shared what those meetings were about. Apparently, he started doing some diversity work with Cullen and other professors, researchers, and speakers around the world. He’d been working on getting better about race for me, he shared, but for himself. Cullen gave him an opportunity that he could have missed out on, due to the club causing issues with the security clearance. The freaking man was co-authoring a book, had speaking engagements and was on panels about race. I jumped up from the sofa and asked, “Why would you keep that from me? That’s amazing, Hunt!”

He put his head down and shook it.

“It’s fucking embarrassing, Kizz,” he murmured as he peered up. “I wanted to show you that’s I’ve changed. That I’m committed. That I can be better and different. I guess I wanted you to see it and not have me tell you.”

Hunt shrugged his shoulders and sat back, like I was going to berate him or something. Putting one of my knees in the couch, I straddled him, put my arms around his neck and said, “I’m dating a famous and reformed white supremacist, who will be writing books and speaking around the world. Shit…you’re the best boyfriend, I’ve ever had.”

His eyes met mine and outside of that one day, where he looked like the world was on his shoulders, Hunt was about to get emotional. I thought he would kiss me, but he just stared into my eyes, before saying, “I ain’t ever been the best anything, Kizz. Till now and you don’t know what that means to me. I’m trying sweetheart. I’m saving and I’m going to marry you, buy us a house and when we finish with this school, we’re moving to the East or West coast. I promise you.”

“Hunt, we could stay right here and that would not change how I feel about you.”

That was when he kissed me, which led to other things.

* * *

Anyway,while he was at his weekly meeting, I was on campus at the library, looking for a job that would help me study as well as fulfill my work-study commitment. The library was more up my speed, instead of the sandwich shop. Food services with ungrateful and entitled ass folks was not my calling.

My phone dinged and I thought it was Hunt, but when I saw Tiff’s number, I paid closer attention, because we never really talked.

The text read,

“Girl, is this your mama?”

This led to a live video where I saw a familiar house, but the man and woman were fighting outside.

Oh shit.

“You son of a bitch,” I heard in the fuzzy video. “Fucking son of a bitch.”

That was my mama.

I was too involved to do all the things people should do. I just knew the scene too well, but this wasn’t Willard being drunk, it was my mama. She picked up a lawn chair and hurled it at him. He dodged it and said she needed to get some help. Then said he was leaving.

Ma shook her head and said, “Kizzy was right about you the whole time. You ain’t shit. I stood by you through everything and you up and leave when I need you the most.

My eyes were glued to the phone as I heard a drunk woman’s confessions. It seemed the roles had reversed at least for a moment.

“How dare you?” Ma was screeching as she hit him upside the head with her purse. “You motherfucking bitch.”

Willard head snapped back from the impact of the bag, as he tried to retreat to his beat-up truck. The same truck he’d always had that looked like it was one-point-two seconds from the junkyard. I swear it was on bricks in front of the house every other week. I guess he had a talent for fixing that piece of shit, but what I had never seen him have to do is try to fix the front windshield.

This was needed, because as I continued to watch the ordeal transform, Ma threw probably one of those same bricks through that front window.

Damn.

Every instinct in me wanted to go and aid her, but I just sat there watching it like an accident. It was probably the same way that whoever was recording it was watching and not aiding. Shit, maybe this was the aid, just in case, but this was incriminating for Mom.

That thought jolted me out of my trance, as I began to replay the many times, I was bailing her out from jail. However, it was never because she was fighting with that man, she called a husband. Fighting others, driving while under the influence, reckless endangerment, and public intoxications among the rest of them.

I had never and I mean, never seen my mom acting like this. She was probably drunk, angry and most of all, from the look in her eyes, hurt. This made me sad, but I also knew that there were just some things I could not solve. This is what my counselor tried to tell me, that I was enabling her behavior. It felt disloyal or disingenuous, but it was true. I missed out on so many opportunities because I had to help mom for one reason or another. This might have been the moment I was waiting for, but time would tell. I thanked Tiff for letting me know, then I closed out the link because it was too hard to see.

I called mom, but she didn’t answer. The next day I went over there and she wasn’t there. Usually this meant she went on a bender and I had learned a long time ago. Interrupting the bender just prolongs the inevitable. So, I left a note on her front door and tried to call her once a week or so. Figuring her and Willard had made up or something.

* * *

Two months later,Hunt came to me with a solemn look on his face.

“Babe,” he called, as he sat on the couch with me. He looked a little different, but it was more of his new cleaner cut. Since he had been doing some speaking engagements, he cleaned up a bit. Not his mouth, or his presentation, but his look. The man still wouldn’t wear khakis to save his life, but jeans, motorcycle boots, which he just bought one for him and me, and his classic open tee with a button-down over it, remained.

What’s wrong,” I asked, while he continued to stare at me with that look. “Fuck, what happened?”

He was starting to freak me out. I put down my book and turned my left leg so it was on the couch, and leaned in, so I could hear exactly what he was going to say.

“You ain’t goina like this,” he started, as his eyes shifted to the door of our new apartment.

“Hunt, tell me because you're freaking me out.”

Anytime he started off with you ain’t go into like this, he is spot on. I do not like the shit, but I need to know. The last time, it was when he told me that my car had been totaled by some asshole who hit it hard and ran. Probably drunk, which I knew all too well. The car was totaled and since I hadn’t had the best credit, I was over the loan with a high two-figure interest rate, but Hunt tried to calm me by paying for the rest of the loan.

Hunt spoke with mom. Gave her the address and was having dinner with her. She was now sober and remorseful. Clean and willing to do what was necessary to repair the relationship. I, of course, being the independent woman that I am, did not like this, but after he explained and used his fingers and tongue to explain more, I let that shit go.

Quickly.

“So, your mom reached out,” he brought me back from my thoughts and the jerk of my head with widened eyes put him on full alert. Raising his hands in defense, he said, “Hear me out, babe. She’s good. She don’t want nothing, but to talk to you.”

I interjected and said, “That’s something.”

“Babe, stop it. It’s your mom. “Hunt grabbed my hands and pulled them to me, so they were touching his chest. “She wants to talk to you. To us. She’s sober, babe. Clean for months now. “

I l tilted one side of my mouth up, in disbelief, but Hunt shook his head at my gesture.

“She’s sober. I’m telling you, we had a long talk and she…”

“You HAD A LONG TALK WITH MY MOTHER?!?!?” I interrupted and realized that I was yelling.

“Not only was I yelling, but I was up on my feet, with my fist balled and the heat felt trapped in my body, as I could feel the air from the system running over my steamed heated skin, causing goose bumps.

I had only realized my error, when Hunt’s eyebrow went up in challenge, as he barked, Kizzy McDaniel, might want to lower it babe.”

He only used that tone and my last name when he was tempering his own anger or disappointed in me.

Exhibit B.

“You spoke to my mom,” I repeated, making sure not to lose my point of contention.

This time, Hunt stood up and answered, as he moved into me, no longer afraid, which should have put me more in fear, because when he dug his heels about something, I might as well, get in line.

“Yeah, I spoke to her.” He rubbed both of my arms down, warming my already heated body. “You need to talk to her. She’s sober and ain’t looking for nothing, but to talk.”

I was shaking my head in the negative as he was talking, but he moved his hands up to my neck and nodded, “Not the Kizzy I know and love. Not my lady. If you can forgive a man like me, you surely can forgive your mother. The Kizzy I know is sweet, kind and despite affiliations, found room in her heart for a broken man like myself. Babe, calm down and call your mother.”

Then he kissed the top of my forehead, gave me a squeeze and left the room.

Motherfucker.

He ain’t never pull the card out on me. Not ever. Even if I was digging my heels about something I was totally justified in doing. He’d nod, tell me to sleep on it, but this thing with my mom, well, I knew this hit home for him too. I knew he was bias and would treat the woman like gold, but he didn’t understand.

Or maybe he did.

That night, I tried to keep my back to him in bed, but Hunt wasn’t having none of that shit. He fucked me into compliance, where at least I was facing him with my head buried into his chest. I was able to sleep, unlike before and when I woke up, I was ready to deal with the day. He had a speaking engagement, the next morning, which was far away, while I had library assistant interview. He told me it would be broadcasted later that evening, which was perfect, because I hated missing his speeches. He was so captivating. The man still had zero fucks, but it as something that was liberating about him. Now, he had zero fucks about white supremacy. I ain’t going to lie. Knowing that was the same man that belted, White lives matter, first,” and now renounced, coached and mentored other men around this work was life changing.

With that thought, I thought of my mother and called her. Her number was still the same and she sounded, dare I say…well.

“Hey Kizzy, baby,” my mom called me that when I was younger. “Know you not really trying to hear from me, but I just wanted to talk to you. Let you know, I’m doing alright. Heard from that man of yours, you’re doing amazing things and…” her voice quaked with emotion, as she tried to say the next word.

“I’m sorry.” She blurted with a watery breath. “Didn’t expect this.”

My mom was never emotional. The woman took a punch, blamed herself and said it was fine. I don’t think I had ever seen the woman cry.

“Mom, are you alright?” I was getting a bit worried by the display of emotion.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for being such a shitty mom. You’re doing great and it ain’t cause of me, you know. I ain’t never had no aspirations. Wanted someone to love me for me and I had a problem, which both fucked up the only good thing I ever produced which was you. I just fucked up, Kizzy. You tried to tell me and I ain’t ever want to hear it. I knew it, but the admission would have made it true. My mama and daddy had problems. I had too, your uncle Junebug died from liver failure, cause he had one and I’m just so glad I had a daughter smart enough to get the fuck outta there. I just…wish I would have been a better mother, but I’m telling you…I’m trying to tell you. You not crazy girl. I was the problem, never you.”

I felt an odd wetness on my face, as her words penetrated a place, I didn’t even know existed. Acceptance that she was the crazy one and not me.

Fuck.

I attempted to open my mouth several times, but nothing came out. Then finally, I said, “Mom, I’m sorry.”

“You ain’t ever owe me no apologies, girl.” She scoffed and sniffed into the phone. “Not ever. I understand if you don’t want to see me or nothing. I get that. Don’t deserve it anyway. I’d never impose that on you, but I’m getting better. I’m committed to it. My eyes are beginning to clear up, so I can see. It’s going to be a continual journey, they say, but I’m on it, Kizz. I ain’t trying to keep fucking up, you know.”

“Yeah, mom. I know.” I was nodding my head, though she couldn’t see me or my tears continually rolling down my wet face. “I, uh…”

It wouldn’t come out, so I cleared my throat and said, “I forgive you mom.”

There was a pause, and then a huff of a scream. She was crying, which made me began to cry to.

“I don’t deserve it, Kizzy,” she managed to say through her outbursts of emotions. Thank you, baby.”

“Oh, mom.” We both cried for another fifteen minutes or more, as we tried to collect ourselves. When that finally happened, we set up an open invitation dinner, so she would not feel pressured, but know that she could come by and see me and Hunt. I had never seen my mom like that. She didn’t even mention Willard, but I knew that he’d moved on, as Tiff saw him with another lady in her neighborhood. He said something about he was sober and he looked happy. I didn’t have time to send the asshole any ill will, but it was a funny thing.

Later,mom described to me the event with Willard. She said it was by spending quality years with someone in a dump, for them to get out the dump, dump you, cause you was in there with them smelling like shit and for you to pick up the pieces of their smelly mess and yours. She just shook her head, as if she was done and I said no more, because that made sense to me. She didn’t discuss him, because she probably thought it would be a sore spot for me, but maybe more for herself. The shame that came with him. I got that.