CHAPTER XXXIX
17:20
Cynthia was watching t.v. upstairs while her parents napped in their room downstairs. She was watching a show about why Hollywood and the Zionist movement in general was up in arms about rumors that Mel Gibson was making another controversial movie concerning one of the richest and most insidiously clandestine families on the flat Earth plane, whose cumulative familial wealth was rumored to be in the trillions. This tenebrous and noisome family were longtime bankers of the Vatican and had established a Central Bank in all but a few countries in the world, Cuba and Afghanistan being the most notable out of the last holdouts. Either that or they owned the Central Bank of the country. Their name was synonymous to extravagance and cunning and secret societies. Mel Gibson had been warned by bigwigs worldwide to desist from further production of this movie, by name: Rothschild.
Cynthia and her elder brothers had grown up researching shit like the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Society of Skull and Bones, the Knights Templar, the Order of Malta, the Orsini family, the Bilderberg Group - in short, every group or organization that made up the New World Order, which was a vast conglomeration of secret (and not so secret) associations connected to and part of the Thirteen Families. These secret organizations were not fables, Cynthia and the twins found out, after rigorous research during school essay time - these organizations actually existed and, due in large part to the pilfering of Nikola Tesla's futuristic experiments, these secret brotherhoods, or "sects," had been exposed on the Internet for the nocuous, misandrist and misogynist death machines they were. The Royal Family of Great Britain was a part of such invidious individuals. In this twentieth century, when ultraliberalism placed no boundaries on any of these morally defunct and noisome conglomerations, the latter were glibly, even haughtily, open about their existence. The Left and the Far Left supported the LGBTQRSTUV movement, which was meh, whatever. But when children started being sexualized and preached to by drag queens inside of libraries as to the questionable "merits" of their outré lifestyles, Black people started, grudgingly and hesitantly, turning conservative in droves.
The Conservative Party was notoriously racist, yes, but they didn't want their children being exposed to LGBTQRSTUV ideologies and lifestyles.
Neither did Black people. For the most part.
Blacks supported Stand Your Ground laws, as long as it was stand your ground for everybody, not just White people, and not just a certain caste of White people. And was it Tennessee or Texas discussing a permitless open or conceal carry, which Black folks, in general, supported? Most Black people supported the right to bear arms because they had been terrorized forhundreds of years in and by a country they were forced to help build, the greatest and most thankless nation on flat Earth. It was like being caught between a rock and a hard place for Black people. Liberals acted like they supported Black people (and perhaps some, or even many, did) but they were trying to force bizarre ideas, alien to the culture of Blacks, in general, onto and into the Black population.
The Black population looked on with humorous disdain and mild contempt at Lil Nas X, but they also rebuffed the house nigger "Kumbaya" ideology of Candace Owens and Ben Carson (a phenomenal neurosurgeon but looked upon by most Blacks as a betrayer of his people), both of whom had stated in crystal clear English that there was no race problem in America, which had appalled and enraged Blacks, swinging the pendulum of favor back to the Liberal Party. And perhaps this was just another longstandingly nefarious Plan of both sides (Democrat and Republican) of the same coin (America): keep the Blacks divided on critical (and critical race theory) issues.
Cynthia's thoughts ran deeper as a picture of the late David Rockefeller came onscreen. The doorbell rang and she was startled out of her profound thoughts, in which she, like every young Black (and some non-Black) idealist believed she could find an answer to the divisiveness of the Black race. Perhaps a "Unitary Black Caucus" or "Unitary Black Congress," whereof all groups therein expressed their opinions and values, regardless of political or religious affiliation, but all would stand as one on key issues in American politics, by majority vote on every arising issue. Blacks had been (and, to a large extent, still were, a powerful force with which to be reckoned by America, especially political America, especially in the nineteen sixties, when Black people fought in earnest for de minimis civil rights accorded to racist Whites. A substantial faction of those racist Whites, racist White women, tagged along on the coattails of the Black civil rights champions to plead for their cause as well, without really having to fight.
Black civil rights champions were approached and agreed to patronize the suffragette movement. What the fuck did the suffragette movement ever do for Blacks since then? Even as in ever? Black communities across America would be so much more powerful in unity had the FBI not begun infesting and supplying Black neighborhoods with crack, crack-cocaine, dope, etc., as it had introduced alcohol (and the aforementioned drugs also) to Native Americans, who, to this day, were struggling to heal from that deliberate proxy process of genocide. But that was just fine because now, those same heavy drugs, as well as other harsh opioids, were hitting White communities all across America, and formerly draconian drug laws (Rockefeller again came to mind, this one Nelson [not the patriarch David], who, in 1973, enacted outlandish penalties for the mere possession of four ounces of marijuana or 113 grams of cocaine or raw or prepared opium, landing one a minimum of 15 years to life in prison and a horrendous maximum of 25 years to life).
From 1959 to 1973, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the 49th governor of New York State helped initiate, continue and propagate the FBI's shameful and nocent plans to cripple the Black population across America. The governor's laws were embarrassingly biased and centered against African-Americans. A crooked businessman and an even more crooked politician, Nelson Rockefeller also served as the 41st vice president of the United States from December, 1974, to January, 1977. On January 27th, 1979, he died at the age of 77 years, alleged to have been cheating on his wife the very time the heart attack struck, the bastard. He was vice president to Gerald Ford, the only president (and former vice president) to not be elected to either position but to have served in each position. Nelson Rockefeller decimated Black American families, many of whose father figures were unjustly arrested and jailed for possessing or selling the same drugs promulgated into primarily Black neighborhoods.
Ain't that about a bitch, Cynthia thought as she went to the door while rapping a part of a famous rap song:
... drop that top down, they gon' kill us anyway, them cops uptown hit Holmes with forty-one rounds
Live yo life, get yo ice, she been with you since day one, nigga, trick on your wife
Spend that dough, when in doubt, take that trip, she ain't living for the moment, homie, shake that bitch
He that cool, he can't take you nowhere? Leave that fool, be that rude if he that cool
Say for what? Ball til ya days is up, this place is fucked, all types o' AIDS 'n such
How they make it where you afraid to fuck? They gave us drugs then turned around and investigated us
Those last two lines were what she had been trying to remember: they gave us drugs then turned around and investigated us!
As she peered through the peephole, Cynthia remembered what Dave Chappelle had said in his hugely popular standup special "Sticks and Stones": "This opioid crisis is a crisis. I see it every day, it's as bad as they say. It's ruining lives, it's destroying families. Sadly, you know what it reminds me of, seeing it? Reminds me of us. These White folks look exactly like us, during the crack epidemic. Ya know, it's really crazy to see. And all this shit they talking about on the news about how divided the nation is, I don't believe it, I feel like now niggas- we're getting a real good look at each other. Cuz why, because, I even have insight into how the White community must've felt watching the Black community go through the scourge of crack... because I don't care, either... Hang in there, Whites... 'Just say no,' whats so hard about that?... Remember when y'all said that to us, but it's okay, there's no grudges, now you finally got it right. Once it started happening to your kids, you realize it'sahealth crisis. These people are sick. They are not criminals, they are sick!"
Indeed.
No one was at the door. She stepped into the adjacent kitchen and got one of the larger ancient, but no less deadly, Ginzu knives. Holding the knife how her brothers had shown her to in self-defense, she unlocked and opened the door just as Branson was reaching to press the bell and joking quietly with Kingson on the side and almost took out her eye.
"Oooooowwwww," Cynthia yelled, white flashes bursting in her head where her stepbrother had almost taken out her eye. She still had the presence of mind to hold the dangerous and cultrate instrument away from her body with one hand while covering her eye with the other. Branson quickly pulled her to him, whispering rapid apologies into her ear and into the cleft of her neck. She leaned heavily into him as he held her, comforted by his presence and the strength of his arms encircling her. Kingson cupped the back of her braided head and kissed her on her ear since her face was buried in Branson's chest. Kingson gently took the Ginzu away from her and stepped into his childhood home, in (Westview) 595, Main Street, apartment 622.
At the front door, coming out of the apartment, one could see, opposite and to the right, out of the building's windows, the last of the longest series of continuously connected buildings: (Eastwood) 580 Main Street. Directly in front and six flights down was the fenced baseball field that doubled as a football field and where other sports were played as well. Right next to that sports field was a basketball court down from a large handball court split into two by a large wall so one could okay handball on either side. Connected to the left and right of this handball court was a small tennis or dodgeball space. Each of the courts was individually fenced, obviously for the safety of spectators sitting on the various benches neatly positioned in what this entire area was known as (including the sports field): Northtown.
The Roosevelt Island bridge was visible to the left, traversing the Hudson over to Queens, a fraction of which was visible directly opposite, primarily storehouses. Cynthia's hug felt great as she pressed herself into Branson and finally looked up, squinting, into his brown eyes, wherefrom shone an unexpressed and inexpressible sorrow and regret so heavy as to weigh down even Atlas. Cynthia was his stepsister with whom he and Kingson had been through so much together, but always one incident arose its ugly head. Their faces seemed to come closer of their own accord.
"Y'all coming in or what?" Kingson yelled from inside, breaking the spell that always seemed to bind them whenever they were united. Branson remembered the movie "Hancock," in which Will Smith and that piece of shit Charlize Theron played a pair of superhuman immortals who, each time they came together, for any sustained period, the world seemed about to come to an end; also, the closer their proximity to one another, and the longer they remained in such closeness, the weaker they became, until their powers were lost and they could be killed by ordinary human weapons. What an interesting idea as a movie.
But they were always drawn to each other; through time immemorial, they would always be drawn to one another - physically, spiritually and emotionally. And they were, allegedly, siblings. And they held amorous affection for one another. Branson didn't have superpowers, but he seemed to always be drawn to Cynthia, who was his sibling. Cynthia had no superpowers, but she also seemed to always be drawn to her stepbrother. And, indeed, when they were together, inevitably, eventually, the world seemed as if it were about to end.
Charlize Theron was a piece of shit to Branson (and the majority of Black people he knew) because of how she was raising her Black son - as a girl. Branson detested Hollywood stars and other types of celebrities who raised their children as other than their natural born genders. He felt the exact same way about Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union Wade, fuck if they were Black - they were scumbags! Adelle? A pestilence. Magic Johnson? A horrendous parent. Angelina Jolie? Scum. Their acting and sporting and singing talents were undoubtable. But their moral compasses were off the hinges atrocious.
Branson felt that, if you have a boy child, raise him as a boy child, in age appropriate boys attire. This was another issue of contention in the Black community, which, as a community, was mostly anti-homosexual. If the Black community wasn't actively anti-homosexual, it certainly wasn't pro, either.
Branson was going to have a son, he knew it, felt it. Why would he dress up his man child as a girl? Why would any decent parent?
The answer was quite simple, really. Either:
1.) the child was a sacrifice for the price of long fame and fortune; or
2.) the parents were mentally unstable and State and Federal law should have mandated psychiatric sessions for these kinds of parents, and their children should have been taken away from them and given to other family members and also given psychiatric treatment for the psychosis they had had to endure at the hands of mentally and psychologically defunct people. How could some adults say that, because their child wanted to dress in the other sex's clothing (especially boys to girls, as there was something foundationally wicked and disgusting about that particular scenario), that they would let them? This, to Branson and his family, was unbridled madness! If their child wanted to smoke a cigarette, would they let them? If their child wanted to repair a car engine, would they let them? If their child wanted to drive a sportscar or motorcycle, would those same dumbasses allow the child to do so?
Not likely.
Thus, why would adults and parents allow children to make their own decisions? Children, whose brains aren't even half-formed. Sound advice was to raise your children as the sex they came into this plane being and then, after becoming adults and being able to move out of the homes of their parents, then they would be free to make such adult decisions, decisions the consequences of which their young adult brains could grasp (as in the result of sex change operations, taking hormones and the like).
Cynthia pulled Branson in by the hand. They went to the living room that was connected openly to a small parlor area and a small dining space. There was a balcony, to which they went. Westview 595 and Westview 625 were one connected building that made a "U," the curve of the U being flat and being the view outside of the front door, alongside a row of neighbors left and right a long corridor. The inside of the U, also shared by neighbors to the left and right, faced the other side of the East River and part of the FDR Drive.
They were on the sixth floor and below was the left to right rectangular ceiling of the ground floor, which was a long corridor (the shorter arm of the U) connecting both sides of Westview, through which, when you crossed you got a clear look of the building's backwsrds "L" - shaped pool. From the balcony of an apartment outside, one could see the top of the pool's glass ceiling slanting down, and the thick wire mesh glass protected by a type of fence hanging a foot over the entire pool roof, connected to different intermediately raised bars - it was an intricate affair and a marvelous work. There were other areas of the building, and outside, that were visible, like the walkways (a part of one side of it) that ringed Roosevelt Island all around its ovular shape. There was a small park one could also observe from any apartment on the inside of that U. Branson had enjoyed just watching this relatively small space from this selfsame balcony years and years ago.
"How long are y'all here for?" Cynthia asked Kingson, who was seated in the main chair, Dad's chair, in the living room, watching t.v. The balcony door was open so Kingson could hear her clearly.
"No more than two hours."
"Thats not fair."
"Neither is life, I know, but we might be back on Sunday, the whole day. We'll also bring some guests, so cook big, okay?" Branson was glaring at Kingson, who now turned and addressed him through the sliding door. "Dont worry, bro, it'll be fine." Branson blew air in frustration.
"Soooo... What?" Cynthia asked, also turning to Branson, eyebrow cocked dangerously, a storm furrowed into her brow. "You don't wanna come see me?"
"Did I say that? And you know thats not true."
"Favorite twin," Kingson mumbled, not quite under his breath.
"Stop it, Kingson. You know I love the both of you equally and without favoritism; you know it." Kingson rolled his eyes and yawned ostentatiously for it to have been anything but affectation, the skepticism written all over his body language. Cynthia made an exasperated sound, fists balled up at her sides. Both twins laughed.
"Thats why y'all hair ain't growing no more," Cynthia joked on her stepbrothers.
"We gotta trim the edges every other month, but what'syour excuse for them fucked up edges?" Branson responded. Both twins gave each other dap, saying "ooh."
"They might not never be," Cynthia retorted, playing with her perfectly coifed edges. "You ain't know Mom is Indian? I got them Indian edges, baby. But your sweatpants are dirty, though - what's up with that?" She bent over to inspect the white patch on Bransons lap area. Licking her finger, Cynthia rubbed the white patch of the guilty looking Branson's pants and smelled it. Her nose wrinkled. "This nigga walking around with come on his lap."
"I told that nigga, but he ain't wanna change, talm bout, 'My sweats are clean, ain't nobody gonna notice.' Somebody noticed, nigga."
"Her powers of observation are greater than those of the average person," Branson stated, chin up in faux hauteur. Kingson and Cynthia looked at one another and burst out laughing. "
"Whatever, yo!" Branson said with his teeth clenched as his anger mounted. He turned to watch the sun moving off to the left. The gloaming was falling and some of the other neighbors were coming out to also enjoy the sunset. Kingson stepped out onto the balcony to side of the balcony, jostling his arm. Branson looked at him; Kingson raised his brows as if asking if his brother was all right; Branson merely issued a small grunt and turned back to the waning sun. Cynthia edged between them and, even when Branson, with his sensitive ass, tried squirming away from her, she still held to him tightly. Her hand went under and inside his sweatshirt and Branson quieted immediately with the sensation of skin on skin contact. It was peaceful.
Peace is not your portion and you will not die in peace, The Voice whispered. Branson stumbled but he caught himself on the stone edge of the solid waist-high railing.
"You about a clumsy ass nigga, Branson, what the fuck?" Cynthia said angrily, having held onto his waistband as he had fallen forward. "How exactly do you stumble standing straight up?" Branson had the ill sheepish look on his face.
"Tired, Im guessing," Branson lied. "We have been running around all day. Almost lost our got damn lives uptown, all types of shit."
"He's right," Kingson said, backing up his brother, which Branson hated with a passion, as if no one in the family believed him without Kingson's support. "Even I'm feeling a bit tired, and hungry."
"I put a li'l something together for yall, nothing special, just a li'l sum sum," said Cynthia, smiling. They stepped back inside and into the kitchen where they all washed their hands and Cynthia prepared to reheat the smoked turkey, dirty coconut rice, buttered asparagus and jerk chicken meal. As usual, where Cynthia's cooking was concerned, it was a success. The turkey, even though smoked, wasn't dry - she had simmered and smothered it in its own broth and butter, enough to keep one from the cottonmouth of white meat and to retain the smoky flavor in the meat rather than it being boiled, or broiled, out. The asparagus was buttered to perfection, not heavily (as demanded by turkey enthusiasts in this type of preparation), so that its intrinsic vegetable taste wouldn't be drowned in butter. Dirty rice was always a favorite when served but when boiled with coconut milk and a few jalapenos, the meal became sublime. Add to that the jerk chicken and the twins knew Cynthia had likely spent the whole morning cooking, after having begun preparing last night, as most master chefs usually do. Cynthia usually left the spices and jerk to be absorbed by the chicken overnight. She had truly outdone herself; a normal day.
Good food and good company make for good bedfellows and tonight was no exception. They ate and laughed as if they were once again children, ribbing each other in good spirits and reminiscing of the good times, even the bad.
"Remember when the housekeeper almost beat you both up?" Cynthia asked her brothers, giggling like a schoolgirl at a troublesome memory one cannot really believe one experienced and lived through to tell the tale about.
"I remember Dad was about to have his ass deported and then he ran his ass to God knows the fuck where," Branson reflected. He had saved Kingson from a seriousthrashing that day, executing a taekwondo takedown from behind on the stronger, but less agile, housekeeper, an African nigga by the name of Christopher. Kingson had regained his feet and put Christopher in a type of chokehold that had caused him to faint, while Branson had struggled to arm bar the nigga. After he fainted, the twins left the house in a tizzy, ready to fuck shit up outside. Thankfully, no such victim presented himself. Gadam, but them niggas from Africa were like lions and tigers and bears: oh my, strong as fuck!
Christopher didn't even wait for the twins' dad, Ernest Jackson, to come home. Mr. Jackson had long ago told him that the day Christopher put his hands on his children would be the same day he went to jail and got deported. Christopher awoke, packed his suitcases and called Cynthia to him. He told her to lock the front door and that if Daddy asked where he had gone, to please tell him not to worry and not to look for him. Cynthia was fourteen years old at the time and understood and obeyed the housekeeper. When the elder Mr. Jackson came back home that night, it had taken all the will of his wife to keep the Chief Financial Officer of a certain prestigious structural engineering company from hunting down Christopher himself.
"Fun times," Branson quipped sarcastically, raising his cup of fruit juice in a mock toast of past trials and tribulations.
"Where are the folks?" Kingson asked Cynthia.
"They ate heavy today, right before y'all came, and went downstairs, surely to nap til about eight oclock."
"You really know their schedules, huh?"
"You make it sound like I have a choice." The table quieted and the t.v.'s muttering became conspicuously loud.
"I'm sorry, Cyn," Kingson apologized. "I didnt realize just how difficult these last two years had been. If you want, I can start looking for-" Cynthia waved away the rest of Kingson's suggestion. She had consciously put her life on hold to take care of her parents, whose health was deteriorating, so she wasnt going to start whining now.
Within a few weeks, they would have to make a decision, to hospitalize their beloved parents or have them looked after by a live-in nurse. Maybe two; the work was simply becoming overwhelming. She explained this to her big brothers and they nodded. The conversation lightened after they took their plates to the kitchen and washed them. Since childhood, each child was taught to clean up after himself and herself, and they guarded this teaching zealously.
One time, Kingson had had the temerity to ask his dad why they, his children, had to do all this cleaning, that they were rich. His dad's responses had never left him:
"No, my son, I'm rich. They don't work for us, they work for me. I pay his salary and he will continue doing as I say. When you have your own money, you can do as you please, in your household. This doesn't mean, nor does it give you the right, to treat anyone who works for you like a slave, either. Respect is mutual, even between employers and employees. If you pay and treat people well, they will gladly follow your instructions, instead of the instructions of the headstrong and stubborn children of their employers." Both twins had never forgotten that lesson and, whereas they both lived according to a different set of rules in either of their hustles, both had come away with one conviction: by nook or by crook, they would never be poor. Kingson had worked his butt off in the realm of jurisprudence, and Branson had become the owner of a large street pharmacy chain after a significant amount of blood, sweat and tears had been shed. They were fully young adults now, capable of anything.
In any event, as wealthy as their parents had been, the children had not grown up spoiled. They were fully self-sufficient young adults now, capable of anything. Time passed all too quickly and before Cynthia knew it, seven thirty had arrived and Kingson said it was time to go.
"But you both'll be back on Sunday, right?" Cynthia asked her brothers, a bit anxiously, at the door. The twins shared another glance. Branson's face became angry, momentarily, but then he turned to her.
"Absolutely," Branson promised. Kingson smiled. They hugged their half-sister and she lingered on Branson because, even though they were loved and treated by her the same, truly, the fifty first percent majority was for the twin Mom had always attended to absentmindedly. The twins turned on their phones as they went downstairs through one of the elevators on the Westview 595 side.
