CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED and EIGHTY-THREE
(part four)

Saturday evening — 6:15 P.M.

“Why do you watch that trash?” Bumpy asked his wife, Dionne.

He stood behind the couch. Dionne looked up from the evening news.

“I’m waiting to see your son,” Dionne said. “Don’t be such an ass. You know you want to see him really do this – clean, sober, saying good-bye to all the toxic in his life.”

Bumpy scowled at her. She patted the couch next to her. He gave her a hard look. She patted the couch and he came around to sit down.

“There he is,” Dionne grabbed the remote control and turned up the volume.

“He’s high,” Bumpy got up from the couch. “He’s really high. And look at the women… I can’t watch this.”

“Don’t you dare go anywhere,” Dionne said. “You know what he said.”

“He’s an addict,” Bumpy said. “He’s back to the same old bullshit.”

“Do you really not remember what happened?” Dionne jumped up to stand in front of him. A small woman next to his massive frame, she gave no ground. “To us?”

“What are you talking about?” Bumpy’s voice was hard and dismissive.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Dionne said.

“That was different,” Bumpy said. “I wanted to get out of the life. I wanted to be with you and create this life. Haven’t I done that?”

“And what did the record company want?” Dionne asked.

Bumpy looked down at Dionne.

“And what happened?”

“We lost the baby,” Bumpy said.

“Why did I lose our son?” Dionne asked.

“Because of them,” Bumpy said. “I had to finish the last three months of my contract. We couldn’t afford to get out of it.”

“And?”

“I got high and…” Bumpy said.

“And?”

Bumpy looked away from her. She tugged on his shirt and he looked down at her.

“That was different,” Bumpy said.

“Why?” Dionne asked. “They slipped you hard drugs. They lied to me and told me you wanted to see me. And what happened?”

“You saw me with a bunch of women,” Bumpy said. “You got so upset that you lost the baby.”

“They blamed me when you wanted to change your life,” Dionne said. “They did everything to break us up.”

“That didn’t happen,” Bumpy said.

“It’s happening to your son right this very instant,” Dionne said. “Your living son will lose his life today if we don’t do something. The only thing he cares about is Tanesha. She’s the only thing that keeps him going. He will lose her today if we don’t do something.”

“Did you hear the song?” Bumpy asked.

“What song?” Dionne asked.

“Our son wrote a song he told me and Seth was for Tanesha,” Bumpy said. “We worked our butts off and…”

“It’s playing on the radio?” Dionne asked.

“He must have leaked it.”

“Oh grow up,” Dionne said. “You know exactly what happened. Someone stole it and now he’s high. Someone did this to our son specifically to destroy his life with Tanesha. You know that.”

He gave her a curt nod.

“What are you going to do about it?”

Denver Cereal continues tomorrow…

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