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Music man, whispers of a second family in Canada.
South Central.
Why do people forget about their loved ones?
Sometimes it’s intentional.
Sometimes it’s accidental.
On the block, the seasons pass —
hot summers,
snowless Christmases,
New Year’s promises that sound the same every year.
Days melt into one another.
A puff of this cigarette,
its red glow catching under the moonlight haze.
The story?
A father of two.
They lived on one of the endless rows of blocks in South Central.
A music producer — nights filled with beats and smoke.
Husband to a woman who was the Jekyll and Hyde of the block.
Sweet one minute.
Dark the next.
Word was she had her battles with crack.
And the block never let her forget it.
A daughter with a bright smile.
A son full of energy.
They were just kids.
The father showed up like a season —
here,
then gone again.
Worked with names like Snoop Dogg,
Brian McKnight,
and others.
It’s said those kids would beg neighbors for food.
The eldest, the sister, once tried to cook.
Burned herself.
And her mother beat her for it.
“You dumbass,” she spat,
eyes hazy from another hit.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Crack.
As the seasons passed, years stacked.
The father kept his track of seasonal presence —
more gone than here.
The mother laid out deeper and deeper in the smoke.
The children grew.
The daughter packed up and left for Atlanta.
Built herself into a teacher,
far from the block.
The mother drifted.
Her shadows finally pulling her away.
And the son —
the son carried the house on his shoulders.
He became the one responsible
for keeping the lights on,
for holding what was left.
The father would visit his son sporadically,
like a season that comes and goes.
“Did you pay the bills?
Did you set the camera outside?
What the fuck.”
Hard words,
sharp as winter wind.
Maybe he thought being hard
would keep his son on the straight and narrow.
Who knows?
Rumor was, the son worked on film productions.
Mentored kids with creative dreams.
And kept a steady day job at Planet Fitness.
Twenty-five years old.
Still a bundle of energy.
Still surviving.
The bud of this cigarette is running short.
Short.
Saturday morning, word came down the block like smoke filling lungs:
something had gone wrong.
The son never came home.
It seemed he never left Planet Fitness parking lot.
His car sat silent.
Resting in the same spot for twenty-four hours.
He never clocked in for work.
That was the word.
You can imagine what happened.
Did he commit suicide?
Was he murdered?
Who knows?
The boy never came home.
That’s what happened.
Word was the father was in London when he got the call.
This flight would become his time to remember.
To confess.
To grieve what was,
and what could’ve been.
His son loved movies.
The father rented a theater.
Invited all who knew him.
All who loved him.
The theater filled.
And the father saw.
He saw his son was so much more than just a son.
Despite it all,
he was a good young man.
Respectful.
Pleasant.
The kind the block noticed
because he wasn’t bitter or cruel,
even though he had reasons to be.
His mother came to the funeral in a wheelchair.
She could barely speak.
Her voice wrecked by years of crack smoke.
Who knows if she understood it all?
But the block saw —
the damage,
the silence,
the price.
The sister — uncontrolled grief.
Memories flooding back.
Big sister chasing little brother through the yard.
Laughter with the neighborhood kids.
The father — eyes filled with pain.
Unbelievable pain.
Was he a bad father?
Maybe.
Maybe he worked too hard.
Maybe he should’ve paused.
Who knows?
But the whispers floated like smoke:
The father had another life,
another love,
a second family —
north of the border,
up in Canada.
Who knows?
Nights after the burial the father would barely sleep.
Every light on.
Him awake.
The house now alone.
Only him, and the lights on.
Everyone punished.
Everyone suffered.
And the boy —
now a man — now a memory.
Despite it all was still a good young man.
Respectful.
Pleasant.
Loving.
Still full of energy.
⸻
But the streets talk.
And the streets don’t forget.
Cigarette out.
⸻
Why do people forget about their loved ones?
Sometimes it’s intentional.
Sometimes it’s accidental.
But either way —
the block don’t forget.
The block remembers.
🥷 You don’t have to believe. You can ignore it. But if you knew… would you believe it happens?
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