Zero Degrees Part 1 Read Free Page B

everything happened. How’d you manage to be stronger than me? You’re a baby. You should be at home with me. This is ridiculous. I thank God for those months I had with you before they put you in here. How’re you holding up sweetie? Are they treating you right in here?” She asked looking me up and down as if she was doing an inspection. “Are you eating?”
    “I’m fine ma. Don’t worry about me. And I’m not a baby. I haven’t been for a long time. You know that.” I looked down at my hands.
    She nodded. “Look at me chica.”
    I looked up and made eye contact with her.
    “You’ll always be my baby. Okay,” she said.
    “Okay mama.”
    “You know that I’ve been going to church with your Aunt Paulette since I gave the drugs up.”
    “Yeah and that’s good.” Aunt Paulette was my late father, Jerome Rowe’s baby sister. She was stationed at Fort Bragg army base in Fayetteville, NC because she’d been in the Army for eight years. We’d lived in Fayetteville most of my life.
    She continued. “Well, I need to come clean with you about some things. I left you in the dark about a lot because I felt the need to protect you. I felt that knowing the truth would corrupt you, but I was wrong. I think not telling you only made things worse. You need to know the truth about everything. I have to do this to be a better servant of God. You understand, right baby?”
    “Yes ma. I understand,” I said.
    Of course you know that I met your father when he was stationed in Cuba when I was seventeen.”
    I nodded and waited to hear what she was so anxious to tell me.
    “He was eighteen and had just enlisted in the Army. It was his first deployment and his first time anywhere outside of the States. My parents were strict, but for some reason they had no problem with my interest in your father. I guess they felt that if I married him I’d have a better life in the US.”
    She continued her story and I listened attentively as I pictured the scenes in my mind like a movie. When I returned to my cottage my head was swimming. What my mother had told me was shocking, but it all made sense. The pieces of the puzzle had finally come together because I’d never understood why anyone would want to hurt my father.
    My mom’s three brothers were deep in the coke trade and were involved with a very dangerous drug cartel. Their reach extended pass Cuba into the US. They’d been dealing with the main ports of Florida and New Orleans. Their names were Alejandro, Havier and Pedro. They were three of Cuba’s most notorious drug lords.
    My mom had gotten pregnant and my father had returned to the US after his term in Cuba was complete. They weren’t married and my mother had a hard time getting a passport to go be with him. Cuba, of course, is not the most liberal country on the map, so getting my mother to America was a task. She ended up giving birth to me in Cuba where I learned to speak Spanish and a lot about my Cuban roots. My mother had taught me to speak English as well. When I was four we were finally able to leave Cuba to be with my dad.
    He’d saved up and bought a modest home in a neighborhood in Fayetteville called Tiffany Pines. After four years in the armed services my pops used his GI bill to go to college. He decided to not reenlist and went to Fayetteville State University to get a degree in Computer Science. After he got his degree he got a job at IBM located in Raleigh, NC. He made the forty five minute commute to work and earned $80,000.00 a year. Life was good.
    Eventually my uncles decided that they wanted more control over the US drug trade. They somehow had convinced my father to help them expand their illegal activities. Since he’d minored in mathematics in college he was excellent with numbers and knew how to keep the money coming. He developed a hunger for making money and enjoyed watching his stash grow. My father and uncles were moving kilos of coke all over the east and west coasts. He’d gone