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streets, she was running the motherfucking streets?” Cory snapped.
    â€œShe owns these motherfucking streets and managed to take care of all you.”
    â€œShe was a hypocrite,” Javon added.
    Uncle Snap snapped his attention over to Javon. His brows furrowed and the veins in his neck popped out. “You better watch your damn mouth,” he warned.
    Javon squared his shoulders, not out of defiance, but because it was just who he was. He was never one to back down from anybody, unless it was Mama. “Or what, Uncle Snap? Huh? You gone lay hands on me because I’m speaking the truth?”
    â€œYo, li’l nigga, how the hell you think your mama managed to keep y’all in this uppity-ass neighborhood? How you think she was able to take care of y’all so damn well? Send y’all to that fancy-ass private school? You think them damn food stamps she was getting was cutting it? That damn sorry-ass piece of welfare check? You really think kissing those white folks’ asses was getting her by? No, nigga! She was out here, hustling, putting niggas in the ground who dared disrespect her. Claudette was out here in the streets while you li’l motherfuckers lay comfortably every night!” Uncle Snap roared.
    Javon fired back, “Look at this shit! Look at all this shit! The money, the drugs. We’re standing in an underground bunker! For years we’ve thought Mama to be like Mother Teresa or somebody only to find out she is the thing that goes bump in the motherfucking night?” he spat. “And we’re supposed to be okay with this shit?”
    â€œJavon, calm down,” I said.
    â€œCalm down? Calm down?” he repeated while glaring at me. “Am I the only one feeling like I didn’t know the woman I thought I knew?”
    â€œI’m not saying that, baby. I’m saying, can we try to go through all of this, whatever this is, before we pass judgment on Mama? For all we know, she did all of this to protect us.”
    â€œProtect us from what exactly? The people she did business with? Her?”
    â€œBaby, Javon, please. I’m not saying whatever this is she had going on was, is, right. I’m saying, let Uncle Snap tell us what she had going on in detail before we condemn her.”
    â€œI’m not condemning her. I’m questioning who the fuck she was. Was she sweet little old Mama Claudette or was she something more sinister? Did you not hear Uncle Snap say she was murdered? Someone killed her because of all this shit, Nelle. And I’m just supposed to calm down?”
    Javon’s legs were planted wide. He kept moving his hands in repetitive sharp gestures. He glanced around the room at all of us. I guess he was looking for one of us to do more than just stare at him. I knew he was hurting. Finding out Mama was a queen pin put the nails in our proverbial coffins. It was soul crushing to find out the woman who had nurtured us and taken all of us in off the street turned out to be the very thing she preached to us about staying away from.
    When he didn’t get the response he wanted from the rest of us, he laughed with a hard edge, crossed his arms over his chest, and took the seat that Uncle Snap had vacated. He shrugged. “A’ight,” he said deploying sarcasm. “Fuck it. I’ll be quiet since I’m clearly the odd man out.”
    â€œJavon—” I called out, but he cut me off.
    â€œNah. I’m cool. Y’all seem happy and content with it. I’ll shut the fuck up.” His body was so tense, he looked like a damn stone gargoyle.
    Uncle Snap moved around the room. He grabbed a DVD case and shook it at us. “Y’all need to see this,” he said. “Javon, I know you’re mad and you got a right to be, but at least look at this video first.”
    Javon didn’t move. He didn’t nod or acknowledge that he had even heard Uncle Snap. Once Snap had put the DVD into the