“I guess I have the same question I would have had for my Trent grandfather if he had lived this long, Dad – how do you live in a family that has so many people in it on the brink of failure all the time?”
Sgt. Vincent Trent was surprised by this question from his eleven-year-old daughter Velma, but she was precocious and quite aware of the foolishness on the Trent side of her family.
“Day by day, focusing on not failing you and everyone else in this family – which is exactly how my dad made it as long as he did,” Sgt. Trent said. “But it was harder for him because we were living very close to it. Your Aunt Victoria and I both chose not to do that, because we could see what it was doing to him.”
“But why didn't Pop-Pop Trent and Grandma Jubilee just move, too?” Velma said.
“Because they knew they had to provide an example for those younger Trents who were also thinking of getting out of the life – they had to show it could be done,” Sgt. Trent said. “Sometimes, the battle for the next generation is a war of attrition. Dad did not live to be that old, but he outlived all his brothers and peer cousins, and all his sons but me. That settled the argument – a lot of my peer and slightly older cousins are alive because they saw that you don't get a long run if you don't live right.”
“Wow,” Velma said. “So then, if they know all that, what's going on with Cousin Darnell and even Cousin Trenton for a minute?”
“Just because you know right doesn't mean you want to do right – they are just enough younger than me so that they didn't really experience what Dad and I did in terms of the deaths of all the older Trent men. They thought they could go on and run the table. My younger brothers did too. Nope. But what Dad did was put the standard down, and I enforce it. They all know what they need to do. They can't bring below standard over here to me. Mob rules don't work as well on hardened soldiers who know the games being played – compared to what I've faced down in 20 years of military service, my whole family is living and dying on middle school games. I'm a warrior. They run drugs. There's levels to things.”
“And sometimes you just have to let them know,” Velma said.
“Yep,” Sgt. Trent said. “Everybody in our family loves a good bop, and these types try to impress each other that they are big, important, dangerous men. So, every now and again I gotta write them a few bars and remind them not to bring that mess over here.”
“Yeah, you and Melvin definitely do get together on these de-escalation bops,” Velma said. “The money can't be bad either -- you as SGT are at the top of the local charts again!”
“Getting paid legally to help your family members that are used to getting paid illegally learn not to write checks their behinds can't cash in this world and will have to go to the next to work out – priceless,” Sgt. Trent said.
Velma laughed.
“That's a whole new bop looking for a place to happen right there, Dad -- getting money the SGT way!"
“Yeah, I know and I'm working on it -- how to get rich from your God-given gifts, vibing on a beat with some heat for the streets," Sgt. Trent said, and smiled as his daughter cracked up at his freestyling.
“My dad the rapper -- who woulda thunk it?" she said.
"Velma, when you have a family, you just gotta do what you gotta do -- legally," Sgt. Trent said with a smile.