by Roy Glenn
When Teena got off the phone she said that Shay was bored and wanted to know what we were doing. “I told her we were rollin’ around trying to find something to smoke. She said she knows where the fire is, so come and get her. I told her hell no, I ain’t ridin’ nowhere with her and them bad-ass kids.”
“That’s fucked up, but they are bad.”
“I was being nice when I said that ’cause them little fuckas is off the chain, but she said they’re at her momma’s house for the night. She said that her and Gary were supposed to be doin’ something, but now he says he gotta work late tonight.”
We rolled by and picked up Shay, and she told Teena where to go to find the weed. While Teena drove to the stop, the three of us were talking.
Shay busted out with, “You two are livin’ the life and me, I got two little bad-ass kids and a cheatin’ husband.”
“I tried to tell you before you married his ass. He was a ho when you met him. Did you really think he was gonna change?” Teena asked.
“Yes. We’re married now.”
“Hold up now, Shay. Let’s be honest; that don’t mean shit. You gonna tell me that you ain’t never creep on your man?” Teena asked.
“No, Teena. Never. I have more respect for myself than to do something like that.”
“What does self-respect have to do with it?” Teena asked.
“If a woman respects herself, especially a married woman, she doesn’t feel the need to sleep around.”
“Well, let me ask you a question then,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
“Did you fuck Gary before y’all got married?” I asked.
“Yes, but that was different. We were in—”
“Y’all were in love. Yes, yes I know. Did you fuck any other men before you met Gary?”
“I … ah, ah …” Shay dropped her head.
“Ah, ah, ah, my big ass, girl. Did you or didn’t you fuck any other men before you met Gary?”
“Yes,” Shay answered reluctantly.
“I know that’s right, ’cause you were one scandalous-ass ho,” Teena said.
“I was not!” Shay protested.
“Bitch, please,” Teena said and rolled her eyes. “She must be frontin’ ’cause you here, Nina. You must have forgot about the time that you called me trippin’ ’cause you had fucked five different niggas in three days. Where was your self-respect then?”
“That was different. I wasn’t married then.”
“So, as long as you ain’t married it’s all right to fuck around and have no respect for yourself, but when you get married is when it’s different, ’cause you’re in love.”
“What you say to that, Shay?” I asked.
“Fuck you, bitch. That’s what I gotta say to that.” Shay smiled at me.
“Let me tell y’all about my aunt,” Teena said. “She carries it like this respectable church-goin’ woman. She’s been married for twelve years. Good job and shit, two kids in private school, and she’s cheatin’ her ass off.”
“No,” I said in mock horror.
“She’s cheatin’ with a guy that goes to church with her. Thursday is their night to creep, but Thursday is supposed to be her shopping night. So what this respectable, church-goin’ woman does, since her husband expects her to be out late anyway, is she does her shopping on Wednesday and takes all the food and stuff over her girlfriend’s and leaves it there. Then, after Mr. Church-goin’ Man fucks her on Thursday, she goes and picks up her stuff and goes home. Respectable woman. And get this—when she gets there, her husband helps her in with the groceries.”
“Oh, no she don’t,” I said.
“I ain’t lyin’,” Teena said.
“Y’all saw Don at Chuck’s party last week, right?” Shay asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I hadn’t seen him in a long time. Where’s he been?”
“In jail.”
“What was he in jail for?” Teena asked, laughing.
“Indecent exposure and resisting arrest.”
“Get outta here. What happened?” I asked, laughing at the charges, anticipating a colorful story.
“You know Vincent and Keisha, right?” Shay asked.
“Yeah, and?”
“Well, you know Don’s still fuckin’ Keisha, right?” Shay said.
“Yeah, yeah, we know. Even after she married Vincent,” Teena said impatiently. “Everybody but Vincent knows that. Get to the story.”
“Don told me that he went over to their house. You know, just kicking it with Keisha, right, when Vincent comes home, but that isn’t any big deal ’cause he’s over there all the time anyway. So they sit around and talk for a while, Keisha cooks dinner and they eat. Then after dinner, Vincent tells them about this party and tries to get Don to go with him.”
“Vincent ain’t stupid. He was trying to get Don out his house and away from his wife,” Teena said.
“Yeah, but Don ain’t trying to hear that. He tells him, now dig this, ‘No, I’m just gonna stay here and kick it with Keisha for a while then jet’.”
“Kid got nerve,” I said.
“I’m sayin’,” Teena agreed.
“So, Vincent breaks out to go to the party and leaves Don and Keisha. Don said that as soon as Vincent locked the door, Keisha was on him, grabbing on his shirt, pulling on his belt. Next thing you know, they’re upstairs in the bedroom butt naked, doin’ it doggy style. So Don says him and Keisha are all into it when something tells him to look to his left. He sees Vincent sneaking up the stairs.”
“Oh shit!” I shouted, and Teena followed with, “You bullshittin’.”
“This is what Don told me. He was cold busted. So he pushes off Keisha just as Vincent dives at him. Vincent misses Don and falls on Keisha. Don starts grabbing for his clothes while Vincent gets up and comes after him. Don said he was running around the room, trying to put his drawers on, but Vincent jumps on him and they start fighting.”
“I can see Don now, goin’ for blows with Vincent while he’s naked,” Teena said, cracking up.
“What was Keisha doing while all this is going on?” I asked.
“Don said she was just kicked back on the bed, watching like she was gettin’ off on it or something,” Shay replied. “So Don says he knocked Vincent into the dresser long enough for him to get his drawers on, but instead of running out the house, he tries to explain. He said Vincent went wild, reached into the dresser and got out his gun, and just started shooting.”
“I bet he got that ass outta there quick then,” I said.
“No, he said since Vincent wasn’t hitting nothing, he got the rest of his clothes. Keisha jumped on Vincent’s back; Don ran downstairs and out the back door. He said he hopped the fence and was running down the street when the police rolled up on him and went spotlight. Don tries to run like a fool. They ran him down and locked him up.”
“That’s deep, Shay,” Teena said, shaking her head. “That’s the type of thing you hear about, but you swear stuff like that don’t happen.”
“Hold up, hold up,” Shay said. “Cops are putting Don in the car when Vincent comes running out with his gun, yelling that Don had raped his wife. Cops throw down on him, but Vincent keeps coming. Don said he got in the car quick. Finally, Vincent drops the gun, but as soon as the cops relax, he rushes at Don again. Cops grab him, kick his ass, and they take both of them to jail.”
“That’s too wild,” Teena said.
“Did they charge him with rape?” I asked.
“Yeah, but Keisha never would talk to the cops, so they dropped the charge,” Shay went on to explain. “She told Vincent she didn’t wanna go through all that drama. Pull over there, Teena, where those guys are standin’,” Shay said. Teena dimmed her lights and pulled over. One tall, skinny guy who looked like JJ from Good Times came to the car. I rolled down my window.
“What’s up, ladies? Can I go with y’all?”
“Hell no,” Shay said quietly, and we all giggled.
“What y’al
l lookin’ for?”
“What you got?” I asked.
“Got these fat dub sacks,” JJ said.
Teena leaned toward me. “Let me see them,” she said and held out her hand. While JJ got out a couple of sacks, Teena dropped the car in drive. It had been a long time, but I knew what was coming next. When he reached in with two sacks for her to look at, I slapped them out of his hand and Teena hit the gas. We drove away laughing our asses off.
“We haven’t done that in years!” I yelled over the laughter.
“You two are crazy,” Shay said, almost to the point of tears.
“Just livin’ the life!” Teena screamed.
My slide into the life continued, and after awhile, there was no more talk about finding a job. For what? I didn’t need a job. I always had money, I had a car, and I shopped practically every day. I didn’t want for shit. “Who needs a job?” I told my parents.
“You do, that’s who, Nina.” My parents kept pushing the job thing down my throat. It was starting to get old. I started talking to Lorenzo about me getting my own place.
“What you wanna do that for?”
“I need to get out of my parents’ house,” I told him.
“Why don’t you come live with me? You’re there just about every night anyway.”
And that settled that. I moved in with Lorenzo. I didn’t take anything with me. I just bought all new stuff. To me, it was like leaving my old life behind and starting a brand new life; a life where Lorenzo was a king and I was his queen. Expensive cars, big money, new clothes, and anything else I wanted. It seemed like the money never stopped coming. Everything was great in my corner of the world. I was living the life, but what I didn’t know, was that fate was getting ready to get it all twisted.
Three
“Lorenzo Copeland, this is your last warning! Come out with your pants on!” Chris yelled while he rang the bell and banged on the door. We heard him out there making all that noise, but we didn’t care. Lorenzo and I continued to make love in spite of the noise. At least until it got so loud that it broke my concentration.
“Damn!” I said as I rolled off Lorenzo, folded my arms, and pouted like a child who had her toy taken away.
“All right, all right! I’ll be out in a minute!” Lorenzo yelled.
“It ain’t nobody but Chris. Just ignore him and he’ll go away.”
“You know if I don’t answer he’s just gonna keep banging.”
“You’re right,” I said and wrapped up in the sheets.
“I’ll get rid of him.”
“Lorenzo, you know I like your friends, right? And Chris is my boy and whatever, but he always seems to show up at the worst times.”
“You’re right. Chris does have a nasty habit of dropping by while we’re doin’ it,” Lorenzo said.
“But you gotta admit I’m cool about it, though. It’s become sort of a running joke.”
“It ain’t like I’m glad to see him either. You were tryin’ to fuck the shit outta me.”
“I sure was, so make it quick. I’m not finished with you yet.”
“Keep it wet for me,” Lorenzo said as he got out of the bed and put on his pants. He went to the door to let Chris in, then came back to the room. “What are you gonna do today?”
“I saw the cutest outfit yesterday. I’m gonna go back and get it.”
“Why didn’t you get it then?”
“I’m ashamed to admit it, but my hands were already full.” I laughed and rolled out of bed.
“Maybe that oughta say something to you about the amount of shopping you do. I mean, you got shit in that closet that you ain’t looked at since you bought it. Still got tags on them and shit. It’s like shoppin’ is your drug of choice.”
“You want me to look good for you, don’t you?” I asked, walking around half in a daze, half looking for something to put on.
“No doubt, but you don’t need to shop to look good for me. You look good to me just the way you are now.”
I looked at Lorenzo and smiled. He smiled and stared me down.
“What you smiling ’bout?” I asked.
“Lookin’ at you.”
“Oh, really?”
“I don’t mean to be crude, Nina, but those are the prettiest titties I’ve ever seen.”
“Even if you didn’t mean to, yeah, that shit was crude. But thank you anyway,” I said and got back in the bed. “If I look so good, maybe you could get back in this bed and finish what you started.”
“I am thinkin’ about gettin’ back in that bed, but I know I got someplace I gotta be; so I been tryin’ to talk myself out of it,” Lorenzo said as he finished getting dressed. When he was ready to leave, he came to the bed and kissed me good-bye.
Trying to be a good girl and prove that I wasn’t a shopaholic, I didn’t buy anything that day. We didn’t even go to the mall. We just hung out around the way until I was ready to go home. I sat in the backseat listening, but not really hearing what Teena and Shay were arguing about. My mind was in a completely different place. I was thinking about putting the BMW down and getting a Lexus. The BMW had served me well these last two years, but I just felt like driving something different. And I wanted a black one this time. I hate white cars, ’cause no matter what you do, you can never keep them clean.
Teena turned down my street and into a sea of police and other emergency vehicles. A cold chill came over me; I instantly knew this was not good. We got out of the car and tried to make our way through the crowd. As I got closer, it became obvious that whatever was going on, Lorenzo was in the middle of it.
“What you think is happening?” Teena asked.
“I don’t know, but it can’t be good,” I said as I got near the building. I shivered as I watched the coroner come out of the building with a body bag. I was just about to cross the police barricade, when somebody grabbed me by the arm.
“You don’t wanna do that.” I turned around and saw Jay, one of Lorenzo’s people.
“Jay, please tell me that’s not Lorenzo they bringing out in that bag.”
“It’s not. They brought Lorenzo and Chris out already. They’re both in jail,” Jay said.
“What happened, Jay? Who’s in the body bag?”
“I don’t know. I went to the store and all this was here when I got back.”
“You didn’t try to find out?” I asked, mad as hell at him.
“No, I ain’t goin’ anywhere near them cops right now.”
Shay stepped up. “I’ll find out what’s happenin’, Nina,” she said, then walked up to one of the police controlling the crowd. They talked for a long time, which drove me crazy. Then the cop handed Shay a card and she made her way back to us.
“Well?” I demanded.
“Both Lorenzo and Chris are in jail. He said that one of them killed a cop, but he don’t know which one.”
“Killed a cop? In our apartment? What were the cops doin’ there?”
“They came to arrest Lorenzo on a warrant for conspiracy to distribute,” Shay explained.
“Oh my God,” I said as I began to cry.
“I don’t think that you should try to go in there anytime soon, Nina,” Teena said. “You know how they like to arrest the girlfriend and shit. They figure that you know everything about how Lorenzo does business, and then try to make you testify against him.”
“Shit, that ain’t gonna happen,” I said. I took out my cell phone and called the lawyer. “Let’s get out of here.”
The worst thing about waiting for information is that you have plenty of time to speculate, and the three of us were off the chain with it. We had been sitting at Shay’s house for an hour, coming up with all kinds of stuff. When the lawyer did finally call, he didn’t do much to end all the drama. He confirmed what we already knew: both of them were charged with murder and conspiracy. He said that Chris was in jail and Lorenzo was in the hospital, and that he was on his way to see Chris. He couldn’t tell us anything else, and said that he would call bac
k with more information as soon as he could.
“What’s Lorenzo doin’ in the hospital?” Shay asked when I told them what the lawyer had said.
“He didn’t know. Or if he did, he didn’t tell me.” I looked at Teena. She had been uncharacteristically quiet since we got to Shay’s. I mean, she was talking or whatever, but she wasn’t her usual self. She wasn’t talking any shit, and that’s what was uncharacteristic. I wondered if Chris was becoming more than just another nigga with money to her.
The next day, the lawyer called me back to say that Lorenzo was the one who killed the cop. I went numb, only hearing half of what the lawyer said after that. I knew then that nothing about my life would ever be the same. At the time, I couldn’t even imagine how true that was.
Four
I wasn’t allowed to see Lorenzo while he was in the hospital. They told me some bullshit about his condition. When I tried to get information, they told me that I needed to talk to the police, but the police weren’t telling me shit. After two days, he was released from the hospital and went straight to court. I was late getting there, so I had to see him when he got to jail. When he came into the visiting room, all I could say was “Damn! What the hell happened to you?” Lorenzo’s right eye was bruised and swollen, and his lip had stitches.
“Cops.”
“The cops did that?” I asked him, thinking it was more of a statement than a question. This wasn’t the first time I had seen the type of brutality that the cops could deal out. I just never in my wildest dreams, thought it would happen to anybody I knew, and definitely not Lorenzo. He was much too smart to put himself in a position for the cops to bust him up like that, but there he was, all busted up.
