Side Chic 4 (Forever Ratchet)

by La'Tonya West

  “Fine.”

  “Cool.” She got out of the car and opened the trunk for me. Instead of helping me get my stuff she got back in the car and waited until I got my stuff. When I was done she backed out of the driveway without saying another word.

  “Stupid bitch.” I mumbled as I sat my stuff down on the porch and fumbled around in my pocketbook to find my key. I found it and unlocked the door. Just as I was about to step inside the house, I heard a car pull into the driveway. I turned around with my hands full of bags to see Kisha getting out of her car. “Uggh…what does this hoe want?”

  “Is Tre here?” She snapped not bothering to speak with her rude ignorant ass.

  I ignored her rudeness because it was evident that she was not going to get over the fact that I was fuckin her babydaddy any time soon. I almost wanted to burst into laughter because she was all upset over some shit that she couldn’t do shit about. “No he’s…” She turned and limped off not giving me a chance to finish my sentence. “Well fuck you too.”

  She stopped and looked back. “Did you say something?” I just shook my head. “Oh okay, that’s what I thought.”

  I went ahead in the house. I didn’t have time for Kisha’s ignorance. She was always running around like she was the baddest bitch in Boykins. I couldn’t wait for somebody to beat her ass. I slammed the bags that I had in my hands down on the sofa. I’d had enough of everybody for one day. My phone dinged letting me know that I had a notification. I checked it and saw that it was a messaged from my Facebook messenger. I opened it up…it was from Parnell. A smile spread on my lips.

  The message read: What’s up ma? How is your day going? You know I can’t wait to see your fine ass when I come home in three weeks. We’re still on right?”

  I flopped down on the sofa and messaged him back.

  Tre

  I sat at Ms. Lizzy’s table across from Tyson sipping on a double shot of gin. He was doing the same. I’d gotten off from work early because I had a lot on my mind and it had been hard to stay focus all day. For some reason, I was missing Casper a lot these days. I missed being able to go to him and talk about all of the bullshit that I had going on in my life. He’d always been there to help me sort through my problems and come up with a solution. Whether or not I took his advice had always been on me but he’d always been there to give it. I wished that I could turn back the hands of time and undo a lot of the shit that I’d done. I definitely wouldn’t have fucked Tamika! I would’ve let her go ahead and tell Kisha about Lala. The way I looked at is was, Kisha ended up finding out anyways, I’d still ended up losing my family, along with my best friend and she’d ended up losing her life. The only thing that we’d managed to do was make a bad situation worst. When I thought about it, I felt like coward ass nigga for even allowing Tamika to blackmail me in the first place. I should’ve handled the entire situation differently than what I had. I shook my head picking up my drink, I down the rest of it. I’d been consistently making fucked up decisions for the past two years, even when I thought I was making the right decisions, I’d been making the wrong ones.

  “Hey Ms. Lizzy, can I get another double shot of gin please.” I asked. She was seated on one of the barstools next to the island that sat in the kitchen watching a small old fashioned TV, wearing a colorful scarf around her hair. A long silver braid hung from beneath the scarf and rested on her shoulder. I watched as she slid down off of the stool still staring back at the fuzzy picture on the TV screen.

  “I love me some George Jefferson.” She laughed revealing a mouthful of snuff as she came over and took my cup. “You are doing an awful lot of drinking today Tre. What seems to be the problem? Is one of them gals that you got them babies by worrying you?” She pried walking over to the cabinet, taking down the half gallon of gin and pouring my drink. She put the top back on, placed the bottle back in the cabinet, brought my drink back over to me and placed it in front of me on the table.

  “Thank you.” I told her before raising my cup and taking a sip of my drink. I decided to answer the question that she’d asked me. “Ms. Lizzy everything seems to be the problem these days.”

  She walked over to the trashcan and spit a mouthful of snuff juice into it. I remembered being disgusted by her snuff dipping in the past but over the years I gotten used to it and it didn’t even faze me anymore. “Is that so?” She stood next to the island with her hand on her hip studying me. She’d always reminded me of the mama from Soul Food except she was a little bit heavier than her.

  “Yes ma’am.” I nodded and then hung my head and allowed it to rest on my hands. I truly felt as if the weight of the world was on my shoulders.

  “Tre, man maybe you’ve had enough to drink.” Tyson suggested.

  “I’m good man.” I replied lifting my head and reaching for my drink. I took another sip. My phone rang, I took it from the clip and looked at the name that was flashing on the screen. It was Kisha. I didn’t feel like dealing with her. I had too much on my mind already and knowing her she would only add to it. The two of us hadn’t talked since the little altercation at my place the previous week and I still didn’t have anything to say to her. I needed a break from her and Lala for a little while. I needed time to clear my head before I flipped out and killed someone. I put my phone back in its clip. “Shit just seems to get harder and harder. I can’t catch a break for shit.”

  “You know son, sometimes life is so hard because we make it that way.” Ms. Lizzy said taking a seat at the table with Tyson and me. “I bet most of the problems that you have, you brought them on yourself. As a matter of fact, I know for a fact that you did. Ms. Lizzy might be old but I keep these here ears to the streets.” She tapped a finger on her ear. “There ain’t too much that goes on that I don’t know about.”

  “Can’t believe everything that you hear.” I told her.

  “Nah, you’re right but hell everybody in town done seen you bouncing from woman to woman for the past few years and in just the past few months you’ve switched up two or three times. After a while all of that bouncing around starts to catch up to you and cause a lot of friction. Baby, it ain’t what you do, it’s how you do it. You have been doing a lot and going about all of it all wrong. Opening up multiple doors before closing one. You can’t run around playing with people’s feelings and betraying people and think that all of that ain’t gone come back to bite you.” She paused for a minute and just looked off into space. Her face held an expression that was unreadable and that made me feel a little uneasy. Finally she looked back at me. “Not too long ago you and Skeet got into it right here at this card table over that gal that you got them babies by.” She shook her head. “I stood back and watched as everyone rushed to break it up and thought to myself that the both of you were pure sad and should be ashamed. Here y’all were fighting and carrying on like two complete strangers when you’ve known each other your whole entire life. All I kept praying was that it didn’t end like things had between you and Casper.”

  “He started it! He disrespected my babymama!” I interrupted raising my voice. She touched a nerve with the comment about Casper.

  “You disrespected her first.” She countered looking me directly in my eyes speaking calmly. “You disrespected her numerous times for everyone to see. You’ve slept with damn near every little slut in Boykins, including your best friend’s woman. To top it all off, you went out and got another woman pregnant and if that wasn’t enough you moved the woman in the home that you once shared with her.” She let out a little chuckle. “Y’all youngins kill me preaching about respect when you don’t know the first thing about it! Now you are sitting here talking about how hard your life is. Baby, you ain’t seen hard yet. You gone see all the wrong that you’ve done to others. Remember you get back what you put out. I ain’t trying to be mean nor am I sitting here judging you because I am not in a position to judge anyone but I believe in calling things like I see it. You had to know that one day karma was going to come back around and pay you a vis
it.”

  I was about to respond but was distracted by the ringing of my phone. I took it out of the clip and saw Kisha’s name flashing across the screen again. My gut told me that something had to be wrong for her to keep calling me and the first thing that came to mind was my boys. I pressed send to answer the call and put the phone up to my ear as I rose from my seat and headed towards the door so that I could talk in private.

  “Hello.” I spoke into the phone.

  “Hey, I need to talk to you about something important concerning your kids.” She said with a hint of urgency in her voice.

  “So…talk. Are they alright?”

  “I’m not talking about Quan and Shaun.” She replied causing me to become confused. “I’m talking about the girls.”

  “Huh? The girls?” I questioned. “What about them? Stop stalling and tell me what the deal is.”

  “Well, I was in Walmart today and I saw Mina and Nelle. I was behind them in the checkout line but they didn’t see me.” She explained. “Anyways, I was standing there and overheard Mina bragging to Nelle about how she’d shaken the girls and pinched them while they were at your house. I assume you left them with her.”

  “Hold the fuck up? What did you just say? Kisha don’t play like that!” I snapped. I’d been feeling a little tipsy when I’d first answered the phone but hearing this had somehow managed to sober me up. The day that Lala had come to pick up the girls popped into my head. I couldn’t help but think about how suspicious my mom had been of Mina’s story about Laila falling and how Lala had questioned it as well. Now hearing Kisha say that she’d heard Mina bragging about pinching the girls and shaking them made me wonder if that is what had caused the bruises that were on Laila’s leg. The anger that was building inside of me was so great that it scared me because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to control myself if what Kisha was telling me turned out to be true. I needed to be sure that Kisha was telling the truth. For Mina’s sake I prayed that she wasn’t. “How do you know she was talking about my girls?”

  “Tre, I am not playing! I heard this shit with my own two ears. That’s my good word! This ain’t no he-say, she-say. I know she was talking about your girls because she said that the reason she was pinching and shaking them was because they wouldn’t stop crying all the time. She said Lala had messed them up, I guess meaning she’d spoiled them.” She swore and I could tell she was serious. “As a matter of fact, I will tell it in her damn face! You are acting like you don’t believe me or something! I don’t have shit to lie about. I am telling you because I think that it’s fucked up and also to warn you that if she puts her hands on my kids somebody is going to be walking slow behind that bitch and you too. Real talk! Now you can either handle that bitch or I will. I started to fuck her up earlier but I wanted to let you deal with it being that you brought this bitch into the picture and you were the one who trusted her with your kids. Plus, I tried to warn you about that no good bitch the other week but you wasn’t trying to hear shit that I was saying. I knew her ass couldn’t be trusted. Anybody who will fuck…”

  “Kisha will you please shut the fuck up!” I cut her off! That shit that she was going on and on about was irrelevant at the moment. Right now all I was concerned about was confronting Mina about the things that she’d supposedly overheard her bragging about earlier. All of the other shit could wait. “I’m on my way to the crib right now. She is supposed to be there.”

  “Yeah she’s there.” She assured me.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I went by there looking for you before I called.”

  Hearing that she’d gone to my house left no questions in my mind about whether or not she’d heard Mina say some foul shit but still I wanted to give Mina a chance to explain…before I fucked her up! “Okay well like I said, I’m on my way to the crib now. You meet me there and we gone get to the bottom of this shit.” I didn’t wait for her to respond. I disconnected the call and went back into the house. “Yo Tyson come on man, I need to roll out. I got some shit that I need to take care of back at the crib.”

  He stood to his feet and downed the rest of his drink. “Is everything alright man? Is something wrong with one of the kids?”

  “Nah, everything straight.” I didn’t want to talk about my business in front of Ms. Lizzy, it was obvious that she already knew too much as it was. I reached in my pocket and took out a twenty dollar bill and handed it to Ms. Lizzy for me and Tyson’s drinks. “Here you go Ms. Lizzy. You can keep the change.”

  I started towards the door with Tyson right behind me. “Are you sure that everything is alright?” Ms. Lizzy called behind us.

  “Yeah.” I replied but never stopped walking. I was getting in the car and heard Ms. Lizzy call my name. I looked up to see her standing on the porch her floral housecoat swaying in the breeze.

  “Tre, don’t forget what I said to you. The choices that you make are what makes your life so hard. I don’t know what that phone call was about but I can tell that whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Before you do anything stupid think about whether or not you want to make things harder than what they are. Sometimes the best decision we can make is to walk away from it all.”

  “Alright…I hear you.”

  “Don’t just hear me, Tre. Listen to what I am saying and take it in.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t wait for her to say anything else. I got in the car and left.

  A few miles up the street, Tyson asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing man.” I didn’t want to drag him into anymore of my bullshit than I already had. “I am going to drop you off at your house.”

  “Man, cut the bullshit and tell me what’s going on. Who was that that called you?” He looked over at me, his dark eyes locked on me waiting for a response.

  “Tyson…”

  “Nigga what the fuck is going on?” He roared. “Why you acting all secretive and shit?”

  I let out a frustrated breath. “I just don’t want to drag you into anymore of my shit. I don’t want to drag anybody into anymore of my shit.”

  “Nigga just tell me what the fuck is going on? I am a grown ass man. You can’t drag me into shit that I don’t want to be a part of. You don’t make any decisions for me, I do.” He told me not letting up. “Now do you have some beef with some niggas or something? If so we can handle that shit.”

  “Nah it ain’t nothing like that.” I began. “Kisha called and told me that earlier today she was in the store and overheard Mina bragging to her cousin about how she’d shaken and pinched the girls while I had her watching them.”

  His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. “Man say word!”

  “That’s my word.” I nodded my head as I made a left onto his street.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To take you home.”

  “Nah umma ride with you to make sure that you don’t end up in jail.”

  “I am going to give her the opportunity to explain this shit.” I made a right at the end of the street and drove in the direction of my house. “The fucked up thing is, I can’t for the life of me understand why she would do some fucked up shit like that. She knows the shit that I just went through with Lala about my kids. Not only that but I treat her fuckin’ kid like she’s my own. What would make her do some foul shit like that to mine?”

  Tyson shook his head. “Man, I have no idea why people do the shit that they do.” He looked out the window and then back at me. “You are talking like you are already sure that she did it without even hearing her side of things. How do you know that Kisha ain’t lying? You know she feels some type of way about you being with Mina in the first place. She could be making this whole story up to come between y’all because she knows how you are when it comes to your kids.”

  He had a good point and I would’ve thought the same thing if it hadn’t been for the bruises that were on Laila’s leg. “I feel what you are saying but the reason why I believe Kisha is because number one she said that she
’d tell the shit in Mina’s face.”

  “But Mina is terrified of Kisha, so that doesn’t count. Of course she will tell it to her face. What is Mina going to do about it even if she is lying?” He interjected.

  “That’s true.” I agreed nodding my head. “Well I also believe her because last week my mama had kept the girls for a little while on Saturday morning, when she brought them back she brought to my attention some bruises that she’d noticed on Laila’s leg. Well Mina had already mentioned something about Laila falling the day before when she was watching them so I didn’t think much of it but my mama wasn’t feeling her story. She kept saying that it didn’t sound right because the bruises were like three little small circles right together then there was another little one a little bit further down. When Lala arrived she looked at the bruises and said the same thing as my mama. That it didn’t look like bruises from a fall. Mina swore up and down that Laila had fallen. After hearing Kisha’s story about Mina pinching the girls, it sounds to me that may have been where the bruises came from.”

  “Damn…” Tyson replied when I was done. “Yeah that does sound like it could very well be what happened but don’t go in here and immediately flip out on her. Give her the chance to explain and pay close attention to both of their body language. You can normally tell when someone is lying because they will be extra nervous, stammering over their words and fidgeting.”

  “I’m not going to go in and flip. Like I said I am going to give her a chance to tell her side.”

  We’d arrived at my house by now. I turned in the driveway and parked next to Kisha’s car. She was sitting inside waiting. I didn’t see the boys in the car with her so I assumed that they were with her mama.

  I opened the car door to get out but Tyson reached over and grabbed my arm. “Tre even if you find out that she did do the shit, don’t lose your cool. Just tell her to get her shit and get the fuck out. Don’t put your hands on her because if you do your ass is going to be right in jail with her babydaddy. You already know this bitch loves to call the police.”