by Kiki Swinson
“Oh, was everything to your liking?” she asked in that cheery I-want-a-tip-bitch way. Her little eyes were scanning over the table to make sure she saw some cash for the bill.
“Yes, everything was perfect. Keep the change. I have to get going,” I replied with a shaky, phony smile myself. I quickly scanned the room and those dudes in suits were still there. I could feel the heat of their gazes bearing down on me. They are definitely here for me! Shit! I said to myself.
Play it cool, Lauren. Play it cool, Lauren. Just get out of the door. Just get out of the door, I chanted to myself.
I swallowed hard and started heading to the door on unsteady legs. As soon as I moved, I saw the men moving in my direction. I dug down deep and got a burst of energy. Suddenly I was much more steady on my legs. My fear had turned into determination. I knew they were following me now, but I wasn’t going that easily. I got to the door, pushed it, kicked off my heels, and bolted from the restaurant. Just like I suspected the men in suits bolted after me.
MATT
“Calm the fuck down! I can’t understand shit you’re saying, Daysha,” I yelled into the phone. Daysha was yelling and screaming into the phone. I could only understand every other word. I was on my feet pacing nervously.
“Yo! Calm the fuck down and tell me what you’re saying!” I boomed. I couldn’t take it anymore. My nerves were already on crazy edge. I stopped moving for a few seconds so I could listen intently to what she was saying.
“Okay,” Daysha said, sucking in her breath so she could speak properly.
“I . . . I . . . shouldn’t have . . . I . . . I . . . didn’t mean to . . . they probably got her. Oh my . . . my . . . gawd,” Daysha stammered and cried at the same time.
“What? What happened? Something happened to Lauren?” I asked frantically.
“Three men came into the restaurant. Um . . . they came to get her. When I came out of the bathroom she was running out of the restaurant and they were chasing after her,” Daysha relayed through sobs. “This is crazy. We’re the only ones who know she’s in town, so who were those dudes? I can’t believe I betrayed her and made her come back here!”
“Daysha! Are you sure they weren’t five’o? Who were they? What did they look like?!” I barked into the phone. I was up on my feet and pacing again now. I had to know because whoever was after her, they were probably coming after me next. Again.
“I don’t know,” Daysha cried. “They just . . . just . . . you shoulda seen the way they went after her. My best friend is probably dead by now.”
“Think, Daysha! Fuck, man! Tell me exactly what they looked like! How did they act?!” I screamed, my voice going high like a bitch.
“They were wearing dark suits and dark shades. They were big . . . like tall and big. I . . . I . . . don’t know. They could have been cops. I just didn’t see them long enough. But they started chasing her.” I could barely understand what Daysha was saying. She was breathing so hard into the phone I would swear it was inside her mouth. “Oh my gawd! It was all because of me. I was the reason she came back here! Me being greedy, I set up my best friend. All for some funky-ass money! Now somebody might kill her,” Daysha screamed. This bitch was straight wigging out, which meant she might go running her damn mouth. I felt like I was caught up in the Matrix. The way shit was falling apart seemed unreal, like some shit out of a movie.
I was gripping the phone so tight my hand began to cramp. Sweat dripped down the sides of my face and all of the muscles in my body were tense.
“Yo, Daysha, you talking crazy. This is because of snitching-ass Yancy, not you. Look, I gotta go. I can’t give you the rest of your paper because as soon as it gets dark I’m bouncing. You ain’t never speak to me or see me. I got niggas that will come after you if you try anything funny, too,” I told her. I hung up the phone.
“Fuck!!!” I screamed. This time I smashed my cell phone into a million little pieces. I stalked through my condo and loaded up all of the weapons I could find. Cops or those thugs that were tailing me . . . this time I wasn’t going to be a sitting duck for whoever decided to come after me.
“A nigga is not going out without a fight. I ain’t no punk bitch,” I grumbled. I got up and peeped out of the mini blinds hanging from my bedroom window. I needed nightfall to come so I could get the fuck out of Dodge. But waiting. . . the suspense . . . and counting on it taking a while for the cops to track me down . . . I was tense as shit. I needed to calm down before my nerves sent me bolting out of the front door. If folks saw a crazy-looking nigga running down the street, they’d have the cops giving chase in ten seconds flat. I couldn’t let that happen. No way.
I paced over to my bed and lay down. I lit up a blunt to calm my nerves while I figured out an escape plan. As the weed worked its way into my system, I leaned back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. I hadn’t had this ill feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach since the day I woke up and found my moms murdered in our apartment. When shit got tough for me like it was now, that memory always came crashing back down on me like a brick falling from the sky. Today was no different....
August 1984
My mother had put me to bed with her usual kiss on the head and a quick tickling session. I was laughing raucously and rolling all over my bed. When she stopped for a few seconds I looked at her lovingly.
“Ma . . . I’m gettin’ too old for you to be ticklin’ me. My friends said that’s gay,” I had said to her. I was ten years old, but I was still my mother’s baby.
“Whaaat, boy?” my mother sang in her sweet soft voice. “What you and your friends know about calling something gay? You my baby and I will tickle you if I want to. When you’re a grown man I will move your wife aside and tickle you right in front of her. Now, I’m gonna keep tickling you,” she said jokingly. Then she bent down and tickled me again. I laughed. The bond I had with my mother was unbreakable. She was there every morning when I awoke and she made sure to tuck me in every night. It was just she and I against the world. I had never known any father.
“Okay. Okay. Enough now. You go to bed so you can be sharp in school tomorrow. That education is the only way out of this place and it’s the one thing nobody can ever take from you,” my mother said with feeling. She bent down and planted another kiss on my face . . . this time on my cheek.
“I love you, little boy,” she said.
“I love you more,” I replied.
“I love you morer and morer,” she said with a chuckle. That was another one of our nighttime rituals.
“Uh uh . . . I love you morer, morer, morer, and morer,” I said back, opening my arms as wide as they would go. My mother threw her pretty head back and laughed heartily.
“Okay. It’s really time for bed now. Stop trying to stall to stay up later,” she said. Then she gave me another kiss. A warm comfort filled my chest and spread all over my body like the coziest blanket I had ever felt.
“G’night,” I said to her. She smiled. She clicked off my light. I lay awake for a little while. I heard when she went and opened up the door. I heard her giggles and the man’s voice. I also could tell it was a different man than the night before. Every night I would lie awake listening to my mother and her male “company” as she called the different men that frequented our house at night. I would listen until I could no longer keep my eyes open. Usually by the time I awoke the company would be gone.
That next morning I jumped out of my sleep. Usually, my mother would wake me up for school and I would purposely give her a hard time. This morning, she hadn’t come into my room. I knew it was later than usual and my mother hadn’t come to wake me up for school like she always did which was really strange. I sat up in my bed and rubbed my eyes. The sun was shining brightly through my bedroom window and I could already hear the hustle and bustle of school buses outside. A pang of panic shot through my chest. As young as I was I knew that I was supposed to be outside before the school buses came.
“I’m late,” I mumbled. I guess I was
experiencing a mixture of apprehension and elation because the only time my mother didn’t wake me up was when she’d decide to let me stay home for the day to do something special with me. I opened my bedroom door and dragged my feet down toward my mother’s bedroom. Her door was still closed. That was strange too. My mother was always up early. She used to always say, “Money never sleeps, baby, and closed legs don’t get fed.” I never knew what she meant by that.
“Mommy,” I called out as I knocked lightly on her door. As soon as I hit the door it came open slightly. I peeked through the crack between the wall and the door. I could see my mother’s bare legs hanging off the side of her bed. My eyebrows dipped on my face. Everything seemed off to my little young mind.
“Mommy? We late,” I called out to her. I still didn’t enter her room without permission, though. My mother had always forbid me from coming into her room unless she told me to come in after I knocked. And, if her door was locked at night during the time she had “company” I was not to knock at all. Whatever problem I had she would solve it when she was done. But at that moment she was clearly in her room alone.
“Mommy! Can I come in? We are late for school!” I yelled, this time a bit more frantically. Still my mother didn’t answer. I noticed that her legs didn’t even move at the sound of my voice. Up until that moment my mother had never ignored me for any reason. “Mommy?!” I called out to her again. I could feel panic rising from my feet and climbing into my consciousness.
Looking through the crack in the door I followed my mother’s legs and trailed my eyes down to the floor. There was something wrong. I sucked in a lungful of breath when I saw a dark red pool of blood on the floor right under her legs. A cold feeling came over me and I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering.
“Mommy!!” I shrieked in a panic. I pushed the door with all of the strength inside of me. I almost died of a heart attack when I saw the rest of my mother’s body sprawled on the side of the bed with a blanket of blood surrounding her. Her head was turned in an awkward position that looked like it hurt. Her eyes were open and so was her mouth. She looked like she was in extreme pain.
“Mommy!!” I let out a bloodcurdling scream. “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” I continued shrieking until the back of my throat itched and burned. I didn’t care about the blood. I ran over and began shaking her lifeless body frantically. I couldn’t tell at that moment where her injuries were, but I did see the long metal object sticking out from between her legs. I felt myself fading. Suddenly my world went black. Later I was told that I went into shock and collapsed right on top of my mother’s bloodied body. I can’t remember how my mother and I were found. But, a week after I’d found her, during her funeral service, I heard people talking and whispering about how one of my mother’s johns had slit her throat and drove a metal pipe up into her vagina so deep it had busted up her organs.
* * *
I jumped up soaked with sweat and with my chest heaving. I guess I had fallen asleep and that memory about the morning I had found my mother murdered had turned into a nightmare. I sat up and swiped my hands over my face. I looked at the cable box, it was almost midnight.
“Damn. I gotta get out of here,” I grumbled. I got up from the bed and walked into the closet. I hoisted the duffel bag I had packed containing the money I stole from Ryan, two guns, and a few pieces of necessary clothing items. I kept my Glock out and shoved it down the back of my pants. I took a deep breath.
“Now or never, nigga. Time to blow this joint for good,” I said out loud. I stepped out of the closet and walked through the bedroom.
BAM! CRASH!
“Oh shit!” I huffed. I heard the thunder of what sounded like a million pairs of feet stampeding in my direction. I dropped my bag and went for my gun. I pulled it out but it was too late.
“Drop that shit!” a voice barked. I was definitely outgunned. I hung my head and let my Glock drop to the floor. Before I could do or say another thing, what seemed like a million dudes put hands on me. I folded to the floor as a storm of punches and kicks rained down on me. They left no part of my body untouched. I quickly realized that this couldn’t be the police. I was about to die and there was no escaping it.
LAUREN
My feet moved at the speed of lightning. I could feel the wind beating on my skin so hard it made snot wet the inside of my nostrils. My entire body was covered with a thick sheen of sweat and I could feel it burning my armpits. My breath escaped my mouth in jagged, raggedy puffs and my chest burned. My heart felt like it would burst through the front of it. Even feeling as terrible as I did, I would not and could not stop moving.
“Move!”
“Get out of my fucking way!”
“Watch out!”
“Move!”
I screamed command after command at the nosy-ass people who were staring and gawking and being in my damn way. My legs were moving like those of a swift and agile cheetah as I swerved and swayed through the throngs of people on the downtown Virginia Beach street. I was met by more than one mouthful of gasps and groans and I could faintly see more than one wide-eyed, mouth-agape stare as people gawked at me like I was a crazy woman. I guess I did look crazy running through the high-end shopping area with no shoes on (I had run straight out my Louboutins), my expensive embellished Balmain skirt was hitched up around my hips, my vixen weave blowing in the wind, and my Chanel caviar bag strapped around my arm like a slave chain. I could feel that my makeup was a cakey, smudged mess all over my face and eyes. But I didn’t give a damn. I wasn’t going to stop running. No matter what. Looking crazy was the least of my worries.
I had run track in high school and it was still paying off now, but clearly I wasn’t in the same athletic shape. Still, I wasn’t about to go out like this. I wasn’t going to get captured on the street and probably murdered for something that wasn’t totally my fault. I had been pushed and provoked to do everything that I did. All of the mistakes. All of the grimy shit I had done over the years. All of it was because I was born at a disadvantage from day fucking one.
I didn’t want to die. I had always seen myself growing old with a few kids and grandkids surrounding me when I was ready to be settled. I would’ve given anything to be old and settled at this moment. But, of course, life threw me a curveball.
I could hear the thunderous footfalls of the three men chasing me. If they weren’t so damn gorilla big and slower than me they would have caught me by now.
“Hey! Are you okay?” I heard a man on the street yell at me as I flew past him nearly knocking him over. Why the hell was he asking me such a dumb question when you could clearly see that I was being chased by three hulking goons dressed in all black with their guns probably showing on their waists or maybe even in their hands? Thank goodness I am always so alert or they would’ve walked right up on me while I unsuspectingly ate my lunch at the posh restaurant and grabbed me. It was the fact that I had only been back in town for a few hours, the disappearance of my lunch companion, and the suspicious looks that had alerted me in the first place. How could I have been so trusting? So naïve and stupid, too.
I could feel the look of terror contorting my face, so I knew damn well passersby could see the fear etched on every inch of it.
Finally, I dipped through a side alley and the first door I tried allowed me inside. Thank God! With my chest heaving up and down I rested my back against another cold metal door inside and slid down to the floor. My legs were still trembling and my muscles were on fire in places on my body I didn’t even know existed. I tried to slow my rapid breathing so I could hear whether the men had noticed me dipping into the alley but the more I tried to calm myself the more reality set in about the grave danger I was in. I was probably about to be murdered or worse, tortured and then murdered right in a dank alleyway in the place I thought I would never return to. If I hadn’t gotten that call, it would have been years before I crept back here. I thought about Matt and wondered if he was the one who had sent these men after me. But how would h
e have known I was back? I knew Matt had a lot of selfish ways about him and although shit had gone south with us, I never thought he would try to do something like this to me. I expected that if he wanted to confront me, he would come himself. Even if it was Yancy who had sent the goons, I would think Matt would have tried to spare me.
CLANG!
A loud noise outside interrupted my thoughts and caused me to jump. I clasped both of my hands over my mouth and forced the scream that had crept up my throat back down. Sweat trickled down my face and burned my eyes. My heart jackhammered against my chest bone so hard it actually hurt. My stomach knotted up so tightly the cramps were almost unbearable. I dropped my head. Suddenly I felt like vomiting.
“I don’t see her! She’s not down here!” I heard one of the goons outside of the door scream to the others. I swallowed hard and started praying under my breath.
Dear God, I am sorry for all of the things I’ve done. I don’t know how things got so far gone. I never meant anything by any of it. I just wanted to live a better life than I had as a child. I guess with the mother You gave me and the hand You dealt me, I should’ve just handled it. I should’ve worked harder and not try to take the easy way out all of the time. I know stealing is wrong. Since the first time I stole a credit card from my foster mother’s purse, I knew it was wrong. But I got addicted to the feeling that I’d gotten over on someone. I felt powerful. I remember the times I’d hear her talking to my foster father about some of the fraud scams she witnessed by working as a bank manager. It was interesting to hear how bank and credit card frauds were being committed on a daily basis. It all seemed too easy, too intoxicating. I had to test the waters....
So here I am today. I’m literally running for my life. Maybe this is Your way of teaching me a lesson. Trust me, I hear You loud and clear. If You let me get out of this, I swear I will change my life. I don’t even know how things got this far. . . .
