Black Beauty

by Erica Hilton

  Seeing this, Charlie and Claire immediately jumped in on their mother’s behalf. It was almost like a reverse replay of Bacardi’s fight with the mother in the Bronx. Now Keisha was outnumbered and being attacked from both sides. She felt her real hair almost being pulled out from its roots, and fists were banging into her from left to right, front and back. She went down from the series of punches and now she felt strong kicks slamming into her ribs and face. Her sexy red outfit was being torn to shreds, her breasts were becoming exposed, and she could feel the blood coating her face. She hollered and pleaded for help—but there was no help coming her way. Bacardi, Charlie, and Claire were like a pack of wild hyenas tearing into meaty flesh with their razor sharp teeth. Keisha didn’t stand a chance against the three of them.

  “Fuckin’ bitch!” Bacardi screamed, followed by a hard kick to Keisha’s face.

  It almost knocked Keisha unconscious, but she managed to stay awake out of fear for her life. Somehow, a man—a stranger—came between them, and it was the split-second Keisha needed. She hurried out the front door bloody, exposed, and badly beaten. She screamed at the top of her lungs and ran fast, fearing for her life. Bacardi had snapped and it felt like she was going to kill her. In fact, she knew they were going to kill her. She barely made it out the apartment alive. Just as the front door slammed, the countdown to a New Year started—5, 4, 3, 2, 1—HAPPY NEW YEAR! And the party continued.

  Meanwhile, Chanel had locked herself in the bedroom with her friends, Landy and Mecca. The girls could hear the music from the party thumping through the apartment. They knew better than to leave the bedroom and chance running into the many perverts Chanel’s parents had over.

  They were having their own private party in the bedroom. Chanel adored her friends’ company, and it wasn’t every day that Mecca came back to the projects. The three girls were devouring snacks, drinking sodas, and talking about the things they would do, the places they would go, and the men they would date if they were celebrities.

  “Girl, I would date Idris Elba with his fine fuckin’ ass,” Mecca proclaimed.

  Chanel wagged her finger Mutombo style. “Uh-uh, you can’t be taking my man like that. We gonna get married in Barbados, and I’m gonna give him the best honeymoon he’s ever had and some of the cutest babies. You know I’m saving myself for him,” she replied in jest.

  “Well, we gonna have to fight for him, cuz you know I likes me a dark skin and tall, fine-ass man . . . and I would suck his dick,” Mecca lightheartedly replied.

  They both couldn’t help but to laugh and roll around on Chanel’s twin bed.

  “Girl, you’re so silly. I bet you would too,” said Chanel.

  “Damn right I would.”

  Landy wrinkled her nose at the thought of fucking an old man like Idris. “Y’all bitches insane. I would shoot my shot wit’ 6ix9ine or Lil Yachty.”

  “Ewwwww!” Both Chanel and Mecca screamed at Landy’s choices.

  Mecca continued with, “Those tats on 6ix9ine’s face and those braids and beads on Yachty make my skin crawl. Neither could ever get this tight pussy!”

  The girls went from talking about Idris Elba and other celebrity men, to talking about colleges. Chanel couldn’t wait to get away from her family. She got decent grades and she wanted to go to college in North Carolina—maybe Wake Forest, Duke, or the University of North Carolina. She wanted Landy and Mecca to attend a college in North Carolina too, so they could be close to each other. The girls were sixteen and had two years to plan for college.

  As they talked and finished off another liter of Pepsi, it was then that they heard the ruckus in the living room. The music stopped, and they heard a series of thumps coming from the living room.

  Landy jumped up and ran to the door and said, “Shit, I think they fightin’ out there.”

  Chanel sucked her teeth and shook her head. There was always some kind of drama happening in her home.

  “Don’t open the door, Landy,” Mecca warned.

  Landy put her ear to the door to try to hear what was going on. “I’m not.”

  “Just let them fight. I’m not trying to get involved in their mess,” Chanel said.

  ***

  In the living room, the party went on like the Keisha incident had never happened. The music was loud, the drinking became heavier, thick weed smoke permeated the air, and Bacardi licked her wounds and praised her daughters for having her back. But all that was soon going to come to an end.

  At first, the banging on the front door went unnoticed, but eventually, someone heard it and opened the door. Four uniformed cops marched into the apartment with their guns drawn and immediately flexed their authority inside the apartment. With them was a shaken and badly beaten Keisha. Instead of going to the hospital to treat her injuries, she wanted to exact revenge on Bacardi and her family and have all of them arrested.

  “Turn the music off!” one of the cops shouted with weight in his voice.

  The music ended and all eyes were on the officers and Keisha, who looked like she was going to fall apart and pass out. Everyone sobered up—cops were bad news. It wasn’t even a full hour into the New Year, and the drama had already started.

  “Is there a problem, officer?” one of the guests asked.

  “Yes, there is a problem. A woman was assaulted at this party,” Officer Krokowsi replied.

  Keisha pointed them out for the cops—Bacardi, Claire, Charlie—the three culprits she believed tried to kill her. They were standing near the window, angry that Keisha had brought the police into their home.

  The officers approached them.

  Bacardi could only glare at her friend in disgust and shout the words, “Fuckin’ snitching-ass bitch!”

  “Bernice Brown, you’re under arrest for aggravated assault and attempted murder,” said Officer Krokowsi.

  Bacardi was livid. She hated the police. “Y’all ain’t got no fuckin’ right to be in my fuckin’ house!”

  “Place your arms behind your back,” Officer Myles demanded.

  Bacardi didn’t relent. The officers grabbed her arms and spun her around, pushed her against the wall, and threw on the handcuffs. Claire and Charlie protested their mother’s arrest and were ready to throw down again, but they too were read their rights. The girls weren’t going down silently, though. Every foul word they could think of spewed from out their mouths.

  “Fuckin’ nasty-ass pigs! Y’all some bitch-ass muthafuckas!”

  “Black lives matter, you stupid fuckin’ assholes! Fuck you and your cunt of a mother that fuckin’ gave birth to you,” Charlie shouted. “Go fuck yourself!”

  The crowd could only stand around and watch, hoping that it ended with the three girls being arrested. The place was a melting pot of drugs and liquor, and Keisha had become enemy number-one by involving the police and bringing unwanted drama to a lively party where everyone wanted to have a good time.

  “I need for everyone to back up!” shouted Officer Krokowsi.

  The weed smoke was so thick inside the apartment that the four officers were catching a contact high. Looking at the faces of a few guests, they saw possible warrants and potential overtime.

  The ladies were escorted into the hallway, where their foul mouths continued to spew hatred and resentment at the cops.

  “Yo Charlie, just chill and be quiet, a’ight? I got y’all. I’m gonna get y’all out,” God said to them.

  “Fuck these niggas, God! I hate bitch-ass police!” Charlie continued to carry on.

  God and Fingers were dirty, along with a few other individuals inside the apartment. Fingers had a pistol on him, and God had a gram of cocaine. The last thing they needed was a criminal charge. They wanted the girls to shut their mouths and go quietly, but it wasn’t happening. The girls’ spiteful rants echoed throughout the hallway non-stop.

  Bacardi screamed, “I’ma fuck that
bitch up again!”

  “Keep talking!” shouted Officer Krokowsi.

  The insults were starting to anger the cops. Officer Duke, who wanted to get promoted to detective, had the brilliant idea to interrogate the other folks inside the apartment and implement random searches to see what kind of goodies they came up with.

  “Call in for a paddy wagon,” he said to the others.

  Officer Duke wanted to search anyone who looked to be under the influence of an illegal substance or suspicious with a warrant. But the other three officers started to look nervous; there were too many people in the small environment, and they didn’t have absolute control of the area. They wanted to make their arrest and leave.

  “You sure about this?” asked Officer Fletcher.

  Officer Duke intensely stared at the others and repeated, “I said call it in!”

  Officer Duke then turned to the crowd and yelled at them, “Okay, I want everyone to get against the wall and stay there.”

  “We ain’t do nothing,” shouted someone from within the crowd.

  “Keisha, you done fucked up everybody’s shmood, bitch!” someone else yelled.

  “Let’s not make this difficult, people!” retorted Officer Duke.

  “Y’all making this shit difficult!” exclaimed another voice from the crowd.

  “Yo fuck you, cop!” a voice roared from the other side of the room.

  The rumbling of complaints and anger started to rise, and Officers Myles, Fletcher, and Krokowsi were growing concerned. They had their hands on their weapons and their heads were on a swivel. They were in enemy territory, and backup wouldn’t be able to come fast enough.

  Officer Duke continued to be an asshole, shouting, “I said let’s not make this shit difficult, people!” He was already in defense mode, ready to react if or when things got ugly.

  But cooperation with the crowd wasn’t going to come easy. In fact, the hordes of folks started to grow antsy, and before the officers could get a handle on the situation, all hell broke loose. The entire crowd charged toward the officers, pushing and shoving by them and hurrying out the exit, down the hallway, and down the stairway. God and Fingers ran too. Three of the cops gave chase while Fletcher stayed with the three perps in handcuffs.

  Within a minute, rapid gunshots rang out from the stairway—Bak! Bak! Bak! Bak! And chaos continued to ensue.

  Hearing the gunfire finally made Chanel, Landy, and Mecca emerge from the bedroom. It was pandemonium inside the apartment. Trash and furniture were everywhere. Chanel saw her mother and sisters handcuffed and detained in the hallway where there was a nervous cop watching over them.

  “Ohmygod, what’s going on?” Chanel asked.

  “Get back inside!” Officer Fletcher shouted with his gun pointed at the teenage girls. They were wide-eyed with terror on their faces.

  Fletcher was already on his radio calling for backup and he was too afraid to leave his position to see what happened. He knew an officer was involved in the shooting. Then it happened. He heard crackling through his two-way radio. “10-13, officer down! Officer down!”

  Oh shit!

  “Get the fuck back in the apartment!” Officer Fletcher screamed again at Chanel, Landy, and Mecca.

  The girls complied. They were scared and shocked. Chanel’s home was turning into a war zone. Officer Duke finally emerged from the stairway looking torn down. He was angry. They all became angry and to feel like men, they began slamming and roughing up the handcuffed Bacardi, Charlie, and Claire. The girls were thrown to the floor, shouted at, and cursed. Question was, who shot a cop?

  Chaos swept everywhere in less than an hour—from the Browns’ apartment, into the stairwell, and outside the project building. The SWAT team and dozens of police cars flooded the area, and homicide detectives and brass converged inside the building where it was confirmed. A cop was shot dead in the stairwell. The gloves were off, and the police shut down the Glenwood Houses—no foot traffic in or out of the place.

  Butch was dragged out of his bed by several NYPD officers. He had slept through the commotion. Groggily, he stared up at a half-dozen cops glaring down at him—ready to beat him to a pulp simply because a cop was dead. Landy, Chanel, and Mecca were being treated like criminals, cursed out, and spoken to disparagingly. They too were placed in handcuffs and made to sit on the floor in the apartment while it was thoroughly searched. Unfortunately for the cops, they didn’t find anything except for two blunts—nothing to make a significant arrest. A few cops still wanted to arrest Butch, Landy, Chanel, and Mecca with a hard-on to thrust them into the system—maybe fuck ’em up. But an impartial captain overruled their racist desire.

  The handcuffs were finally off, but Chanel couldn’t shake the feeling of being disrespected and treated like a criminal when she wasn’t. Landy decided she would stay far away from the Browns from here on out. They were too much drama, and murder was going too far. Even if it was a pig.

  Mecca hugged her friend, but she too was in shock. She wanted to call her parents, but the police continued to treat them as if they were under arrest. Butch, now sober, was furious and he threatened to sue the NYPD. Everyone was upset. They all felt humiliated, and their wrists felt swollen because of the handcuffs being on for such a long time.

  Camped outside the building were numerous reporters and news cameras. A cop being killed in the projects was big time news—if it bleeds then it leads. Locals were hounded by the reporters, and hovering above the projects were several police and media helicopters with a bird’s eye view of the commotion below.

  When the house was finally cleared out and quiet, all Chanel thought was, Who shot the cop?

  Chapter Five

  Bacardi, Charlie, and Claire were attached to the chain gang and led into the Brooklyn precinct. They weren’t cursing out cops anymore, but they continued to seethe. They’d fucked up. They knew it, and it showed on their faces. New Year’s Day was going to be spent in jail, and due to the holiday, it was going to take a full forty-eight hours before they would go before a judge. They already had a strike against them with the NYPD—a cop was killed because of them. Each cop they came across at the precinct glared at them with hatred and disgust.

  “Fuckin’ bitches!” one uniformed officer said. “If you ask me, the entire family needs to be put down.”

  The girls heard the comment but kept quiet. It would behoove them to keep their cool, unlike a few hours ago when they were madwomen ranting obscenities at the police. They were now in enemy territory, and they truly did fear for their lives. Once a cop was killed, the gloves came off.

  All three were placed in separate interrogation rooms, where the detectives questioned them about the shooting. The detectives started with Claire and they grilled her for hours, asking about guests at the party and details about what had taken place. She was a hot mess. She tried to speak with some intelligence, but nervousness overcame her and she ended up sounding like a bumbling idiot.

  Charlie was next. She held her own and was adamant that she had nothing to do with the shooting and she wasn’t there. Bacardi frowned at the detectives and growled the same thing. She didn’t know who killed the cop. She and her daughters were cuffed when it went down.

  The detectives wanted a shooter, but each of them separately said that they were nowhere near the crime scene. They were already under arrest and being detained in the hallway when it happened. Their statements angered the detectives, but there wasn’t anything they could do.

  Inside Central Booking, they all had their mug shots taken, they were fingerprinted, and the guards conducted a full body search.

  Once they were all together again in the holding cell, Bacardi immediately asked them, “What did y’all say to the police?”

  “I ain’t say shit because I don’t know shit,” Charlie replied.

  “I don’t know nothing either,” said Claire.

>   Bacardi whispered, “So who you think killed that cop?” She looked at Charlie.

  Charlie knew what she was hinting at. “God ain’t do it!”

  “What about Fingers?” Claire asked.

  “I don’t know. We don’t know shit!”

  “You think God will get us out of here?” Bacardi asked Charlie.

  “He will, believe me. My nigga is a man of his word. He ain’t gonna let me rot in here—y’all either. We just gotta keep cool and wait.”

  Bacardi didn’t want to spend two days in jail, but she didn’t have a choice. She knew that this was serious shit and they were going to be constantly harassed because of the cop shooting. She was already on thin ice with her job—now this. Fuck me! she thought.

  The holding cell was growing packed with female inmates, but the Brown girls sat on the bench against the wall and kept to themselves. They weren’t worried about any trouble coming their way, but they would have each other’s back if it did come. Bacardi felt if some stupid bitch started trouble, she would be in for a rude awakening. She felt ready to kill someone.

  The judge set their bail at twenty thousand dollars each—sixty thousand in total. Their arraignment wasn’t pretty. They were charged with assault and battery, and resisting arrest. They were also hit with a restraining order to stay at least 100 feet away from Keisha. The authorities couldn’t pin the cop’s murder on them, which was disappointing for the NYPD. The judge brought the gavel down, displeased that he couldn’t do more for the fallen officer. The girls were escorted back to the bullpen under the courts to wait for their bail to be paid.