Against the Grain

by Freeze

  By this time everyone was at ease and had put their guns up. Kay reached in his pocket and gave Lyniece $325 for keeping her mouth shut.

  “Why didn’t you call me if you needed a ride home?” Mike asked.

  “Boy, get out my face!”

  “C’mere, baby,” Mike said as he grabbed her by the arm.

  She snatched her arm from him and punched him in the chest.

  “I’m going to tell my mama. Mama! Mama!” Lyniece went in the house screaming.

  Mike said, “Oh shit, I’m outta here.” They jumped in Apache’s Jeep before Mama Frost could come outside. Even Dre left with them, leaving Mina in the house with Sonia. Kay laughed at his friends and shut the trunk of the car. He needed to get over to Lady’s house. He couldn’t wait to see what type of magic Lyniece had worked on the girls.

  When Kay put his key in the door and opened it, he could smell that good southern cooking Lady was known for. Lady eyed him first.

  “There goes my baby. We were just talking about you.” Kay hadn’t looked in Lady’s direction. At the moment all he could see was Tia; she was beautiful. She had taken a bath and put on one of the new outfits Kay had bought her. She glowed now and for a second Kay thought she looked as good as Sonia. Tia smiled back at Kay because she could tell that he was pleased. Once Kay was able to take his eyes off her, he looked over at Janita, who was also beautiful. He couldn’t believe that they were the same little dusty girls that he had met earlier. Janita got up from the table and gave Kay a hug.

  Janita thanked him but Kay was still preoccupied with Tia. From the time he walked in the house her eyes hadn’t left his. It was easy to see that she lusted for him, and she knew that he was no longer out of her league. After staring at Kay a few more seconds, Tia couldn’t stand it any longer; she stood up and walked around the table so that Kay could examine her more carefully. She wanted him to see how well shaped her ass was in her Jordache jeans with the matching shirt and Rider boots. Her hair was also something to see. The weave was a glossy black and hung straight down almost to the small of her back. When Kay took in the full package there was no doubt in his mind that he would fuck her. She turned twice.

  “You like?” she said before she hugged him. “Thank you for everything, Kay.” She had confidence in her voice.

  Kay liked her new attitude and swagger. Damn, he thought to himself, I should have given Lyniece a grand.

  “Don’t come in my castle no more without speaking to the King and Queen. Bow down, show some respect,” Scatter said to Kay.

  “Shut up, nigga, before I knock you out in here,” Kay said causing everyone to laugh.

  Tia fixed Kay a plate of baked turkey wings, macaroni and cheese, cabbage, rice, and cornbread. They all sat down and ate together. At the table, Kay asked the girls if they understood the living arrangements. Both of them nodded yes.

  “So ya’ll don’t mind living here with Lady and Scatter.”

  “No, we love it,” Tia spoke enthusiastically.

  “What about our mom?” Janita asked, looking at Kay.

  “She’ll be allowed to visit, but she can never come inside the house. Is that clear?” Kay spoke in a stern voice and the girls nodded their heads in agreement.

  “Lyniece called and got me an appointment at the hair academy tomorrow at nine in the morning,” Tia explained.

  “I’m impressed,” Kay said and looked over at Janita. “It’s school for you in the morning, miss.”

  “You ain’t got to tell me. I can’t wait to get to school so everybody can see the new me.”

  “I got somewhere I need to be at nine a.m. myself. I’ll drop Janita off at school, then you at the hair academy around eight fifteen okay?”

  “That sounds good to me.” Tia was excited, knowing that she would be seeing Kay the next day. When everyone was finished eating, Janita washed the dishes. Lady and Scatter went to bed.

  “Come on, I’ll walk ya’ll upstairs to make sure you’re settled in before I leave,” Kay said.

  Both girls looked at each other. They were really hoping he would stay. When they got upstairs Kay looked around and nothing had changed. The apartment still looked like something out of one of those ’70s sitcoms, but it was okay for the girls. Kay turned on the TV and took a seat in the living room. Tia sat next to him. Janita was tired from all the excitement so she went to wrap her hair, then went to bed.

  Kay and Tia were all alone. “Why aren’t you staying?” she asked.

  “I never said anything earlier because it didn’t come up, but I got a girlfriend and a new baby at home. I live a few blocks from here, down by Murphy Homes, with my mother, two brothers, and Lyniece. As bad as I want to stay, I can’t. You understand, don’t you.”

  Tia was quiet for a moment and then she spoke in a soft voice, “I understand, Kay. I also know that I’ve never felt like this before, about anybody. I just hope that I can be a part of your life somehow. If I have to be number two, I’ll be the best number two a man can have. All I ask is that you don’t shut me out without first giving me a chance.”

  Kay didn’t know what to say. He looked down at the floor. He didn’t like the situation. He preferred to control his predicaments, especially with his women. He looked up at Tia and started to say something, but she put her index finger to his lips.

  “Don’t say anything,” she ordered. She stood up in front of him and kicked off her boots. Not only had Lyniece done their hair, she’d also given them manicures and pedicures. Kay looked at Tia’s feet and wanted to lick and suck them the way Lady had taught him to do. Tia peeled off her skintight jeans and shirt. She had on a matching bra and panty set that matched her red manicured nails and toes. My God, Kay thought to himself, her body looks better than Sonia’s. She walked over and turned off the TV and the lights then stood right in front of Kay.

  “Do you like what you see?”

  “Hell yeah!” Kay managed to say as Tia got on her knees between his legs. She unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them to his ankles. His gun fell to the floor. Tia picked it up and looked at it before sliding it under the couch. Then she pulled off his boots and slid off his boxers and his jeans. When she put his dick in her mouth without any prompting Kay almost lost his mind. After a few seconds it started to feel good to Kay and he relaxed. Tia stood up and told Kay to take off his leather jacket and shirt. She took her bra and panties off and straddled him.

  “How does that feel, daddy?” she whispered in his ear.

  “Phenomenal, baby,” he said softly in her ear, not believing how she had totally taken over the situation and loving it all the same.

  Tia reached down and grabbed Kay. “Damn, you got a big dick,” she said before putting the head of it inside of her.

  It was too late to turn back now so Kay reached under her arms to grab her shoulders. Once he got a good grip, he pulled her down on his dick and thrust himself deeper inside of her. She gasped for air and tried to hold in the scream, but she couldn’t. Tia realized that she’d gotten herself into something she wasn’t quite ready for. Kay didn’t back off one inch, and they continued without noticing Janita watching them from the shadow of her room.

  4

  As Kay finished up his call with his sister, he saw four people walk into his room, with a fifth stationed outside like a lookout. Kay’s roommate had not had anyone in the room since Kay had been on the compound so he knew something definitely wasn’t right.

  “Lyniece, I’ve got to go but I want you to give Mommy a kiss for me, and tell her that I love her. I love you, too.”

  Lyniece told her brother that she loved him also and would tell Tramaine that he called. Before he could hang up, Lyniece said, “Oh yeah, Shu-Shu has been buggin’ us for your address, she wants you to call her.”

  Shu-Shu was Lyniece’s friend, but Kay never paid her much attention. He knew that she had a crush on him but she lived down the block, which at the time was too close to Sonia. Shu-Shu was too skinny and not Kay’s type. She was cute, but
she didn’t have anything on Sonia’s fine ass. But she was also his man P-Lay’s little sister. P-Lay was serving a life sentence without parole for killing a police officer who beat his little brother to death. Too much drama involved.

  “Tell your friend that I said lots of love but don’t push and shove. She’s too young for me anyway. Plus, I’m going to be gone for a while.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell her and I’m going to tell Mommy you called me a ho, punk.” They both laughed and hung up the phone.

  Kay never took his eyes off the fifth man standing outside his room. He knew that something was up cause he recognized all of the guys that went in his room as the same D.C. guys he had the run-in with his first day in the institution. They were known for breaking in lockers and all kinds of crazy shit. As Kay approached his room the brotha standing lookout tried to stop him. “Hold up, we’re taking care of some business in there. We’ll be finished in a minute.”

  Kay ignored the clown, but when he tried to walk past him, he grabbed Kay’s arm. “What the fuck did I say, youngin’?”

  Before Mr. Lookout could get the words out of his mouth, Kay swung one vicious punch and caught him on the tip of the chin, knocking him out cold. Kay snatched his room door open and all intruders stopped what they were doing and looked back at him. Kay scanned the tiny room real quick then looked past the four men only to see that they had his celly pinned down, and it appeared that they were trying to rape him. Yang’s pants were hanging off his ass and he was lying on his stomach. There were signs of a struggle; they must have surprised him in his sleep. Kay’s first instinct was to turn and walk away, but that’s not how he was raised. The first guy that stepped to Kay was punched in the throat. He fell to the floor trying to catch his breath. Two more guys rushed Kay and he handled them for as long as he could. When he wasn’t looking, Phife, the big dude who stepped to him the first day, hit him in the back with a shank. Kay fell to his knees after being struck a few more times. But this gave the Asian time to get himself together and ease up behind Phife. The Asian was so quick that the four men didn’t even see what hit them. In a matter of seconds, it was over. All four men were lying on the floor unconscious.

  The Asian rushed out on the tier and called for Officer Johnson to come quick. Officer Johnson rushed upstairs and saw that Kay needed medical attention. He hit the panic button on his walkie-talkie and within minutes the dorm was crawling with officers and staff. They rushed Kay to the prison hospital and everyone else was put on lockdown. A few hours and a few stitches later, officers were escorting Kay to the hole where all the participants of the altercation were being held. They put Kay with his celly, who was sitting on the edge of the bottom bunk with his head down. He looked up as Kay came into the room, and he spoke to Kay for the first time in two years. The Asian stood up and said, “Are you alright?” Kay was stunned, so he just stared at the Asian.

  “Just some flesh wounds,” he said.

  The Asian walked over and extended his hand. “Thank you very much. I owe you my life, as well as my family. If those men had violated me, I wouldn’t have been able to continue living and if I had taken my own life I would have disgraced my family back in my homeland.”

  Kay shook his hand with a firm grip and told the Asian that he didn’t owe him anything because he knew he would get his blessings in time.

  “But I have treated you so badly since you arrived,” he said.

  “I understand though,” Kay said. “You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. We both come from different backgrounds. Trust me, it’s okay. I think you would have done the same for me.”

  “Well let’s change all of that now. I am Yang Guam You. You may call me Yang.”

  “My name is Arkadian Frost, but you can call me Kay.”

  “Now that we have properly introduced ourselves, I want to know all about your background and culture, and I shall teach you of mine,” Yang said.

  5

  Kay stood and looked around the visiting room until his eyes focused in on his first visitor since being in the penitentiary. He smiled and walked in her direction. Ms. Janice Frost, known to everyone that knew her as Mama Frost, stood and ran into her son’s arms. No matter how big or how grown Kay had become, he was still her firstborn, her baby. She held her son tight and began to cry. He held onto her also and wanted to cry because he missed his mother so much. Knowing that this wasn’t the place to be seen shedding tears, he quickly got himself together.

  “How are you, Ma?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. How are you doing in this place?” Mama Frost asked. “Are they feeding you right? Are they giving you proper medical treatment? Do you sleep well at night? Have you made any new friends?”

  “Yes, Mama, I’m fine. Everything is alright with me. They give me three hot meals a day plus I’ve got plenty of food in my locker. I sleep fine and no, I haven’t made any new friends.”

  “Well, you look good. Have you been working out? Your daddy used to work out.”

  • • •

  The last time Ms. Frost had seen her husband, Donte, was the night she came home from the hospital with their son, Caleek. Donte had been in a bar celebrating the birth of another son when he heard another patron say that Caleek might not even be his. Someone told him that the baby belonged to Sonny, who was Mike’s uncle from D.C. This enraged Kay’s father and when his mother returned home all hell broke loose; Donte beat her up real bad. Kay was angry and frightened. He had seen his father lose his temper one too many times. That night he turned to the one father figure who never let him down—Scatter. Scatter’s crew grabbed Kay’s father. They gagged him and threw his ass in the trunk of a car. Then Scatter sent a couple of his guys to move Kay’s family into one of his houses. Scatter drove to an abandoned warehouse where he had a few men waiting. His men took Kay’s father out of the trunk and beat him half to death before chaining him to a chair. Blinded by car headlights, Kay’s father couldn’t see his son or Scatter sitting in the front seats of the car. Scatter let him squirm a few minutes before he got out of the car and walked up to him.

  Kay’s father started talking shit, and said, “What the fuck is going on here?”

  “Shut the fuck up, nigga! You ain’t in charge of this!” Scatter said in a stern voice that was Kay’s cue to get out of the car. Kay walked forward, but his dad couldn’t make him out. He just saw a figure coming toward him and heard the footsteps. When Kay stepped into the light, his dad couldn’t believe it. He felt relieved, knowing that his son would never hurt him.

  “Kay, what the fuck is this? What are these niggaz doing?”

  “My name is Arkadian. Only my friends call me Kay!”

  “Boy, I raised you. I’m your father. I’ll call you whatever I want. You better get these chains off me before I—”

  “Before you what, nigga? Before you beat my ass like you did my mama? Before you bust my lip like you did my mama’s?”

  “Son, you don’t know what’s going on,” his father said in a softer tone. He realized quickly that this was no longer his little boy standing in front of him. This was an angry man on the verge of hurting him. It made him regret not standing up to his own father who was so abusive toward his mother that they had to run away in the dead of the night when he was fourteen.

  “I know this, nigga: You ain’t never gonna put your hands on my mama again!” Kay nodded in the direction of one of Scatter’s men. The guy moved quickly behind Kay’s dad, pouring gas all over him. When the can was empty the guy stood back and Kay pulled out a joint. Kay lit the joint and held the match up in the air so his father could see it.

  “Please, son! Don’t do this!” he begged at the top of his voice. Kay blew out the match and walked closer to his father. Leaning in close he spoke in a hushed tone, “I thought about it, nigga, but I don’t want to stink up the place with your burning corpse.” He then reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of C-4 plastic explosive with a timer set for three minutes. Kay started the timer and threw
the bomb in his father’s lap. “Die quick, cocksucker!”

  Kay got in the car and everyone else followed. As they were leaving the warehouse, they could hear the man Kay had known all his life as his father, screaming his head off. But they were in a secluded area and no one would hear him.

  Kay sat back in the seat and hit the joint again. He inhaled hard then closed his eyes and released the smoke after holding it for about thirty seconds. When he exhaled, he looked over at Scatter and they all burst out in laughter.

  “You think that nigga figured out it was a dummy bomb by now?” Scatter asked.

  Kay, still laughing, said, “He probably died from a heart attack!”

  “I think he shit on himself,” one of the crew said from the backseat.

  “I know one thing, little nigga, you is the man of the house now. He won’t be coming around no more,” Scatter told Kay when they pulled up in front of the house that would become his new home. Kay looked at Scatter and thanked him for everything, then gave him a hug.

  “Go ahead with that sentimental shit,” Scatter said to break up the awkward moment. Then as Kay was getting out the car he added, “I’ll let you know what you owe me for the house tomorrow, youngblood.”

  Kay made so much money running errands and being Scatter’s number-two man, he eventually paid him the $15,000 that Scatter wanted for the old house. Kay’s mom never knew that he’d paid for the house. She always thought that Scatter gave her the house after Kay’s father left, so she made sure to charge her kids rent.

  Mama Frost never found out what happened to her husband that night he disappeared. She didn’t care either.

  • • •

  Mama kept asking question after question. Kay could tell that she was trying to hide her illness. Kay stopped her in mid-sentence, “How are you doing, Mama?” She looked into her son’s eyes, then down at her hands, which rested in his. She didn’t say a word.

  “I know you’re sick, Mama. How bad is it?”