by Kiki Swinson
Neeko hesitated for a second and then he said, “I don’t know him personally. But I’ve seen him around the way. It’s a small world, huh?”
“If that’s the way you want to look at it,” I replied nonchalantly, so he switched the subject.
“So, what’s up with me and you? When we gon’ hang out?”
“It’s up to you. You’re the one with the woman and a hectic schedule.”
Neeko laughed. “It ain’t like that for real.”
“Well, I guess you can answer that question yourself.”
“I’m free any day of the week.”
“What about tonight? You trying to go out and get a bite to eat?”
“Yeah, we can do that. But what time are you talking about?”
“Let’s meet up about seven-thirty.”
“A’ight. But where we gon’ meet at?”
“Do you remember where I told you my shop was?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, meet me there.”
“A’ight,” he said and then we hung up.
A while later Neeko called my cell phone and told me he was parked outside, so I grabbed my handbag and hauled ass outside. Rachael was the only one left in the shop servicing her last client, so I mentioned that I was about to leave right after I got my phone call.
“Whatcha’ doing tonight? Going home to relax?”
I smiled. “No ma’am, I am about to go on a hot date with my new friend waiting for me outside.”
“Who is he? And when did you meet him?”
“His name is Neeko and I met him about a week ago while I was getting me some lunch from Quiznos.”
“Is he cute?”
“Hell yeah!”
“What does he drive?”
“A Yukon Denali.”
“Wow! Sounds like you got a winner.”
“Too soon to tell, but I shall find out,” I said and then I grabbed the doorknob and let myself out.
“Be careful,” I heard her yell before the door closed.
On my way to Neeko’s truck I noticed that he was yelling at someone on the other end of his cell phone, so I took about six steps toward the passenger side door and then I turned my back to him so he could have some privacy. I acted like I was looking inside the bakery shop next to the salon, but I was really ear-hustling my ass off. Whoever he was talking to, he was chewing his ass out.
“Nigga, do you know who the fuck I am? I will kill you and your whole fucking family!” I heard him say and then he got quiet as if he was giving the caller a chance to speak. “Well, nigga, if you think you got enough fighting power, bring that shit to me!” I heard him scream and then he abruptly ended the call.
Now I couldn’t tell you who the hell he was beefing with or what it was about, but I did know that Neeko was furious, and if anybody tried to cross him right then, I was sure he’d take care of their ass real good, and I sure wouldn’t want to be nowhere around to witness it.
Several seconds later he honked his horn and gestured for me to hop into his whip, so I did. Immediately after I sat in the seat next to him he smiled and said, “Nice to finally see you after all this time.”
I cracked a cute little smile. “It’s your fault.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m going to make it up to you.” He pulled off and headed northwest.
“Where we going?” I asked.
“I gotta make a quick run to pick up some dough, and then we can go get something to eat.”
“Where you want to get something to eat at?”
“It’s up to you.”
I pulled out my Blackberry to make a quick call. “Good,” I said, “because I’ve been dying to get a bite to eat at Benihana this entire week.”
“You like their food?”
“Oh my God! I love it! Why, you don’t like it?”
“I’ve only been there one time and it was a’ight.”
“Which one did you go to?”
“The one on Louisiana Street.”
“That’s the one I go to. Their food is always fresh. I love it and I’m getting ready to call there right now and make us a reservation.”
“Damn, you got them on speed dial, huh?”
I chuckled. “I sure do,” I said, and then I started speaking into the phone.
After I made the reservation, I sat back in the seat and made small talk with Neeko while he made his way to his destination. Everything was going according to plan. He was looking good and being a gentleman. He also threw out a few jokes every now and again to make me laugh, and I was truly enjoying his company.
About ten minutes into the drive his cell phone started ringing again, so he looked at the CallerID to see who it was. When he didn’t recognize the number, he said, “Who the fuck is this?”
I looked at him, but said nothing. He kept staring at it, hesitating to answer it. Then at the last minute, he decided to see who it was. “Hello,” he finally said.
“Where you at?” I heard a woman’s voice yell through the receiver.
Irritated by her tone, he said, “I’m taking care of business. Where you at? And whose phone you calling me from?”
From the looks of his conversation, I knew it had to be his woman. I didn’t care, though, because I was with him at the moment and I had big plans to spend some of that money he was about to pick up.
“Look, I ain’t trying to argue with you right now, so I’ma holler at you when I come to the crib,” he told her and then hung up.
I cracked another smile at him and said, “Trouble at home?”
He sighed and said, “She’s always bitching at me about something. She ain’t never satisfied about shit! She lucky she got my son, because I would’ve left her ass a long time ago.”
Now I saw that he was dealing with one of those baby mama drama issues, I made it my business not to make one comment. Instead, I said, “Lighten up! It’s not that bad!”
Before he could say one word, his phone rang again. Without looking at the CallerID this time, he just answered it. “What?!” he lashed out.
Caught off guard by whatever the caller had just said, his mouth fell wide open and his eyeballs nearly popped out of his head. Then in slow motion, he turned around to his left. I turned with him and saw an old, beat up Chevy Impala riding side by side with him with two men pointing machine guns directly at him. Immediately both men started ripping Neeko’s truck to shreds with their artillery.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Bullets were flying through doors and shattering the windows and all I could do was scream and duck for cover. After Neeko got hit, he dropped his phone to the floor and let out a loud grunt. His facial expression was that of a man who was in excruciating pain and I wanted no part of it. My first reaction was to help him get us the hell away from these guys before we were both dead. I couldn’t see where we were going since I was crouched down on the floor, and at this point it didn’t matter since he and I had one common goal, and that was to get the hell out of Dodge. I figured since he had his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road all I needed to do was give him some help with the accelerator since he wasn’t going fast enough for me.
I reached over and pressed my hand down on his right foot as hard as I could until I felt his truck move faster. I could feel the truck swerving like crazy, and the only thought that crossed my mind was that we were about to lose our lives and I couldn’t let that happen. I had a lot to live for, and besides, I had just met this nigga. He and I had no history together and we hadn’t even fucked each other, so I was not about to go out on a limb with him.
My heart was racing like crazy while the bullets continued to find their way through the left side of Neeko’s truck. All I could hear was popping sounds and Neeko screaming like a bitch, yelling at the people in front of him to get out of the way. I ain’t gon’ lie, I was screaming my ass off too. Shit, I wanted to get the hell away from those psycho-ass niggas, but the way things were looking, Neeko acted like he couldn’t shake them
for nothing in the world. He was racing down the highway going at a speed of about 120 miles per hour, dipping in and out of lanes, but those niggas were still gunning at him real hard.
“Ahhh shit! These niggas are busting shots at my gas tank. They trying to blow us the fuck up!” Neeko said, panicking.
“Go! Go! Go!” I yelled and immediately forced my arm through the small space where the accelerator was and pressed down on it as hard as I could. The engine revved and I knew Neeko’s adrenaline must have been pumping. But it seemed like we couldn’t shake those niggas for nothing in this world.
Still down on the floor, I could hear the other cars swerving and stomping on brakes to try to get out of our way, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t heard the sirens of a police squad car. We’d been racing down this highway preventing those niggas in the next car from killing us for the past three to four minutes and no one had come to our rescue. What type of place was this? I knew that if we were in Virginia, the police would’ve showed up sixty seconds after the first shot was fired.
I buried my face between my arms and started praying. But as soon as I got to the part where I was asking God to spare my life, Neeko’s truck came to a screeching halt. BOOM! The impact of the crash shook me like a rattle. When I looked up, I noticed that both airbags had deployed. The passenger side airbag was sticking out like a white balloon, and Neeko’s face was buried deep in the airbag, which had knocked him unconscious.
I scrambled to my feet and pushed my way past the passenger’s side airbag to get into the seat. Once I was all the way up, I was able to look outside, and that was when I noticed that we had crashed into a metal rail on an exit ramp. When I realized where I was and that Neeko’s truck was smashed up really badly in the front, I knew that the police would surely be on their way. If I was caught with this guy, I was going to have to answer a lot of questions. And that would lead to my probation officer finding out what kind of niggas I was getting involved with, and I couldn’t have that, so I grabbed my handbag, pushed the passenger side door open, and hopped out of the truck.
I saw a lot of cars ride by the truck slowly to see what condition we were in, but I wasn’t paying their asses any mind. My main objective was to get the hell out of there. While I was walking away from the scene, this white man approached me while I stumbled across the grass and onto the pavement.
“Are you OK?” he asked, reaching out to grab my arm.
I snatched my arm away from him and gave him a mean look. “Yes, I’m fine. Now please move out of my damn way.”
“I was only trying to help you,” the man explained. But I wasn’t trying to hear him. My main concern was to get the hell out of there before the police came, so I kept my head down the entire time to prevent the man from getting a good look at me so he couldn’t give the police a good description.
Getting caught up in more bullshit with these nothing-ass niggas was becoming a bit tiresome. Thank God I didn’t get hurt, because that would have meant a ride to the hospital with the paramedics and a three-hundred-fifty-dollar tab for carrying me there on a stretcher. Besides that, my probation officer was a beast, so I couldn’t give that ho any reason to violate me. And the shit that just went on would be just the right amount of ammunition to have my ass cornered in her office answering a whole lot of questions. I was not in the mood for that, so I was gonna flag down the next taxi I saw and make my way back to my car.
I walked down the ramp that led to a busy intersection and at that intersection I saw a slew of cabs going in all directions, so I put my best foot forward and got into the first one that stopped. “Take me to the uptown district,” I instructed the driver.
“Where exactly are you trying to go?”
“Smith Street,” I told him and then I sat back in the seat.
The entire drive all I could think about was how badly Neeko was hurt. I knew he wasn’t dead because when I checked his wrist for a pulse, he was still breathing. I wasn’t a medical expert, but I knew that he had to be in real bad shape from all those gunshot wounds. But thankfully enough, I didn’t witness him getting killed. And I didn’t plan on seeing it happen on another date, so as far as I was concerned, that nigga was history. I was changing my number and crossing my fingers that he didn’t try to contact me anymore.
After the cab driver dropped me off at my destination, I hopped into my vehicle and left from downtown in a split second. I was doing forty miles per hour down Main Street and I didn’t have the slightest idea where I was going. I didn’t want to go home because I knew Kira was there and I wasn’t in the mood to see her. And I didn’t want to go back to the shop because Rachael’s nosey ass would have a lot of questions for me. And who knew, the police could have come up there looking for me too, especially if Neeko was one of those snitching type of niggas. So what was I going to do?
Depressed about my bad luck with these nothing ass niggas, I decided to hop on the phone and see if I could catch Bintu. I needed someone to vent to about what I had just gone through. I thought he might feel sorry for me and want to see me so he could console me, and that was just what I needed. I dialed his number and let it ring until it went to voice mail. I refused to leave a voice mail because I hated talking into those stupid things, so I got up the nerve to ride up to his nightclub. Shit, at that point I really didn’t care how he was going to take the fact that I had just popped up on him. I needed to talk, and he was the only man I could think of who I could confide in. I mean, he at least owed me that much since he’d been avoiding me.
Just a couple days ago I had gone to club looking for him, but I hadn’t been able to catch his ass. Fatu had lied to me and told me that Bintu had left town to take care of some business, and that he’d be gone for at least another week, but I didn’t buy that bullshit-ass lie. I was from Missouri, which was the Show Me state, so I had to see if he was in town for myself.
This time I decided to camp out in my car outside the nightclub. After about three long hours of waiting around, I started getting impatient and decided that I should go inside. Just when I was about to get out of my car Bintu strolled outside with some bimbo attached to his arm.
“I knew that nigga wasn’t out of town!” I screamed at the top of my voice, punching the steering wheel as hard as I could, but at the same time avoiding the pad that would have set off my car horn. Accidentally hitting my car horn would have blown up my whole plan of catching this nigga off guard.
As I emerged from my car, I was able to get a better look at this bitch he had dangling from his arm, and from what I saw, she wasn’t even all that! I could also see that they were both drunk because they were stumbling all over each other. They were carrying on like two alcoholics in fucking heat. Bintu was feeling all over this chick like he wanted to fuck her smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk.
The more I watched, the more my blood pressure went up, so talking to him about the shootout I was in with Neeko went right out the window. Without much thought, I jumped out of my car and stormed toward them like a raging bull. I had nothing else on my mind but to whip her ass and kick Bintu in his fucking balls. I wanted both of them to see how it felt to be hurt.
“You’re getting ready to take her to your house so you can fuck her, just like you did me the other night, huh?” I roared.
Stunned by the way I had just come out of nowhere, the woman staggered a little bit, trying to keep her balance. Bintu just stood there like he’d seen a ghost. I marched straight toward them, pushed the woman down to the ground, and immediately started throwing blows at Bintu. “Nigga, you ain’t shit! Got me ’round here calling you, leaving you messages, and you ain’t got the decency to call me back to let me know what’s up with us!” I screamed while I pounded the hell out of his head.
Bintu tried desperately to shield his head with his arms. He managed to say, “What’s your damn problem? Why are you acting like this?”
“Nigga, don’t play stupid! You had me lying in your bed, sucking on
your little-ass dick and pretended like we were going to be together. You knew you weren’t trying to be in a relationship with me, so why did you play with my damn feelings?” I continued to pound him as tears fell from my eyes. “I am so sick of niggas like you carrying me like I’m some tramp or something. I am not a slut, so stop treating me like one!”
“What’s going on?” I heard a man yell from the front of the club.
I ignored his ass and continued to send down my wrath upon Bintu. Right when I was getting the best of his drunken ass, one of Bintu’s cousins grabbed me from behind and swung my ass around like I was a fucking rag doll. I didn’t know what hit me when I was flung to the ground. I scraped my knees and hands up pretty badly, but that didn’t stop me from getting back to my feet. I came back up swinging even harder.
“What’s wrong with you, nigga? You ain’t got no business putting your motherfucking hands on me!” I screamed.
The cousin had his back turned to me, trying to make sure Bintu was OK, so I charged at both of them. My punches landed on the cousin’s back and he retaliated quickly by putting me in a chokehold. I couldn’t breathe to save my life. Luckily for me, the nigga was only trying to restrain me from attacking them, because if he was trying to kill me, I would have been dead thirty seconds ago. Struggling to regain control of the situation, I kicked and squirmed the entire time he held me.
Finally a voice registered in my head. It was Fatu, and boy was I glad to see him!
“What’s wrong with you, Kofi? You’re not supposed to be handling a woman like that,” he said, chastising his cousin. Fatu turned to me. “Are you OK?” he asked.
Trying to regain my composure, I took a deep breath and massaged my neck. I nodded in response to his question. He turned back to Kofi and asked him why he had me in a headlock.
“She was hitting me and Bintu in our backs, so I had to stop her,” Kofi began to explain.
“You didn’t have to choke the hell out of me,” I croaked.
“If you’d kept your hands to yourself, I would not have had to put my hands on you.”
“Oh, go to hell!” I spat.
