by C.G. Banks
*
God All-Mighty, I thought I was done. An him the whole time jus grinnin’, pointin’, sayin’ “Look at that there! I always tole the bitch! I ALWAYS TOLE THE BITCH!!” An me jus standin an noddin, fuckin’ mind runnin’ like a truck. Thank God they kids is at they granmaw’s. God help me, but I cain’t say nothin. He fin’lly killed ‘er. Jus like he said he was gonna, an I cain’t say shit. But I cain’t b’lieve…
I knowed Lakeshia since we wuz eight, nine years old, man. Alwas been in the hood, ain’t none a us eva leavin. No way, no how. Jus a skinny lil nigga gal back then but them eyes. I ‘member once she come up ta me on the playground. Always by herself. Never did have no friends much, least not many girls. But that day she come up smiling. Said she done killed a bird jus by looking at it. Said it fell right out the tree, dead like a mothafucka. I laughed; kept right on till her face changed. “Get ova there, nigga, then,” she said. “Goan see what I done.” An it was. Jus a dead bird, an I seen plenty. But then she was behin me, standin, quiet. “Go on an touch it, nigga. Feel how warm it be?”
An I did. An I saw her real face then, like it weren’t made outta skin a’tall, but some evil street-tar blackness, deep as a gotdamn coal mine, an goin’ on an on. An jus like that she smiled even bigger an walked off. Ta her own lil co’na of the yard. Jus stood there lookin at me…
Doan rememba when it was Juice and her hooked up, but it be a long while. Gots two kids, even if’n they do stay wit her mutha more’n they do at they own house. But it’s dang’rous ova there, always has been.
Always will be.
