by Shan
"Quin, where are you? I'm sitting in this house by myself with the damn front door barely on the hinges!" Jahzara yelled into the phone.
She pressed the end button and slid the phone into the pocket of her Seven jeans. I watched as she walked over to the front door and, with all of her might, tried to push it closed. I snickered a little and possibly a little too loud because Jahzara stopped everything and turned her head in my direction. I jumped back just in time and slowly crept my way to the other side of the room to hide in the closet.
I could hear Jahzara's footsteps coming closer to the bedroom. My heart raced inside of my chest, and I placed my hand over my mouth to mute the sounds of my erratic breathing. The room brightened with a flick of the light switch, and Jahzara looked around the room before setting her attention on the crack in the window. She walked over to the window. Then, she shut it and locked it before turning the light back off and leaving the room. I waited a few moments before exiting the closet and going back over to the door. Jahzara was back at the door with her ear planted on the phone. I loved watching her go crazy. It caused me to have some type of high that wasn't even possible with the use of drugs.
After staring at her phone for a few minutes, she slid it back into her pocket and damn near jumped out of her skin when Quin walked in. He was toting a Sears bag and was sweating as if he'd just run a marathon.
"Damn it, Quin! I've been calling and calling you! What took you so long to get here?"
"I just came from the other side of town. You know it takes a minute! What the fuck happened to my damn door?" Quin sat the bag down and walked over to inspect the damaged door.
"Imran kicked it in! I told you he was here asking me about his stuff being taken," Jahzara explained.
"What did you tell him?" Quin questioned, while removing a few screws from the hinges.
"That you didn't do it. You didn't, did you?" Jahzara inquired, and I shook my head.
"Nah, but I did do something even better than that. I just ensured that we gonna eat good for the next few months until I can figure some shit out."
"Quin, you went to his house, right?"
Quin turned around and jumped in Jahzara's face. He looked directly into her eyes and contorted his face up in anger. "I sure the fuck did! You got a problem with that?"
Jahzara shook her head, and Quin walked back over to try and fix the door. For hours, I sat in the room, watching the two of them. They had been so in love just yesterday, but, today, the happy couple seemed to be having a little problem.
***
At about three in the morning, the house was quiet, and Quin and Jahzara were finally sleeping. Anxiously, I lit up a cigarette and took two huge puffs before filling the bedroom with smoke. I waved my hand at the smoke to try to keep it contained to my area. I could not believe that these fools had yet to detect that I was in their house. It was not like this house was huge, but I did have plenty of places to hide.
I used the wall to put out my cigarette and slowly walked out of the room and down the hall that led to the front of the house. The front door was securely closed with various holes throughout the wood. I laughed and looked around the front of the house to see where Quin had put that Sears bag. If the contents of it held enough to get them by for a few months, then it was definitely what I needed.
I didn't see the bag anywhere in the front of the house and figured that Quin must've taken it to bed with him. After creeping back down the hall, I tilted my head around the door to look into the room where Jahzara and Quin slept and spotted the bag. It was sitting on the nightstand next to Quin.
"Shit," I cursed under my breath. "Fuck! I need that bag."
I lowered myself to the ground and got on all fours. As stealthily as possible, I crawled into the bedroom, doing my best to make the least amount of noise possible. Quin was snoring at a light and steady pace, which was a good thing. The closer I got to the bag, the more my heart raced in anticipation of snatching it up and getting out of there. At only a few inches away, I froze upon hearing some movement coming from the bed. I knew that it was best for me to not move a muscle for the next few minutes. Instead, I reach above my head and pulled the bag down to me. It was heavier than I had expected it to be. I waited to make sure I don't hear any movement before I bolted to my feet and ran out of the room.
16 Jahzara
My body immediately jerked into a fetal position from the cold air that hit me once Quin snatched all the blankets from my body. I whined and begged for Quin to put the cover back on me. I opened one eye and noticed that not only was he tossing covers across the room, but he was tossing clothes and whatever else all over the place as well.
"Quin, what's going on?" I asked, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and sitting up in the bed.
"Did you move my shit?" Quin asked, going through every drawer in the room.
"Move what shit? What time is it?" I yawned and stretched my arms out.
"The fucking bag that I brought up in here, Jahzara. It's gone!"
"Well, I didn't touch it. Where did you put it? I went to sleep before you did, and you woke up before me. Don't start blaming me for your shit coming up missing."
I climbed out of bed and walked into the bathroom. Quin's attitude was really starting to work my nerves. The nigga got out of jail and talked to me like I was just some average chick on the streets. Don’t get shit twisted. If Quin had been talking to me like that before we got married, then, trust, there would have never been a wedding. Lately, I’d been chalking his attitude up to the fact that he was stressed about not really having no money, but that shit was becoming old. He was constantly throwing my relationship with Imran in my face and using it to get whatever he needed. It was, also, becoming really fucking old.
“Jahzara, where the hell is the damn bag? I know the door is fucked up, but it’s still locked, so didn’t nobody come up in here. Where did you put my shit?” Quin bellowed as he busted into the bathroom.
“Can I wipe my ass please before you come in here trying to accuse me of shit?” I took some tissue off the roll and wiped myself with it before getting up and going over to the sink to wash my hands. Through the mirror, I looked at Quin and saw that he was as serious as a heart attack. He actually thought I had touched that bag of his that he had stolen from Imran’s ass.
“I didn’t touch your damn bag, so don’t come in here accusing me of a muthafuckin’ thing!”
“Who the fuck you getting loud with?”
“You, Quin! I’m getting sick of this shit! You claim you want me back, but you keep throwing all this shit about Imran in my damn face, and, now, you got the nerve to be up in here accusing me of taking things from you!”
“Hell, yeah! I’m accusing you! You and me the only two fucking people in this house! When I went to bed last night, I sat it on the nightstand, and, now, when I wake up, it’s gone. What you do? Call your little boyfriend and tell him that I took his shit and for him to come and get it?”
“That’s it, Quin! I’m leaving.”
“I don’t give a fuck, bitch! Go! Go run back to that nigga, but I want my shit before you walk up out of here!”
“I don’t have your shit, Quin! Since when did you start talking to me like this?” I asked as I tried to leave the bathroom, but Quin blocked my way.
“Since when did you fuck niggas for bands and sell your husband out for it?”
“Here we go with this shit again. Quin, move and let me out of here. I’m leaving.”
“Where you gonna go? That nigga don’t have a house anymore. I burned that shit to the fuckin’ ground.”
“I’m not going back to him! Just get out of my damn face and let me out of here!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
I jerked back from the force of Quin’s hand going around my throat. I raised my hands up and tried to push him down, but his strength was too much for me. I looked into his eyes, and I immediately realized that this wasn’t the Quin that I had fallen in love with. It wasn’t him the
night he came home waving a gun in my face, and it still isn’t him today with his hand around my throat.
“Where is my shit, Jahzara? Answer me before I kill your muthafuckin’ ass!”
I shook my head as best as I could. Slowly, I felt my life begin to slowly drain from my body with each second that Quin kept his grip around my throat. My eyelids began to feel very heavy, and it was becoming harder and harder to keep them open. I looked at Quin once more and hated that I didn’t accept Imran’s proposal, and I hated that I didn’t tell him that I would be his wife. I knew that he would have never done this to me. He wouldn’t keep throwing my mistakes in my face and constantly making me feel bad for the errors I made in my young life. Why couldn’t I see that and just never have looked back? Why did I have to come back?
***
My eyes shot open, and both hands went directly to my throat where I found myself coughing and grasping for air to fill my lungs. I lifted my head and realized that I was lying across the tiny space of the bathroom floor. Sluggishly, I got up to my feet, and, using the wall to keep my balance, I walked back into my bedroom. I didn’t see Quin anywhere. At a snail’s pace, I walked over to the nightstand and grabbed my cell phone to call a cab. I had to get away from Quin before I was not so lucky the next time. I believed that he was ready to kill me for thinking I had stolen something that belonged to him.
I honestly had no idea what happened to the bag that Quin had taken from Imran’s house. I would have never called Imran up to let him know that Quin had stolen anything from him ‘cause then he would have known that I had given Quin the info on his residential. The last thing I wanted was for Imran to know that I had sold him out because Quin already had me feeling guilty for divorcing him and handing his connect over to my lover.
As I waited for the cab to show up, I packed up as much as I could into one duffel bag. Then, I walked outside, to the porch, and waited for my ride to show up and take me to the nearest hotel. I didn’t want to go to my parents’ house to hear them, once again, tell me how they had warned me to stay away from Quin. Especially my mama, she would go on and on about how Quin was just some gangster and how, one day, he was gonna up and kill me. I sure didn’t want her knowing how close she had become to being right.
I looked up once when I heard the sound of a car pulling up in front of the house. I assumed that it was the cab but quickly realized that it was an undercover police vehicle. I stood up. Then, I grabbed my bag and walked down the sidewalk to where they were parked and waited for someone to get out of the vehicle. This could only have been about one or two things— the drug charge I had picked up not long ago when the police planted that shit in my house, or they were there concerning Tomeka’s murder.
“Detectives,” I said, forcing a smile on my face.
“Jahzara Simmons. Detective…”
“Duggan. Yes, I remember. What can I do for you?” I inquired, cutting his introduction off.
“We need to talk to you about this murder of your friend Tomeka. When are you gonna come down to the station to tell us what you know?” Detective Duggan leaned against his car and crossed his arms over his chest.
“I told you before. I don’t know anything. I don’t understand what y’all don’t get about that. I don’t know anything.”
“We understand that is what you are saying, but we all know that isn’t the truth. We know that you were there at the time of the murder, but what we don’t know is if the story that Honey is giving us is the truth or if there is another side we need to hear. We don’t have much time to figure all of this out. Somebody is gonna have to pay for Tomeka’s murder. Will it be you or will it be Honey?”
“You have the person you need behind bars! I told you. I didn’t have anything to do with that damn murder. Honey pulled the trigger and killed Tomeka, not me!” I yelled, pointing my finger into my chest.
“We don’t have anyone behind bars at this moment, but how would you know that Honey pulled the trigger if you weren’t there?” Detective Harding asked, jumping in with his own line of questioning.
“What do you mean you don’t have anyone behind bars? Honey is locked up.”
“Honey was released a few days ago due to some errors that were made by the Tyler Police Department. With your help, we can bring charges against her the right way and put her where she belongs, but we can’t do that without your help. We know that you didn’t do what Honey is saying that you did, Jahzara, but, if you don’t tell us what it is, then you are forcing us to assume that, maybe, you did have something to do with it.”
“Honey is out of jail?” I questioned. It’s the only thing they said to me that I could actually focus on. That fact alone had a thousand other questions racing through my head. Where is she if she is out? Why didn’t anyone tell me that the crazy heifer is roaming the damn streets? I definitely needed to get the fuck away from there and out of that bitch’s radar. I was not the least bit scared of Honey, but I needed to be on my A game when it was time to face her. I knew that, whenever we were face to face again, things would not be pretty. Either the police were going to make her pay for what she had done to Tomeka and me, or I was going to do it. There was no way that bitch was going to get away with that shit at all. Nah, not happening.
“Can I have a couple of days to get with my lawyer? Then, I will come down and give a statement.”
“Forty-eight hours. If we don’t hear from you in forty-eight hours, Ms. Simmons, then we will have no choice but to issue a warrant for your arrest,” Detective Duggan said, looking into my eyes to be sure that we were clear.
“Understood.” I nodded my head and walked over to the cab as it was pulling up in front of the house.
I waited for the driver to raise the trunk and then tossed my bag inside. I looked back at the detectives once more and wondered just what they knew about Tomeka’s murder. They seemed to be really relying on me and the information I had to paint a vivid picture for them. If that was the case, then it was possible that they didn’t know anything. Therefore, any information I gave them would be more than they had before.
I got into the cab and instructed the driver to take me to a hotel far on the other side of town. I needed to be as far away from Quin and Honey as possible.
17 Imran
My phone vibrated, for the fourth time in a row, with text messages from people that I didn’t wanna fucking talk to. If they didn’t have answers to the many problems I was having at the moment, then they were fucking irrelevant to me. The damn beeping of the machines was starting to get on my nerves as well, but it was a good sign. It meant that Rain was still breathing and that I hadn’t lost her yet. I had gotten to her just in time. I pulled her out before the whole muthafuckin’ house was engulfed in flames. She had suffered a few burns on her right arm and had inhaled a lot of smoke. Other than that, the doctors were predicting that she would be okay.
Once again, my phone vibrated, but, this time, the text was from one of my partners whom I asked to keep his ears to the streets for me. I had a feeling that whoever was responsible for shooting up my blocks was, most likely, the same person that had gone and fucked with Tamar’s people. I opened my phone and read the text message from Ant: Call me ASAP. I got some info for you.
I pressed the call button and placed the phone to my ear, hoping to get some names, hoping that he was going to confirm my suspicions about it being Quin that was doing all of this.
“Yo! What’s up? What’s going on?”
“Jon Jon was one of the goons that was on the block yesterday when it was hit. He said that whoever it was that was doing the shooting was somebody in some fancy-ass SUVs and trucks with some heavy artillery. He highly doubts that it was some niggas from the hood,” Ant said, filling me with disappointment.
“Is he sure about that? Did he see any of the niggas’ faces or anything like that?”
“Nah, bro. He said that they pulled up in black SUVs and F-150s and stuck them choppas out the window.”
�
�Alright, bro. ‘Preciate it. Good looking out on that, though, and keep your eyes and ears open ‘cause I got a feeling that it’s not the end of this at all.”
“No doubt. I’ll keep an ear to the streets and let you know as soon as I hear anything.”
I nodded my head and hung up the phone. I opened the windowsill, sat back, and thought about what the fuck was really going on. Fancy SUVs and F-150s did not have Quin’s name on it all. No matter how much money that cat made, he would never invest his funds into some shit like that. Most of his bread went towards clothes, drugs, and strippers because that was all he knew. Because of that, it all went back to my uncles and their power. They had the money, and, honestly, it just fit them to the T— the cars, the guns. All of it was them. The only thing that didn’t make sense was the torching of my house. I knew they would hurt everything around me in order to get me to fall in line with their plans, but I didn’t see them burning down my house. Besides, B.B. was with me when it happened.