by Kiki Swinson
“I’m not sure. But give me about an hour and I’ll call you back,” I told him.
“All right, call me back.”
“Okay,” I said, and then I hung up.
“What did he say?” Carmen asked me immediately after I disconnected the call.
“He wants me to meet him at his house.”
Carmen looked at me like she saw a ghost. “You’re not going, are you?”
“No.”
“Why did you answer your phone?”
“Because I wanted to talk to him so I could feel him out. I needed to hear the tone of his voice to figure out whether or not he knew what was going on.”
“Fuck all that! You didn’t have to hear his voice. That nigga knows that you saw his brother kill Lil D, so now he trying to get you to meet him so he can kill your ass.”
Hearing Carmen tell me that Mario’s only motive to get me to meet him was so that he could kill me really stung me in the heart. Here I was again, on the fucking run for my life. I thought I was coming to Virginia to live a peaceful and quiet life but that all went down the drain after I fucked around and ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. What the fuck was I going to do, run away again? Where in the hell would I go? My father was dead and I wasn’t on good terms with my mother. I had no siblings, and I didn’t have family anywhere else. And my money wouldn’t last long enough for me to be traveling from state to state. I had about 160 grand left to my name and I didn’t have any resources to replenish it either. So, whatever plans I needed to make had to be mapped out very carefully and most importantly in a timely fashion.
Carmen guided me down a lot of back streets to avoid running into Maceo or any of his homeboys. We ended up on highway 64 going in the direction of Chesapeake. Carmen told me she had a friend by the name of Kimberly who lived out there. She said Kim was cool and that she’d let us camp out over there for the time being until we figured out what to do next.
“You aren’t gonna tell her about the Maceo situation, are you?”
“Hell nah, are you crazy?”
“So, what are you going to tell her?”
“I’m just gonna tell her that you’re trying to get away from an abusive-ass husband and could we crash at her house for a few days.”
When we arrived at her friend’s place, Kimberly welcomed us with open arms. She lived in a very small apartment. I overheard her tell Carmen that her section eight voucher was about to be cut off due to some lies she told, which they found out about. Her three bedroom was very small, but I did notice it was clean. Her three children were from the ages of five to seven and they all were one year apart. Kimberly was an average-looking woman, and I guessed one hundred pounds soaking wet. She wore a head filled with weave extensions and it looked like she needed them replaced. Not to mention it looked like she needed a relaxer around her edges, too. Nevertheless, she seemed like a nice person. She might not have had money to buy designer brands like I’m used to, but she did wear the clothes she could afford in a very neat fashion. Her hospitality was extraordinary. She baked a cheesy lasagna for Carmen and me. It was mouth-watering. And I must admit that her beautiful spirit took my mind off what I had going on outside her house. While everyone was eating and talking, my cell phone started ringing again. Kimberly continued to talk, but Carmen got quiet. She looked at me to see if I was going to answer it or not. It only took Kimberly two seconds to take notice that I had fear in my eyes. She became concerned at that instant.
“Is that him?” she asked.
I nodded my head.
“Give me your phone. I’ll give that nigga a piece of my mind.”
“Oh no, you don’t have to do that,” I said.
“Yeah, that won’t be necessary,” Carmen interjected.
“So, what are you going to do, just let him continue to walk all over you? Fuck that! Stand your ground and show him that he has no power over you!” Kimberly continued.
As soon as my cell phone stopped ringing, I looked at Kimberly and said, “He doesn’t have any power over me. I just don’t want to make this situation any worse,” I lied.
“Have you called the police on his ass?”
“Yes, I have. But it didn’t work.”
“Why not?” She continued.
“Because he’s a police officer himself.” I lied once more. Every time she asked me a question, I found myself falling deeper and deeper into more lies. I had honestly felt bad about the lies I told her. But at this juncture I couldn’t tell her what was really going on. I realized that I had opened my mouth enough as it was, so I wasn’t about to sell my soul again.
During the course of the night, Mario called me at least twenty times. He even left voice mail messages telling me that he was worried and he needed me to call him as soon as I got his message. In another one of his messages, he said that he loved me and that I wasn’t treating him right. His message sounded so sincere, but I knew it was a front, so I deleted it and went straight to the next message. When I had finished listening to every single message I had in my voice mail box, I turned my phone off. I couldn’t bear the agonizing feeling I kept getting every time my phone rang.
Not even twenty minutes after I turned off my phone, Carmen’s phone started ringing. My heart jumped and so did Carmen’s, because her phone hadn’t rung all day long. She looked down at the caller ID. She didn’t recognize the number so she didn’t answer it. And about six rings later, it stopped. But as soon as we exhaled, her phone started ringing again. She looked back down at the caller ID. “It’s the same number,” she whispered to me while we sat on the living room sofa.
It was a few minutes after midnight, so everyone in the house was asleep except for me and Carmen. “Who do you think it is?” I wondered aloud.
“I don’t know. But whoever it is, they want to talk to me real bad,” she said, and then the phone stopped ringing.
“Why don’t cha block your number and call that phone number back so you can find out who called you,” I suggested.
“Nah, if they want to talk to me, they’ll leave a message.”
“What if it’s Maceo?” I asked.
“It can’t be, because he doesn’t have my number.”
“Do you think that was Mario?”
“How would he get my number if Maceo doesn’t have it?”
“Do you think your sister could’ve given it to them?”
“Oh shit, Rachael,” Carmen replied, as if she had just thought of something. “I haven’t called her all day. I need to find out if she’s all right,” she continued, then called Rachael.
Rachael did not answer. Carmen let the phone ring seven times and then she hung up. “Damn, I wonder where she’s at.”
“She might be asleep,” I said.
“Not on a Saturday night. Rachael hangs out on the block with her little boyfriend until about one o’clock. And not only that, she always answers her phone, so something ain’t right.”
Vibrating and ringing once again, Carmen’s phone started jumping in her hands. She looked down at the caller ID once more and said, “It’s that same number again. You think I should answer it?”
I hesitated for a bit and then I said, “What if it’s them?”
“What if it ain’t?”
“I don’t know, Carmen. Answering it may not be a good idea.”
Without saying another word, Carmen pressed the send button on her phone and said, “Hello.”
Before the caller spoke, Carmen grabbed me by the arm and pulled me close to her, shoulder beside shoulder, and placed her cell phone to both of our ears.
“Carmen,” Sandra screamed through the phone. “They gon’ kill me if you don’t tell them where Yoshi is,” she sobbed.
Anxiety and terror filled my heart when I heard the fear in her voice. “Ma, where you at?” Carmen asked in a low tone to prevent Kimberly from hearing her.
“I don’t know.” She began to sob uncontrollably.
“Don’t worry about where she’s at!”
a man’s voice interjected. “Just tell me where your cousin is and I’ll let your dope-fiend-ass mama go,” he continued, his voice low and stern.
I quickly removed the phone from my ear. Hearing his voice scared the shit out of me and gave me the creeps. “That’s Maceo, isn’t it?” I whispered.
Carmen nodded, as her eyes became watery.
“Where is your cousin?” he asked once again.
“I don’t know,” Carmen lied.
“Stop lying, bitch! You know where she’s at.”
“I swear, Maceo, I don’t,” Carmen whined.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch! I ain’t trying to hear that bullshit! Just tell me where she’s at!” he demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“A’ight, since you wanna play games, I’m letting you know right now that I’m getting ready to hang up. But I’m gon’ call your ass back in thirty minutes and when I do, you better tell me where your cousin is. And if you don’t, I’m gon’ kill your mama,” he warned, then hung up.
Right after Maceo hung up, Carmen sat there on the edge of the sofa with a panicked expression on her face. Tears fell from her eyes and for the first time since I got here, I actually saw the love she had for her mother.
“What are we going to do?” I asked. I couldn’t take any more.
“If I don’t tell him where you are by the time he calls me back, he is going to kill my mama.” Carmen repeated Maceo’s words, her body motionless. She acted as if she couldn’t believe what was going on herself.
“Do you believe him?” I asked.
“Yeah, I believe him.” She looked like a zombie in the face, except for the tears that fell one after the other.
I asked again, “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think we could stall him for longer than thirty more minutes, until we think of something?”
“No, that’s not going to work.”
“What are we going to do then?”
Coming back to life, she snapped out, “I don’t know, Yoshi!” She then stood up from the sofa. I watched her walk over toward the living room window; she pulled the curtains back and peered out of it. After she closed the curtains, she turned back around and looked at me. She didn’t say a word, but I knew her mind was going one hundred miles per minute. I was afraid to ask her another question for fear that she would just lose it, so I sat there quietly and waited for her to say something to me first.
Before she uttered another word, I swear fifteen minutes went by. But when she started talking, I couldn’t stop her. “If we called the police, it ain’t gon’ do no good because Maceo got so many of them on his fucking payroll, you wouldn’t know who to trust. All them motherfuckers are crooked as hell! There aren’t any more good cops out there because all their asses are underpaid and overworked; that’s why their greed for street money has gotten out of control. I wished all their asses would burn!” she snapped once again.
I looked down at my watch. “We only got five minutes left before he calls you back so we better come up with something,” I warned her.
She stopped in her tracks. “I don’t know what to tell him. I mean, we can’t give you up.” She began to sob once again.
Hearing Carmen’s loyalty as she sided with me touched my heart. The last person I had a special bond with like that was Maria. She was the only person who had my back until I fucked up our relationship behind my greed. I will never forget how she saved me on more than one occasion. I stood up from the sofa and embraced Carmen. Whether she knew it or not, she made me feel alive again. I felt like I wasn’t in this world alone anymore and that Maria had sent Carmen to be my guardian angel. When I hugged her, I held her as tight as I could. And when I let her go, I stepped back just enough so I could be within a few inches of her face. I used my hands to wipe away the tears from her face and said, “You know what? I’ve always felt like a loner and that I didn’t have anybody in my corner. But you showed me different by that comment you just made.”
“And I meant that. I can’t give you up.” Her tears came down harder and faster.
“Stop crying, Carmen. We’re going to figure something out,” I told her, even though I hadn’t the slightest idea what we were going to do. My back was up against the wall just like hers. But I was grateful that she wouldn’t give me up to Maceo to set her mother free. I guess she felt like my life meant more than her own mother’s. Whatever her reasons were, I’m just glad that we were on the same page.
I sat back down on the sofa and watched Carmen as she continued to pace the floor. And then out of the blue, her phone rang and vibrated again. I jumped back to my feet, while Carmen snatched her cell phone from the holster attached to her jeans. She flipped it open and stuttered the word hello. I rushed to her side and leaned my head forward so I could hear what he had to say.
“You ready to tell me where your cousin is?” he asked.
“I told you I didn’t know.”
“Why you playing games with me, Carmen? Bitch, do you know I will kill you and your whole motherfucking family?”
“I’m not playing games with you. I called her cell phone five times and it kept going straight to voice mail.”
“You know what this means, right?”
“No,” she said, barely audible.
“Listen then,” he said, and then Carmen and I heard a loud scream echoed in the background. We both knew it was her mother screaming for her life but there was nothing we could do. And before Carmen could utter another word, the phone went completely dead. Then all of a sudden Carmen’s body fell limp against me, and I realized that she’d fainted.
I carefully lowered her to the floor and cradled her head. “Carmen,” I whispered urgently in her ear. “Wake up. Come on, girl. We can get through this.”
She blinked her eyes several times, and after a few more moments, she finally said, “Okay, I’m all right. I think.”
“Girl, don’t you ever scare me like that again.” I tried to smile, but couldn’t. Sandra was dead, and Maceo still wanted to get at me. “Please try to warn me the next time, okay?”
I helped Carmen to her feet and escorted her to the sofa. I took a seat beside her and laid my head back on the headrest. I had no idea what we were going to do. We desperately needed a plan.
As the night went on, nothing else happened out of the norm. Carmen’s cell phone didn’t ring anymore and she didn’t have any more fainting spells. I believed we stayed up for another two hours until our bodies couldn’t take the exhaustion anymore. We tried desperately to keep one another up, but it didn’t happen. We fell asleep about three hours before the sun came up.
Eight Hours Later
Carmen and I got up this morning around ten-thirty. Kimberly was already up, fixing breakfast for us and her children; then she got everybody dressed and headed out into the streets. She told me and Carmen that today was her boyfriend’s visiting day at Indian Creek prison. She told us she was going to be there all day and then she was going to go to her mother’s house afterward because she was cooking a big dinner.
Carmen and I stayed inside. There was nothing for us to do around the house but turn on the television. She sifted through all the cable channels Kimberly had, but we couldn’t find anything to watch that interested us. I wanted to look at the news to see if it was reported that Aunt Sandra’s body was found in a ditch somewhere, but nothing like that was mentioned. We decided to go out to the local Walmart store since it was only a half mile from Kimberly’s apartment. Carmen and I both needed a change of undergarments really bad. We also needed some toiletries and a change of clothes, so as soon as we stepped foot into the store, I headed straight to the lingerie department and picked up a few panty and bra sets. Then I went to the women’s section. They didn’t have much to choose from and I hadn’t worn clothing this cheap since I was a kid. After Carmen got a few lingerie pieces, she came over to the women’s section and helped me pick out something to lounge in until we were
able to get something more suitable. I ended up purchasing two off-brand sweat suits. One of them was all gray and the other one was black and white. Carmen picked up a pair of generic denim jeans and a sweatshirt to wear with them.
On our way out of the store, Carmen’s cell phone vibrated and rang. This time she had it in her pocket so she quickly retrieved it. Right after she checked the caller ID, she looked at me and said, “It’s Rachael.”
“Answer it,” I insisted.
“Hello,” she said.
“You called me last night?” she asked calmly.
“Yeah, where were you?”
“Me and Rodney went to a party. And I didn’t hear my phone ring because the music was so loud.”
“Have you been home yet?” Carmen wanted to know.
“Nah, why?”
“Have you seen Mama or talked to Grandma?”
“Nah, and why are you asking me so many questions?”
“Look, Rachael, I ain’t trying to get into all that with you. I just needed to know if you talked to Mama or Grandma?”
“And I told you, nah.”
“When you going home?”
“In a few minutes. Why?”
“Well, when you get home can you call me?”
She sucked her teeth. “I’ll think about it,” she replied sarcastically.
“Come on now, Rachael. This is serious. Stop acting childish!”
“Yeah, whatever!” she said, and then she hung up.
Frustrated by the fruitless conversation she had just had with Rachael, Carmen slammed her cell phone shut. “She is one stupid little bitch!” she screamed. “She just will not cooperate for nothing in the world.”
“What did she say?” I asked her while we were putting our bags in the car.
“First of all, her ass stayed out last night, so she hasn’t been home yet. And when I told her to call me when she got there, she wants to ask me a bunch of damn questions.”
“Come on, get in the car. She’ll call you back when she hears something,” I told her.
After we climbed inside, her cell phone rang again, so she looked down at the caller ID. The number didn’t appear. The word private came across the screen. Carmen looked at me. “You think I should answer it?” she asked me.