by Kiki Swinson
“He’s right,” Kasey said.
“I don’t give a fuck who’s right or wrong,” Lanier said. “The fact of the matter is, the plan I had set up is now fucked up because of your son, Breon. And now I’m forced to figure out some other shit.”
Breon said, “Yo, for real, homeboy, you can say what the fuck you wanna say, but my thing is this. If you’d handled your business with her first before leaving here to go get rid of some fucking hot-ass TVs, we wouldn’t be going through this shit!”
Lanier gritted his teeth. “Nigga, what I do ain’t none of your motherfucking business! So you need to watch what the fuck you say out your motherfucking mouth.”
Breon took two steps toward Lanier. I knew Breon was trying to intimidate him. He stood at least three inches taller than him, and he was every bit of forty-five pounds heavier. Standing next to each other, my uncle looked like P. Diddy, and Breon looked like Rick Ross.
“Nah, nigga, you need to watch what the fuck comes out your mouth!”
Kasey and Dré both looked at each other, but before either one of them could say anything, Lanier reached his hand underneath the back of his shirt and pulled out a pistol. My eyes grew huge.
Dré got between them before he raised it and got a chance to point it toward Breon. “Yo, y’all need to go ahead with this bullshit, ’cause this ain’t gon’ solve a damn thing.”
“Nigga, I know you ain’t pulled your pistol out on me!” Breon tried to push Dré out of the way.
Kasey looked like she wanted to run, but she stood there with a dumbfounded expression and said nothing.
Again I wished I wasn’t tied up, because this would have been the perfect opportunity to escape. With all the commotion going on, they wouldn’t have noticed that I was gone. But since I was strapped down and stuck smack-dab in the middle of this crap, I just sat there and prayed that if any bullets were shot off, I wouldn’t get hit.
Between the pushing and the shoving, Lanier managed to keep his gun pointed toward the floor. I didn’t think he had any intentions of pulling the trigger. He just wanted to prove to Breon that he wasn’t afraid of him.
Breon ended up leaving the room, but before he stormed out, he looked at my uncle and said, “You’re a lucky nigga!”
“Nah, nigga, you’re the lucky one!” Lanier yelled back. Once he heard Breon walking back upstairs, he stuck his gun back under his shirt.
Kasey sighed heavily and took a seat back on the sofa.
Dré stood in front of my uncle with his hands pressed against his chest. “Come on, dog,” he said. “Leave that shit alone. It ain’t even worth it.”
“Help me untie her,” Lanier told Dré. “Whatcha gon’ do?” Dré asked.
“I’m gonna take her out of here.”
“How you gon’ get her to the car?”
“I’m gonna back my car up on the grass alongside the house as far as my car will let me, and you gon’ bring her out the back.”
Kasey asked. “You sure that’s gon’ work?”
“It’s gonna have to,” my uncle told her.
It didn’t take them long to untie me. My legs were so numb, I couldn’t stand up without their help. A few seconds after I stood with the help of Dré and my uncle standing on each side of me, I heard three sets of footsteps marching down the staircase. I immediately knew it was Breon and his children coming downstairs.
Dré looked at Kasey. “Go see what the fuck he’s doing.”
Kasey ran to the entrance of the hallway. I heard her ask Breon what he was about to do.
“I’m getting my motherfucking kids out of here before they witness me do some damage around this motherfucker!”
“You taking them home?” she asked.
“Nah, I’m taking them up the block to their aunt’s house.” Kasey looked back at Dré.
“A’ight,” Dré replied. “Let ’im go on out the door, so the kids won’t see homegirl,” I heard the front door open and close before Kasey could even give Dré’s instructions to Breon. Now that the kids were gone, Dré and my uncle moved quickly toward the hallway.
When they got me into the hallway, Lanier told Kasey to grab my purse off the table, hang it around my neck, and then switch places with him. Then he added, “Help Dré take her outside, while I get my car and back it up to the side of the house.”
Kasey did as he told her, and as soon as he walked out the front door, they made a right into the kitchen and escorted me to the back door. Even though my legs weren’t tied up, my wrists were still tied together, and my mouth was still duct-taped, so I didn’t see any possibility of escaping.
Combat Mission
On my way through the kitchen, I got a chance to see the clock on the wall, and I saw that it was a few minutes after nine o’clock. There were no lights on in the back of the house, so it was totally dark outside and spooky-looking.
Kasey asked Dré, “You think we should turn on the back porch light?”
“Hell, nah, because somebody from the house on the other side of the fence might see us dragging her to the car with fucking tape all over her mouth. So let’s just take her down the back stairs and wait for L.L. to walk around the side to meet us.”
Kasey sighed. “Yeah, a’ight.”
It didn’t take my uncle long to back up his car on the grass beside the old, wretched-ass house. A couple seconds later, I heard a car door slam, and then I heard someone coming toward us.
“Hey, where y’all at?” Lanier asked in a low whisper.
Dré spoke up. “We’re standing at the bottom of the stairs.”
“I can’t see you, so walk toward the corner of the house.”
“A’ight.”
Dré and Kasey stepped forward, and then they yanked me to get me to the corner of the house. When we got to the edge of the house, we saw my uncle’s brake lights as he backed up his car. After he put his car in park, he jumped out of the driver’s seat to help them load me into his car. I had no idea if he planned to put me in the backseat or stuff me in the trunk, but I was soon to find out.
“Come on, bring her to the car,” he told them.
“A’ight, we coming.” Dré began to drag me through the grass once more.
“Are we gonna put her in the trunk or what?” Kasey asked. “Yeah. Give me a minute to press the trunk button.”
My heart sank into the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to be thrown in the back of a trunk. I wasn’t some load of trash for him to dump into the nearest dumpster. I was precious cargo, and someone needed to recognize that.
Kasey and Dré escorted me to the back of my uncle’s car. They stood there patiently and waited for him to hit the button to unlock the trunk.
“What’s the holdup?” Dré asked.
“I can’t see the fucking button.”
“Ain’t it right there underneath your steering wheel?”
“That’s where I’m feeling.”
While he searched for the button that controlled the trunk, I looked toward the sky and prayed to God that someone would come by and help me escape. I promised Him that I would turn my life over to Him if He allowed me to get out of this rut. I knew I couldn’t do it by myself, so if He’d just send someone to my rescue, I would forever be in His debt.
Before I ended my prayer, my attention was diverted by a loud gunshot, which scared the hell out of me. When I looked in the direction where that single shot came, I saw the silhouette of someone running toward us.
The bullet shattered the windshield of my uncle’s car and penetrated one of the front seats. Lanier immediately took cover and dove to the ground, and Kasey and Dré released my arms and ran back into the house, leaving me standing there all alone. Without thinking twice, I ducked down behind the back of the car.
“Don’t hide now, motherfucker! Get back up!” I heard the gunman roar.
My uncle didn’t respond. I assumed he knew it was Breon, because I knew it was him the moment he spoke.
My uncle returned fire, letting off fo
ur rounds. It sounded like a cannon, but I couldn’t tell if Breon got hit or dove down to the ground. I couldn’t see shit. I did hear my uncle crawling, and it sounded like he was coming around the other side of the car where I was. I was sure he didn’t know Dré and Kasey had left me out here all alone. It was too dark for him to see anything. Shit, I could barely see what was around me, but my ears were working overtime. The closer he came to me, the farther I moved in the opposite direction.
While I squatted and crab-walked, I managed to get away from the car and get back to the back of the house. When I looked up at the back door, I saw it was closed. I figured Dré or Kasey must have closed it immediately after they ran into the house.
While I moved around the back of the house, I heard more shots being fired. It sounded like the Fourth of July. The way I saw it, Breon wanted to see some bloodshed, and he wasn’t going to stop until he got what he wanted.
He yelled, “Whatcha hiding for? You bitch-ass nigga!”
But my uncle still wouldn’t respond. I couldn’t tell if he had been hit, because I was too far away to hear any movement.
By this time I had reached the other side of the house. There was another old house that was at least sixty feet away. All the lights in that rundown shack were off, but I noticed a little bit of movement behind the curtains of one of the downstairs windows. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that someone was in there trying to see who was doing the shooting. I started to approach the window to get that person’s attention, but I decided against it when I realized that nobody was going to open their door after they’d heard gunshots. Every human being knew that was a no-no, so I kept moving.
Instead of heading toward the front of the house, I stayed in the back and moved from one backyard to the next. I thought I heard my uncle running behind me at one point, but when I ducked down behind a tall garbage can and waited a few minutes, I realized that it was just a stray cat. I let out a big sigh of relief.
After I sat there for a few moments, I noticed that all the gunshots had stopped. I couldn’t tell who got shot or what was the outcome of it all, because I didn’t stick around to see. My main concern was to get Kira to a safe place. So I stood and ran until I couldn’t run anymore.
When I got to the last house on the block, I rushed across the street to the next block and dipped down into the alley behind a row of houses. The alley was dark and narrow, but I didn’t care. This was my only way of escape, so I took it.
Not once did I look back. I figured that if those motherfuckers were looking for me, they were searching around the house, or maybe the neighbor’s backyard. I knew they wouldn’t think that I’d gotten very far, but I showed them.
Regaining Control
As I got deeper into this neighborhood, I started seeing more streetlights. It was the projects, for Christ’s sake, so everybody and their mother was standing outside. I did have a few enemies out here from my past. Ricky had fucked a couple chicks out here, so they hated my guts after he broke it off with them. I definitely didn’t want any of them to see me tied up like this, so I dipped back around a black Dodge Magnum and ran up Virginia Beach Boulevard toward downtown Norfolk.
As I was ducking behind cars, I saw a car like my uncle’s traveling in my direction. I quickly ducked behind a black Range Rover.
Suddenly the passenger window of the Rover rolled down, and a guy asked, “You a’ight?”
I didn’t know whether I should run or just faint, because he startled the hell out of me. When I looked up and saw that he seemed genuinely concerned, a tear rolled down my face.
He stepped out of the car and immediately removed the duct tape from my mouth. It was a fucking relief to be able to move my mouth again. Without even asking me, he stuck his head back into the car, grabbed a box cutter from the glove compartment, and cut the rope off my wrists.
“Come on, take a seat in the car,” he told me.
I was somewhat hesitant at first, but I figured since he’d untied me and took off the duct tape, he couldn’t possibly want to hurt me. So I sat down in the backseat with the car door still ajar and my legs stretched out, letting my feet touch the ground. He stood in front of me and started asking me a thousand questions. My head was spinning, and I didn’t know if I was coming or going. But something inside me told me that I was safe, and that it was OK to talk.
The guy asked me my name, who I was running from, and why they had me tied up. While I gathered my thoughts, I looked at him from head to toe. He was indeed a big guy, but he seemed like he was nice. He was light-skinned with long sideburns that connected to his beard. I figured he couldn’t be older than thirty-five. When he smiled at me and told me that I was all right, and that no one else was going to hurt me, I believed him.
“Are you gonna tell me your name?” he asked again.
I took a deep breath and told him my name was Kira. When he realized I was beginning to open up to him, he stooped down in front of me and told me his name was Jamon, but everybody called him Fro. I tried to smile back at him, but I couldn’t. Every joint in my body ached, and I felt like I was about to fall apart.
“Are you gonna tell me who you were running from?”
“I know this might sound crazy, but I was running from my uncle because he was trying to kill me.”
“Nah, shorty, that shit don’t sound crazy at all! I hear about that shit happening every day in my world.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of or seen that type of shit before. That’s why I’m kind of fucked-up in the head right now.”
“Do you mind if I ask you why he was trying to kill you?”
“He thinks I know or had something to do with his daughter getting killed.”
Fro looked at me with uncertainty. “Well, did you?”
“Of course, I didn’t.”
“Where is he now?”
“I’m not sure.”
“So how did you get away?”
“It’s a long story. And I don’t feel like going back over it.” I buried my face in my hands.
“So whatcha gon’ do? I mean, do you live around here somewhere?”
“No. I don’t live in VA anymore.”
“Do you have other family or a homegirl that lives around here?”
“No.”
“Well, do you wanna call the police?”
“Call them and say what?” Tears started falling from my eyes. “After all that shit I went through today, going to the police and having them arrest those motherfuckers wouldn’t be enough for me. I wanna see every last one of those bastards go through some pain like I did.”
“Well, damn! How many of them was it?”
“It was four of them at the house, but one of them, I could tell, really didn’t want to take part in all that shit. So it’s really three of them” I paused to collect my thoughts. “Oh yeah, I can’t forget the motherfucker who set me up. He needs to get it too.”
I waited for Fro to comment, but he just stood there in silence. I looked at him. “What’s wrong? What? You ran out of questions?”
He gave me a half-smile. “Nah, I’m just standing here bugging out, trying to figure out how you should really handle this situation. I mean, it’s just you. And you going up against four people ain’t a good idea, especially since you ain’t got no burner.”
“Can you get me one?”
He chuckled. “Yo, Kira, you are really tripping right now. I think you need to sit back and analyze your situation before you fuck around and get into some shit you ain’t gon’ be able to get out of. I mean, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out here, and niggas damn sure ain’t playing fair.”
“Look, Fro, I understand everything you’re saying, but I have been sexually assaulted with a fucking beer bottle. I’ve got two knots in the back of my head from being hit with a heavy metal object. I’ve been punched in the face at least five times. And I was choked so badly, I almost lost consciousness.”
Fro threw up his hands. “Damn, shorty, my bad. I didn�
�t know it was like that.”
“You telling me you don’t see these fucking cuts and bruises on my face?”
“I saw ’em when you first came up to the car, but I thought maybe your man beat you up.”
“Nah, this shit ain’t come from no man of mine. This shit came from some cowards, and I’m going to make sure they pay for all the shit they took me through.” I then began to cry uncontrollably.
Fro reached back inside the glove compartment, but this time he grabbed a handful of McDonald’s napkins and handed them to me.
I wiped my eyes, but the tears kept falling. I had prayed to God to get me out of that situation, and He did. But somehow it felt like I was still there. I wasn’t there physically, but I was still there mentally, so my captors still had the control.
“Yo, Kira, it’s gonna be a’ight.”
“I know it is,” I told him as I continued to wipe the tears from my face.
While Fro and I tried to figure out what my next step would be, this tall, brown-skinned cat with a bunch of flashy jewelry walked up to us.
Fro immediately introduced him to me. “Eh, yo, Kira, this is my homeboy, Jay One.”
Jay One leaned toward me and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said.
I extended my head and nodded. Without asking my permission, Fro immediately brought Jay One up to speed about how I’d stumbled across him and why I looked so messed up. As Fro reiterated everything I’d told him, I could see sadness overtake Jay One.
Jay One looked down at me. “Damn! You went through all that?”
I didn’t respond. I just looked at him and continued to wipe the tears from my face.
He looked back at Fro. “So, where she live at?”
“She said she used to live here, but now she lives out of town.”
“Does she have any more family around here?”
“She said she didn’t.”
“So why is she here?” Jay One looked at me and back at Fro.
“I flew here from Houston because my cousin’s funeral was earlier today.”