LaVon’s mother looks at me. “Kenisha, is that you?”
“Hi, Mrs. Oliver,” I say. “For real I didn’t do anything. I just said hi to her when she walked over.”
“That’s the truth, Mrs. Oliver. All Kenisha said was ‘hi’ and ‘how are you,’ then Chili went off on LaVon and started pushing and hitting him,” says Diamond.
“But it wasn’t my fault. She’s not supposed to be here.”
“Is this your house, little girl?” his mom asks her.
“No,” Chili answers tearfully.
“Then who are you to tell somebody they don’t belong in my house?”
“But it wasn’t like that.”
“Do you want her here?” Mrs. Oliver asks LaVon while nodding at Chili.
“No,” he says flatly.
“You son of a…”
Mrs. Oliver turns back to Chili. “Good night, little girl. It’s time for you to leave my house now.”
Chili turns and starts cussing her out in Spanish as she walks away. To her surprise, LaVon’s mother answers her back in Spanish. Chili turns around. She is bright red. I guess she didn’t know LaVon’s mom is from Puerto Rico and she speaks Spanish fluently. And since a lot of his family is there, so do half the partygoers. They are telling her off in Spanish, too. She keeps looking around, getting more and more pissed. “I hate you, LaVon.”
“Are you two with her?” Mrs. Oliver asks Chili’s two girls, who were trying to hold her back when she was pushing LaVon.
“No, ma’am,” they lie.
“We came separately, but she drove.”
“She doesn’t need to be driving home by herself.”
“I’ll go with her,” her other friend says, as she glares at the two other so-called friends. “I’m still her friend.”
The music comes back on, and the party resumes like nothing had ever happened.
After that, we didn’t stay that long. I danced with Troy and LaVon. Jalisa danced with Troy and a few others and Diamond danced with Barron the whole time. There was another pushing fight, and we didn’t want to press our luck anymore. We left and laughed all the way back to Jalisa’s house. Jalisa copied and transferred her photos to my phone, and Diamond did the same with the video she took. We didn’t know it at the time, but she caught everything. The three of us watched our video on our phones and laughed all night long. I love coming to Virginia.
The next day I pick up the boys, and we watch Monsters, Inc. at Jalisa’s house with her sister’s kids. We eat popcorn and pizza and have a blast. The boys love it and so do we. Then we do The Lion King and The Princess and the Frog. I get the boys back home late in the afternoon. I catch the Metro back to D.C. and have just enough time to shower, change and get to work.
CHAPTER 14
Ending on a Bad Note
“I was blindsided. I had no idea this night was gonna end like this. I’m still shaking. It’s crazy. I keep seeing all of it playing out in my head. It rolls like a constant rerun. I still can’t believe it all went down.”
—MySpace.com
Saturday night at work is crazy busy. There is a concert at the middle school around the corner and Freeman Dance Studio had a recital for their beginner classes. Added to that, there was a late-night sale at the shopping center across the street. All in all, there are about a million people coming in and out of the restaurant. I am on cash register duty most of the night, but I also do phone orders and work on the line. By the time I am about to take my break, I expect my feet to be numb, but I guess I am still pumped because of last night. I am energized and still feel great.
Last night was a trip. I didn’t ever remember having so much fun at one of LaVon’s parties. I watched the video from last night when I was on break eating my burger and fries. Ursula came in and saw me laughing, so I showed her the video, too. We laughed and I told her what had started everything.
“So wait, is it really your ex-boyfriend’s baby?” she asks.
I shrug. “I have no idea, and truthfully, I don’t really care. She can have him. They deserve each other.”
We look at the video one more time and she makes me promise I’ll take her to LaVon’s next party. I agree. I go back to work after that. Sierra goes on break and I take her place on register. Just as I finish my first order, Gia steps up. I smile happily like nothing is up, but really I want to kick her ass just because. We say hi and do the whole nice girl thing. But I know she was hating on me the same way I was hating on her.
Ursula is working the line, so she is getting Gia’s order together while I am taking the next order. But still I hear Gia ask Ursula about Darien. I could tell Ursula didn’t want to hear it, ’cause she kept working with her back to Gia. “I heard he was getting out soon,” Gia says.
Ursula shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe,” she says.
“Do you know where he’s gonna be staying?” she asks.
“No, but hopefully with his father and not at the house,” she adds.
“All right, well if you talk to him, tell him I said hey,” Gia says, then walks away with her pizza slice and soda. She sits with another girl and two guys. I don’t pay attention to her after that.
“She’s looking for Darien. What about Terrence?” I ask.
“See, she does this shit every time. She tries to get with both of them. They get mad with each other and shit starts. See, that’s what I thought you were doing at first.”
“Nah, no way, I learned my lesson with your brother…”
“Half brother,” Ursula quickly corrects.
“I learned my lesson with your half brother. No offence, but I seriously don’t need that drama anymore.”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
I take the next order and go back to work. An hour and a half later, it’s about time to close. I’m tired now. It feels like I’ve been on my feet for days. Giorgio locks the doors, but there are still a few people left inside eating. Sierra, Ursula and I start cleaning up the front area. We have to make sure all the trays are off the tables and pick up any trash on the floor, so it can be mopped up later.
Behind the counter, we wipe everything down and put all the extra stuff like frozen fries and meat patties back in the freezer. Ursula is emptying out the soda tray and Sierra is helping scrape down the fry grill. I am putting the chairs up on the tables. The last customers leave, and the place is officially closed. Giorgio takes the two cash register drawers to his office, and the two cooks are cleaning the kitchen. When everything is clean and only the floor needs mopping, Giorgio tells me, Sierra and Ursula we can go home.
He walks us to the front door. Just when he unlocks and opens it to let us out, this guy comes over blocking us and talking about wanting to order a large pepperoni pizza to go. Giorgio tells him the restaurant is closed. The three of us keep walking out, and then these guys come out of nowhere and push us all back inside. Sierra and I fall to the floor and Ursula is pushed up against the front window. It happens so fast, we have no idea what’s even going on. Ursula hurries over and helps us up, and we just stand there as all four guys come inside. They lock the door again, then turn to us.
“Turn out the damn lights,” one of the guys yells.
We just look at each other. The guy that yelled punches Giorgio in the face and tells him again to turn off the light. Giorgio stumbles back, holding his face. He hurries to the side to turn off the lights. “Look, man, just take the money, all of it. Just don’t hurt us, okay?”
“Shut up, did I tell you to speak?” the same guy demands. Then he turns to the other three with him. They seem to be in shock watching this. “Go, what the hell are ya’ll waiting for, go. Take care of the other two in back.” The three other guys run to the kitchen. I could hear one of them yelling at the cooks in the kitchen to shut up and lay down on the floor. A few minutes later two of them come back to the front and nod to the third guy.
“All right, let’s go to the back. Get one of them,” he says, talking about us. He looks at me and grabs me
first. Another guy grabs Sierra and the third guy grabs Ursula. We walk to the back of the restaurant. The guy that was doing all the talking grabs my hair and pulls me back so that we walk behind the other two. They line us up against the wall. Giorgio turns to say something and is punched in the face a second time as the guy yells at him to shut up again.
“Yo, chill out on that shit, man. That ain’t right. You don’t need to be doing all that,” one of the guys says. He is holding Sierra’s arm and they are standing right next to us.
“You shut up, too. I’m doing this. This is my thing. You just along for the ride, you crackhead punk. Remember that. You want to pay your debt, this is how you do it.” On the other side Ursula struggles, and the guy grabs her harder. She screams and lurches back, nearly knocking him down and getting away. “Hold on to her,” the guy holding me yells. I turn. The guy holding Sierra turns also to look at them and I see the ink on his neck.
Shit. All of a sudden I know that tattoo. The main guy has a fistful of my hair, but I can still see what is going on with Sierra and Ursula and the guys holding them. They all have dark ski masks on covering their faces and dark sunglasses over their eyes. Two of them act scared of the one guy holding me. “What the hell are you looking at, bitch? Turn around,” he demands. I turn around fast. Then he leans over right in my ear. His hot breath is all over my neck. I cringe and close my eyes.
“You see something you want back here?” he whispers, snatching my hair harder, pulling me closer to his body. I feel like a rag doll being tossed around. He presses closer still. I feel like I am going to be sick. “You ain’t got your pretty boy here to help you out now, do you? I can do whatever I want and you just have to take it.”
“What you doing, man? Leave her alone, let’s just get the money.”
“Shut up. We got plenty of time. And all of a sudden, I feel like playing. What about it, pretty girl?” He snatches my hair again, “You want to play with me? You got all those other guys wrapped around your finger, but what you gonna do with a real man?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. I am too scared to breathe. The other three guys start yelling and complaining about messing around and not getting the money. The guy grabbing my hair tells them to shut up.
“Please, please, the money’s in the cash register trays. Take it, just take it,” Giorgio pleads. A second later, the guy’s cell phone rings once. He doesn’t answer, but seems to know what it means. “Shit,” he yells really loud in my ear. “Let’s go now. We gotta get out of here.” We all hear sirens in the distance.
The two guys push Sierra and Ursula down, and the third guy comes running from the back. “What happened? Did ya’ll get the money?” he says anxiously.
“Hell, no, he ain’t get the money. Come on,” one of the two guys yells, running to the front of the restaurant.
“Shit, I told him to stop playing around with her. We got nothing now. Check the cash drawers, quick.”
“They’re empty.”
“What about the office?”
“It’s too late, come on, we gotta get out of here.”
“I told you to hurry up. I told you to hurry up.”
“Shut up!”
They’re all constantly yelling at each other in the front when the last guy is still holding on to my hair in back. “Come on, let’s go,” they yell to him.
“That means you, too, baby, let’s go.” He pulls me to the front of the restaurant like I am going with them. I seriously know that isn’t going to happen. I am not going to be somebody’s hostage. Just as he pulls me around the counter, I grab one of the pizza cutters and slash it across his hand. He screams and releases my hair. I don’t look to see what damage I did. I just run as fast as I can to the back, knowing he is probably right behind me. “Forget her, man, come on,” somebody yells. “Come on!”
As soon as I run to the back, Giorgio grabs me and pulls me into his office. He locks the door and stands against it. Ursula is already on the phone with the police, but they are on the way. Someone had already called. We hear someone call Giorgio’s name. It’s the cooks. They’re okay. Giorgio opens the door and gets them inside with us. We are all just sitting on the floor in shock. Nobody says a word. Next we hear sirens close by, then there is a commotion up front. We all look at each other, afraid they’ve come back again. There is a loud bang on the door telling us to open up.
Giorgio unlocks the door, and the police barge in with guns drawn, nearly knocking him down. Sierra faints. I scream, and Ursula is yelling “No, no, no.” They pull us out of the office one at a time, checking to see if we are armed or something. When they get to me, one of the cops yells to drop it. I have no idea what he is talking about. Two other cops come back to see what is going on. One cop pushes the other, yelling get out of the way. “Okay now, easy, put the knife down slowly.”
I am just staring at him. He is talking and walks over to me slowly. “You’re okay. You’re okay. Give me the cutter.”
I look at him and then at the pizza cutter in my shaking hand. It still has blood on it where I cut one of them. I drop it like it’s a cobra about to strike. He kicks it away and another cop quickly snatches it up with some paper towels and jams it in a paper bag. “Are you hurt?” one of the cops asks me. I just look at him. “It’s okay, it’s over. Are you hurt?” I shake my head no. “Is that your blood on the pizza cutter?” he asks. I shake my head no again. “Did you cut one of them?” he asks. I nod. He smiles. “Good girl.”
The next hour or so was a blur of craziness. There were cops everywhere and they were all talking and asking the same questions over and over again. Then these detectives came in and asked more questions. They questioned us separately and then together in a group. It was strange how we all had different perspectives as to what had happened. But we all agreed that it was two white guys and two black guys and the leader had me by the hair and he was going to take me with them.
Afterward, we each got a police escort home. I had the cop who got the cutter away from me. He explained to my grandmother what happened. She was furious when she found out. Of course I’m never allowed to work there again, or go there again or even eat pizza again. The cops stayed at our house until late. They were asking all kinds of questions, mostly about the break-ins in the neighborhood and then what I knew about Darien and his drama. I didn’t say much. I didn’t know much. I did know that tattoo. But I didn’t tell them that.
CHAPTER 15
Something Familiar
“I’ve been asleep on a treadmill for so long that I can’t remember what it feels like to be awake. I slow down just enough to look for the off switch, but I can’t find it. I don’t even know if there is one, but I’m still looking.”
—MySpace.com
Sunday morning came down hard on me. I had nightmares the whole time and woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I was being strangled. I couldn’t sleep in my bedroom on the third floor, so I went downstairs and stayed in my mom’s old bedroom. It made me feel better, comforted, like I was connected to her again. I still had the nightmares, but at least I wasn’t being strangled.
I woke up early, or rather, I didn’t really sleep anymore, I don’t know which one. Either way, my head was still splitting from that fool pulling on my hair. They say the whole thing only took fourteen minutes, but I swear it lasted a lifetime. Fast speed, normal speed or slow motion, I kept replaying it over and over again in my head. Nothing ever changed, it just kept happening. Every time I closed my eyes I heard them, smelled them, felt them. They’re not around anymore, but they’re still in my head.
Earlier, I jumped when I heard someone screaming. I was scared. I thought it was them coming back. But it was just someone outside playing around. The thing is, I can still hear them yelling to each other and the fool talking in my ear. It gives me the creeps to think he touched my hair like that. Now I just want to cut it all off and start over.
I asked my grandmother to cut it off last night, but she said no. She said cu
tting it would admit that he had something over me, and I was too strong a person to give in like that. She was right. Cutting it off would be the punk’s way out. And I was no punk, so it stayed.
Dawn came and went and my grandmother didn’t go to church, which was really amazing. She never misses church. So, I get up and shower for at least half an hour. I need to get the stench of that fool off my body and the smell of his breath off my neck. I just stay under the spray of water with my head down waiting to get clean from all this.
Afterward I get dressed and go back to my own bedroom. I sit at the windowsill looking down like I always do. I have a huge bay window with a cushioned seat, so I can see pretty far off around the neighborhood. I see Terrence’s backyard, the top of Freeman Dance Studio and even The Penn. I am looking around trying to find familiar places, so I can get my world back to normal. But all of a sudden I have no idea what normal is anymore. The house phone’s intercom system rings. There is a phone in the hall next to the back stairs. I pick up knowing who it is. “Yes, Grandmom,” I say.
“Good morning, sweetie. Why don’t you come on down and get yourself something to eat?”
“I’m not really hungry, Grandmom,” I say.
“Of course you are, so come on down and eat. Do you feel like having some company?”
“Company?” I repeat. Then it hits me what she is talking about. “No, Grandmom, I don’t want to see anybody today. Can you tell whoever it is that I’ll catch up with them another time?” I say, hoping she isn’t talking about her church friends or her bingo buddies. Don’t get me wrong, the ladies are really nice, but I’m not in the mood to deal with them hovering over me all day.
“I’m sure you’ll change your mind. Come on down and eat.”
“Okay, can you turn the pantry light on for me?”
“Sure, come on down before breakfast gets cold.”
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