Keysha's Drama

by Earl Sewell

  “Give me a break. I haven’t seen this girl since she was a baby,” said Simon. He looked over at my mother, and that’s when I noticed a hideous scar that ran from his right earlobe, across his cheek and down to the corner of his lip. The site of the scar caught me off guard, and now I was the one doing all the eye raping.

  “You don’t remember Simon, do you, Keysha?” asked my mom.

  “With a face like that how could I ever forget him,” I said.

  “I got this scar at one of the parties your Grandmother Rubylee used to host years ago. I was helping her collect a debt,” Simon said as he continued to stare at me as if he were studying for an exam.

  “Simon is an old friend of the family from around the old neighborhood,” said my mother. “We used to hang out and party together all the time. We had some good times together, didn’t we, Simon?”

  “Yeah, we did,” he said, smiling at the memory.

  “So you two used to date or something?” I asked.

  “Something like that.” Simon’s answer was very vague.

  “We ran into each other at the club last night. We got to talking about the old days and the good times. Simon is starting up a business,” said my mother. “We’re going to go in the house and talk about it.”

  “Whatever.” I rolled my eyes because I didn’t care about what her and Simon were really up to. One thing was for sure, it wasn’t about starting a legitimate business.

  “Justine, she looks too damn familiar. Who’s her father?” Simon smiled at me and his teeth were as yellow as a lemon. I cringed at the sight of them.

  “Why do you want to go and ask me a question like that in front of her?” Justine got irritated with Simon.

  “You know why I’m asking,” said Simon. “She looks just like my cousin—”

  “Look—” I cut him off because there was no way I was related to anyone who looked like him.

  “Wait a minute, Keysha, let me look at you one more time,” Simon said, studying the details of my every feature.

  “Take a picture, it lasts longer,” I said and rushed away from them.

  “Keysha, wait a minute.” My mother chased after me.

  “What? I’m heading off to register for school,” I said.

  “Hold on a minute.” She grabbed my arm and forced me to stop.

  “Why are you just now getting home?” I asked with an authoritative tone. “And why did you bring him with you, and why is he acting like he knows something about me?”

  “Who the hell are you snapping at? I don’t have to answer to you,” she quickly reminded me. At that moment I noticed the unpleasant smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke that was pasted to her skin and clothing. The odor was choking the air between us.

  “You need to start acting your own age and not like some teenager who can’t control their hormones.” I don’t know why I said that; it just flew out of my mouth.

  “Excuse you!” she barked at me. “Don’t mess around and get a beat down in the middle of the street,” she threatened me. I didn’t say any more because my mother was crazy enough to knuckle-up her fists and fight me right where I stood.

  “Why does he think I look like someone he knows? Why does he even think he knows who my father is?”

  “Simon doesn’t know what he’s talking about, baby. He’s just talking out of the side of his head. Don’t pay him any attention.”

  “I’ll be back later,” I said, not wanting to speak with her anymore.

  “Hold on a minute.” She wiggled her fingers into her front pocket and pulled out a crumpled-up five-dollar bill. “Get yourself something to eat while you’re out. I probably won’t be home when you get back.”

  “Why?” I questioned her again. I’d gotten so tired of her being gone all of the time.

  “Because I’ve got things to do. If things work out, I may be able to make a little money today.”

  “Doing what?” I asked suspiciously.

  “I don’t know. That’s why Simon has come over. He’s going to tell me about his business.”

  I didn’t like her answer, and before I could stop my words I found myself interrogating her once again.

  “Is it a legitimate job?” She didn’t answer me. “Why don’t you look for a real job, Mom?” I asked in a softer tone of voice.

  “Because I don’t have to. That’s why I have you, so I can collect a check.” She quickly turned icy on me. Her comment made me feel as if I had no emotional value to her. I was just a person she could get a welfare check for.

  “You know that the back rent is due, and if you don’t pay we could be put out again. I don’t think the landlord is playing around.”

  “I’m not worried about it,” she said and didn’t offer up any type of comfort to assure me that everything would be okay. I wanted to scream and yell at her. I wanted to explode, but instead I just built a wall around my emotions for her. At the moment I refused to allow her to cripple me emotionally. If she didn’t care, then I didn’t, either.

  “Have fun with your friend Simon,” I said as I walked off.

  “I will!” she yelled back at me as I rushed off down the street.

  I thought for sure the lines for registration would be long, but they weren’t. I was able to go through the process fairly quickly. One of the school administrative staff printed out my class schedule and handed it to me. I glanced down at it and noticed that I had math first thing in the morning.

  “Nine o’clock in the morning is too early to have a math class. Can you switch it for me?” I asked the lady who’d printed out my schedule. She looked at me for a long moment, as if I’d lost my mind.

  “I guess that means no,” I said sarcastically.

  She frowned and yelled out, “Next.”

  My biggest concern now was school supplies or my lack of them. I hated being unprepared but I really didn’t have a choice in the matter. I’d have to recycle the folders that I had from last year and latch on to someone when I needed additional supplies. It was an embarrassment I’d have to contend with.

  By twelve-thirty that afternoon I’d arrived back home. As I came up the block I saw Toya still hanging around the front of the building toying around with her deck of cards.

  “What’s up, girl?” I asked as I took a seat on a kitchen chair that Toya had placed on the stoop.

  “How are you just going to walk up and take my seat?” Toya tried to sound angry, but I didn’t take her seriously.

  “My feet hurt from walking in these cheap shoes,” I explained as I allowed my fingertips to massage my scalp, which had suddenly started itching. It was a telltale sign that I needed to wash my hair and oil my scalp.

  “Do you want me to braid your hair for you?” Toya asked.

  “No, I need to wash it before I do anything with it.”

  “So, how did registration go?” Toya asked.

  “It went okay. It went quickly. I have to figure out how I’m going to get my school supplies because my mother—well, you know that I can’t depend on her.” A mischievous expression formed on Toya’s face at that moment.

  “You’re right, Keysha. We can’t depend on our parents because they aren’t cut out for the job. What we need to do is look out for each other. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yeah, I can agree with that,” I said as I scratched the dry skin on my left leg.

  “Listen, I’ve been thinking of a way that we can help each other.” Toya stopped shuffling her cards and focused all of her attention on me.

  “Why are you looking at me like that, Toya?” I asked, sensing she was calculating something in her mind.

  “I’ve got a plan. Junior needs some new clothes and so do you and I. My baby would look so cute in some baby Nikes and some new gear from Sean John. I want some stuff from Phat Farm, and I know that you do, as well. So here is what I say we should do. Let’s go down to the mall and get what we need.”

  “You must have come into some money,” I said, joking. She didn’t say a word; she jus
t looked at me and forced me to read her thoughts. Toya had a very serious expression on her face.

  “You want to go out boosting again, don’t you?” I knew that’s what she wanted to do, but I wanted to confirm it.

  “Yeah I do.” She paused in thought for a moment. “I have got the perfect plan that includes you, me and Junior.”

  “Toya, you know you’re my girl, and I’m all for heading out to the mall for a five-finger discount deal, but why do we have to drag Junior into this? Last time we went out you and I both almost got busted.”

  “That’s exactly why we’re bringing Junior with us. He’ll act as our decoy,” Toya explained, completely convinced that bringing Junior along would work.

  “I don’t know, Toya.” I had a very uneasy feeling about dragging her son along with us. Boosting is not as easy as it sounds. Whenever I go, I’m always on edge because I don’t want to get caught.

  “Keysha, you know we both need stuff. You need clothes just like I do, and you know that we can make money selling the stuff that we can’t fit to the kids at school. You’ve done this before. Why are you acting as if it’s a problem now?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered her as I searched my mind for a reason as to why I was feeling the way I was.

  “Listen, we’ll put all of the stuff that we get in the bottom of Junior’s stroller. If someone tries to stop us, I have a purse full of old receipts that we can use, okay? Trust me, it’s going to work. This plan is foolproof.”

  “How in the world did you come up with that one?” I asked because Toya’s mind was always working a mile a minute.

  “I saw someone else do it like that,” Toya said, going into more detail. “I went to the grocery store over the weekend for my grandmother. As I was walking past one of the aisles, I saw this woman tearing open a package and stuffing its contents into her baby’s diaper bag. Once she was done, I watched her stroll right on out of the store without paying a damn dime. So I thought, Damn, that’s slick, because no one would ever suspect a woman with a baby in a stroller to be out shoplifting. The security people aren’t paying attention to people like her. She was dressed like someone’s mother who was just out shopping. The security people are harassing the person who walks in the door looking like a thug. Do you see where I’m going?”

  “Yeah,” I answered as I began to understand her thinking a little better.

  “So all I’m doing is improving on what I’ve seen. I’ll take Junior with me and stuff merchandise into several diaper bags and the compartment at the bottom of the stroller. While I’m doing that, your job will be to distract the sales clerk. Of course, we’re going to have to make a few trips to get everything we need, but hey, I think it’s worth the effort. Don’t you?”

  “Yeah, it’s worth it,” I said even though I still wasn’t comfortable with Toya involving Junior in all of this.

  Chapter 4

  We decided to go to Evergreen Plaza, which was on the corner of 95th Street and Western Street. Toya wanted to hit a mall where she was least likely to run into someone she knew. We had to catch two buses and the El train to get there. We had to hop on the Laramie bus and take it to the Lake Street El. Then we took the El to 95th Street. Then we took the 95th Street bus all the way down to Western Avenue. The journey was long and boring until we got on the bus at 95th Street. The bus was very crowded, which meant that some of the passengers had to stand in the aisle. Just as Toya, Junior and I got situated some younger boy dressed like a thug reject tried to step to me. He wasn’t cute at all. He had tight nappy hair that needed to be cut, and his breath was so funky I could see the words coming out of his mouth. He had on a dingy white shirt and some baggy shorts that were pulled down so that they could hang low.

  “What’s up, girl?” He tried to add some bass to his voice but it cracked on him, and Toya and I busted up laughing.

  “What’s up, boo?” Toya answered as she continued to laugh in his face and bounce Junior up and down on her lap to keep him amused.

  “I wasn’t talking you. I was talking to your girl, here,” he said with a tone of arrogance.

  “Oh, well I guess I’ll keep my mouth shut, hint, hint…” Toya continued her snickering as she covered her nose with one hand.

  “So what’s up, girl? Why don’t you roll with a baller like me?”

  “Maybe if a baller had a breath mint, a hair cut and looked better than you.” I laughed.

  “Oh, snap!” Toya blurted out. “I think that’s your cue to leave, boo.”

  “I’ve got a car. It’s in the shop right now,” he explained, but I didn’t want to encourage him.

  “Yeah, whatever. You don’t even look old enough to drive,” I said, thinking that my comment would make him shut up and move on.

  “Girl, I just look young. I’m seventeen,” he continued.

  “Well, you look like you’re twelve,” I shot back.

  “Oh, damn,” Toya blurted out once again. “You need to work on your macking skills.”

  “You know, somebody needs to put that attitude of yours in check,” he said as if he were the person who could do it.

  “Well, until that person comes along, I would suggest that you leave.”

  He made a hissing sound and then moved toward the rear of the bus and away from us. “Your ass is ugly, anyway,” I heard him mutter. I wanted to say something mean about his mother but decided to let it go. The last thing I wanted was to get into a battle of wits with him. I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

  “Damn, girl, he was kind of cute,” Toya leaned into me and whispered.

  “No, he wasn’t. That boy looked whack and had breath that smelled like the Crypt Keeper from that show Tales From the Crypt. Hell, all he needed was a coffin to complete the look.”

  “Why are you so mean?” Toya asked as she repositioned Junior on her lap yet again.

  “He was on my nerves,” I answered as I tried to focus on how we were going to get the merchandise we wanted without getting busted. In the back of my mind, I understood that if I got caught, my mother wouldn’t be able to get me out of jail, and I had no one else I could really depend on to rescue me.

  “We shouldn’t do this today, Toya.” I tried to stop her before we entered the mall through the Carson Pirie Scott entrance. My thoughts had gotten the best of me during the remainder of the bus ride down 95th Street.

  “No, we’re here now, and I didn’t sit on that long bus ride just to turn around and go home empty-handed.” Toya was being stubborn, and I didn’t know how to break through and make her think. I glanced down at Junior, who was strapped in his stroller fast asleep.

  “Keysha, sometimes you have to live for the moment and do stuff. We can do this and walk out of here with bags filled with all types of designer clothes.” I released a big sigh as I held the door open for her.

  When we entered Carson Pirie Scott, I stopped at the perfume counter and kept the saleswoman busy with questions while Toya walked around and removed several sample bottles from the display counter. Once she’d gotten what she wanted, she exited the store through the mall entrance. After I ditched the sales lady, I caught up with Toya inside the mall.

  “Did you get some good stuff?” I asked.

  “I got what I could,” she answered.

  “I’m surprised Junior didn’t wake up,” I said as I glanced down at him.

  “That’s why I was playing with him on the bus, to make him sleep,” Toya said. “I told you. I’ve thought about every aspect of my plan. I’m about to go into that designer store right over there.” Toya pointed to where she was going. I turned in the direction that she pointed.

  “Do you see the cashier standing behind the counter reading a book?”

  “Yeah, I see. She’s reading The Coldest Winter Ever,” I answered.

  “Did you read it?” Toya asked. Toya didn’t like reading nearly as much as I did. At times, especially when I’m feeling depressed, I’ll go on a reading binge to escape from my reality. The Coldest Wi
nter was read during my last escape from my reality.

  “Yeah, I read it.”

  “I knew your ass was a closet geek.”

  “Shut up. That book was real good,” I said.

  “Really?” Toya smiled.

  “Yeah, I mean, it was good from start to end.” I was about to go on and tell her more but she cut me off.

  “You can keep her busy talking about the book, while I go in there and rob her blind.”

  “You just make sure you get me some jeans,” I said.

  “I got you.” Toya winked at me. “Now go in there so that she doesn’t think we’re together.”

  I walked into the store and pretended to be shopping for something. The salesgirl didn’t even look up at me. I could tell she was lost inside the world the author had created. At that moment, I felt bad that I was about to take advantage of her because I identified with her. I began to think that if she’s anything like me, a good book will have her in a day dream like state for hours. Sometimes when I read, an entire day can go by without me knowing it. I didn’t want to interrupt her reading because when I read, I hate to be interrupted. I glanced back outside toward the mall and saw Toya giving me a strange glare. I could read the expression on her face. She wanted to know why I wasn’t talking to the girl. I wanted to tell Toya to hit another store, but I knew she’d have a fit if I suggested it because the setup at this store was too perfect.

  “That was a really good book,” I mentioned to the salesgirl as I approached the counter. “They should make that book into a movie.”

  “This would be such a good movie if they made it,” said the salesgirl as she glanced up from the page.

  “Who do you think could play the roll of Winter?” I asked her. She appeared to be distracted for a moment as she looked past my shoulder toward the front door.

  “I’m sorry, I thought that lady over there with the baby needed help.”

  I turned and looked at Toya, who was reaching down for her diaper bag.

  “Are you sure she doesn’t need help? I could wait until you’re done,” I said, taking a huge gamble.