Who Can I Trust: A Naptown Hood Drama (Trust Issues Book 1)

by Tamicka Higgins

  “Okay, okay,” Rolanda said, now trying to sound a little more compassionate than she might normally sound. “So then what?” she asked. “I mean, is he in the hospital or what.”

  “He at Methodist,” Kayla answered, pointing to the south. “That’s where I was just coming from when I got here, the hospital. The doctor’s operated on him and stuff, pulled the bullet out of his shoulder, and came out and told us that he would be okay, but he probably would not be able to use his arm for a long time and something about how he would probably have to go through some physical therapy to get back full use of it like he had before.”

  Rolanda shook her head. “Well,” she said. “I am sorry to hear that. I know that musta been some scary shit. I been in the club more than a few times when shots started ringing out into the air, so I know how that shit feels when you just don’t know what the hell is going on and where it’s going on. Wait a minute, though. Who is we?”

  “Me and Marcus’s mama, Lorna,” Kayla answered.

  “Hmm,” Rolanda said. “I’mma be nice and not say no bad about her right now. You know how I feel about her.”

  “I know, Mama,” Kayla said. “I know.”

  Lorna and Rolanda had gone to high school together back in the day, but they really had never known each other until after they graduated. The two of them, or so Kayla had heard, were deep into that clubbing life. One thing led to another and after some months they had found out that they were talking to the same dude. As young women, they got into it badly over this guy – a guy who would wind up moving up north to Milwaukee and leaving them both behind like two bad habits. For whatever reason, Kayla’s mother Rolanda just could never let that go, even if it had been almost twenty years ago.

  “Kayla,” Rolanda said, now sounding more stern and forceful than she had been sounding over the last few minutes. “I told you what I thought about Marcus. I mean, I like him and all. He seems like a nice guy and stuff, but I just don’t know about him. You was over his place and coulda got shot too. I hope you realize that.”

  “I know, Mama,” Kayla said, feeling a little annoyed that her mother was even going there when her own love life was full of thugs and dudes fresh out of the Marion County lockup downtown. “I know.”

  “Is he still involved in that shit, Kayla?” Rolanda asked.

  Kayla looked away, making it very obvious that she did not want to answer.

  “Huh, Kayla?” Rolanda asked.

  “I don’t know, Mama,” Kayla said.

  Rolanda nodded, knowing that her daughter was playing dumb with her and lying dead to her face right then and there in that kitchen. “Girl, stop with the bullshit,” Rolanda said. “You know damn well if the nigga got a job or if he still out in them streets, making money like he been making money. Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid.”

  “Well, I was thinkin’ the same about you,” Kayla said, sounding very smart-aleck in her tone. “You ain’t got no job. How you makin’ your money?”

  Rolanda scolded Kayla just with her eyes. “Kayla, I know you done had a scary little day,” she said. “But hear me when I say this. You not gon be talkin’ to me any ole fuckin’ way. Don’t worry about how I’m makin’ my money. Just know that the bills stay paid around here, because of me. You definitely can’t say the same, now can you?”

  “Whatever,” Kayla said, getting tired of how her mother would always throw certain things up in her face. Deciding that she was tired of talking to her mother, she went ahead and starting getting a little something to eat together for Latrell and Linell.

  Within minutes, the front door was swinging open. Latrell and Linell came walking in, bickering with each other about something or another while the door stood open and cold wind came rushing into the house.

  “Close that fuckin’ door!” Rolanda yelled. “Don’t be lettin’ all my damn heat out.”

  “Sorry, Mama,” Latrell said.

  “Yeah,” Linell said. “Sorry, Mama. I told him to shut the door, but he wasn’t listening.”

  “Come on in here and get y’all a little somethin’ to eat,” Kayla announced, before turning around to see what she had for options to cook up quickly.

  Latrell and Linell dropped their backpacks and coats onto the couch in the living room and came rushing through the dining room then into the kitchen. Rolanda watched as the two of them pulled out chairs and sat down on opposite sides of the table.

  “Kayla,” Rolanda said, trying to sound motherly. “I just want you to think about it all and stuff. Don’t be that girl who, you know.”

  “Yeah, Mama,” Kayla said. She could not even take her mother seriously when she talked to her like that anymore. There she stood, looking through the refrigerator, to make her brother and sister something to eat while their mother obviously was talking out of the side of her neck with her hangover. It got on Kayla’s nerves so bad. She could never stand when her mother just had to do the most. “I know.”

  Rolanda looked at her daughter, remembering when she herself had the body and the beauty that she saw in her own child at this point in life. It was really something to see. However, it also knocked at the pit of her stomach in a way. It had come and gone so fast. By the time she was Kayla’s age, she had already had an abortion then a baby. Thinking about all of this reminded her how she just needed to go finish laying down.

  “Alright,” Rolanda said. “I’mma go lay back down.” She turned around, zigzagged across the dining room then went upstairs.

  Kayla hyperventilated and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you do that,” she said to herself, though responding to what her mother had said just moments before.

  “What we eatin’?” Linell asked.

  Kayla glanced at her younger brother and sister at the table before shutting the refrigerator door and looking through the cabinets. “Thank you, Jesus!” she said, upon finding some cans of ravioli. She just needed to feed them a little something until later on – when she hoped to God that her mother would take the time to cook dinner. She usually at least did that, even if the food was really things that only she had a hunger for and nobody else.

  “Hold up, y’all,” Kayla said. “Hold up.”

  She dumped the ravioli into a sauce pan and began to heat it up. While she did this, just to break the silence and train of her own thoughts about how just hours before she had found her boyfriend on the floor, shot after the two of them were in his apartment when it got shot up. The last thing she really felt like doing was putting any sort of food together. At the same time, she felt like it was probably a good thing that she wasn’t going to break up Latrell’s and Linell’s normal day.

  “Remind me to get the food stamp card from Mama when she ain’t so busy being a bitch,” Kayla said over her shoulder. “We need to get out and get some food. And I know it ain’t gon happen unless I do it so I’mma have to do something about that I’m sure.”

  “Okay,” Linell said. “Kayla?”

  “What?”

  “Wassup with you?” Linell asked.

  “What you mean?” Kayla asked, not liking that her nine year old sister could pick up on how she was feeling, or even that she could tell that she was feeling some sort of way.

  “You just seem a little mad today,” Linell said.

  “Yeah,” Latrell added. “You seem like you pissed off about somethin’ or somethin’.”

  “I ain’t mad about nothin’,” Kayla lied. “Just got a lot of my mind. I’m not gon’ be home later on tonight, so I hope Mama cook dinner and whatever. I ain’t mad, y’all.” She thought about the entire situation and how she was in the thick of it but it still did not seem real. “Don’t y’all worry. So, what happened at school today?”

  Latrell shared his story, about seeing a fight in the gym during recess. Linell talked about how her gym class tried to convince the gym teacher to take them outside to play in the snow instead of staying in the gym. Kayla nodded, adding her own little two cents here and there while she finished heating up the ravio
li then putting it into bowls and in front of Latrell and Linell. The conversation then turned to how the two of them might go out and play in the snow when they get done eating. To Kayla, this would be perfect. This would give her a little time to herself – time where she could sit up in her room and just think. More than anything, she just wanted to think without having to be doing something else – no cooking, no driving, no talking to the police, no talking to Marcus’ mama, no talking to Brandon and Juan.

  “When y’all finish eating, make sure to put your bowls in the sink before you go out and play in the snow,” Kayla said. “And don’t be out there all that long, so y’all don’t get sick. I don’t need no more problems right now, please. Hurry up so y’all can get out there while there is still a lot of sunlight.”

  Latrell and Linell both agreed to what their older sister was telling them. They then went on to talking amongst themselves while Kayla dropped the sauce pan into the sink and headed upstairs. As soon as she crossed the threshold into her bedroom, she pushed her door close and practically collapsed on the bed. The image of Marcus’s bloody body lying on the floor flashed in her mind. It was almost like a movie to her, except the plot starred her and she had to be her own stunt double. Never, in her entire life, had she been so terrified as she had been at those moments when the bullets began flying into the apartment – the moment where she was just washing her hand. A tear rolled down her cheek. Out of instinct, she grabbed her phone. This would be the usual time that Kayla would be texting Marcus. When she remembered that his phone was in the car, she dropped her phone onto the bed next to her.

  Brandon and Juan popped into Kayla’s mind. As much as she respected Marcus’ mama Lorna and truly did listen to anything that she had to tell her, Kayla still did not think of herself as the kind of woman who would just believe anything that somebody told her…even if that somebody was somebody who always kept it real. If there was one thing she had learned out of life so far, it was that even the realest person can get it so wrong at times. Kayla pushed her head into her pillow and closed her eyes as the thoughts consumed her.

  Suddenly, her phone vibrated. She quickly grabbed her phone and saw that it was a text from her girl, Myesha. She took a deep breath and looked back at the ceiling, trying to figure out if she felt like talking to Myesha right now or not. Kayla had been best friends with Myesha basically for as long as either of them could remember. Kayla lived at one end of the block while Myesha lived a couple of houses down from the corner of the block to the north. Some years they went to the same schools, while others they wound up going to separate schools. Regardless, even thru some ups and downs, Kayla had remained friends with Myesha for all of this time. Now, however, things were a little different. Myesha was well into her freshman year at IUPUI, which is right downtown. They still hung out when Myesha wasn’t busy, and Kayla really was happy for her friend. She had always said that she was going to get a Master’s and she at least got on the road to doing so.

  Hesitantly, Kayla decided to go ahead and hit her girl up and tell her what had happened. She thought that maybe it would do her some good to talk about it with someone rather than to sit and drown in her own thoughts about it all. She grabbed her phone and called Myesha.

  “Hello?” Myesha answered.

  “Girl, what you doin?” Kayla asked. “I saw that you text me so I figured I would just call.”

  “Girl, you coo,” Myesha let her know. “And nothing. Just got home from class. Girl, all of this snow is really getting to be too much for me. I wish it would just go away. I mean, how much are we going to get hit with over and over like this? This is ridiculous.”

  Kayla chuckled. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” she said. “It do seem like winter be lasting for fucking ever, don’t it?”

  “That’s what I’m sayin’,” Myesha said. “I was texting you to see what you would be doing later on or something.”

  This was the moment that Kayla knew she might as well go on into her story. She knew damn well that she was going to be at Marcus’ bedside for at least a little while tonight, no matter how much snow there would be out on the streets. Methodist Hospital was too close for her not to be down there. Plus, she wanted to talk to him. At the back of her mind, she was starting to think about how he was probably awake and wondering where she was.

  “Kayla?” Myesha asked, totally picking up on the long pause – a pause that just was not typical of her girl Kayla. “You there?”

  “Yeah,” Kayla said. “Yeah. Girl, let me tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” Myesha asked, clearly ready to hear whatever story was about to come. “Girl, what? What is it?”

  “Today,” Kayla said, flatly. She rolled over onto her side, now facing the lit window, with the phone balancing on the side of her face. “Today, today, today.”

  “Girl, what?” Myesha asked.

  Kayla sniffled. In so many ways, it was just too much to think about.

  “Somebody shot up Marcus’s apartment today,” Kayla said.

  “Oh my God,” Myesha said. “Are you serious? I mean, when? Are you serious? Somebody shot his apartment up? Was he there?”

  “I was there too,” Kayla told her. “It was earlier today. I forget what time right now cause everything has just been going so fast it seem like.”

  “You was there too?” Myesha asked, clearly very concerned about her best friend. “And, I know. I know what you mean. I bet it has. But what happened?”

  “This morning,” Kayla said. “After I dropped Latrell and Linell off at school, you know the normal thing, I drove out to Marcus’s. You know, like I was texting you yesterday. I was supposed to see him last night, but since my mama wanted to stay wherever she stayed last night, I wound up staying home and playing mother.”

  Myesha cringed. “Sorry, girl,” she said. “But that’s nothing new.”

  “I know it ain’t,” Kayla said. “I know. But, anyway, so like I said, I drove out there and we was chilling and stuff. After we woke up, I had noticed how he kept checking out of the window, I mean the blinds that cover his patio door. You know he live on the first floor.”

  “Yeah, I remember you tellin’ me that,” Myesha said.

  “Yeah,” Kayla said. “So, anyway, I saw how he kept looking outside, like he was expecting something or someone. Shit, I don’t know. I got up and went to the bathroom. Next you know, I hear Marcus say ‘oh shot.’ Then there were gunshots and the sound of bullets hitting and shattering the windows.” Kayla took a deep breath, almost reliving the very fear that she had felt in Marcus’ bathroom. “Girl, I dropped down to the floor so fast. I mean, I never been that scared in my life.”

  “I thank God nothing like that has ever happened to me,” Myesha said. “But, girl, I am glad you didn’t get hit. I mean, you don’t sound like you did. I don’t hear hospital machines and stuff.”

  “No, I’m fine,” Kayla said. “But that’s not all of the story, Myesha. Once all of the bullets stopped, I waited before I went out. I don’t know what I was doin’. I guess I was waiting to see if I heard footsteps or something, I don’t know. But anyway, once I heard a car take off, I waited for some seconds. I started to call Marcus’ name and he wasn’t responding.”

  “Oh no,” Myesha said.

  “I went out there and found him on the floor, girl,” Kayla said. “Myesha, they got him in his shoulder.”

  “Girl, I am so sorry to hear that,” Myesha said. “And I mean that, I really am sorry. Did you get him to a hospital?”

  “Yeah,” Kayla said. “I called the police and an ambulance came. He in Methodist, downtown, so I’mma be up there again later on tonight. I was up there earlier, with his Mama and Brandon and Juan. The doctor came out and told us that he would be fine. Just that he would have to do some physical therapy to get full function of his arm back again. Myesha, girl, when I found him, I swear I was starting to think that he was gon’ die. There was blood everywhere, like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “I can ima
gine,” Myesha said. “So, did he say if he saw who did this? I’m not liking this, girl. You need to be careful. And plus, you know these damn Indianapolis police won’t do much of that thing they call investigating if it affects us.”

  “Yeah,” Kayla said. “They came and were nice to me and stuff, but I think they are probably just thinking it’s another case of hood nigga violence.”

  “Marcus still don’t have no real front, do he?” Myesha asked.

  “Naw,” Kayla said. “I mean, what was real funny though, is how when me and him was layin in bed and stuff, he asked me about moving to Atlanta.”

  “What?” Myesha said, surprised. “He asked you about doing what? Moving to Atlanta?”

  “Yeah,” Kayla said. “All of the sudden, he start talkin’ about how he tired of Indianapolis and wanna move to Atlanta. Right before I got up to go to the bathroom, we had just talked about taking a trip down there next weekend or something. I said I’d go, but I don’t know if I can leave my brother and sister here like that. Not right now and stuff. Plus, if I’m doin’ all that kind of thing, moving away with you and stuff, I think I wanna be married or something.”

  “Exactly,” Myesha said. “That is exactly what I’m saying. You would have to put a ring on it for me to even think about moving that far away. I mean, I know Atlanta is nicer than Indianapolis and stuff, but do you even know people down there? Does he even know people down there?”

  “That is exactly what I was thinking too, girl,” Kayla said. “I don’t even think he know anybody down there. To me, though, it was just funny how he start talking about this out of the blue and I’m like, where the fuck did this even come from? Next thing you know, the apartment is getting shot up.”

  “I hate to break this to you,” Myesha said. “But it sound like he caught up in some shit to me…if you ask me.”

  The words “he caught up in some shit” practically echoed in Kayla’s mind like bad sound inside of a stadium. The very thing that she had kind of been avoiding thinking had now confronted her. It had now come from another person who is totally outside of the situation. The crazy part about all of this for her, however, is that she still hadn’t even told Myesha about what Lorna had said to her. That would really just put the cherry on top of this story.