by Lady J
Moe took her right hand off the steering wheel just for a quick second to retrieve her pistol from her purse. She set it in her lap then searched for her cell phone. Shit! She said aloud to herself, thinking that she should have left Meek’s AR in the back seat instead of putting it in the trunk of the car. She finally found her phone and franticly dialed Meek’s number. She placed the phone on speaker and tossed it onto the passenger’s seat as she swerved lane to lane, trying to dodge the car hot on her tail.
“Baby, I am being followed,” she yelled when Meek answered.
“What you mean, Moe? Who’s following you? Where the hell are you?” he asked, springing up from the bed and hopping into his Tims.
He snatched up the keys from the dresser and ran for the front door before Moe could even reply. “Tell me exactly where you are.” He looked around the back seat of his truck then remembered he had left the duffle bag in Moe’s car.
“I was about two blocks away from home when I spotted them following me. They followed me from the salon.” She yelled so he could hear her clearly as she drove. Moe clearly remembered the blue Nissan pulling into the parking space behind her before she pulled out of the Salon parking lot. “I turned around. I’m headed toward Dan’s Sports Bar on 3rd Avenue,” she informed him.
“Baby, there’s a bag in your back seat. All my shit is in there, don’t be scared to blast a nigga if you have to. I’m on my way to find you. Don’t hang up the phone, Moe,” he stated.
“Meek, I put the bag in trunk,” Moe replied.
“Damn, Moenisha!” he yelled in frustration. He roamed the streets in search of her and the light blue Nissan that was following her. “Okay, baby listen,” Meek spoke up after a short while of thinking it over. “You got your strap?”
“Yeah, I got it,” she answered.
“Okay, cool. Make a U-turn and come back down 3rd. You know that Citco gas station on your left?” he asked.
“Yes, bae,” Moe replied.
“Pull in there, lead their ass around to the back side of the station. I’ll be waiting outside the truck. I want you to ride as close to me as you can, and throw me your pistol out of the window. Do you hear me?” Meek asked.
“Yeah.”
Moe quickly made a U-turn in the middle of the busy street and headed back toward the gas station. She drove fast to keep the car from getting into the next lane beside her. Moe did just as she was told and pulled into the Citgo gas station on 3rd Avenue. She rode around to the back side of the station where she spotted Meek standing outside his truck, just as he said he would be. She quickly tossed him her gun out of the window then kept going. Before the blue car had a chance to turn the corner, Meek was locked, loaded and ready for some action.
He wasted no time pulling the trigger and letting the bullets fly from the .9mm handgun. Moe stopped up ahead as she watched the car come to a stop from her rearview once Meek begin to shoot. She put the car in park, hopped out, and snatched a .40 from Meek’s bag in the trunk. She rushed over to Meek and tossed him the .40, figuring he was just about out of ammo.
“Get back in the car and go!” He yelled once she put the .40 in his hands.
He didn’t give a damn if he got caught up, but he didn’t want his girl involved in anything he had going on. He had already pulled her in too deep. Although he knew she was down for the ride, he couldn’t let her go under with him. Once Meek had handled his business, he hopped back into his ride and fled the gas station right behind Moe. They pulled up at their home four minutes apart. Moe was already inside when Meek got there.
“What are you doing, baby?” he asked upon entering their condo.
Moe had gathered everything of value to her off the dresser and out of the drawers. She rushed as if she was in a hurry to get her things and get the hell out of there. She opened the closet door, snatched their luggage out, and tossed the biggest suitcase across the room to Meek. He caught on and began to gather his things as well. They had to vacate the premises after what had just happened only three blocks away from where they lay their heads. Surely, if there were any witnesses, they would lead the cops straight to their front door, with both of their cars parked out front. She refused to let the folks catch them slipping; only a fool would continue to stay so close to their very own crime scene.
Meek moved quickly as he hauled their things to his truck. Outside, he heard the sound of sirens growing closer and closer. He abruptly tossed the bags on the back of his Avalanche and dashed back into the condo to get Moe.
“Hurry up, baby. I can hear the folks. Pretty soon the entire area will be filled with cops,” he said from the doorway of their bedroom.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Moe said as she ran to the spare bedroom and gathered the things Nino had left behind. She knew Meek would probably want to hold on to something that had belonged to his brother. “Here,” she said, handing Meek his brother’s gold link chain that held a small Jesus pendant.
He paused in the middle of what he was doing when he saw the chain. It brought back all the pain at once and Meek’s eyes began to water. Moe slipped the chain around his neck then rushed him out of the front door. The two drove far away from their home, with no destination in mind. It was then that Moe got the notion to reach out to her parents. With Meek trailing behind her, she had no idea how it would play out, but all she could do was hope for the best.
Five
Carmen awoke from her sleep and jetted to the bathroom. She flopped down on her knees and puked her lungs up as everything in her stomach made its way up and out of her mouth. She was sick as a dog, and all alone with no one to care for her. Carmen stretched out with her warm body against the cold tile floor. She just wanted to lay there and never get up. The thought of having a second child, only to still be Trent’s baby mother and nothing else was the number one reason she didn’t want to bring another baby into the world. She used to see a future for herself, but lately all she could see was her shaky past with the man she’d loved for years. Carmen was indeed hurt by it all.
As she picked herself up from the bathroom floor, she stared deeply at her reflection in the mirror. She was torn on the inside as her soul cried out for help. She didn’t know what to do next or how to feel; she’d become very numb to it all.
Carmen was so used to being let down and disappointed by Trent, she felt as if this was life for her, and things would never get any better. With thoughts of Ro, her decision to keep the baby or not, and the fact that Trent had gotten another woman pregnant as well, Carmen screamed out loudly. She hollered and hollered as if someone was trying to kill her. Storming through her two-bedroom apartment, she ripped up pictures of her and Trent then she entered her bedroom.
Staring at her bed, she burned a hole through the comforter with her eyes. She thought about all the times her and Trent had lain between the sheets together and snatched the comforter and sheets off the bed. She slung them to the floor then fell down on her knees on top of them. Carmen kicked and pounded her fist against the floor as she couldn’t seem to contain her emotions. She felt like she wanted to kill Trent for causing her so much heartache and pain. She was pissed at the fact that he would be sleeping with her and another woman without protection and passing on STDs. It had all slammed into her at once, and it was taking her for the ride of her life.
Carmen rolled over on the pile of covers with her legs and arms spread like an angel. She was exhausted and out of breath from all of her kicking and screaming. It was just about seven o’clock in the evening and the sun was starting to disappear into the night sky, but Carmen refused to move from the floor. She continued to lay sniffling uncontrollably until she had cried herself to sleep.
The next morning, she awoke, still on the floor with an aching pain in her lower back. She stood and stretched her stiff, worn, muscles then ran off to her bathroom at the feeling of her morning sickness kicking in.
In the bathroom, she stripped naked because she felt as if her skin was on fire. As the sweat beads
formed on her forehead, she began to feel weak. She couldn’t remember eating or drinking anything after Moe had brought her breakfast to the hospital the day before. Could it be that Carmen was so stressed out that she had forgotten to eat?
She straggled her way out of her bedroom and made it to the small kitchen area of the apartment. Fearing that she would soon faint, Carmen grabbed an ice cold bottle of water from her fridge and twisted the top. She downed the water then let her weak body lean up against the counter. Her mind was racing and heart was pounding heavily. She took deep breaths as she tried to get her heartbeat to regulate. When her head stopped spinning, she slowly walked back to her bedroom using the walls as her guide. By the time she made it to her room she collapsed on the pile of covers again. She lay there until she heard the loud tapping at her front door.
Unable to get herself up from the floor, she yelled, “Come in,” from the floor of her bedroom.
“C! where you at?” Moenisha’s voice traveled through the apartment as she walked through Carmen’s front door.
She walked around the apartment until she stumbled upon Carmen lying in the middle of the bedroom floor. “Girl, why the hell you on the floor?” Moe asked, stepping closer to her. “And why the hell are you naked?”
“Bitch, just help me up,” Carmen replied weakly.
Moe reached down and scooped Carmen up from the floor and helped her to the bed.
“Wait,” Moe said, “let me get the sheet and shit off the floor.” She turned around to pick up Carmen’s comforter and sheet set that she had thrown to the ground, but Carmen stopped her.
“No, Moe, I don’t want that shit on my bed. There’s some clean sheets in the hallway closet. Just grab me two of those,” she said, hovering over her bed as Moe took off down the hall to get the bed sheets.
“What’s wrong with the covers on the floor?” Moe asked, strolling back into the room carrying two thin folded bed sheets.
“Trent’s nasty ass been sleeping on them, that’s what’s wrong with the covers on the floor. I’m not about to lay my ass on them,” she replied, spreading the sheets across her bare mattress.
She slowly eased down, trying not to erupt her empty stomach again, grabbed her pillows, and curled up in the middle of her bed. Moe laid the second sheet over her body. “I’m glad your ass popped up. I’ve been sick as hell for the past twenty-four hours, and I’m starving,” Carmen admitted while giving her best friend her best puppy dog face.
“Girl, don’t give me that face.” Moe waved her off and took a seat on the bed beside her. “You knew you was going to be sick. You stayed sick your whole pregnancy with Kira. Umm, where she at anyway?” Moe peeped out of the room and peered around the corner to Kira’s room.
“She’s going to be staying with my mother until this is all over with,” Carmen replied lightly patting on her stomach.
“Good,” Moe blurted, “I mean not good about that, but good thing that Kira’s not here. Look, C, Dameeko and I need somewhere to lay our heads for a few days until we figure out where we heading next. I thought about calling my parents, but I stopped by here first,” Moe revealed.
“Of course you guys can stay here. Hell, I need some company anyway, with my lonely ass.” Carmen curled up with her pillows even tighter. “Where Meek at?” she asked.
“He’s outside in the truck,” Moe replied. “I’m ’bout to go get him. What do you want to eat?” she asked Carmen from the doorway of her bedroom.
“How about some of those famous cheese grits and some bacon? No, wait, all that grease might mess up my stomach. Forget it, let me get some bacon and some biscuits too,” Carmen said. “And Moe, don’t burn the shit up, please.” She tried her best to laugh although she was sick. She knew her home girl wasn’t the best in the kitchen, but she tried.
When Moe left the bedroom and went outside to get Meek, Carmen got out of bed and dug around in the clothes basket in the closet of her room. She was searching for her house coat. She found it, put it over her nude body, then curled back up on the mattress top. As long as she and Moe had been friends, she wouldn’t dare lay around unclothed while her man was around. No matter if it was her home or not. One thing between the three girls was respect and loyalty.
“Yo, sis,” Dameeko’s deep raspy voice echoed off the walls as he headed towards Carmen’s bedroom with Moenisha following closely behind him. “How you doing, ma?” he asked, entering her bedroom and approaching her bedside. “Moe said you wasn’t feeling too good, you straight?” He looked down at her and couldn’t seem to fathom why Trent hurts her the way he does. He would never think about doing such things to Moe.
“I’m okay, bro, just a little morning sickness.” Carmen smiled. “How you coming along?” she asked.
“I’m as good as I can be,” Meek lied and forced a smile.
Truth is, he was slowly dying on the inside. He had taken so many losses lately, and he knew nothing would ever be the same. It was like he had been placed right in the middle of the battlefield and had no other choice than to fight his way out. It was either that or let the streets take him six feet under.
“I just came in to holla at you. I gotta run off for a while. He turned and placed a kiss on Moe’s forehead. “You girls play nice,” he said before exiting Carmen’s bedroom and going on about his day.
“Boo, I’ll be in the kitchen,” Moe informed her before she ran off to prepare her bestie a meal. She opened Carmen’s cabinets and scanned the variety of dry foods and canned goods, looking for a box of grits. When she located them, she stood on her toes and snatched the box from the shelf, then took the bacon from the fridge.
Moe started to cook as she tried to set her mind free. At the moment, she and Meek were homeless. She had to come up with some kind of master plan in order to save them. She couldn’t go back to the salon. Ain’t no telling who would be waiting on her to show her face there. Her home of five years had been compromised as well. It was bad enough the place got shot up the night Nino was there and Meek was away at rehab.
The cops were already keeping a close eye on the place, and lately, they had been questioning the neighbors. It was like no matter what, they couldn’t catch a break. Moe just wanted to pack all of her and Meek’s things, and skip town. She’d thought about it more than once, but leaving her girls behind was not an option. Carmen and Roshel were her sisters, and they meant the world to her.
Moe quickly whipped up a pot of cheese grits and a few strips of bacon and piled it onto a foam plate. She pulled out Carmen’s kitchen drawer in search of a spoon. As she made her way down the hallway, she could hear the joyful sound of her friend’s laughter.
“I see someone is feeling better,” she said, floating into the room with the plate of food in her hands. “Sit up so you can eat.”
“Moe, you watched this yet?” Carmen turned up the volume on the TV and sat up in her bed as Moenisha placed the warm foam plate in her lap. “Look at these crazy bitches.”
She was referring to the latest episode of Atlanta House Wives. Carmen was a reality TV show junky, as if watching how fucked up someone else’s life was bought her joy.
“Naw, which one is this?” Moe asked, taking a seat beside Carmen on the bed.
She flipped off her shoes and made herself at home as she curled up on one of Carmen’s pillows at the opposite end of the bed.
“Episode three,” Carmen replied, stuffing a spoon full of hot grits into her mouth. “You know the one where everybody gets into that big fight?”
“They stay fighting. They need to put a real bitch on one of these reality shows. I’ll show their asses how to really knock a bitch out,” Moe said.
“Hell no, Moe. Your hood ass would be slapping chicks for fun.” Carmen laughed.
“Damn right, I’m smacking producers and all if they get in my way.” She sat straight up in the middle of the bed and faced Carmen. “On a more serious note, have you decided what you’re going to do?”
Carmen lowered her spoon of grit
s that she was just about to stuff into her mouth back down to her plate. “I’m still not sure, Moe. I don’t want to do nothing that I’m going to regret. And if I do it, Trent might not ever speak to me again.” Her facial expression changed from happy to sad quickly. “I know what you’re going to say, and I’ve thought about how much more pressure having a second child will put on me. I just don’t know what I’m going to do,” she confessed.
“C, whatever you decide, I’ll be right by your side,” said Moe.
Six
The constant ringing of Trent’s cell phone was beginning to spoil Meek’s stakeout. The two were posted up in a Kia that belonged to Trent’s girlfriend outside the home of the guy who killed Nino. They pulled down the block and parallel parked the car as close as they could to the curb and just sat and waited. They had been sitting there in the same damn spot for an hour, and no one had yet to enter or exit the house. The repeated playing of the lame love song Trent had set to play every time his girlfriend called had annoyed the hell out of Meek.
“Will you answer that damn phone?” Meek finally said, annoyed out of his mind as the ringtone played again for the fifteenth time. “That shit ’bout to drive me crazy. What the hell you doing with that soft ass, girly ringtone away?”
“Man, that’s just my crazy ass ole lady blowing a nigga up. I can’t do shit now without her ass thinking I’m with another bitch since Carmen’s loco ass showed up at her house. Now she doesn’t believe shit a nigga say.” Trent shook his head from side to side. “But I ain’t tripping, though. I’m about to cancel that bitch anyway and find me a new girl.” He smirked as if being a dog made him proud of himself. Trent pulled out his cell phone, turned it on silent, then placed it underneath the radio in the car.
“So, that’s what you do?” Trent’s comments left Meek feeling some type of way as his head spun around and a slight frown appeared on his face. “You need to stop your shit, man.”