Around the Way Girls 8

by Tina Brooks McKinney

  “We ain’t goin’ no fuckin’ where, we gon’ keep pumpin’ right here. Shit, this where the money at. We ain’t even seeing it like this in Brooklyn.”

  “Kevin, you’re not going to come in here and disrespect me and my fuckin’ crib. It ain’t like you don’t have money for a place. You got mad cake. You can live anywhere you want.”

  “I like living here with you.”

  Kelly could tell that her brother was staying in her way on purpose. He just wanted to cock-block just in case she got weak and tried to see Dante.

  “You fuckin’ up Kevin, you not thinking with your head because you caught up in this money.”

  “Shit, the last time I looked around, yo ass was caught up in it too.”

  Kelly couldn’t deny that she was making more money than she ever had before, but she wasn’t as happy as she was when she was with Dante. She had also been peeping the scene and she could tell the police wasn’t going to keep their distance for much longer.

  “I’m on the frontline, baby bruh, and I see a change coming. I’m telling you, you need to seriously consider calming Colonial down.”

  “I ain’t calming shit down, sis, now I’m sorry about the condition of ya’ crib and I got you, but we niggas, and we don’t get that type of shit,” he told her.

  “Y’all keep on fuckin’ up my house and a bitch’ll fly south for the winter.”

  Kelly went to her bedroom. That was the only part of the apartment that had yet to be invaded by the filth. She removed her black leather bubble and unzipped her jeans. Her bed was a welcome place as she lay across it. Fuck this headset. This shit keeps messing up my hair anyway, she thought. Her brother was out of control. And he hadn’t been home six months yet. She was worried that he was going right back to the place he had just come out from and wanted so bad to get out of. And if she wasn’t careful, she would be joining him. Kelly was disgusted with her brother and his crew. They were treating her apartment like a drug den. Dante was a man and he got that type of shit. His home was immaculate and she missed it. More than that, she missed Dante. She hadn’t been doing so good trying to keep him out of her head. Every time a squad car passed by or an undercover cop came up she was looking, hoping to see his face.

  It had been over a month since she had seen Dante’s number come across her phone. He used to call every day, but she never answered. He would also text her to let her know that he would always love her and that he would always be thinking of her. She guessed that he finally got tired of not receiving a reply. Kelly wondered if he was seeing someone new. Her heart hoped that he wasn’t. She began singing Fantasia’s “Bittersweet” in her head.

  Her break was almost over, fifteen more minutes and she was going to have to go back to her post. The more she was out on the block, the more she thought about joining the Police Academy. Kelly went over to her hamper that held clean clothes and linens and grabbed a washcloth and towel. She went into the bathroom to wash up quickly so that she could feel fresh for the second half of her shift. She wanted to scream when she saw the toilet seat up, with pounds of piss and a pile of shit in the toilet. The sink and the bathtub were covered with mold and mildew. Kelly flushed the toilet and immediately left the bathroom. She couldn’t even use her own shower. She was more than heated. Her cell phone was ringing in her bedroom and she ran to answer it. Buddah was calling. She wasn’t going to, but she went ahead and accepted the call.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Yo, I need you to pay for my lawyer.”

  “Oh so now you need me, nigga, didn’t you hang up in my face?’

  “Come on Kells, I mean, shit, what the fuck was I supposed to think?”

  “You was supposed to know that I wasn’t no fuckin’ snitch.”

  “Look, Kells, I got word that ya’ girl Laquisha was sayin’ some foul shit about you gettin’ a cop’s number and you fuckin this nigga and the next thing I know I’m gettin’ knocked.”

  “Fuck that bitch. Her fuckin’ word don’t hold no muthafuckin’ weight.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about the bitch either, but I need to get up out of this piece. They ain’t even tryin’a give a nigga no bond. I ain’t even do no serious shit, yo, they on some straight bullshit.”

  “Yeah, no doubt,” Kelly agreed, thinking back to how many times they tried to slap whatever charges they wanted on her ass.

  “So I can count on you, Kells?”

  “Yeah, I got you,” Kelly said.

  “Thas what it do, yo, Kells . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yo, my mistake, yo.”

  “It’s all good,” Kelly told him.

  Kelly figured the least she could do for Buddah was to pay for his lawyer. He had looked out for her for years and everyone was entitled to make mistakes. She knew how Laquisha ran her mouth, so she believed Buddah’s story. Kevin happened to be walking by Kelly’s room on his way to his own when he had overheard the conversation. Kevin wasn’t trying to have Buddah come out and interrupt his monetary flow. Everything was working perfectly, every day was sunny; it only rained money. He joined his sister in her bedroom.

  “Ay, what the fuck that nigga squawkin’ about now?”

  “He asked me if I could pay for his lawyer.”

  “I hope you told that nigga to kiss your yellow ass.”

  “No, I told him I would handle it.”

  “Man, fuck that nigga. After the way he turned on you, we ain’t paying for shit for that bitch-ass muthafucka. Tell his ass I fuckin’ said so.”

  “Yo, Kev, that ain’t right. He made a mistake and he admitted it.”

  “I don’t want that nigga in Colonial no fuckin’ more. That nigga gon’ come out and try to get his block back and ain’t no haps on that shit. ”

  Kelly looked at her brother as if he she didn’t know who he was because she was beginning to doubt that she did. Prison had changed him immensely. He was selfish and greedy and had no compassion for anyone. Kelly recognized that he was getting a lot of money and that he couldn’t be soft, but he was shittin’ on niggas that didn’t deserve to be shitted on. She was going to find a way to get Buddah’s lawyer paid up. To Kelly, it was simply the right thing to do.

  “Where the fuck is your headset?” he yelled.

  “Right here,” she yelled back, as she grabbed it up and put it back on her head.

  “Don’t do that shit, Kelly, yo. You need to be getting’ back out there,” Kevin told her.

  “I’m going,” she said as she sucked her teeth and grabbed her jacket. Yeah this nigga done came out and flipped the fuck out, she thought

  “Hold the fuck up,” he said to her as he grabbed her arm.

  Kevin knew he wasn’t looking at who he thought he was looking at.

  “What the fuck is wrong wit’ you, Kevin?” Kelly knew her brother was truly bugging now that he was putting his hands on her.

  Kevin held up a framed picture of Dante that had been on Kelly’s dresser. He grimaced.

  “I know this ain’t the duck you was fuckin’ wit?” he asked harshly.

  “Yeah, that’s him, why?”

  Kevin threw the picture against the wall, shattering the glass frame that it was encased in.

  “That’s the bitch-ass muthafucka that fucked my life up! I don’t believe you was fuckin’ with this nigga!” Kevin said with his teeth clenched and his hands balled up into fists.

  “What? Dante is the cop who arrested you?” Kelly asked. She was hoping he was wrong. Maybe Dante looked like the same cop, but it couldn’t be.

  “Hell yeah, that’s that muthafucka, I’ll never forget that muthafucka’s face.”

  Kelly’s mind was reeling. She didn’t know how to feel or what to think. With a lost expression on her face, and without saying a word, she zipped up her jeans, fixed her shirt, put on her bubble jacket, adjusted her headset, walked past her brother, and left her apartment.

  Dante was sitting in his living room with a glass of Jack Daniel’s in his hand. He had
been drinking most of the day. Nightfall was upon them and he was still drinking. Dante thought back to the night that Kelly tore his heart out. He replayed the story of her brother and his arrest. Dante remembered that night very well, but he wouldn’t dare make matters worse by telling Kelly that he had that same scenario go down and that he might very well be the punk-ass police officer that she was talking about. Kelly’s account of the story brought back memories for him, memories that he had been trying to forget for the past five years.

  His partner had come by to check on him. It was the second day that he had called out of work and she was concerned. Dante looked like shit. His partner could tell he was suffering. Dante sat wishing that he had never responded to the call that day on Broadway. He wished he had never met Kelly. If he had never met her he wouldn’t be hurting so badly. Dante would have given anything to have Kelly back in his life. Why he loved her so, he had no earthly idea, but he couldn’t deny the strong feelings he had for her. It was almost as if he felt responsible for her.

  “Have you tried calling her?” Officer Brown asked.

  Officer Deborah Brown had been Dante’s partner for the past five years. They were rookies when she started out with him and they worked well together. The other officers at the precinct always messed with Dante and Deborah about their relationship. Most of the other officers thought for sure that they were more than just partners on the job. Rumors that they were sleeping together flooded the locker room on a regular basis. They both learned to ignore it. They had a great friendship and they didn’t care what anyone said.

  “She won’t answer,” Dante said, as he poured another glass of Jack.

  “You’re just going to have to give her some time.”

  “Her crazy-ass brother is probably in her ear telling her all kinds of bullshit about me.”

  “She knows who you really are, Dante. She’ll come around.”

  Dante didn’t know when that would be. He knew that Kelly was being placed in a very tough predicament. To have to choose between her brother and her lover was going to be beyond difficult. It just wasn’t fair. But Dante had been a police officer in the city’s toughest streets, so he was very well aware of the fact that life was anything but fair.

  “All I wanted to do was make her life better.”

  “Dante, that’s something she has to want for herself.”

  “She does want it. I know damn well she does.”

  He took another swig of his drink and slammed his glass down on his glass coffee table, shattering the glass of liquor on impact. He was willing to do whatever it took to make her life better, no matter what it took and if that meant not seeing her anymore, then regrettably that’s what it had to be. But he owed it to the both of them to try to reach her just one more time.

  Dante got up and grabbed his .45 and his overcoat.

  “Dante, don’t—”

  “I’m going over there, Deb, I need to see her. I need to talk to her, I—I need to kiss her, Deb.”

  Deborah knew Dante and she knew that he had had way too much to drink. There was no way she was going to let him drive like that, especially to Colonial Heights. They would eat his ass alive.

  “Dante, you’re in no condition to go over there right now. Trust me, it’s not a good idea. Sleep it off and try it again tomorrow, okay, sweetie?”

  Dante wasn’t trying to hear what Deborah was saying. He respected her as a partner and he appreciated her as a friend, but Kelly was the love of his life and all was fair in love and war as far as he was concerned.

  “No, I’m going over there right now and ain’t nobody stoppin’ me.”

  Kelly had had a long night and she was glad that it was finally over. Although she was tired, she was determined to take a shower. Unwillingly, she cleaned the soiled tub and the entire bathroom. Kelly gathered her toiletries and her bathrobe and retreated to her freshly disinfected bathroom. Relief came to her weary body as the hot water ran over her velvety skin. She was still trying to put her thoughts and feelings in perspective about Dante’s role in her brother’s downfall in relation to how she felt about him. She was extremely torn between the two men in her life.

  “Kev,” Leek yelled over the headset.

  “Yeah,” he answered. Kevin never slept. He was obsessed with his newfound fortune and felt one minute of sleep could leave his business in a compromising position.

  “Yo, we got a situation,” Leek yelled. But before he could say what the situation was there was a pounding on Kelly’s apartment door.

  “Ay, who the fuck is banging on my fuckin’ door?” Kevin yelled as he grabbed up his K9 and went straight to the door, unlocked and opened it. Kevin gasped. He was suddenly staring in the face of the man who had sent him off to prison. The man who made tears stream down his mother’s eyes in the courtroom as they sentenced her baby to five years in the state penitentiary. The man who ruined his life and now was trying to ruin his sister’s life by stealing her away from the only brother she ever had. He wanted to use his K9 to split open Dante’s skull.

  When Dante’s eyes fell upon Kevin it had confirmed everything that he had been ruminating on. And it all made sense now: The reason Kelly had been acting so erratic and not returning his calls. Kelly’s brother was the case that Dante could never forget. The case he used to have nightmares about as a rookie. Dante felt that Kelly had to be fighting an incredible battle within her own self. All he wanted to do was to see her, to talk to her, to hold her. But in more ways than one, Kevin was in his way.

  “Is Kelly here?”

  “Muthafucka, even if she was here, what makes you think I would tell your bitch ass?”

  “Look, I didn’t come here to start any trouble.”

  “Oh no, then what the fuck did you come here for? Huh? How the hell did you even get in here?” Kevin asked. He was going to be checkin’ Leek and Rich for their inadequacy.

  “I need to see Kelly,” Dante said.

  “Oh, you need to see her, huh? Nah, nigga what you need to see is my K9 up in yo’ muthafuckin’ face.”

  “Don’t forget, Kevin, I’m still a police officer, and whether I’m in uniform or out of uniform, you’re threatening an officer of the law.”

  “Man, muthafuck you all day. You put me away, nigga, I didn’t even get to spend my mama’s last days with her.”

  “I apologize for that, man, but I didn’t come here to relive the past.”

  “Oh yeah, what the fuck you come here for then? You damn sure ain’t come here thinkin’ you was gon’ see my sister, ’cause you ain’t seein’ her.”

  Kevin was outside of his sister’s apartment door, raising pure Cain in the hallway. A few of the other tenants, including Dora, opened their doors to see what was going on.

  “Y’all get back in ya’ muthafuckin’ cribs, man, ain’t nobody fuckin’ talking to none a’ y’all,” Kevin told them, waving his gun.

  “You know something, yo’ ass is drunk. I bet you you ain’t tell a muthafuckin’ soul you was comin’ over here, so if I popped yo muthafuckin’ ass right now, who would even know?”

  “You would know.”

  “I wouldn’t give a fuck.”

  “Kelly would know.”

  “She wouldn’t give a fuck either,” Kevin told him.

  “Well, I would,” Deborah said with her 9 mm pointed at Kevin as she stepped into hallway. She had been in the staircase the whole time. “Now, where is she?”

  Dante was tired of listening to Kevin’s empty threats. He knew how much Kevin hated him. He knew that if Kevin really wanted to shoot him then he would have shot him. Now he just needed to persuade him to allow him to talk to Kelly.

  “You know I would think you would be happy about your sister dating an upstanding citizen instead of a thug, like yourself,” Dante said sarcastically.

  Kevin swung at Dante and Dante grabbed Kevin’s fist and held it inside of his own. Deborah stood still holding her 9 mm on Kevin. She silently wished that Dante would stop talking. That was h
ardly the statement that was going to make Kevin change his mind. But she shortly realized that even intoxicated, Dante was still in police mode and what he was doing was trying to cause a commotion so that if Kelly was inside she would be forced to come out to see what was going on.

  His plan was successful. Kelly had come out of the shower and heard all of the noise coming from her hallway. She threw on some shorts and a T-shirt and grabbed her .380 and went to join her brother in battle. She was stopped in her tracks when she saw who her brother’s opponent was.

  “Dante, yo, what are you doing here?” Kelly asked him in amazement.

  “Kelly, I need to see you, baby,” he told her.

  “Of all of the pigs, it had to be this swine-ass stinkin’-ass nigga,” Kevin said, looking like a hungry pit bull that was ready to have Dante as his next meal.

  “Dante, why did you come all the way to the projects this late at night?” Kelly asked.

  “Why the hell do you think, Kelly? I love you, baby. I don’t care who knows it. I need you.”

  Dante’s expression was a dispirited one, but Kelly was there, she was in front of him and he could physically see her; that alone made him feel better. The look on Kelly’s face was a distant one. She had gone back to her life in Colonial Heights. She was now looking out for her brother’s drug operation. And even though she played with thoughts of going to the Police Academy and being back in Dante’s arms, her brother made sure that she understood, cop-lover or not, she was never to turn her back on her flesh and blood.

  “I would give anything to see you smile,” Dante said as he looked at Kelly with such desire.

  Kelly couldn’t smile. Instead, she wanted to break down and cry. She wanted him to go home. The sight of him reminded her of what she was leaving behind.

  “Don’t let your brother turn your world upside down.”

  “Fuck that, Dante, don’t blame him, because it’s you who turned my world upside down. It was you who had my brother locked up and it was you who testified against him and it was you who had my mother crying her heart out in court when they took him away. And I hate you for that shit, Dante, I swear to God I do! How can I ever trust you?”