Heaven's Hell

by Takerra, Allen

  “So Ms. Jacy, since you refuse to tell us what the fight was about we have no choice but to assume you take full responsibility and give you a five day out of school suspension.” Heaven looked at her principal Ms. Bassett but kept her mouth shut as tears streamed down her face. She could see Heaven was in a lot of pain and she wanted to help her, but she couldn’t read her mind. Just then, Heaven’s guidance counselor came busting into the office knocking over Ms. Bassett’s three-foot plant. Ms. Bassett looked at him with a ‘no you didn’t’ look, as he asked to speak to her privately. He basically explained how Heaven was an excellent student, never got into any trouble, and barely spoke unless spoken to. He was sure that whatever had happened had not been her fault. Ms. Bassett lessened the punishment to a three-day suspension although Heaven didn’t mind the five days; the last place she wanted to be was at school. Her teachers sent all of her work and homework to the office and Ms. Bassett instructed Heaven that she’d have to get in contact with a parent or guardian in order for her to leave school. She sat there debating on whom to call. She knew that her mother wasn’t home and it wasn’t like she had a ‘work’ number for her. She knew her father was always in and out, but he wouldn’t waste any time coming to pick her up, time is money was his philosophy. Then she thought of calling him just so he could release her and then she would take a cab home, but why go through the hassle? She figured it would be easiest to just call Khalil. After a couple of rings, Khalil finally picked up and was immediately piqued at the sound of Heaven’s hurt voice. He could tell when she had been crying.

  “Heaven, what’s wrong? What happened?”

  G immediately stopped talking to his men, and focused on what Khalil was saying. They were all having a short lunch meeting at the bar and it was interrupted by Khalil’s constant cell phone ringing. He didn’t answer at first because he didn’t recognize the number and he figured it was just one of his broads. But when it consistently rang, he figured it must’ve been important. And now it seemed it was.

  “Khalil, I got suspended and I need you to come pick me up.” Khalil frowned up his face.

  “What?” He immediately assumed that Heaven had been fighting with one of those girls that she always complained about. “Alright Heaven damn, you gonna have to give me a minute, I’m in the middle of something here. Then I have to go get the truck out of the shop, so it’ll be a while. You can’t expect me to just drop everything I’m doing cause you dumb enough to get yourself into some trouble.” Heaven tapped her foot wildly, wishing she wouldn’t have called him. He always found a way to turn everything around on her.

  “Okay well how long do you think it’ll be?” She asked softly.

  “I’ll get there when I get there.” And then he hung up. The table remained quiet as Khalil fumbled to put his cell phone back into his coat pocket. G and his men looked on as a few chuckled.

  “I’m, I’m sorry G. You know bitches, they always trouble.” Khalil stammered. G smirked.

  “Bitches huh? I’m saying can we continue?” It was obviously a rhetorical question because G continued talking and then wrapped up the meeting about 15 minutes later. As everyone began getting up from the table, Khalil felt a strong hand on his shoulder. He turned around to face G. Shit. He thought. G picked dirt out of his fingernails nonchalantly as he practiced his cleverness on Khalil, choosing his words carefully.

  “What’s up with ya shorty, she alright?” The young girl had crossed G’s mind a few times too many since he’d seen her. Anytime he would see Khalil he would hope that she was with him, and when she wasn’t he was usually noticeably disappointed. Khalil, completely unaware of G’s interest in Heaven, was relieved that he was holding civil conversation with him and he wasn’t getting in trouble about that $50 he still owed on his tab.

  “Man G, she done fucked around and got herself in trouble up at school. I’m supposed to go and get her but my truck is in the shop til’ two, so she gon’ have to wait, know what I’m saying?”

  G shrugged and then dug into his jeans pocket pulling out his Maserati key, and starting his car from inside the bar.

  “Or I can take you to get her. Then I can drop yall off at the car spot, I gotta kill some time anyway…where ya car at?”

  “Juniors, on East Second,” Khalil said happily, taking G’s favor for more than what it was.

  “Alright, that’s on the way to where I’m heading anyway. Let’s go.”

  G and Khalil made their way out of the door as G’s right hand man and first cousin Loc smirked at the situation. Although Loc didn’t know the details, he knew that if G was going anywhere with Khalil, it had nothing to do with Khalil, and everything to do with that chick that he had been talking about since they saw her a few weeks ago at Khalil’s. Loc didn’t get it either, the girl was cute there was no question about it, but him and G had seen some of the most exotic and exquisite women that ever could grace a nigga. In fact, they had gone down to Miami two days after they saw Heaven and met some bad females, but G would bring up the young girl every opportunity he saw fit. Loc would say ‘the chicks downstairs waiting for us at the bar.’ And G would say ‘Khalil never brought shorty to the bar before. You never seen her at the bar right?” Loc would say ‘I’m bout to go to this bitch’s room and bust her down real quick’ and G would say ‘I bet his old ass aint even hitting that shit right, aint no way.” Loc would shake his head and roll his eyes but it was no use, he knew to see his cousin like this meant that it was a done deal. Once something held his interest, he had to pursue it, whether to find out that it wasn’t all of what he expected it to be or to exert it until he was no longer interested or bored, and then he’d move on. Loc had never seen any other outcome.

  Khalil got in the passenger seat of G’s ride and immediately felt a twinge of jealousy. Here he was ten years older than G, and this nigga was living his life ten times more lavishly than him. He had never even seen a Maserati let alone sat in one, and now he could see why G was always so smooth and relaxed. Shit I’d be a cool nigga too if I stepped out of this shit everyday.

  “Damn young blood, this shit is nice. How much this shit run you?”

  G noticed that Khalil liked to call him young blood whenever he was reminded that he was an old ass bum, stuck in the same spot in his life that he was at when G was just a kid and his brother was dealing with Khalil.

  “It was an investment. So where we going, Union County College?” G asked even though he knew damn well the girl was in high school, he had heard Khalil say it before, he just wanted to remind him how nasty his old ass was. Khalil swallowed hard.

  “Nah man, the high school on Park Ave. You know I like em young.” He tried to turn the insult into a joke although he was offended.

  “Oh yea, how can I forget,” G responded slowly as he pulled off while cracking the windows, letting the fresh spring air fill his perimeter.

  Heaven was shocked to see Khalil walk into the principal’s office about forty-five minutes after she had called him. She immediately started gathering up her books and fixing herself, making sure that all of her buttons were buttoned on her shirt and her mid drift wasn’t out as she leaned into her book bag. She even had to kneel on the ground instead of bending over or Khalil would start a fight over that too. She immediately missed the attention she used to get from Ricky. Just being able to hang out with a boy and be flirty and speak her mind, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to do that again until she went away to school. Khalil thought that she was going to Kean University right up in Union, but he had another thing coming.

  “Mr. Jacy,” Principal Bassett assumed. “Can I talk to you for a moment?” Heaven gave him a look like ‘please just play along’, even though he had every intention to.

  She offered him coffee, which he declined and then she motioned for him to sit across from her as she proceeded in her speech.

  “I don’t want Heaven to get into any type of trouble at home. She is a wonderful girl.” Heaven smiled lightly happy the way the
speech was going so far.

  “We are just suspending her to give time for her and the boy to cool off.” Khalil’s eyes bulged.

  “Boy? Baby, a boy was fighting you?” The way he talked to her and called her baby disturbed Principal Bassett but she threw it off as her own paranoia of reminiscing of her own childhood experiences with sexual abuse. Before Heaven could answer, Principal Bassett did.

  “Um, well I’m sure it wasn’t anything too serious. From my understanding it could have been some type of lover’s quarrel, Ricky has become rather fond of Heaven lately and from my understanding the two have been spending some time.” Ms. Bassett smiled at Heaven thinking that her red face was of a young girl who gets exposed of a crush in front of her father, not a young girl who was about to get her ass beat by her ‘looking like he should be her daddy’ boyfriend.

  “No, no not really,” Heaven protested, but Khalil’s eyes told her that her dispute meant nothing. It was going to be a long night tonight. Ms. Bassett grew uneasy again and wrapped up the conversation out of her own discomfort, not sure of what she should do.

  “Well anyway, three days suspension. Today’s Wednesday so Heaven can return to school next Tuesday.” Khalil nodded but remained silent as the two made their way out the office and out of the school. Heaven remembered feeling three things consecutively when she stepped outside the school doors, cool Spring breeze kissing and massaging her pure face, butterflies fluttering and dancing in her stomach from the sight of G leaning against his car looking at her, and a hard slap in the face from Khalil that sent her down to the ground and back into reality.

  “No, it’s not true!” She screamed. Before she could say anymore he was all over her, slapping her and hitting her but was yanked up quick by an angry G.

  “Mothafucka is you crazy! You in front of a fucking school…you trying to get police over here or something? Don’t be hitting on ya chick all in the fucking streets and shit! Fuck is wrong wit u anyway, she a fucking female, you don’t be hitting on no niggas like that, fuck is you banging on her for, huh?” Khalil calmed down when he saw the fire dancing in G’s eyes. G wanted to say so much more to him but he knew it wasn’t his place, and she wasn’t his chick.

  “Just get in the car,” G ordered. Khalil stood there for a moment.

  “Now mothafucka!” G screamed. Khalil moved his feet quickly to the car.

  G kneeled down and helped Heaven up off the ground. She cried and he urged her to stop. He had no idea that she wasn’t crying out of pain, but more so out of embarrassment. She did not want the next time that she saw him to be like this.

  “Thank you,” she whispered lightly. He looked at her with compassion.

  “I thought you would be stronger ma. You gotta try to be strong alright?” She opened her mouth but couldn’t speak. She didn’t know how to take what he said. They walked to the car in silence. Heaven was too shaken up to notice how splendid his car was. She just looked out the backseat window and wondered how she could be stronger for G. I thought you would be stronger ma. Did that mean that he thought about her? The words echoed in her head as she tried to find meaning. The car was silent and there was a triangle of thoughts going on, each person was thinking about someone while another person was thinking about them. G sat driving keeping his eyes on the road but thinking of how much he wanted to pull the car over and beat the shit out of Khalil the way he was beating Heaven. G had seen his mom get smacked up by his step daddy and it used to enrage him. He used to think his mother was the weakest woman in the world until he realized that when somebody controls your mind, they could basically do anything with that power. That was why he always vowed to never let a mothafucka ever control his mind. Khalil was half of a man, and took his frustration of his inadequate life out on Heaven. But G knew it was wrong for him to get involved especially being that Khalil and him still interacted with business, for now anyway. G definitely had plans to change that as well.

  As G had his thoughts on Khalil, Khalil had his thoughts on Heaven. All he could picture was some young boy touching her, kissing her, making her feel things that she had never felt with him. Khalil remained content with his sexual performance with Heaven because he knew she had no one to compare him to besides the uncomfortable sexual experiences with her father. He knew when it came to older women they were always left unsatisfied, but with Heaven he was the man, or so he thought. He didn’t care what G said about his manhood, when he got home he was going to beat Heaven until she’d be too scared to even think about another boy.

  Khalil thought heavily of Heaven but of course Heaven’s focus was on G. She sat in the backseat behind him and since Khalil kept his head turned looking out of the window, she was able to study his eyes and eyebrows in the rearview mirror. She studied his intensity on the road and she damn near pissed her pants when he looked at her through the mirror. He did a double take wondering if she had been studying him the whole time he was driving. He pulled up to Junior’s Auto as Khalil jumped out of the car.

  “I’ll be right back, Imma see if it’s ready.” The second his door slammed, Heaven became light headed. She could smell G’s cologne and it awakened every nerve ending on her body. She put her hand on the lower back of his driver’s seat and ran it slowly up and down as if she were touching him, as if he could feel her. Speak to me.

  “So this your last year?” She was flabbergasted, it worked.

  “Yeah.” Her voice was sweet to him; to her it was her best impersonation of sexy.

  “So what, you 18?”

  “No, I’m 17. I’ll be 18 July fourth.” He looked at her through the rearview again and she looked back.

  “You’re a baby.” He paused for a minute. “Fourth of July, huh?”

  “Yeah, I’m a firecracker.” Heaven’s heart raced the moment she spoke the words. She didn’t know where that came from, she figured she’d heard her mother say it before. He smiled. Yes, I made him smile.

  “Firecracker? I can’t tell.” She rolled her eyes figuring he was taking another stab at her for not standing up to Khalil. “I mean, you seem sweet. Reserved.”

  She looked up at him again and smiled, as they locked eyes in the rearview once again. That’s when they noticed that the lights on the mirror were on. A door was open. Instinctively they both turned and found Khalil standing next to the open door.

  “I said the car’s ready.” Heaven hurriedly grabbed her book bag and purse and made her way over to the passenger side nervous that Khalil had caught her staring. G once again looked at her hoping she would look up for a moment, but this time she didn’t, she just got out of the car and closed the door. Khalil thanked him and apologized, although he had every intention on finishing what he had started when they got home. As G took off, bumping his Lil’ Wayne beats, he reached in the backseat and grabbed his copy of The Awakening of Intelligence. I aint know I left this in here. When was I reading in here? He stopped at a red light and noticed papers hanging out of the book as he opened it. This book belongs to Heaven Jacy. He licked his lips lightly and thought of the irony of them reading the same book at the same time, and the crazy thing was that most girls his age hadn’t even heard of it. He pulled out the papers and saw that it was some type of acceptance letter. Congratulations Heaven Jacy! Harvard University Welcome you to fulfill your major of Chemistry…

  A blaring horn broke his concentration and he put the letter back in the book. He beeped back, knowing that he was in the wrong and took off down East Main Street, feeling that Heaven might break the mold; she just might break the fucking mold.

  …Meet My Fairy Godmother…

  “Where’s ya strength, Heaven?” Heaven sat at the kitchen table wondering why everyone was questioning her strength lately.

  “My mind?” She answered, more in a question than a statement. Her mother, who was once one of the most beautiful women in the Tri-State Area but had deteriorated into a soulless existence, sat across from Heaven blowing rings of cigarette smoke into her daughter’s direction
. Jhenelle’s kitchen was tiny and it smelled of old grease although nothing had been cooked there in ages.

  “No not your mind,” she mocked Heaven, as if she had just heard the most naive thing ever. “Your strength is in your pussy, and don’t you ever forget that.” Heaven didn’t answer, she just looked at her mother wanting to ask her just how far her pussy had gotten her, even though she already knew the answer. It had gotten her mother stuck in a tight rundown apartment strung out on heroin, but really suffering from an even worse addiction, her love for Heaven’s daddy. Jhenelle held a certain amount of resentment for Heaven but underneath, there was an uncontrollable love, which she never showed.

  “Now look at you. You done let Khalil go and black ya eye up, got you looking all ugly. And when you was getting ya ass kicked I bet ya mind wasn’t nowhere around to save ya black ass. The only thing that stopped him from killing you is ya pussy, and you better believe that sistah.” Heaven touched her right eye lightly wondering when the swelling would go down, it did look horrible. She looked at her mother and wondered if she would ever be able to see things her way. It was like the two women were completely different like light and dark, and Heaven sometimes wondered how she could have been a product of her.

  “Ma,” Heaven murmured. Jhenelle closed her eyes and rocked lightly taking in the nicotine deeply, hoping it sufficed until Sam got back with her medicine.

  “Mmmm,” was her only reply.

  “Why we not close, you and me?” Her mother shook her head no before she even began talking, convincing herself that the words that were about to come out of her mouth were true.

  “Because Heaven, don’t no two women have no reason to ever be close. This here is a man’s world baby, and we all competing for them. We competing for their affection and for their protection…and when it comes down to it, I aint nothing but yo competition, and you aint nothing but mine. Don’t you ever let anybody else convince you of other wise either. Women are not meant to get along, that’s why you don’t need to be close wit none of ‘em. Hmph, they only wanna be around when ya down anyway. If you doing good, and they can’t be yo shoulder to cry on, and sit there and hear you say how miserable you are, they can hardly stand to be around ya. And that baby, includes me.” She looked Heaven right in the eyes with a stone face convincing her only child that she meant every word of what she had said.