Friend or Foe

by Imani Black

  “Cheyenne,” the little girl answered cheerfully. “I don’t live in this building, but I come over here sometimes because it’s a lot of my friends over here. I live in the real houses down Sea Gate.”

  Kelsi had no idea what the little girl meant by “real houses,” but she knew it was better than Carlene’s building, or else why would she point it out so fast?

  “My name is Kelsi. I live in the Bronx with my nana, but I had to come here for a little while. I don’t live in this building either,” Kelsi replied, feeling right away like she had to compete with the pretty little girl.

  “I hope you stay a long time. I like you,” Cheyenne told her.

  Kelsi crinkled her face, thinking, She doesn’t even know me. How could she say she likes me? What about me does she like?

  Kelsi still had on her “play clothes,” so they looked too small, and they didn’t match. Her hair needed combing and brushing. Her face was dirty, and to top it all off, she had spilled grape soda down the front of her shirt, trying to drink it so fast. In her own assessment, Kelsi looked dirty as hell, certainly not like someone the dainty, well-dressed, clean, sweet-faced girl would like.

  “I like you too,” Kelsi lied. Secretly, she instantly hated Cheyenne with her clean clothes, her nicely done hair, and her pretty face. Kelsi imagined how clean Cheyenne’s “real house” was.

  “Can you stay outside for a little while?” Cheyenne asked.

  Don’t leave out this house without my permission or if me or Took take you out. You can’t go outside unless I say you can go. Carlene’s words resounded in Kelsi’s ears.

  “I think I might be going back to the Bronx today, so prolly not,” Kelsi answered, lying again.

  “Dag. I wish you could stay outside. I want some new friends. The girls around here be my friend for a little while, but then they start getting jealous and talking about me and stuff, and then we don’t be friends no more. I’m bored out here by myself,” Cheyenne complained.

  Kelsi wanted to tell her to stop complaining, that at least she had nice clothes, nice hair, and a clean “real house.”

  Kelsi looked over at Carlene again, finally exchanging something with the guy she had been talking to. A car horn sounded and caused Kelsi to look away. Cheyenne turned around too.

  “C’mon, baby girl. We going to the rides,” a man called from a big, shiny black jeep-looking car.

  From where Kelsi stood, she could see that the man had a neck full of thick gold chains and a crisp white shirt on. She couldn’t really see his face.

  Cheyenne sucked her teeth and turned back toward Kelsi.

  “I got to go, Kelsi. That’s my father. He don’t like me to stay out here that long, so he always makes up excuses to make me want to leave,” Cheyenne said, sounding disappointed.

  “What’s the rides?” Kelsi asked.

  Cheyenne looked at Kelsi with furrowed eyebrows. “You never seen all those rides just blocks from here? Coney Island... duh. You never went there?” Cheyenne asked like the rides were something or someplace everyone in the entire world knew about.

  “I told you I was from the Bronx!” Kelsi snapped, her jaw immediately rocking back and forth. She wanted to punch her new friend. The fireball in Kelsi’s chest started sizzling again. It just hadn’t gotten as hot as it had for Carlene.

  “Even people from the Bronx come to Coney Island. On Easter, on Memorial Day and stuff like that. People get all dressed fresh and come to the rides. We are lucky to live right by the rides, and we go all the time. Ask that lady you with if you can go. My father won’t care,” Cheyenne told Kelsi.

  Was she crazy? Carlene would flip if Kelsi asked her to go someplace other than wherever she told her to go.

  “That’s okay. I’m just going to stay here. I might be going back to the Bronx later anyway,” Kelsi said, lying with a straight face. That was wishful thinking.

  Cheyenne’s father blew the horn again. She sucked her teeth and started walking off, but she didn’t walk in the direction of her father’s car.

  Kelsi thought Cheyenne was going to get her Hula-Hoop off the fence, but instead, Cheyenne marched right up to Carlene and the guy. Kelsi’s heart began to hammer against her ribs. She crinkled her face in confusion.

  Cheyenne started saying something to Carlene, then pointed to Kelsi and looked back at Carlene.

  Kelsi thought she would faint. Her body got hot all over, and her heart knocked into the skinny bone in the center of her chest even harder. Carlene shot Kelsi a dirty look from where she stood.

  Cheyenne then marched to her father’s car. Her father had blown the horn again. Kelsi looked over to the car. Cheyenne’s father leaned down and looked in the direction Carlene was standing with the guy.

  “Yo, Peaches!” Cheyenne’s father yelled and blew his horn again.

  Kelsi froze in place. What was happening? She couldn’t stop the sweat beads from running a race down her back. Her underarms itched, and so did her scalp.

  Carlene turned toward the jeep-car with a fake smile and waved. “What’s up, Big K?” she answered with a fake song in her tone.

  The man she’d called Big K waved her over. “Let me rap with you for a taste,” he hollered out.

  Carlene rolled her eyes at Kelsi. “I’ll be right back. Stay right there,” she grumbled to Kelsi evilly. She sashayed over to where Big K, who sat parked in his big, beautiful, shiny jeep-car.

  Kelsi watched nervously. Carlene was all smiles and giggles, like she was talking to her schoolgirl crush. She leaned over and spoke through the window to Big K. Cheyenne put her pointer and middle fingers up and crossed them over each other behind her back. Kelsi didn’t know what that meant. Carlene finally looked up from where she’d been leaning down.

  “B—Um, Kelsi! C’mere, baby! Hurry up!” Carlene called out, waving Kelsi over like the matter was urgent. It was the first time Carlene had called Kelsi by her name, which sounded more like an owner calling a pet than a mother calling her only child.

  Kelsi looked at Carlene strangely. She would not move.

  “C’mere and stop acting crazy, girl,” Carlene demanded and laughed nervously.

  Cheyenne smiled and bounced excitedly. Kelsi couldn’t understand none of what was going on. Whatever made Carlene refer to Kelsi as “baby” surely had to be something or someone big. Kelsi finally made it over to the car.

  “Kelsi, this Big K... Took’s boss. His daughter wants you to go with her to the rides. I told Big K I was gonna ask you first. You wanna go?” Carlene said all in one breath. She looked at Kelsi with a knowing, squinty-eyed glance.

  Kelsi darted her eyes to Cheyenne, who was shaking her head up and down, motioning for Kelsi to say yes.

  “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Carlene said like she was telling Kelsi to say no on the low.

  Kelsi felt the chest-fire thingy again. She pictured it growing a little bigger inside of her every time Carlene opened her mouth.

  “It’s going to be fun,” Big K said and flashed a smile.

  That was the first time Kelsi looked at him. His eyes were kind and relaxed. They were dark, but not scary like Carlene’s. His skin was the color of the walnuts Nana loved so much, and it was smooth and hairless. He had two shiny gold teeth in the front of his mouth that gleamed and sparkled when he smiled, and his watch had a huge face with rows of shiny diamonds going round and round in circles all over it.

  “I ain’t got no money to give,” Carlene started with a bit of urgency lacing her words.

  Big K put a halting hand up in Carlene’s face. “Don’t insult me, Peaches. Ain’t nobody asking you for no paper. I said I was taking shorty to the rides. Slow your roll. What I look like asking you for money?” he chastised, putting the emphasis on the difference between him and her.

  Big K looked at Kelsi and softened his chiseled, handsome face. “What’s it going to be, little lady?” he asked in more of a cheery tone than he’d used with Carlene.

  Carlene moved her jaw
furiously.

  “I want to go,” Kelsi said softly, parting a nervous smile, not daring to look at Carlene. Kelsi didn’t know if it was to make Carlene mad as hell, or if it was to be closer to the kind eyes of Big K, but she said it again, louder the second time. “I want to go to the rides.”

  “Yes!” Cheyenne cheered and pumped her fist.

  Big K laughed. “Calm down back there, cheerleader,” he quipped.

  Carlene was sizzling mad; Kelsi knew it. Carlene’s eyes had gone low, and her nostrils moved in and out rapidly. She stepped back from the car like it was a big, black monster about to attack her.

  “And there you have it,” Carlene mumbled while keeping a fake smile on her face. “Well then, I guess it’s fine with me. I ain’t going to go against the hand that feeds me, right?” Carlene said, nodding at Big K and letting out a half phony snicker.

  “Get in, little lady. This little one back here been waiting for you,” Big K instructed Kelsi.

  Cheyenne already had the back door open. Kelsi had to hold on to climb up into the jeep-car. She had never been in one before. She and Nana had always walked or took the bus all over the Bronx when they had to go somewhere.

  Cheyenne hugged Kelsi’s neck like they had been friends for years.

  “I’m so happy you can come with us!” Cheyenne whispered excitedly.

  It was strange to Kelsi, but she went with it. In Kelsi’s mind, if Cheyenne liked her, Cheyenne’s father would like her too. Kelsi had already decided that she loved him.

  “What time y’all coming back?” Carlene asked with attitude.

  “It ain’t gonna be that long. Just enough time for them to ride, play some games, and grab some grub. I got to stop home and get Desi and Lil Kev first. We do things as a family. You feel me?” Big K replied like he’d been trying to send a message to Carlene.

  There were no more words exchanged. Big K pulled off.

  Kelsi watched from the back window as Carlene stared after the jeep-car. Kelsi silently prayed that going to the rides would be worth whatever Carlene was going to do when she got back.

  * * *

  “Ms. Jones,” Detective Simpson called from behind Kelsi, interrupting her thoughts and memories and bringing her mind back to the present. Kelsi had to blink a few times to snap herself out of the little trance she’d fallen in. She chuckled nervously.

  “Detective Simpson?” she replied, getting her mind back to normal. Suddenly, she was completely annoyed that he was there, lurking around like a creep.

  “Y’all go to funerals to try to catch people out there now?” Kelsi replied angrily, trying to hide how unnerved she was by the detective’s presence. No matter how nice he tried to be, Kelsi hated cops and didn’t trust them. Period. She especially hated Detective Simpson because he was always around. He was always asking questions, and inevitably, he would be the one to catch the killer.

  “Is that a trick question?” Detective Simpson replied, smiling at Kelsi sarcastically.

  She knew full well he wasn’t smiling to be nice. Kelsi had seen Detective Simpson go in and out of the building to talk to Cheyenne and Big K several times since the day after the crime. Kelsi had also watched Detective Simpson speak to Cheyenne in the lobby of the funeral home right before the funeral. She was incensed, because in her opinion, Cheyenne was always the goody-goody. The detective didn’t seem to be suspicious of her at all, but every time Kelsi encountered him, he spoke to her like she was public enemy number one.

  Kelsi had been upset by all the research he’d done about her and everything he’d found out about Carlene. He’d revealed to Kelsi that he knew all about Carlene’s drug problem and her stints in and out of jail. Kelsi felt like she had been stripped naked and exposed to the world. It wasn’t the first time she felt raw, exposed, and unprotected like that.

  “No, I’ll leave the trick questions up to you. Is there a reason you’re here talking to me and not out searching for a killer?” Kelsi answered, rolling her eyes. Kelsi felt heat sparking up inside of her. It was always the thing that happened when her back was against the wall. Kelsi’s cheeks burned. She needed to get away. She needed to go.

  “What happened, Kelsi? You didn’t want to go see Ms. Desi laid to rest in her final resting place?” Detective Simpson asked, eyeing Kelsi up and down with suspicion glinting in his eyes.

  “I’ll leave all of that up to her real family. They didn’t look like they needed any company or help,” Kelsi answered. “I’m the outsider. Always have been and always will,” she said flatly.

  Detective Simpson made a grunting noise. “Well, can I ask you a question?”

  Kelsi noticed that he kept eyeing her clothes, but especially her Timberland boots. She felt uncomfortable under his gaze. If eyes could tell the story, his would’ve said he thought she was guilty of something.

  “There is nothing more you need to know from me. I’ve told you everything that I know, literally,” Kelsi replied.

  “Sometimes, with these cases, you think you’ve heard everything until you speak to people a few times. So, let me ask you a question.”

  She stared at him silently, so he continued.

  “Lil Kev. I’ve heard you were the one who might’ve witnessed his dust-up with Scorpio,” Detective Simpson said, getting right to the point.

  Kelsi swallowed hard. The incident was one she’d wanted to put out of her mind and never relive. A cold chill shot down her back. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, remembering that horrible day.

  * * *

  “Nigga, is you loyal to me or your washed-up-ass pappy?”

  Kelsi heard Scorpio bark the question loudly. She was upstairs in Scorpio’s bedroom with pain pulsing between her ears like someone had hit a gong right upside her head.

  “Mmmm,” Kelsi groaned in response to the yelling. She was so hung over she thought she was dreaming.

  “Huh? Answer me, li’l nigga! I ain’t got time for games! I’m hearing in the streets that your washed-up-ass daddy been trying to step on a nigga toes out there, and your soft ass just playing the passive role!” Scorpio yelled some more.

  “Nah, man. You heard wrong.” Lil Kev’s voice quivered.

  Kelsi knew then that she wasn’t dreaming. She jumped up so fast that her pounding head threatened to send her right back down on the bed. Kelsi stopped for a minute to gather herself.

  “Ugh,” she grumbled, feeling like vomit was about to creep up her esophagus. She took a deep breath and powered through the throbbing pain in her head and gut-wrenching nausea in her belly. She grabbed one of Scorpio’s T-shirts to cover her naked body.

  “I think this li’l nigga ain’t got the heart to take care of his pops. This nigga stunting like he want to be the next Big K out here, yet he letting his old-ass pops fuck up the business!” Scorpio said to the crowd of dudes that sat around watching what he was doing. “I think this li’l nigga might deserve to take this L in the name of his father!”

  When Kelsi got to the steps, she had a full view. Scorpio had a gun to Lil Kev’s head, while Lil Kev sat cowering and crying in one of Scorpio’s white leather chairs.

  Kelsi didn’t know what came over her, but her legs started moving on their own. All she had on was a T-shirt and a thong, but she rushed down those steps like a bat out of hell. Kelsi didn’t give two shits about her own safety. All she knew at that moment was that a member of her family was being threatened, and she wasn’t having it.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Kelsi boomed as she plowed straight for Scorpio. Even Scorpio had to look twice like Kelsi had lost her mind.

  “Take that fucking gun out of his face! You know he is like my fucking little brother!” Kelsi growled, her head still thrumming with pain from her hangover.

  Scorpio turned his six-foot-three slender frame toward Kelsi. When he swept his long, dark brown, knotty dreads out of his face, Kelsi saw that his charcoal black face and big, soup-cooler lips had crumpled into a snarl.

  “Who the fuck is you
talking to, bitch?” Scorpio barked.

  When he called Kelsi the name Carlene had been calling her since she was eight years old, Kelsi lost it. She jumped on Scorpio and dug her nails deep into his skin.

  “Leave him alone! He’s a fucking little kid! Leave him alone!” she screamed as she bit down into Scorpio’s shoulder.

  “Ahh! Get this crazy bitch off of me!” Scorpio belted out.

  Suddenly, Kelsi felt her body being hoisted in the air. She felt a few of her ribs crack as she hit a wall.

  “This dumb bitch must have lost her rabbit-ass mind today!” Scorpio lifted his Timberland boot and brought it down on Kelsi’s chest.

  Pain rippled through her body like waves on the ocean at high tide.

  “You trying to disrespect me in front of all my niggas? Huh, bitch?”

  Another kick from his boot landed square between Kelsi’s legs. She felt vomit come up out of her mouth like a volcano.

  “You staying up in they camp, too. I’m feeding your fiend, nasty ass. You probably fucking this nigga right here!” Scorpio barked. This time, he grabbed a handful of Kelsi’s hair.

  Even with her body wracked with pain, Kelsi wasn’t going out like a punk bitch. She spit and kicked. A fire raged inside of her chest bigger than those uncontrollable wildfires that happen in California.

  “Get the fuck off me,” Kelsi gasped, slob and vomit spewing from her lips. She swiped at Scorpio again, this time taking five fingernails full of skin off his neck.

  “Ahhh! This bitch cut me!”

  Kelsi heard him wail. She saw the blood on his neck right before he used his gun to hit her across her face. Kelsi’s lights went out. Blackness was all she remembered after that.

  She woke up the next day in Cheyenne’s room in the worst pain she’d felt in a long while. Kelsi’s head felt like somebody had been sitting on top of it, hitting it with a hammer. Her body felt like a two-thousand-pound person had sat on her.

  When her eyes fluttered open, she immediately snapped them shut. It hurt so badly. Kelsi’s right eye wouldn’t even open all the way, but she felt tears draining out of the side of it. Kelsi tried to take a deep breath, and even that hurt like hell.