by Imani Black
Cheyenne and Kelsi were definitely best friends by then. They never wanted to be separated. They shared everything. Cheyenne didn’t judge Kelsi based on Carlene, and Kelsi stopped feeling jealous of Cheyenne’s life and settled for being happy to be a part of it.
During the school year, Cheyenne and Kelsi got to see each other every day, even though Cheyenne went to private school and Kelsi went to public school. Kelsi spent a lot of time with the Turners on the weekends because Carlene and Took were too scared of Big K to protest.
The living conditions at Carlene’s only changed for a few weeks after Big K threatened Carlene, but Kelsi did what she could around the house to make herself feel better about living there. Big K also bought Kelsi a daybed with a clean, comfortable mattress and a pretty Barbie comforter set with matching pillows. Kelsi grew to love him more and more each day. She would secretly write him love letters, but then she’d use Carlene’s lighters to burn the letters before anyone read them.
It was June of 1996 when everything in everyone’s lives went haywire. It was the first day of summer break from school. An unusual heat wave swept through Brooklyn. The weatherman said the heat index made it feel like 102 degrees outside. He warned old people and children to stay indoors. It was so hot the old oscillating fan Carlene had in the living room did nothing but blow hot air. Kelsi wasn’t allowed in Carlene’s room where the air conditioner was.
The heat kept Kelsi from sleeping. She got up for the fifth time that night to stick her head in the cool breeze of the freezer door. It was the only little bit of relief she could get.
As Kelsi dragged her feet and sweaty body back to her bed, she was startled by something moving in the dark. Kelsi jumped so hard a little bit of pee came out into her panties.
Took was sitting on the end of her bed. His pale, naked chest seemed to glow almost neon in the little bit of light that was coming in the window from the streetlight outside. Kelsi let out a long sigh.
“What are you doing on my bed?” she grumbled sassily. She hated Took, and he hated her. They’d never had a good word to say to one another over the year Kelsi had been there. He always let Kelsi know that she was a mouth to feed and a burden on him since Carlene didn’t do shit around the house.
Kelsi used to pray every day for Took to leave the house. Most days he did, unless he was in the kitchen cooking something that required baking soda, Boric acid, and sometimes he’d spray something real stink on his concoctions.
“Get off my bed. I’m sleepy, and I want to lay back down,” Kelsi snapped.
Took patted the bed next to where he sat with his nasty white hand.
Kelsi squinted her eyes in the darkness. He can’t be talking to me! she screamed in her head.
“Come over here and don’t make no noise,” he whispered, sounding like a snake hissing.
His command sounded like a foreign language to Kelsi. She folded her face into a frown and folded her arms indignantly. Was he out of his mind?
“What? You stupid? You better get off my bed right now! I’m not coming on the bed until you get out!” Kelsi said, raising her voice.
Took jumped to his feet. Kelsi jumped too, because his sudden motion scared the shit out of her. Before Kelsi could move, run, put her hands up in defense, or anything, Took barreled into her like a bulldozer. Kelsi fell backward. Her ass hit the tiled floor so hard her butt cheeks ached.
“I said to come here, bitch,” he growled almost inaudibly. He grabbed Kelsi roughly by her arm, and that was when she saw that he had a gun in his other hand.
A lot of pee escaped her bladder, enough to wet her panties all the way through. Kelsi’s chest moved up and down like she’d just run a relay race. She couldn’t catch her breath as she remembered that gun from the day Took had hit Nana with it.
“Whatchu doing?” Kelsi huffed, trying in vain to loosen his painful grip on her arm.
Took threw her on the bed roughly. He’d gotten naked except for a pair of boxers. He got so close to Kelsi that she could see that the nappy, coiled hairs on his chest were the same ugly shade of brassy blond as the hair on his head. His nipples were pink, and they stuck straight out like devil’s eyes.
“Shut the fuck up,” Took whispered harshly in her face. His mouth reeked of whatever he had been drinking. His entire body stank like liquor, sweat, and the stuff inside of firecrackers.
“Ahh!” Kelsi started to scream, but it was short lived. She felt a sharp pain across her face that sent the scream tumbling right back down her throat. Her eyes shut involuntarily, and little streaks of silver lights swirled around on the inside of her eyelids.
Took slapped Kelsi again, this time on the other side of her face. Something popped at the back of Kelsi’s neck, and a sharp, stabbing pain shot down her spine. Her arms and legs felt weak, and her chest ignited with fire.
I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna kill you! a voice inside Kelsi’s head screamed over and over. No words came to her mouth. She felt buried alive because her brain was saying run, fight, scream, but her body would not listen.
Suddenly, Kelsi couldn’t breathe. The smell of Took’s sweaty hand filled her nostrils as he clamped it down roughly over her nose and mouth. Kelsi finally tried to kick her legs, but his weight was too much. She was pinned down. Pain swirled through her head so badly that she could barely open her eyes.
“If you fight, it’s gon’ hurt. Relax and it won’t hurt much.”
Kelsi heard Took’s muffled words hot against her ear. He used one of his muscular legs to force hers apart, and then he fumbled under her. Kelsi suddenly felt his rough hand moving over her private parts. She squeezed her eyes shut. Nana had told her to never let anyone touch her there.
Kelsi couldn’t fight Took. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She heard Took spit, and then she felt his wet hand moving over her body down there. She tried to moan in preparation for a scream.
“I got this gun right next to your head. If you make noise, I’ma use it,” Took panted into her ear.
Kelsi felt dribble coming out of the sides of her mouth under his smothering hand. There was more movement. Next, she felt something slimy up against her left thigh.
Took grunted hard and started shaking like his nerves were bad. Kelsi could tell the slimy thing had moved to his hand. He let out a sigh. After that, he pushed against her. His chest hairs stabbed Kelsi in the face, like how the Brillo stabbed her hands when she washed dirty pots.
Took let out a long sigh. Then, more animal grunts.
The sudden pain that filled Kelsi’s torso, abdomen, butt, and legs was almost indescribable. It felt like someone had stuck a thick, fire-lit tree branch up her ass and twisted it over and over. The grunts that came from Took were like a horse after it had run a race or a bull seeing red before it attacked.
Kelsi knew then that what was happening would change her life forever. She also knew that she would never allow it to happen again. She wished for Took to die. The last thing Kelsi remembered was praying for God to strike him down.
Kelsi passed out from the pain. The next thing she remembered was waking up to Carlene’s usual rant.
“Listen, bitch, if you think you going to sleep and play with Cheyenne all day this summer, that shit ain’t fucking happening. Get your lazy ass up and clean that kitchen and make something to eat,” Carlene was ranting.
It hurt for Kelsi to even open her eyes. Her stomach felt like someone had cut her open and gutted her from the inside out. The heat was so thick in the room that her body fluids had her sheets completely soaked.
When Kelsi finally opened her eyes, Carlene’s naked ass came into focus. Kelsi was used to that by then.
Carlene had no motherly boundaries at all. Sometimes, she didn’t even close her door, and Kelsi could hear her moan and groaning with Took. Cheyenne had told Kelsi that those noises were from sex. She’d learned that from a fast girl on her block named Nasty Neecy.
“What the fuck happened to you? You sick or something?” Carl
ene rasped.
Kelsi saw the terror etched on Carlene’s face.
“Where is you bleeding from?” Carlene screeched. She yanked the sheet all the way off the bed.
There was blood on Kelsi’s nightgown. She couldn’t unfold her legs. She couldn’t blink. She couldn’t swallow. She couldn’t lift her head. Everything Kelsi attempted to do sent butcher-knife stabs of pain through her entire body.
“Get up and go to the bathroom!” Carlene screamed, grabbing Kelsi’s arm roughly. She dragged Kelsi off the bed until her feet hit the floor. Kelsi’s knees buckled, and she went down. She hit her chin on the cold tile floor. More pain swirled at the backs of her eyes.
“I know what you did now! I can see it and smell it on you! You fucked around with my fucking man, didn’t you? Oh, bitch! I told you I wasn’t tolerating that shit! Get the fuck in the bathroom and clean yourself up! Now!” Carlene boomed.
Tears spilled out of Kelsi’s eyes. Carlene’s accusatory words hurt worse than Took forcing his dick into her virginal opening. With each step toward the bathroom, a fire raged under Kelsi’s navel.
“Wash every bit of him off of you! I knew you was going to do this shit! I knew it! I guess your nana ain’t teach you no different than she taught me!” Carlene screamed some more. Her voice cracked like she was about to cry.
Kelsi finally made it into the bathroom, and with what little strength she had left, she slammed the door. She plopped down on the toilet, but that made the fire between her legs rage even worse.
Kelsi turned on the water in the tub. When she sat down in the warm water, she knew she might pass out again from the pain. Kelsi used all her might to fight through it.
“Aggggghhhhh!” she screamed over and over again. That fireball of anger in her chest had grown so big it exploded out of her mouth. She had finally reached her breaking point.
* * *
Cheyenne figured out right away something was wrong after she knocked on Kelsi’s door and Kelsi said she didn’t want to go outside to play with her. Kelsi had never and would have never turned down an opportunity to see her best friend in the whole, wide world. Cheyenne and Kelsi had been waiting the entire school year for summertime so that they could spend every hour of every day together until they had to go to bed at night.
“I don’t want to go outside. I don’t want to go to your house either. Just leave me alone,” Kelsi snapped at Cheyenne.
Cheyenne walked away that day, shoulders slumped, on the brink of tears. Kelsi had been so mean to her.
Kelsi felt horrible, but she couldn’t take a chance with Cheyenne finding out. Carlene had threatened Kelsi in every which way that if she ever told anyone what Took had done to her, she would be dead. Carlene said she would take Kelsi away from Carey Gardens for good, and she would never see the Turners again. The thought of not seeing Cheyenne, Big K, Ms. Desiree, and Lil Kev made Kelsi change her mind about going to the police on Took.
Kelsi knew that a grown man fucking a nine-year-old was against the law. For two days after what Took had done to her, Kelsi didn’t eat. She didn’t drink. She didn’t sleep. She didn’t talk. She didn’t cry. She didn’t feel. She just felt numb. Kelsi hardly moved from her bed. Whenever she peed, it hurt so badly that Kelsi would hold it until she couldn’t take it any longer.
Carlene would come into the front room where Kelsi slept and look at Kelsi like she was the lowest scum of the earth. Carlene would curse, mumble, and then crawl her ass back into her room. She didn’t go outside either. Kelsi swore that Carlene had aged ten years in those two days. Her face started looking sunken in, and the skin on her neck looked loose like a turkey’s neck. Her body didn’t look as filled out as it had. In fact, Carlene’s former reindeer ass was barely like a squirrel ass. Her beautifully painted nails became chipped, broken, and brittle looking. Even Carlene’s hair didn’t look thick and shiny like it had been.
Kelsi hadn’t noticed Carlene losing all of her weight over the year that Kelsi had been there, because she was too busy spending time with the Turners. But during those two days, Kelsi stayed in the house and saw Carlene so much that she noticed a drastic change. Carlene had gotten boney, drawn up, and looked older than Ms. Lula now.
Took came and went like he usually did. Whenever Kelsi heard him put his keys into the door to come in, she would snap her eyes shut and pretend to be asleep. He didn’t speak to Kelsi. He didn’t use the kitchen to cook his stuff either. When Kelsi’s eyes were closed, she’d envision sixty different ways she could torture Took while he was awake.
On the fifth day of Kelsi’s isolation, Carlene finally left the house. With not so much as a word to Kelsi, Carlene click-clacked her heels down the hallway and out of the apartment.
Kelsi knew Carlene had gotten all dressed up in her saggy dress with no place to go. Carlene hadn’t even asked Kelsi if she was hungry or needed anything before she slammed out of the apartment. Kelsi had gotten used to Carlene’s neglect.
An hour after Carlene had left, the door rattled from someone knocking on it.
“Kelsi, I know you in there!” Cheyenne screamed from the other side of the door. She wasn’t taking no for an answer. She had come to the door with her father.
When Kelsi pulled back the door, her heart felt like it jumped up into her throat.
“Aye, little lady, what’s going on with you?” Big K asked, his infectious smile gleaming as usual. Cheyenne stood behind her father with her arms folded, dressed nicely, looking color coordinated, clean, neat, and beautiful as ever. “Why you been giving my princess the cold shoulder and not coming outside or to the house? Did she do something to you?”
“I’m sick,” Kelsi lied, dropping her eyes to the floor. She hated lying to Big K. She was not prepared to tell anyone the truth about what had happened to her. How would she have even formulated the words at the time? What would she have said to Big K? It wasn’t like she could tell him what Took had done to her and that she was now bleeding and could hardly walk.
“Oh, yeah? What kind of sick? Let me take you to the doctor if you’re sick,” Big K said as he looked beyond Kelsi and into the apartment.
Kelsi knew he must’ve been wondering where Peaches was. Kelsi wasn’t exactly of age to be home alone.
“No. Um... I don’t need no doctor. I have medicine and stuff here,” Kelsi lied again, a little more frantically.
There was no way Kelsi could let Big K take her to a doctor. She knew by the way she had to pee and make number two that there was something definitely wrong down there, and a doctor would tell right away. She figured the doctor would ask her what happened, and she would have to tell on Took. Kelsi believed if she did that, Carlene would take her away from Cheyenne and Big K forever.
“Let me come inside and see what kind of medicine you got,” Big K said. It wasn’t a question or a real hard demand, but Kelsi knew he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, especially from her.
Kelsi stepped aside, and Big K and Cheyenne stepped inside. He looked around curiously. His usually kind eyes grew serious, dark, and scanning. Kelsi could tell Big K knew something was not right.
“Listen, little lady, why don’t you throw on some clothes? I’ll take you to the house, and you can get dressed over there. We’re going to your favorite place today,” Big K said in the most comforting voice he could muster while trying to hide his obvious anger.
Kelsi was young, but she was old enough in her mind to know that Big K was fighting against his true feelings, because she noticed that his fists were balled so tight the tops of his hands had turned white, and he bit down hard on his bottom lip.
There was no sense in saying no to Big K’s request. Kelsi knew by the way Big K started pacing up and down that he was not going to leave her there. Kelsi looked at the tears rimming Cheyenne’s eyes as she limped around, trying to get dressed. Even Cheyenne could tell that Kelsi would never be the same.
Chapter 15
Brice
Brice made it to the cemetery just
in time to see the Turner family and friends exit the long line of cars filled with people there to see Desiree Turner laid in her final resting place. He was particularly interested in Lil Kev and his crew, who’d boldly come to the services in their gang colors. Some of the biggest drug dealers in Scorpio’s crew were in attendance. Through his research of the crew, Brice recognized at least six.
Brice watched from a distance as Desiree Turner was given last prayers and the sendoffs that she deserved. He had been determined to attend the funeral, although his bosses told him it might come across as an invasion of the family’s privacy. He refused to miss the funeral. Whoever had killed Desiree Turner might show up, and he wanted to be there in case something might give him a clue about who would want to kill her.
He still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that Desiree’s murder was unrelated to Lil Kev and his street beef. Brice had been trying to play Lil Kev close in the days leading up to the funeral, only leaving his surveillance of the boy for short periods at a time so he could conduct his business.
Brice stood back between two huge, ancient-looking slate gray mausoleums and watched the crowd standing around the casket. He watched from his hiding spot as the dudes with Lil Kev kept their heads on a swivel. They looked like they were up to no good. He got a stabbing feeling in his gut. It was never wrong, either.
Suddenly, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. “Shit,” he huffed, taking it out. He got ready to shut it off but saw his lieutenant’s phone number flashing on the screen. Brice crinkled his brow, and again, his gut felt like someone had stabbed him in it, so he answered.
“Simpson, it’s me. I know you went to that funeral, but I need you to leave right now. We just got a threat here. Someone called it in,” the lieutenant said, rushing his words out.