“Stop here!” I told the driver in the middle of the street.
I hopped out with our bags, lookin’ crazy at my store. Just from outside, I could see everything down inside. Keith walked away from the police and over to me.
“Nigga, I don’t know what this shit is about, nothing is missing.”
I nodded.
“Put our shit in your car,” I said as I gave him everything, and walked straight past the police who were trying to get my attention and walked through the broken glass door, looking at my store.
Glass crunched under my shoes as I walked through. Cases were flipped, chains, rings, diamonds, everything, all over the place. My eyes scanned the whole room in silence, my door kicked in, shit thrown.
This break-in wasn’t some YNs in the street; it was personal.
Keith and the police walked in behind me as I looked around.
“Nothing was missing?” I asked.
“No,” Keith spoke up. “Nothing is missing from what I can see.”
I nodded, walking around some more quietly, every step around what I work so hard to build felt like the old side of my trying to creep up, the part of me I’ve been keeping tucked away—the part that didn’t care about no business, no image, straight Zone 6 nigga.
It just needed a reason, and between my store and her, this felt like the reason.
I ran my hand across one of the broken cases, lettin’ the glass scrape against my palm, Islah texting my phone, but I couldn’t respond.
“Do you have cameras, sir?” one of the officers asked me.
“Yeah, in my office.”
They followed behind me, trying to watch where they stepped. In my office, my shit was thrown, the computer screen was cracked, loose diamond, papers, and everything. I shook my head, picked up my chair, and took a seat.
“I can pull it up on my phone.”
As I pulled up the app on my phone, ran the camera back from the night before, I stared at it, watching the break-in happen. I watched it all the way to the end, then placed my phone on my desk and looked up at the officers and Keith.
“Look, officer, nothing is missing; insurance can handle the rest.”
Keith and the officer looked at me strange.
“Are you sure, sir? If you let us see it, we can try to locate who did this.”
I stood up, shaking my head. “No, it’s fine; that’s what insurance is for.”
The officer nodded and let it go; I could tell that he really didn’t want to.
Once they were gone, and the yellow tape was removed from around my store, I called Islah.
“Baby, change of plans, ask Kenya to bring you to the store,” I said before she could say hello, and hung up before she could question me.
“Yo!” Keith asked me. “Everything good?”
I nodded. “It will be; let’s get this shit up.”
We started cleaning, picking up the glass, loose diamonds, gold rings, and everything else that was fucked up. I was calm, maybe too calm, and for me, calm is dangerous.
It took twenty minutes for Islah to get to the store. Once I saw Kenya’s car, I walked out to meet her.
“Baby,” she said as she got out of the car. “What the fuck happened?”
