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10
Za’Kai “Bully” Kemp
“Nigga, I don’t know why your ass just don’t move back over here. You always around this bitch,” my nigga, Marco, said to me.
It was damn near four in the morning, and I should have been in the damn bed somewhere, but I saw a dice game going on, so I figured that I could take these little nigga’s money before I headed home. My kids could use some more kicks for school. I’d only been out there with them for about ten minutes, and I had managed to already have a pocket filled with twenties and fifties.
Every Saturday, my grandma had a little shindig at her apartment. She would sit up with her little friends from around the way, and they would do nothing more than play cards, talk shit, drink, and eat. I never really came for the party because those old bitches that my grandma hung out with were some damn freaks and would let me know the types of freaky things that they would do to me each and every time they saw me. I don’t care how hard life gets, I’ll jack my dick to some porn before I fuck one of my grandma’s friends.
Whenever I came to the party, I would come just for the food. My grandma knew she could throw down, and as much as I didn’t want to be around those old freaks, I wasn’t about to pass up some good soul food. The party had just ended about an hour ago, but I’d stayed back after everyone left, kicking it with my grandma for a little bit and helping her clean up, and now I was out here.
“Hell nah. I love this shit, but I don’t want this for my kids. At any minute, mothafuckas could drive by and start shooting just for the fuck of it. Where I’m living at now, it’s boring as fuck out that way, but at the end of the day, my kids are safe,” I let him know, and he nodded his head to that
.
Marco was my nigga, someone who I’ve known since the sandbox days. Although we were two different people with two different plans in life, that was still my main man. He lived in one of these apartments with his baby mama and their three children. Every time I saw his ass, I tried to preach to the nigga about opening his eyes so he could realize that it was shit other than these yellow apartments, but it was like the nigga didn’t have any vision. Out here shooting dice and selling little dime bags of weed is what he did for a living. He had a criminal record that was just as dirty as mine, so I get that it was hard for him to find people willing to hire him, but the nigga was talented just like I was.
While cutting hair was my talent, Marco could draw the fuck out of anything. He claimed that it was gay for a nigga like him to be drawing, even when I explained to him that he could take his ass down to Brickell and try to sell his work. He could be making the amount of money in a day that he stands out here from sun up to sun down to make in a year.
I wasn’t the nigga’s daddy or no shit like that, so I only let my preaching go so far. Besides, all I could do was lead the horse to the water, I couldn’t make him drink it. If this was what he wanted to continue doing with his life, then so be it. Plus, I could tell that the nigga would get a little agitated at times when I was trying to preach positivity into his life. Knowing him, he probably thought that I was trying to tell him what to do, so for now, I was going to save my preaching for my kids.
“I feel you on that, bruh,” he said, but I knew he didn’t.
If he felt me, then he would have been taking his art more serious so he could get his kids out this bitch. Although my kids loved coming around this part of town because to them, it was the best playground. It had a candy lady who sold all of their favorites, their grandmother stayed there, and over the years, they’d made friends over here, so of course, they liked it. They were too damn young to know that this area wasn’t it. This wasn’t where they should aspire to lay their heads at night. Hell, I even wanted my grandma to move from this side of town, but her ass loved it. She let me know every day that she was going to die in that damn apartment.
Another ten minutes had gone by, and I’d managed to take as much of these niggas’ money as I possibly could, so I finally bowed out. Just as I finished bending down to collect all my bills and place them in my pocket, I happened to look up into the parking lot, and I saw a familiar face. The thing is, the few lights that these apartments did have weren’t even that bright, so it was a wonder that I could see her little ass from so far. Maybe it was that bright ass pink cast that I saw.
My eyebrows quickly went up in confusion when I saw her because she didn’t spark me as the type of woman who would be out this late, especially not in this hood. Plus, she was moving all fast like she was in a hurry or some shit. Her fast movements brought me back to the reason why she had that cast on her arm in the first place, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was speeding while trying to get there.
Shaking my head, I couldn’t help but wonder why the fuck I cared so much. I didn’t even know shorty’s last name, yet I was sweating her like this.
“Takari!” I yelled her name out just to make sure it was her.
When she turned her head to look at me, I knew it was her. She gave me one of those dry hi’s that the phony church members give in church, and then she proceeded to walk toward the stairs that led to her mother’s apartment. I could feel it in my bones that something was up with her, so I dapped up Marco and let him know that I would catch up to him some other time, and then I jogged in Takari’s direction because she was walking so damn fast that she was halfway up the stairs already.
“Damn! Slow the fuck down. Why you walking so damn fast?” I asked, taking the stairs two at a time.
Eventually, I caught up to her. I blocked her path, placing both of my arms on either side of the stair railing, preventing her from walking any further. The first thing I noticed when I looked down at her was the little ass clothes that she was wearing along with a foul stench. Now, I wasn’t the nigga to judge, but I didn’t know if that odor was coming from her or someone’s stank ass apartment.
One of the flickering lights outside was right above us, so eventually, I was able to pay her hair more attention. My kids liked to watch these little slime videos on Nickelodeon. After someone would get all that slime dumped on their body, their hair would be all matted together, and that’s exactly what Takari resembled right now.
Suspicion got the best of me, so I reached down and touched her hair. Then my dumb ass smelled my hand, and that stench that I was talking about was sure enough coming from her. Still looking down at her, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that she had started softly crying. Her left hand clutched the strap of the bag that she had around her body, and the first thing I noticed was the fact that her ring was no longer on her finger. I wasn’t the smartest nigga in the world, but I started putting two and two together. I started thinking about how late in the night it was, mixed with her appearance, her emotions, and the emptiness of her ring finger. Those were all clues that something had gone down with her and her nigga.
“That nigga put his hands on you?” I asked, and she quickly shook her head no.
I honestly didn’t know if I believed her or not. I needed to spend more time with her to pick up on her ways and be able to see when she was lying to me. For whatever reason, I didn’t want to let her out of my space. Instead of moving out of the way and letting her go to her mother’s spot, I grabbed her hand and led her in the direction of my grandma’s apartment.
She questioned me the entire walk, inquiring on where I was taking her, but she never let my hand go. She never screamed as if her life was in danger, nor could I feel a shakiness in her hands mixed with her hands sweating. That right there proved that she trusted me for whatever reason. We were finally standing in front of my grandma’s door, and I used my spare key to let us in.
My grandma had drank herself into a coma tonight, so I knew her ass wouldn’t wake up anytime soon. The apartment was pitch black, but luckily, I knew my way around this place, so I didn’t have to worry about bumping into anything as I led Takari to the back room. You could say that this room was my room away from home. Majority of my shit was in there, and if ever I was in the hood late at night and didn’t feel like making that drive back to my spot, I would just crash there.
I walked the two of us inside the room, flicked the light on on the wall, and then I closed the door behind me.
“Why did you bring me here? I need to take a shower. I’m embarrassed to be out here looking like this. I don’t want to show you my flaws, Za’Kai. Just walk me back upstairs,” she said, standing in the middle of the bedroom and using her good hand to wipe away the tears that were still falling from her eyes.
“What damn flaws, Takari? A nigga not worried about your appearance right now. Yeah, your hair smells a little funky, but I just came from gambling with niggas who smelled like they haven’t taken a damn shower in years, so I’m not worried about that little odor that you got coming from your hair. I’m not trying to fuck on you, fuck with your head, take advantage of you, none of that shit. I get vibes from you that you just be needing someone to talk to, so that’s why I brought you up here. Hell, we could go outside and talk so I can really show you that I didn’t bring you up here to fuck. I just figured that with your situation right now, you wouldn’t want to be around a whole bunch of people,” I said, and she nodded.
Months ago, when I met her for the first time at the movies, who would have ever thought that I would have her mean ass in my room? On top of that, I had her in my room, and she was vulnerable as hell. She didn’t have big balls right now, and a whole bunch of shit talking wasn’t coming from her mouth. Crazy thing is, I preferred that Takari over this one. The one who was standing in front of me right now had me feeling bad for her, and I didn’t even know what the hell was going on.
