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Yeah, about what? she wondered.
“It’s getting late. I’m going to bed,” he said.
“You need any help?”
“Nah, I’m okay. I can handle it.”
The Kid wheeled himself into the bedroom on the first floor. He closed the door behind him. Eshon was left with questions on her mind, but she retreated to her own bedroom to get some much-needed rest.
23
The Manhattanville projects looked like a dystopian society. So many were homeless because of the bombing—their normal lives were suddenly ripped away from them. Many others were being arrested for disorderly conduct. Folks were sick and tired of being mistreated and lied to. They felt dehumanized. They were the victims of a terrorist attack; however, the police were treating them like they were terrorists themselves. There was heated tension between the police and the people, and scuffles broke out on the streets multiple times a day.
It was a circus in their community. The news media, the FBI and city police had overrun their community. The media were exploiting their misfortune. The residents didn’t have access to any information on the who and why. They were kept in the dark. There were a few who were allowed back into their homes, but there were plenty of other residents who were left in limbo. The unfair treatment in their community was spiraling out of control, and many voiced their upset and anger via social media and the news. Where was the Red Cross? Where was FEMA?
“If this had happened in a white neighborhood, it wouldn’t be like this. White people always get help in a heartbeat. But the black community, we gotta wait and be patient, and hear the same lies day after day, ‘Help is on the way.’ Bullshit!” an angry black citizen voiced into the news camera.
“Damn right I’m mad,” another resident spoke out. “We get attacked and we don’t know why. But cops are out here trying to lock us up because we don’t know what to do or where to go, and my friends are dead . . . and we want answers, and we want our homes and our lives back. But we’re getting treated like criminals. I lived here all my life and never seen anything like this.”
“Fuck them terrorist muthafuckas! Yo, fuckin’ towelheads come see me, fo’ real. I’m right here in Harlem all day wit’ my fuckin’ Glock and my nine, and I’m ready for these niggas. I hate them muthafuckas!” a young thug told the journalists. Of course, most of his segment was censored.
The tears and anguish were overwhelming. There were a lot of lost and broken souls between Old Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. It was panic, trepidation, anger, and vengeance all rolled up into one cigar, and the smoke was spreading.
Stopping short of the swarming media and police cars that flooded the block was a black Charger. All four doors to the car opened and out stepped several FBI agents and Officer Spielberg. He had been temporarily assigned to work with the feds to assist with their investigation.
Officer Spielberg looked around at dystopia, and once again he was saddened by what he saw. The damage to the area was extensive, not just physically, but mentally. He knew that most of these people would never be the same again.
They were there to talk to anyone that knew Jessica. She had completely gone off the grid, and it was critical that they find her. Where was she? How could a young ghetto girl elude law enforcement for this long? The feds strongly felt that she’d had help, maybe from foreign terrorists. Their biggest fear was that she’d fled the country somehow.
They needed any kind of information they could piece together on her. Who was she? Was she a loner—an introverted person? Or was she an extrovert? Had her behavior changed suddenly?
Spielberg and the agents canvassed the area with questions, but no one was talking. There was so much disdain for anyone wearing a badge, and they particularly despised the FBI. But the agents and Spielberg were relentless. They showed Jessica’s picture to everyone in the area. They knew who she was; it was obvious by their demeanor—and then came some unfortunate news. There was one woman willing to talk to them. She was a grandmother in her fifties, and she was now homeless because of the explosion.
“Yes, I know who she is. Jessica Hernandez,” she said.
“Where can we find her or her family?” Spielberg asked.
“Her family’s dead. They were all killed in the bombing,” the woman told them.
The woman had nothing else to say. The men continued with their investigation, and although people were hostile toward law enforcement, there were some folks that wanted to help. They simply wanted justice. The agents soon learned about Eshon and Brandy.
“Who were they to Jessica?”
“They were all good friends. They used to hang out together,” a man said to them.
Now they were getting somewhere. If they couldn’t find Jessica, then they would search for Eshon or Brandy. Knowing all three had been good friends once, the feds strongly felt that these two girls were their only and strongest lead to finding Jessica. And when they found Jessica, she would lead them to the culprits behind both bombings.
It didn’t take long to find an address for Eshon. Fortunately for the agents, her apartment was inside one of the buildings that were cleared for residents to return to. But their luck was short-lived. They knocked on her door and quickly found out via a neighbor lady that Eshon had moved away. Her mother had recently moved to Brooklyn with a boyfriend to be closer to where she worked. She wasn’t sure about Eshon’s dad. It was all she knew. The neighbor had no idea where Eshon had moved to—they didn’t converse regularly, but the apartment had been vacant for a while. Still, they went inside to look around and didn’t find much. The furnishing was sparse, and there were no pictures of Eshon anywhere. It was a skeleton of a place with not much to go on.
Lead two was Brandy. They had her address and made their way there to question her.
***
Brandy sat slouched on the couch and took a much-needed pull from the burning blunt. With chaos surrounding her, she needed a break from it, and smoking weed was her remedy. Next, she needed some good dick. Being back in the old neighborhood felt familiar to her, though it was chaotic with police, violence, prying journalists, and federal agents.
She was supposed to be dead. Kid advised her not to return, but it was hard not to. She missed it. She wanted to run away, but to where? Home was home, and her apartment was the same as she’d left it. She planned on keeping a low profile anyway, not showing her face much, chilling and smoking, and she had protection with her—a .45 ACP. It was loaded and readied for anything.
Brandy missed the old times with her friends. Now they were gone, and it all happened so quickly, it felt like her head was spinning. But she couldn’t dwell on the nightmares that were happening. It was time to put her life back in order—and how was she going to do that? She had no idea yet. But it started with not running away anymore.
