You're the One I Want (15 page)

Suddenly, Mr. Rick rose up and grabbed the barrel of the gun. He and Britt struggled. My heart felt like it was pounding in my stomach. She fought like she wasn't about to give up the gun. They knocked over lamps and vases in the struggle. I jumped on Rick's
back, digging my nails into his face, scratching at his flesh like a wild animal. The three of us fought until I heard a loud bang that had my ears ringing. Still holding onto Mr. Rick, I collapsed with him onto the floor, landing on my stomach. As I slid from under him, he was still alive, holding his hands at his gut where blood started to stain his white tank top. Rick was going on like he was struggling for breath. The blood kept coming, growing into a bigger and bigger blob like some kind of plague spreading.

“We need to do somethin',” I said.

Britt stood there frozen, with a crazy look in her eyes, holding the smoking gun down to her side.

“Britt, did you hear what I said? We need to call nine-one-one. He's dyin'!”

Britt didn't say nothin'. After a few minutes, Mr. Rick had stopped struggling for breath. He had gone still and quiet. He was dead.

“We need to clean up.”

I turned to her in a state of panic. “What?”

Britt started rummaging through Rick's pockets.

“What the fuck are you doing? We need to bolt.”

“We need to make this shit look like somebody robbed him.” She grabbed his brown leather wallet, took out one hundred dollars in twenties, and handed me the money.

“I don't want that shit. That's a dead man's money.”

Britt stuffed the cash in one of the front pockets of her baggy jeans. “You still superstitious like that.” She took the gun and shoved it back into one of her jacket pockets. Britt went to the kitchen and grabbed a wet dishcloth out of the sink and started wiping down the door.

“What are you doin' that for?”

“Damn, girl, don't you ever watch those detective shows? The killer always wipes off everything he's touched so he won't leave any
prints for the cops. Did you touch anything other than the door?”

“We need to get the hell outta here. Somebody probably heard the gun go off.”

“Did you touch anything else?”

“No, I don't think so, no.”

Britt started feeling around on her jacket and jeans.

“What are you doing?”

“We need to make sure a button or whatever didn't come off in the struggle. I've watched enough
CSI
episodes to know that's how they get you.”

I checked myself to make sure nothing came off of me when I fell. I kept looking at Rick lying there dead, blood staining the beige living room carpet.

“Forget him,” Britt said. “Ain't nobody gon' miss that pervert. Who knows how many girls he's raped? Hundreds, fuckin' thousands probably. The way I see it, we did all them, and all the girls he hadn't messed with yet, a favor by sending that demon straight to hell.”

“Come on, girl, hurry up.”

Britt carefully started turning over tables and chairs to make it look like it was a break-in.

“That's enough. Come on, let's go.” I hauled ass toward the door when Britt stopped me.

“Hold up.”

“What?”

Britt eased the door open, peeked her head out to make sure everything was cool. “Okay, come on.”

On the way home, Britt threw the gun in a ditch. I kept thinking about Mr. Rick and all the blood. Dead was the last time I saw him.

When we got back home, Britt was cool as a cucumber. She took a cig from her pack of 305s, and lit the end of it, taking a couple of long drags. I, on the other hand, was climbing the walls.

“Britt, are you serious right now?”

“What?” She pushed smoke from one side of her mouth.

“Fuck do you mean, ‘what'? You just shot that man.”

“You were there, Katiesha. You saw the gun go off. That shit was an accident. And what the hell is up with you anyway? I thought you would be glad his ass is dead.”

“What if the cops come sniffin' around, askin' questions?”

Britt took another drag from her cig. “Just say we don't know nothin'. Cops come around here. They know they ain't gon' get shit.”

“What if someone saw us?”

“Nobody did. We were careful.”

I felt like I was going to throw up. I knew then that if I didn't put some distance between myself and Britt, I would end my ass up in one place: prison. “I need to get the fuck outta here.”

“Where you goin'?”

“Fuck if I know as long as it's away from here.”

“You mean you need to—”

I looked at Britt to hear what she had to say. “What?” I looked to see that I was bleeding. “Oh, my God.” I ran to the bathroom and pulled my jeans down. My panties were soaked with blood. I knew enough to know what was up.

The next thing I knew, I was in bed. Britt and some old lady were hovered over me. I jerked up.

“Lay down, cuz. You need to rest.”

This lady, who I had never laid eyes on in my life, was tall and thin with a short, salt-and-pepper Afro and wire-frame glasses on her face. “Make sure she takes these. Two every eight hours for the pain.” The woman packed up whatever she had used to butcher me. “You're going to be okay. Just make sure you get plenty of bed rest.”

It felt like my insides had been ripped out and stuffed back in
again. The lady took her bag and walked out of my room. I watched Britt give the lady some money and send her on her way.

“What the hell did that bitch do to me? What happened?”

“You, um…”

“What? Brittnee, tell me,” I said, grabbing at her arm.

“I'm sorry, cuz. You had a miscarriage. You lost the baby.”

I touched my stomach and broke down crying knowing I had lost my baby. Britt tried to calm me down, but I snatched away from her. “Bitch, this is your fault.”

“My fault? I didn't do nothin'.”

“All this shit with you killin' Mr. Rick. Why did you go over there with a fuckin' gun? All I wanted to do was talk to him. I didn't say shit about a gun.” With tears streaming down my face, choking me, I got up out of bed.

“Katiesha, what are you doin'? You heard that doctor. You need to rest.”

“Fuck you. Who was that, some kind of back-alley psycho bitch? How could you let her anywhere near me?”

“You had passed out. There was blood all over the bathroom floor. I had to call somebody. You would have died, girl.”

I plucked my suitcase out of the closet and threw it on the bed. I tossed all my clothes into it. It felt like my insides were going to bust open, but I kept packing.

“Where the hell are you goin'?”

“I'm going to see if Marquise will let me stay with her until I decide what to do.”

“Katiesha, don't be stupid. You can't go nowhere in your condition.” Britt pulled at me to keep me from leaving, a scene that was all too familiar.

“I don't want to be anywhere near you when the cops come around, and they will, trust and believe.”

Britt's look turned cold. “Fuck you tryin' to say, Katiesha? You gon' snitch?”

“I don't need to run and tell nothin'. You'll fuck up again. You're sick, Brittnee.”

“I don't believe this. I put a roof over your damn head and food in your mouth, and you turn on me? You take a nigga, who raped you and got you knocked up, over me and you say I'm sick? Bitch, please. I tell you this, though, if I find out you went to the cops, I'm gonna forget you family.”

I couldn't believe she was threatening me. My own cousin.

“It's like I say: trust nobody but yourself. It ain't your enemies you need to watch your ass with. It's your own flesh and blood plunging a knife in your back,” Britt said.

I kept packing, wanting nothing but to get out of there, away from Britt.

“Fine. Take your ass on then. All you do is eat me out of house and home anyway. Let's see how long you last in these streets without me watching your back.”

I cut past Britt toward the door.

Two weeks later, I got word that the cops were looking for me and Britt. I figured they must have found something or someone said they saw us leaving his crib. Britt was blowing up my phone every two minutes. I didn't want to talk to her, so I cut off my phone. When I turned it back on, there were seventeen messages on my cell, all of them from Britt's crazy ass.

“What the hell did you tell the cops, bitch? We need to be on the same page, 'cuz.”

I stopped listening by the time I got to the eleventh message where she talked about me being nothing but a liability and being a loose end. Britt had lost what was left of her mind. She was full on cray-cray. I found out that Britt had gotten pinched by the cops
for some shooting that happened over on Collinwood Boulevard. I knew it was only a matter of time before po-po came looking for me, so I quit my job and bought a bus ticket to Florida. There was nothing but a black cloud over my head in Ohio anyway. I needed a fresh start.

I used the money I had saved to put a deposit on an apartment. With the money I had spent to get to Tallahassee and buying food, I was blowing through my savings fast. I needed a job and quick. I was busting the pavement, putting in applications when I saw a flyer that was advertising for topless dancers at Risqué. I had the body and a decent set of titties, so I figured why not? I had never stripped before, but thought how hard can it be? I went to the club that same day. It was as sleazy as I thought and smelled like stale cigarettes. I walked in with this black dress on, the neckline cut low, showing just enough goodies. I had these fools drooling from their mouths and probably dicks, not even ten minutes after walking in.

I sauntered up to the bar and asked this girl where I could find a dude that went by the name Blue-Black. She pointed me in the direction of this dark-skinned man who was sitting in the corner of the club. He was as black as pitch, sucking on a cigar, blowing a fat body of white smoke into the dimly lit club as he watched some chick shake her big ass on stage. Blue couldn't take his eyes off my tits, but I didn't care. I was used to my twins being stared at as if they were sweet snow cones.

“You ever danced before?”

“No, but lookin' at white girl up there, I know I'm a hell of a lot better than her.”

Blue chuckled. “What's your name, Lil' mama?”

“Katiesha.”

“All right, Kat. Kitty-Kat. Let's see what you got. Snowflake, get off the stage!”

“You want me to dance
now?”

“Hell yeah, now. I'm not gonna give you the job without seein' how you shake your ass first.”

Any other time, I would have told someone like Queasy to kiss my ass, but since I was new in Tally and needed a job, I sucked it up. White Girl mean-mugged me as I stepped on stage. I looked over at the DJ, who started to play “Red Bottoms” by Trina. I started dancing all sexy, like I was making love to Blue.

“Take your dress off,” he yelled from the back of the club.

I was hesitant at first, but said fuck it and unzipped out of the little black number until all that was showing were my bra and panties. After twenty minutes of dancing like a slut, Blue yelled at me.

“All right, Kat, you got the job. Can you start tonight?”

“Yeah, that's cool.”

“Welcome to Club Risqué, New Booty.”

It wasn't that good of a new beginning, but it was
my
new beginning.

I
wish Ma could see me now. I have my own home, I work at the most high-end salon in Tallahassee, and, to top it all off, I'm head over heels in love with a wonderful man. I'm also smart enough to know that it won't make a damn bit of difference to Mama. I can hear her now:

“The house looks smaller than the pictures you showed me.”

“There's a salon in Fort Lauderdale that's nicer than this one.”

If it's there to be ridiculed, Mama's going to be the one to blow my house down. Ever since I was a little girl, she has always had something to say about anything and everything I've done or attempted to do. When I wanted to try out for cheerleading, she told me I was too fat. If I wanted to run for student body president, she would say I wasn't smart enough. When I told her that I wanted to be a Girl Scout, she told me that she had never seen a black Girl Scout before. What mother says that kind of shit to their daughter? Only thing that woman would give me props for was doing hair. “If you're lucky, you
might
make someone a half-decent wife,” she said to me once.

One thing for sure was that I was good at doing hair. Pretty much taught myself how to braid by watching my big sister, Taniesha, do her friend's hair. They used to come to the house, wanting their nappy-ass heads braided or permed for dates and proms. Taniesha would charge them twenty dollars a head when she first started,
but when word got around that she was the go-to girl, Taniesha went up to forty dollars. She would get so busy, she would have to set girls up for appointments.

Mama didn't have a problem with it as long as Taniesha didn't let it interfere with her college education. I would clean up all the hair and made sure all of Taniesha's hair curlers, scissors, and hot combs were clean. She would give Mama half. Even though Mama never lifted a single lazy-ass finger to help Taniesha, she still wanted a cut.

“As long as you're using my house to do hair in, you gotta pay up. You oughta be glad I'm letting you stay here rent free.”

Mama is the meanest woman I know. I guess you could say I inherited that mean streak from her.

I would sit for hours and watch Taniesha do hair. She did braids, twists, perms, blow-outs, everything. Taniesha was eighteen and I was two years younger. Whenever she got busy, she would have me answer the phone and make appointments. I loved helping out my big sister. When I wasn't busy, I would practice doing hair on old dolls I outgrew. It wasn't long before I got just as good as Taniesha. People started asking me to hook them up with new dos if Taniesha got too backed up or was at school. Everything was cool until she got caught up in Eldridge Harris' shit. He was Taniesha's boyfriend at the time. Could tell that he was nothing but trouble. He was tall and boney with skinny legs and was blacker than roofing tar.