“Look, we less than 10 minutes away from Tevin’s crib, how bout we just walk there, get Keena, and I can get yall a ride home,” he said.
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Are you sure that’s where she went?”
“Yes. I’m tellin you, I know her. We were close when we got pulled over. She’ll be at his house when we get there. If she ain’t… I’ll find her,” he said in a somewhat calmer tone.
I didn’t feel rushed to respond until I felt a drop of water fall on my forehead, then two, then three, then eight. Of course it’s raining.
“Come on, the longer you wait the wetter you’ll get,” Rico said walking past me.
I, now crying again, wiped my face and caught up with him. Whatever my answer was, it didn’t matter anymore. He was headed for Tevin’s and I had no choice but to follow him.
We got to Tevin’s house 15 minutes later, and it rained on us the whole way there. I was soaked, cold, and my throat was starting to hurt from the lump in it that had been holding back my tears. I was terrified; in my head, Keena was lost in the dark somewhere and the police were on their way to take all of us to jail. I could tell that Rico was getting frustrated with the whole situation, so I made sure I didn’t cry again until I was away from him. Even though he hadn’t snapped at me so far, I remember him being loud and rough with Keena earlier. I didn’t want to take any chances of getting the same treatment. Besides, he had a gun in his pocket. When I first caught sight of that in the car, I officially became afraid of him and Tevin both.
When Tevin let us in, Rico asked him to give us both dry clothes. He did, and told me we could use the bathroom and bedroom to change. I was relieved to find Keena sitting on the couch, but she looked pissed. I already knew that as soon as Rico came back from the bathroom, she was going to get in his ass for leaving her. It looked like Tevin was smart enough to end the party and clear everyone out of the crib, too. Besides Keena, there were only 2 people still present – two girls and a guy. The guy was laid out on his back in the hallway. He was dark skinned and wore all black – jeans and a tall tee. From the looks of the vomit stain going down the front of his shirt, it was clear that he was still here because he wasn’t in any shape to leave. Or wake up, for that matter. One of the girls, short and light skinned with blond weave, was sitting next to Keena watching videos on MTVJams. She seemed sober and bored. The way she kept looking at her phone let me know that she was anxious for her ride to show up and take her home. The other girl was brown skinned with braids and much taller. She looked older than all of us and she was moving back and forth from the kitchen to the den, tidying up and throwing things away. She looked slightly upset. If I didn’t know any better I would say that she was Tevin’s mom. She wore several gold rings on her fingers, and she had a tattoo on her neck of a teddy bear holding a red heart that said J.T. Whoever she was, she must’ve been cleaning up because she knew what was going on. And I could tell by the way that she shook her head and mumbled to herself that this wasn’t the only time she’d had to clean up after Tevin.
When I got in Tevin’s bedroom to change, Ruff Ryders’ “Down Bottom” was playing on the radio in the corner. I turned on the light, and the first thing I noticed about his room was the amount pictures all over his wall. Not posters of rappers or half naked girls from KING magazine, but old Polaroids and 4×6 prints that were developed at Walgreens. There was one lone poster on his closet door of Bone Thugz N Harmony, but the walls surrounding his bed and dresser were filled with photos of family and friends, and they were all held up by pieces of cloudy colored scotch tape. I quickly changed into the warm, dry t-shirt and basketball shorts that Tevin gave me, left my wet clothes on the floor, then I took a second to browse the pictures. Many of them were clique photos taken at parties or clubs. You know, the kind with anywhere from five to fifteen guys crowded in front of a spray painted backdrop of an old school cutlass or a highway or bridge. Tevin was in most of them. He had the same pose for every picture – one arm around a friend, and the other one throwing up a W with his fingers. Westside maybe?
A few of the pictures were of young men who were locked up. They all posed outside, in the prison yard I guess, with intimidating looks of anger, pride, and a bit of depression that they probably didn’t realize they were showing. I walked around to the other walls and noticed a lot of pictures of the same toddler. A little girl who was no older than three stood with her hands on her hips in almost every shot, and rather than smiling, she made a kiss face at the camera. She was cute. She wore a lot of plaits in her hair with colorful balls at the start and end of each one. I wondered who she was. I picked up my clothes and started walking out of the bedroom when I heard a loud toilet flush followed by sink water in the master bathroom. I jumped, now realizing that I wasn’t alone, and dropped my clothes. As I picked up my clothes, I heard a familiar voice say my name. I turned around and Shawn, the friendly rapper who helped me up at the club, was walking towards me.
“Oh hey,” I said, smiling. He looked just as good as he did earlier. My appearance, on the other hand, was struggling. My braids were dripping wet, my mascara was runny, and I wasn’t wearing a bra anymore. I’m sure he noticed that something had happened, but luckily he didn’t pry too much.
“Have you been here the whole time? I didn’t see you up front,” he said.
“No, I just got here. I um… my clothes…”
“Ohh. The rain?”
“Yes,” I said, hoping that was all I needed to say.
“Damn, well Tevin just kicked everybody out. He didn’t tell you the party was over?”
“Oh yeah, he did. I just needed to change my… I mean I came up here but I didn’t…”
“Are you okay?” he said, looking at me frowning, but concerned.
“Um… no, I-“
“YOU ACT LIKE I LEFT YOU ON PURPOSE!! I TOLD YOU TO RUN LIKE ME AND YOU JUST STOOD THERE!! LOOK, DON’T START THIS RIGHT NOW, AIGHT?!
“NO YOU LISTEN TO ME I GOT SHOT AT BECAUSE OF YOU!”
“HE SHOT AT MY ASS TOO, WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO?!”
“I WANT YOU TO BE A MAN AND PROTECT ME! YOU JUST….”
“Aw, shit,” I said as Keena’s voice trailed off loud enough for the neighbors to hear. She and Rico had started their argument up front, just as I knew they would.
“Whoa. Shot at? What’s going on down there? Did something happen?” Shawn asked.
“Yeah, too much,” I replied with a sigh.
“LOOK, BOTH OF YALL NEED TO CALM DOWN BEFORE THE NEIGHBORS CALL THEM FOLKS ON US. YALL KNOW WE GOT CHEAP ASS INSULATION IN OUR WALLS. CHILL, WE ALREADY HOT!” Tevin shot at them.
“SOMEBODY TAKE ME HOME!” Keena yelled. The three of them continued to argue and for a moment I zoned out.
“What’s going on? Nicole… are you okay?” Shawn looked at me. I heard a police siren in the distance. I jumped, snapping out of my worried daze. The siren faded, but I knew that in time, another would be coming towards us, rather than away. Shawn must have noticed that I was shook, because he touched my arm and turned me towards him. “Hey… you okay, ma? You don’t look so good. You look like you’re about to cry.”
And as soon as he said that, I did. I burst into tears again, trying to make my cries as graceful and quiet as possible. I just met this guy. He was cute, he was charming, and he seemed to be interested in me, but I had too much going on to keep it cute. We sat back on Tevin’s bed and I told him the whole story, sobbing and exaggerating out of fear, in about ten minutes. My tears subdued about halfway through. By the time I was done, there were several balled up tissues on the bed that he had brought me for my eyes, and a damp towel that he used to blot the water out of my braids. When I was explaining to him what happened, my hair kept getting in my face when I dropped my head for sob breaks, and when I flung the braids to the side, water flew off of them. I’m not sure if he took the initiative to dry them because he wanted to help, or if he was just tired of getting rainwater flung into his face. Either way, I was grateful. I felt a little better after finally letting it out to someone, and the lump in my throat was basically gone. Still, I was scared, and even though Shawn listened to everything I said, I was a little embarrassed now that he knew how stupid we were, and how easily I crack under pressure.
“Damn, you really had a night out, huh?” he finally replied, pulling a braid out of my face again.
I shook my head and sniffled. “Yeah, and now I’m probably going to go to jail,” I replied.
“For what?”
“I don’t know… running from a police officer… Failure to… submit to a search? I don’t know,” I said, confused.
“Then what are you worried about? You ran from the cops, everyone has done that before,” he assured me.
“But before we ran, Keena kicked his ass in the nuts. That’s assault or something right?” I asked. “And Mario had weed on him,” I added.
“Then those would be their charges, not yours. All you did was run, right?”
“Yeah but…”
“So what was it that you did wrong?”
I thought about it. “I don’t know… I guess nothing,” I finally came up with.
“Exactly,” Shawn said smiling, “That cop didn’t know what he was doing, he made yall get out of the car without announcing what he was gonna do, he didn’t read Mario his rights before he cuffed him, he put four kids on the sidewalk to search with no help. He set himself up for failure. He had to be new or not know any better,” he reasoned.
“I guess so…,” I said, even though something inside me still felt guilty. I didn’t know if Shawn was right or not; as a matter of fact, I really felt like he didn’t know what he was talking about. But somehow he still put me at ease. At this point, at least I was done crying for good. It seemed like Rico and Keena had calmed down too. I realized that I didn’t hear anymore screaming, just the faint sound of voices over a Curren$y video on the TV up front. I listened closely to see if I could hear what was being said.
“You’re really a good girl, huh?” Shawn asked, chuckling at me.
I turned around to face him again, “What does that mean?”
“I mean, you different. Don’t worry it’s a good thing. I just think it’s funny how you got yourself into something like this,” he said, “I can tell you’re not used to the action.”
“Oh. Well, it’s always like this when I’m with Keena. Trouble seems to follow her,” I explained.
“Really? Well, you seem to be smart enough to stay away from trouble, especially the kind that you know is coming,” he said, pulling another braid out of my face.
I smiled.
He smiled. He leaned in close to my face and I closed my eyes. Yes, come on…
His lips only had to brush mine slightly for me to shiver a little. He kissed me, softly. I kissed back, this time longer. Before I knew it we were both leaning back on the bed, and the kiss was just about to get intense, but Tevin appeared in the doorway and loudly interrupted.
“NICOLE RICO SAID WE GOTTA- the fuck yall doing up in here?”
Shaun and I jumped up and scooted away from each other. Shaun wiped his mouth and Tevin smirked. Rico walked up with Keena and stood beside Tevin and started, “AYE WE GOTTA- what’s wrong?”
“Shaun Savage up in here tryna get in your cousin’s draws and shit,” Tevin joked. Keena elbowed him in the stomach. He doubled over.
“OUCH MOTHERFUCKER. RICO GET YOUR GIRL BEFORE I-“ he started.
“Hell nah man go outside with that shit,” Rico told Tevin. Tevin waved him off and pushed Keena into the door frame before walking off.
“NIGGA… Oooh I can’t stand him,” she said sucking her teeth and shaking her head.
“Look, yall need to cut this kiss shit out – we got to go before the cops show up over here. Dumbass left his car out there and the police probably re-ran the tags to find his address. We can’t be here.”
“Yall need a ride?” Shaun offered.
“Naw man we good I don’t wanna get you caught up,”
“I mean, I can take her and Keena home,” he said.
“Nah, we can’t go to their house,” Rico explained. Keena dropped her phone out there. If that nigga came back and traced all our tracks they prolly got her phone and know her address too.”
“Then where are we going??” I asked, panicking.
“Just come on I got yall. Aye man, I suggest you leave too,” he told Shaun.
Shaun agreed and we all headed to the living room. Once again, I regretted ever wishing for the night to be interesting, because it seemed that we were about to get into some more shit. Rico, who had changed into a pair of Tevin’s jeans, re-checked the positioning of his gun, while Keena was stealing chips from the kitchen. The other people who were here earlier had left, except for the older chick who was cleaning up. She had gone into the other bedroom and got on the phone, telling someone of tonight’s events so far, and how she “wasn’t gonna take the dumb shit much longer”.
“C’mon Keena damn! Hurry up! Fat ass always trying to eat something. Yo ass better not be pregnant!” Rico yelled.
“Ok, damn! I’m coming!” she yelled, “Nicole they got cheddar fries in here, you want some?!”
“Yeah, bring me some,” I said. Maybe a snack could calm my nerves for whatever was coming next. I heard some things fall on the floor, followed by Keena cursing.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING KEENA?!” Rico said, impatiently.
“I can’t carry all this stuff by myself,” she said, and proceeded to mumble something that we couldn’t hear.
“LOOK, JUST FORGET THAT SHIT AND COME-“ Rico started, and began walking towards the kitchen. I stopped him with my hand.
“Chill, I got it,” I said. He huffed loudly and sucked his teeth, standing by the door. Shaun shook his head and laughed as I went to the kitchen. Keena and I returned, each giggling, with an armful of chips and snacks because we couldn’t find any plastic bags to hold them in.
Rico swung open the front door and we all filed out, but stopped before we could reach the stairs.
Keena dropped her bag of chips. Our smiles faded.
There in front of us sat two police cars, silent but frightening with their flashing blue lights.
“Shit,” Rico said, as we all seemed to simultaneously notice Tevin sitting in the backseat of the car in front. When Rico told him to go ahead, they must’ve already been waiting outside for us.
A black officer came up to us and held up my cousin’s phone.
“Keena Jefferson?” he asked her, but already knew who she was. She nodded and he held up handcuffs, instructing her to turn around. He began telling her that she was under arrest for assaulting an officer named Frank Bowers, and proceeded to read her rights. As the officer led her to the car, Rico followed behind, pleading with the officer.
“Ay man, be gentle that’s a female. Why you being so rough with her, man?” he asked. Another black officer walked up to him and restrained him until he pulled out another set of cuffs. As he cuffed Rico, he noticed a bulge in back of his pants. He reached behind and pulled out Rico’s glock.
“Got a permit for this, son?” he asked Rico.
Of course he didn’t.
I watched as they put both Keena and Rico in the backseat of the second car. Keena wasn’t crying or anything. It made me question whether or not this was her first time being arrested. We had been away from each other for some years. Perhaps this was the kind of trouble she had gotten used to. The two black officers got into the second car and drove away. That’s when I noticed Bowers getting out of the driver’s seat of the first vehicle. He walked up to me with a smirk on his face and pulled out his handcuffs. I guess he wasn’t such a rookie after all.
I was put in the backseat beside Tevin, and when I looked over at him he shook his head, cursing Bowers to himself. As Bowers cranked up the car, I turned and saw that Shaun was still standing on the porch, baffled. I looked down at myself and began evaluating everything that had led up to this point. I was baffled just like he was. This morning, I woke up at home, feeling relieved to be done with finals. How could I know that 12 hours later I would possibly be making a mark on my first criminal record? I couldn’t even cry again because I was too taken back by it all. What started out as a night of escape had turned into something that we couldn’t run from anymore.
The car began to pull off and I looked back at the porch. Shaun was gone.
As we turned off of the dark neighborhood street and headed downtown, I closed my eyes and hoped that if and when they let me go, I would find him and get a re-do on my night out.
Spontaneous Lit 