Chapter Eight
Lying defenseless in the pile of dirty clothes, face hidden. Keisha heard the heavy sound of Rico’s Timberland boots getting closer. Feeling his evil presence standing above her, she clenched her fists as if she were preparing for battle.
“Turn over, ho.”
“Naw, I’m not. I’m done.” Defiant and fed up, she slowly shifted her head. “I’m fucking done!”
Rico still had his stiff dick out from taking a piss, and it showed no signs of getting soft anytime soon. Rubbing the permanent scar across his jaw with one hand and his meat with the other, he grew agitated. “Listen, Keisha, it’s too early in the morning for your dumb ass to get tough. Turn all the way around, get on your knees, and come the fuck here. Right damn now. Crawl.”
Cowardly reacting to the demeaning, demanding tone in Rico’s voice, Keisha unballed her fist—doing as she was told. Down on all fours like Kilo, she caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length, white plastic-trimmed mirror that was nailed to the door.
What am I doing? This ain’t me! I’m better than this! I know I am! Finally questioning the choices she’d made with her life, seeing firsthand what she’d ultimately become dealing with the likes of Rico Campbell, Keisha paused. I should have killed him that morning! Because of him and that video, my whole life I used to have is fucked up!
“Well, I’m waiting, you nothing-ass bitch. What you gonna do?”
Ironically, hearing Rico make that degrading statement caused her to think back to that very moment she was about to bash his brains in. He’d said that exact same thing.
* * *
Not making any unnecessary noise that might alert Rico to what she was about to do, Keisha’s fingers and palms started to form moisture. With malice in her heart, she gripped the small statue in one hand and the butcher knife in the other. With an eagle eye, she slowly crept. Watching Rico’s back, which was turned to her, go in and out with each passing breath, Keisha got excited. Each step had her getting deeper and deeper off into her emotions. Nervous and feeling out of character, Keisha felt a strange rage invade her soul. All the time she’d spent being involved with Rico, she never truly felt the urge to kill him. Today was different. She was at her wit’s end. Today was the day she was ready to end his life and start her new one off in prison. She licked her lips then bit down on the corner, and her arm went upward. There was no hesitation or second thought. More than ready to get revenge on Rico, she smiled. Repaying him for all the pain and torture he’d caused in her life, Keisha swung the statue down with all her strength. Her sinister smile grew as it crashed it against his skull. With the quickness, she repeated the process once more. Before she could go at it a third, he was shouting out in excruciating pain.
“Urggggg . . . !” Rico, still dazed and dizzy from the beating he’d suffered at the hands of A.J, grabbed the back of his head. Instinctively, he started to squirm to halt any more blows. Not knowing what or who had hit him, he rolled off the couch and onto the floor. Hands and dreads now covered in gushing blood, he scrambled to stand to his feet but couldn’t. Disoriented, he yelled out a few more times before Keisha decided to reply.
“You low-life-ass bitch-made nigga! Why in the fuck would you send that bullshit to my family, Rico? And to all my damn friends? Why in the fuck would you do that dirty-ass shit, huh? Why? That was some ole fucked-up shit to do to someone you claim to care about, let alone someone you hate!” The questions as to why Rico did what he’d done flew as she now felt empowered. After months of enduring his constant verbal and mental abuse, Keisha was not letting up one bit as she held onto the statue and the knife.
“I haven’t done anything ever to try to hurt your ass. Not ever. And because you feeling some sort of way, you think it’s okay to try to ruin someone’s life. Just because you came from nothing and really ain’t about shit don’t mean you gotta hate on the next person.
“I don’t know what I saw in you in the first place. My dumb ass was just looking for something, and you came along. I should’ve listened to my girls. Matter of fact, I should’ve left your crazy ass locked up the day you clowned at my parents’ house. But naw, stupid me had to come get you. I loved you so much, and that love ain’t shit but my downfall.
“Now I ain’t got shit left in the world to hold my head up for. You destroyed that just like everything else you come in contact with. Rico, you ain’t shit but a waste of skin.”
“Urggg.” Rico finally tried to speak once more.
“Seriously, nigga? For real? That’s all the fuck you gotta say? Now, I’ma ask you once more why you sent that bullshit before I cut your ass. I’m done playing games.” Waving the shiny blade, she wanted him to know she meant every single word she’d just said and that if it came down to more bloodshed to get answers, it would be his on the floor this time for a change, definitely not hers.
Using his bloody hands to move his scattered dreads, Rico squinted as he stared upward. “Bitch, look at my fucking face. You see this shit?”
Keisha was stunned, seeing the condition of his face. She knew that it was no sweet way in hell the blow she’d just given him to the rear of his head could’ve caused that much damage to his face. “What in the entire hell?”
“Yeah, Keisha, that’s right, what in the hell.” Rico fell back, allowing the light in the room to showcase the true extent of A.J.’s handiwork. “My shit is fucked up thanks to you.”
Not letting the blood-stained statue, now a makeshift weapon, and the knife out of her sweaty grasp, Keisha eased slightly closer. Getting a better look, she was even more confused when he moved his hair. “Thanks to me? What in the hell are you talking about, thanks to me? I just hit you across the back of your stupid head. I know damn well that shit ain’t do all of that. So once again, how is that thanks to me?”
Despite a black eye, a busted lip, a cut across his jaw, and now a huge gaping hole on the left side of his skull, he was cocky. Shaky and slurring, Rico tried his best to remain who he was, a trash-talking, manipulative asshole. “Thanks to you giving that country nigga that pussy in the kitchen, behind my back, he zoned out last night. He was all in his little feelings. But it’s all good, though.”
“What in the hell are you talking about now?” Keisha quizzed.
“You heard me, girl. Your new overgrown-goon, gold-tooth-wearing boyfriend got on one at the dice game. Like I said, he was in his feelings and bugged out like a li’l punk.”
Keisha couldn’t believe what she was hearing about a dude she’d just met and freaked with the night before.
Yeah, right. Whatever. This nigga must think I’m dumb. Ain’t no guy just all of a sudden trip out over some female he don’t know like that. Knowing Rico and his constant games, she didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but at this point, she couldn’t care less. Like he claimed A.J. was all up in his feelings, so was she. Her main mission was to punish Rico for what he had done to her. Whatever he had going on outside of that was of no great consequence to her. It was one thing to humiliate, embarrass, disrespect, and altogether beast her like she was less than a human being. Pitiful as it seemed, she’d grown accustomed to that harsh treatment. It was almost second nature. But now, once again, like he’d done early on in their relationship, Rico brought pain, hurt, disappointment, and devastation to her parents and everyone she knew, for that matter. His verbal, physical, and constant mental abuse was now out of the closet. It was no more a dirty little secret they shared. It was public knowledge. If the God-awful video hadn’t gone viral by now, she knew it was certainly well on its way.
“Okay, he was on one. Whatever. I don’t give a hot shit.” She raised her arm once more, feeling no sympathy. “Look at my face. It’s messed up too. Besides that, what the fuck that got to do with you sending that bullshit to every damn body? Huh? What the fuck is wrong with you? Have you lost what little mind you got?”
Having been hit twice by the statue, Rico still struggled to regain his sight. Now, threatened with a butcher knife an out-of-control, infuriated Keisha was swinging, Rico had to think quickly. His first thought was to try to get his gun and shoot or at least scare her. But that idea quickly went out of play. He remembered A.J. had taken it from him at the weed house, so that was out the question. Secondly, he contemplated trying to overpower and disarm her. Yet he felt like he’d endured enough battle wounds within a twenty-four hour time span to risk getting stabbed. Plus, Keisha wasn’t one of those small tiny framed females a guy could toss around. She was thick and he realized as heated as she was, she was gonna fight back. It wouldn’t be an automatic easy win. Wisely, Rico tried the one thing Keisha always fell for since day one, his smooth charm and con man techniques.
“Look at my damn face!” Rico used his elbows to back himself up against the couch. “That nigga was over there talking mad shit about you. He was saying all type of bullshit, and I was fed up. I wasn’t gonna let no down-South, green-eggs-and-ham, grit-eating nigga to try to clown you. Fuck all that! I was defending your black ass.”
“What are you talking about?” Keisha tilted her head, giving Rico the side-eye as he tried shifting responsibly for the condition of his face. “What you mean, defending me?”
“Yeah, just like I said, defending you got my face all messed up. Niggas ain’t shit but some haters. A dude try to show a fool some hospitality and they don’t appreciate it. Him and Swazy was over at the trap house saying how you wasn’t nothing but a hood rat and how you was ugly as shit. Going in about how big you was and how you couldn’t be their wifey.”
“What?” Keisha twisted her lips.
“Yeah, and when I stepped to them lames, they jumped me. Him and Swazy punk ass. I done fed that guy and smoked my last weed with him, and he turned on me. I guess blood is thicker than water. But it’s all good, though.” Rico kept his hand pressed to the still-bleeding gash in the rear of his head. With his shoulder-length dreadlocks now soaked and dripping blood, he continued to run his game on Keisha, telling her what she wanted to hear.
“I ain’t tripping. It’s all good. But now my face fucked up all because I was taking up for you. They some punk-ass niggas, especially Swazy’s cousin.”
Any other time, she’d be grateful for what he was saying, if indeed it was true. But Keisha was not dumb enough or naïve enough to get thrown off her square. She’d been through a lot with him and his bullshit lies, but not this time. She wasn’t buying what he was selling.
“Okay, Rico. That’s all good and all, and if it did all go down that way last night, good for you stepping up to defend some shit you created from jump. And once again, even if you were taking up for me with them, which I seriously doubt, why in the hell would you send that video to my people? Why? One ain’t got Jack Daniel’s shit to do with the other. See, that’s what I’m talking about. That’s what got your head cracked open, and that’s what’s gonna make me cut your black ass. Now, like I keep asking you, why? Why in the hell would you do some old slimeball shit like that?” She tapped her foot while waiting for an answer.
As she got closer up on him, Keisha’s patience for not cutting Rico was growing thin. “My mother was crying. You made my fucking mama cry, you bastard. You betrayed me, and for what? I promise you for every tear my mother shed, you gonna give an ounce of blood.”
“Hold up, Keisha. Hold the fuck up. I know I done did a gang of foul shit since we been kicking it, but let’s keep this shit right here a hundred.” Using his free hand, stalling for more time to get his self together, Rico continued his master manipulation techniques, trying to flip the script. “You stabbed me in the back first. I mean, like I said, let’s keep shit a hundred. Why would you let that nigga hit it in my house like I’m some sort of lame? Explain that.”
Keisha, although pissed beyond belief, couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She laughed, rolling her neck as she responded to what Rico had just said. “Negro, are you fucking serious? You can’t be. I know I must be hearing things. Excuse me, Rico, but didn’t you just sit over there on that damn couch watching your so-called boys get the pussy? Was I dreaming last night or what? Correct me if I’m wrong.” Irritated, she started cleaning under her nails with the long, sharp, shiny blade. “And ain’t you the person that wanted them over here so bad when all I wanted to do was go to bed? Huh?” She stopped, sucking her teeth, giving him a cold, hard death stare. “You that same boss-ass buster calling shots, ain’t you? That had all that madness jumping off.”
Rico was seeing a side of Keisha he never knew existed. At a total disadvantage, he started looking around the room for something to knock the knife out her hand if she came any closer. “Wait, Keisha, damn. See, now you bugging. Don’t you see what in the fuck you already did to me? I mean, you taking this bullshit way too far.” Taking his hand off the open wound, he showed her the blood dripping from his fingertips.
Slamming the statue on the side of the end table, Keisha had listened to all Rico’s excuses she was willing to take. Still clutching the butcher knife, she reached into her tracksuit pocket. Throwing her iPhone at Rico’s head, she demanded he pick it up after he ducked.
“Crawl your bitch ass over there and get that shit! I want you to listen to all them voicemails. Read them out of order text messages. Is you fucking crazy or what? How in the hell is you gonna compare that hole in your damn hard head to what you did to me?” Wildly swinging the knife, she sliced his raised arm. “My mama was crying tears, nigga, over that scandalous shit. Real fucking tears. You put that crap up everywhere!”
“Bitch, is you crazy?” Rico flinched, trying to stop any more of Keisha’s enraged attacks.
“Bitch?” she questioned as if she hadn’t heard him correctly. With malice, she then swung the blade once more, this time missing. “I was wondering how long it was gonna take you to get back to normal. I should just kill your pathetic ass now. See, you ain’t never gonna change. That evil is buried too deep in your filthy soul.”
“Well, I’m waiting, big girl, with your nothing ass. I ain’t gonna just keep sitting here and bleed out. What you gonna do?” Rico was growing tired of playing this cat-and-mouse game with Keisha, and it was starting to show.
“I gave you everything I had, and you just said fuck me. I lost my family, my friends, and every job I get behind dealing with your trifling ass. Well, I’m done. I can make it without you, and I will.” Feeling liberated and tired of playing the victim role, a usually spineless Keisha stood tall for the first time in months.
Realizing his meal ticket might be truly serious about leaving and he’d have to actually get a full-time job or a hustle to feed himself, Rico swallowed his pride. “Okay, okay, listen Keisha, I know you heated, but how you think I felt when you gave that coon my pussy?”
“Your pussy!” Keisha, feeling empowered, no longer in denial, shook her head. “Come on now, guy, this ain’t been your pussy since the night I bailed your black ass out of jail. You know, the night your surprise baby mama and me first met. So, guess what? You can just miss me with all that game you trying to spit. I’m good on all of that. You need to just say your prayers, ’cause you about to leave here for what you did to me and my mother.”
Rico was speechless. Fully aware what she was accusing him of was true, he felt a surreal climate in the room. He’d played all his con man cards and was too physically exhausted to deal any more. Lifting his body up onto the couch, he used one of the fluffy pillows to stop the bleeding from his head. Closing his eyes, Rico decided to let Keisha do whatever she felt. If she got close enough for him to possibly make a move and take the knife away, then so be it, he’d do it. But as far as anything else extra, he was done. He had no more fight in him.
“You ain’t got shit to say?” Keisha, knife clutched tight, bossed up, ready to pounce on the man she felt for months was her soul mate.
Interrupted by a series of thunderous knocks on the front door, Keisha and Rico both froze as Kilo started barking from the backyard.
“Who in the fuck is that?” Rico hissed, reaching for his gun before quickly realizing it was not on his waist as usual.
“Why you asking me?”
“It’s probably you new boyfriend coming to save your black ass.”
“Save me from what? What in the fuck can you do to hurt me any more than you already have? And F.Y.I., A.J. is not my boyfriend, but if he was, him or anybody I’d mess with is a come-up from you.”
“So, now you and that country nigga on a first name basis, huh?”
“Fuck you, Rico.”
“Naw, fuck you, tramp.”
“Oh, we on back name-calling again,” Keisha fired back as the barrage of knocks on the front door continued.
“Detroit Police Department! Open up!” Another series of hard knocks on the front door and voices seem to bounce off every wall.
Both looking at one another, Rico and Keisha were dumbfounded. Knowing their voices were louder than usual at this time of morning, it wasn’t anything for their unemployed, ghetto-minded neighbors to call the cops for. Arguments that turn into murder, dudes’ clothes getting tossed out the window, crackheads fighting over a rock, or a kid getting caught stealing a honey bun out the gas station was no out-of-the-ordinary occurrence. So, Detroit’s Finest at the door was somewhat of a shock.
Wasting no time tucking the sharp-edged butcher knife underneath the cushion of the chair, Keisha snarled at Rico, who was pulling himself off the floor and back onto the couch.
“You lucky—for real—but I’m not done with you.”
“Yeah, whatever, trick. We’ll see.” Rico, still delirious from the blow on the back of his head courtesy of Keisha, and extremely sore from A.J.’s ass-whooping, was now mouthy, even while nursing a hangover. Snatching the ashtray off the coffee table that had a couple of tails and a half blunt in it, Rico made himself scarce, leaving his woman to deal with the police.
“Yes, does Rico Campbell reside here?”
“Umm . . . yes, officer, he does.”
“Well, is he here?”
“Umm . . . sorry. Not at the present. Is something wrong? Something I can help you with?” In light of what Rico had done to her, by right she should have stepped out of the way of the police, pointed toward the bedroom door, and begged them to handcuff his ass for whatever they wanted. She should have welcomed them to bury his no-good behind under the jail. But she didn’t. No matter what, no one helped the police. That was how it was in Detroit and most hoods. The no-snitching code was always in effect, especially when it involved your own people. Besides, Keisha intended to lay down her own version of the law on him.
“Who are you?” one cop questioned as the other peered over her shoulder into the living room after noticing the obvious fresh bruises on her face. “What’s your name?”
“Keisha. Keisha Jackson.”
“Keisha Jackson?” The officer looked down at his small spiral notebook, then glanced back up. “Are you any relation to a Mr. Lorenzo James Jackson?”
“Yes, that’s my father,” she explained with a newfound panic and concern in her tone. “What’s wrong? What’s going on with my dad? Is everything all right?”
“Umm . . . yes and no.”
“What do you mean, yes and no? Oh my God!” Her palm pressed against her forehead. Her heart started to beat faster. Running her fingers through her tangled hair, trying to gather it up in a ponytail, Keisha shook.
“Listen, you need to calm down.” The nosey officer stopped trying to see if there was any movement inside the dwelling and coldly interrupted her rant. “It seems as if a bright-gold-in-color Yukon Denali registered to one Lorenzo J. Jackson was found two blocks over. Now, that isn’t County Commissioner Jackson, is it?”
“Umm, yes, it is.”
“You mean to tell me your father is County Commissioner Jackson?”
“Yes, I told you—yes!” She licked her dry lips.
“And you, his daughter, is living here?”
“Yes, I live here.” Ashamed of her living conditions as well as her overall messy appearance, Keisha tried to hold it together.
The Tenth Precinct officer, still full of questions, looked around the outer perimeter of the house, as well as the surrounding burnt-out homes. Wondering what a girl from such a prominent and influential family was doing here, he continued to do his job. “Go figure that,” he judged, knowing the crime-ridden area he and his partner patrolled on a daily basis. “Well, anyway, the vehicle was discovered crashed in the side of an abandoned building with the engine still running. Apparently, it also damaged three of four other vehicles on the street before its final impact.”
Noticing for the first time since opening the door that her truck was not parked in the driveway as usual when Rico wasn’t gone, she felt a new sense of rage overcome her body. “Oh my God!” She grabbed her chest with her right hand, covering her mouth with the left. This was one more thing in a long list of bullshit Rico had put her through since meeting him.
“Yes, well, that brings us back to Rico Campbell.” The policeman holding the notebook revealed what Keisha immediately recognized as Rico’s wallet. “This was under the front seat. The ID lists this as Rico Campbell’s residence, not to mention some of the people whose vehicles are damaged reported seeing a man they recognized to be Rico Campbell fleeing from the scene on foot.”
“Oh my God.” Keisha shook her head, clutching her chest area once more. “Was anyone hurt?”
“No, just property damage. Mr. Jackson, I mean Commissioner Jackson, your father, has already been notified and the truck impounded. Now, once again, is Mr. Campbell home?” the officer asked, this time more sternly than the first. “And what exactly is his relationship to you and your father?”
“Well . . .” She hesitated with glassy eyes. “He’s sorta my boyfriend.”
“Well, is your sorta boyfriend home?” he sarcastically replied. “We need to speak to him. And by the way, what happened to your face?”
Distracted by the sounds of Kilo barking, Keisha stepped onto the front porch, shutting the door behind her. “Umm, I’m so sorry.” She continued to keep her front up with the blatant lie. “He’s not here. I don’t know where he’s at now. I haven’t seen him since late last night.”
Not completely satisfied with Keisha’s answer, without a signed warrant to search the premises, the two Detroit police officers were limited by law in what they could do next. They had no other choice but to leave.
“You see how she looked? She must be a crackhead or something,” one judgmentally remarked. “Probably on ecstasy, Molly, or some freaking other pill.”
“Yeah, who would live here when her people got all that cash? Only a drug addict or a fool one.”