A few weeks had passed. I had come to two decisions: to keep my baby, and to confront Mr. Rick that his raping ass was going to be a daddy. I picked up some more shifts at the college cleaning up, which put me at almost thirty hours. All the bills were split in half, including the groceries. Brittnee and I were doing real good. We would stay up for hours, watching movies, shooting the shit about how we used to be when we were kids. I officially dropped out of Shawnee High School and enrolled at Sharon Lynn’s School for Girls on the east side of town. It was way cooler than that shit stain that I hated going to day after day. All the kids were down, and I liked starting over without the rep of being known as a slut. None of them knew who I was. I might as well have been from Russia or someplace, which was more than cool with me.
Britt and I found out where Mr. Rick lived through his last name. It was real easy to find somebody these days. Britt insisted on going with me to make sure that he didn’t try nothin’. We took the J train to Milford Avenue where he lived. Britt fished a piece of paper out of her jacket pocket where she had written down Mr. Rick’s address.
“2414 Milford Avenue. This is it.”
We could hear him hollering at a game from inside his house, which was one of those low-income, one-bedroom setups. Fuckin’ loser. Britt rang the doorbell.
“Who the fuck is that?” he yelled from inside the house.
Neither one of us said anything. We heard him inside stomping toward the door to answer. Britt’s hand was stuffed down in one of her jacket pockets. I could make out something shiny and black between her fingers, but before I could say anything, a gust of wind slapped me in the face when Rick answered.
“What the hell do—” Before he could spit another word, Britt stuck the barrel of a semiautomatic in Rick’s stomach, forcing him back into the house. “What the hell?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Britt yelled. She gripped the gun tightly in her hand, her finger pressed behind the trigger.
“Britt, what the fuck, girl?” I asked. “Where did you get a gun at?”
“My fuckin’ fairy godmother.” Britt waved the gun at Mr. Rick. “Sit yo’ ass down.”
“If you all want money, I got some stashed. I can get it.”
“Shut up.”
I could tell from the expression on Britt’s face that she was dead serious. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m gon’ make this bastard confess what he did.”
“Bitch, put that burner away,” I said.
“Not until he confesses what he did to you, to both of us.”
“What are you talking about?”
Britt shot a razor-sharp glance at Mr. Rick, who was by now starting to sweat, realizing that Britt wasn’t playing. “He knows what I’m talkin’ about. Tell her what you did.” Britt pressed the nose of the gun against the right cheek of Rick’s face. “Tell her what you did to me, rapist.”
“Katiesha, I don’t know what all this is about,” Mr. Rick said.
“We were downstairs in the field house, under the gym. It was after softball practice. He asked me to help him put away some equipment. He was a coach, so I didn’t think nothin’ of it. Everything was good until he grabbed my ass. When I knocked the shit out of him, that only made him madder. He pulled at my shirt. I tried to fight him off me, but the more I struggled, the crazier he got. I tried to get away, but he ran after me. He pulled me into one of the storage rooms, pushed me to the floor, and forced himself on me. I scratched and pushed, but he just kept on. That’s how he got the scar on the side of his face.”
“That’s bullshit. Katiesha,” Mr. Rick said. “She’s crazy. Don’t believe her.”
Britt kept the gun pointed at Mr. Rick’s face. “After, he told me the same thing he told you, that if I ever I told, he would kill my brother and moms, so I didn’t say nothin’…until now. Now I got your ass exactly where I want you.”
“You ladies need to think about what you’re doing,” Mr. Rick warned. “Don’t throw your life away over this craziness.”
“Oh, now you want to play mentor now, huh?” Britt said. “ ’Cause of what you did, my head is all fucked up. I still be havin’ nightmares about that day.” With the gun aimed, Britt took something out of the inside pocket of her jacket.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A tape recorder.”
“Britt, this ain’t the way to do this shit.”
“Listen to your cousin,” Mr. Rick said.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Britt looked at me like I had committed a mortal sin. “Tiesha, I thought you would be with me on this. This bitch needs to confess.”
“Yeah, but, Britt, this isn’t the—”
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!”
“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.