If it Aint One Thing it's Another

Lydia was spending the day with her girlfriend, Janine. She needed to clear her mind and get her thoughts together. Janine had four kids, and Lydia was attached to the youngest—thirteen-month-old Janelle. Janelle would start to cry every time Lydia would get ready to leave, so Lydia suggested that she keep Janelle overnight. Janine was more than happy to have one less child to clean up after, so Lydia made Janelle an overnight bag and put her favorite teddy bear in her pocketbook. She called a cab and headed home with Janelle.

The cab pulled up to Lydia’s building. She sat outside with Janelle for a little while and then pulled out her keys. She took Janelle by the hand, put her overnight bag over her shoulder and walked toward the building’s entrance. A guy approaching from behind asked her to hold the door for him. She held it without a second thought. The guy was Kalif.

Lydia pressed the elevator button and waited. The elevator doors opened and Lydia, Janelle and Kalif, who was listening to a set of headphones now, all got on it. Lydia pressed 14 and Kalif pressed 12 as the doors closed. When the doors opened back up on the twelfth floor, Kalif got off and told Lydia to take care. She told him to do the same, and the elevator doors closed again.

Lydia exited the elevator when it got to her floor. She had the key in the door when Kalif walked up on her. She panicked when she saw the gun in his hand.

”Open the door, prego, before I drop this rug-rat down the incinerator,” Kalif said to her as he snatched Janelle up in his arms. ”What an ugly little girl. The doctor should have slapped your parents,” he added looking at Janelle.

Lydia opened the apartment door and Kalif stepped in behind her and closed it. He took the keys out of her hand and put them in his pocket. He put Janelle down and took the keys out of his pocket after realizing that a key had to be used to lock and unlock the door, even from the inside. This was even better than he had expected. He locked the door and put the key back in his pocket.

”Who are you?” Lydia asked, reaching for Janelle. She wanted to keep her from crying, even though she felt like crying herself. Kalif told her his name was The Coroner, and that’s what she should call him. Lydia looked at the blank expression on his face, and it dawned on her who he probably was. She wanted to ask him about the Escalade, but there really was no reason to; she knew he was responsible.

”Oh, this is your peep’s daughter? Well, that bitch needs to go to prison for endangering the welfare of pretty muthafuckas like me,” he said with no feeling at all.

Janelle began to cry and Lydia tried to comfort her, but it wasn’t working. ”Please, she’s just a little girl, and you talking like that is scaring her.”

”Scaring her? Scaring her?! You can’t be serious. She’s scaring me, with that ugly face of hers, now shut the fuck up!” he shouted, still wearing the same blank expression.

Kalif asked Lydia when Ladelle was coming home. She started to say any minute, hoping that would scare him and make him leave, but she changed her mind and said she didn’t know. He told her that the sooner she found out, the sooner he’d be leaving. Suddenly, he looked at her and started laughing. Lydia asked him what he was laughing at. ”I’m laughing at you,” he said. ”Now stop asking me questions.”

Lydia noticed that Kalif had an odd look on his face now, and she asked him what he planned on doing. He looked at her and said if she asked him one more question, he was going to put Janelle in the freezer.

Lydia viewed him as a little boy who didn’t get enough attention during his childhood. And she could tell by the blank look in his eyes that he was a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. She wondered if he was a maniac, but she decided that he looked too young to be one. She was wrong.

Kalif told Lydia to get some rope. When she told him she didn’t have any, he went to her bedroom in the back, looked through the dresser drawers and found a pair of pantyhose, using them to tie her hands behind her back. Janelle started crying again and Lydia tried to comfort her, but there wasn’t much she could do now with her hands bound. Kalif yelled at Janelle to stop crying, and that made her cry even more. He told Lydia he’d put her in the closet if she did-n’t shut up.

”Please untie me so I can feed her, and then I’ll try to put her to sleep,” she pleaded, hoping he would feel some kind of sympathy. He agreed to untie her, but only because Janelle’s crying was getting on his nerves.

”If you try anything funny, I’ll push you out the fucken window. I’m not playing, so don’t sleep on me,” Kalif said as he untied Lydia’s wrists. He went on to tell her that the two most important things in his life were money and drugs, and he didn’t give a fuck about her. He also told her that his mother and brother were both dead, so dying meant nothing to him. That alone told Lydia that he didn’t care about her life or the baby she was carrying.

Lydia was trapped in the house with a nut and had no idea what time Ladelle would be coming home. She couldn’t help but wonder whether Kalif would let her go or really hang around until he arrived. And when he did get home, what would Kalif do then? In the meantime, she was stuck in the crib with a nut and didn’t know if she was going to live or die. She couldn’t bear the thought of what the end result might be.