An Urban Drama

“So, it all comes down this?” I asked my lawyer, Wanda Moore.

Wanda looked over at me and slowly nodded her head. “All there is now is to wait, Nina.”

Wait for a grand jury to decide if I was going to have to stand trial. I didn’t wanna go to jail, but who does? And if I had to go, I couldn’t blame anybody, but myself. I chose to be where I was in life, and I chose to be doing what I was doing. Still, sometimes life leads you to make choices that you think you normally wouldn’t. At every point where I should have turned right, I went left.

It was my first day back from
Virginia
. My girl, Teena, came and picked me up just like she did every time I came home. Only this time I was home for good. After five years I had finally graduated from
Hampton
University
with a degree in business administration. It took five years ’cause I lost my mind and went wild my freshman year. First time away from home, first time away from my parent’s control—shit, I thought college was a social activity. You couldn’t have a party and Nina not
be
there.
 

I got a little more serious about it my second year. I never was a great student, but I did enough to graduate. I figured I’d hang out for the summer, you know, have some fun—okay, have a lot of fun—then I’d get serious about getting a job in September. Maybe even October. After all, I had earned that break.

Teena had been my girl since I could remember. She was very pretty, and just the nicest, funniest person to be around. If there was trouble to get into, we got into it together. When I went away to college at
Hampton
, Teena, who always hated school, decided college wasn’t for her and stayed in
New York
. For the last five years she’d been hanging out. Teena didn’t work, and to my knowledge never had. She said her job was getting niggas to give her money. “The trick is doin’ it without fuckin’ everybody. That’s what makes it an art form,” Teena always told me. But it was working for her, ’cause everybody loved her.

Teena had taken some guy’s Escalade to pick me up while he was sleeping. She said she met the guy a couple of days ago. “He likes to smoke weed, right, but he gets real sleepy when he does. So I told him when he picked me up that I wanted to borrow his truck, you know, so I could hang out with you or whatever.”

“He probably thought you were crazy,” I said.

“He laughed and says, ‘We’ll see.’ So we had been ridin’ around smokin’ weed all day. Now, you know I can handle mine, but I know he’s gettin’ fucked up. So we get back to his house, right, and I say, you know, like, let’s smoke another blunt. So we sittin’ there smokin’ the blunt, watchin’ TV, and I ask him about the truck again, but he don’t really answer me ’cause he’s
fallin
’ asleep. So I’m tellin’ him, like, what a good driver I am and how I’m gonna take good care of his truck and shit, right. But by now he’s breakin’ his neck tryin’ to stay ’wake. So I’m like, look, if you fall asleep on me, I’m takin’ the truck,” Teena said.

“What he say?”

“All he could do at that point was smile. He fell asleep; I got his keys and was gone. Then I called this other guy, told him that I needed some money to hang out with you, and said I’d come by later. Not!”

That’s just how she carried it. So, now we were riding in some man’s Escalade, spending another man’s money. We hit the clubs.

We were hanging at this spot uptown when Teena says, “Hey, Nina, don’t that guy look like Lorenzo?”

“What guy?” I got excited just hearing his name. I turned around quickly and saw him making his way through the crowd toward the bar. It was him, Lorenzo Copeland, my boyfriend from high school. My first lover, my only real boyfriend. I hadn’t seen him in five years, and damn, he looked good. I told Teena I’d be back, went to the bar, and posted up where I knew he’d see me.

“Nina?” he yelled over the music as he got close enough to recognize me.

I turned around slowly like he was bothering me. I looked at him and made like I didn’t know him. “Yes.”

He stepped a little closer. “Don’t you recognize me?” He snatched off his sunglasses. “It’s me, Lorenzo.”

I took a step closer to him and slowly put on a little smile. “Lorenzo? Lorenzo Copeland.” I held out my arms. “Come show me some love.” He stepped up quickly and threw his arms around me. “How are you, Lorenzo?” I gave him a friendly hug and took a step back.

“I’m chillin’, you know. But damn, Nina, it’s good to see you.”

“Really? I’m glad you feel that way, ’cause I was just thinkin’ about
slappin
’ the shit outta you.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“How come you never answered my letters?”

“Nina, I swear I never got your letters.”

“Sure,” I said and turned away.

“A lotta shit happened after you left. Gimme a chance to explain. Come on,” he said and touched my hand. I pulled away. “Can we go someplace where we can talk?”

I stood there for a second a looked at him. I could tell by looking at him that he was a baller now. Standing there looking like money. I guess it was inevitable that he would grow up to be a baller; it ran in the family. Back then, two of his uncles went to jail for selling drugs, and the only reason his father stopped dealing was ’cause Lorenzo’s mother had died when Lorenzo was young. Lorenzo was definitely
bling-bling
now, and his gear was all designer shit.

“Okay. Where can we go?” I asked.

“Come ride with me.”

“I can’t.
Me
and Teena are rollin’ together. I can’t leave her.”

“Teena? From high school Teena?”

“Yup.”

“Where she at?”

“Right there,” I said, and pointed to my girl.

“Wait a minute.” He walked over to Chris, one of the guys he was with, whispered something to him then pointed at Teena.

Chris was fine too. He walked over and started talking to Teena. She was smiling and laughing, and the next thing I knew,
him
and Teena were coming toward us.

“What’s up, Teena?”

Teena gave Lorenzo a big hug. “What’s up, Lorenzo?”

“Y’all need to start callin’ me Lo. Nobody calls me Lorenzo anymore.”

“Whatever, Lo-
ren
-
zo
,” Teena said, emphasizing each syllable. I had to agree with her. I had met him as Lorenzo, and to me, that would always be his name.
 

Teena turned to me. “So, where we goin’, Nina?”

“I don’t know. This is a Lorenzo production.” I turned to him. “Where you talkin’ about takin’ us?” I asked, knowing that it didn’t really matter where he wanted to go, and it really didn’t matter what excuse he offered up for why he never wrote
,
I was going with him.

“Don’t worry about that. We goin’ to a little place I know. Come on.”

Teena and I followed them to Lorenzo’s rimmed-out Suburban. He threw the keys to Chris and we got in the backseat. Chris drove to a place called Jimmy’s, a little hole-in-the-wall bar where everybody seemed to know them. While Teena and Chris drank shots of tequila and played pool, me and Lorenzo sat in a booth in the back of the bar and talked. While I sipped rum and Coke, he told me that after I went away to
Hampton
, his father went to jail for murder. Since he was only seventeen at the time, Lorenzo had to go into a foster home until he turned eighteen.

“I’m sorry to hear that about your father. For real, I really am, but what does that have to do with you writing me?”

“’Cause he killed the man in our house, so they never let me back in there. They just packed up some of my stuff and shipped me off to this group home. I tried to tell them that I had to get back in the house to get some more of my stuff, but by the time I got in there the landlord had thrown out all of our stuff and moved someone else in there.”

I looked at Lorenzo, still playing the mad role. “You probably wouldn’t have written me even if you had the address.”

“That’s not true, Nina. I loved you—still do. I’m so glad to see you, you just don’t know.”

“Sure you do,” I said, getting wrapped up in the part. “All that is easy to say now, but all I know is that you forgot about me.”

A very sad look came over his face, but then all of a sudden he stood up and started smiling. “You gotta come with me, Nina,” he said and started walking away. When I didn’t jump up and fall in behind him, he stopped and came back to the table. “Come on, Nina. You gotta come with me.”

“Why?”

“’Cause there’s something I gotta show you.”

“Show me what?”

“Come with me and see.”

“Come with you where?”

“To
da
crib.”

“Hell no! I see you after five years and you think I’m gonna go to your crib with you? I don’t think so. What you wanna show me, your dick?” I asked. I wondered if he said yes, would I say okay. Truth be told, I love me some dick, and that had been my dick all through high school. On the morning that my parents drove me to
Virginia
to start college, I even snuck down to his house so I could fuck him one more time before I left.