Wifey 4 Life (11 page)

He looked at me and said, “Get the truth.”

“Are you going to let me go?”

“Yeah. As soon as you tell me the truth.”

“But I’ve been telling you truth.”

He leaned over into my face and said in a low whisper, “You and
I both know you’re holding something back, so the sooner you come clean with it,
the sooner you can leave here.”

He stood straight up, but before he turned to leave the room,
he encouraged me to think about what he’d said because when he got back my time
would be up.

When the other guy, Breon, walked into the room, my uncle walked
out and headed toward the front door. I heard him say a few words to Kasey and Dré
when he got to the front door.

As soon as I heard the front door open and close, I knew they
had left. What they were about to go get into was a complete mystery to me.

B
reon sat down on the sofa about seven feet away from me. He
picked up the remote control and surfed through the channels. He stopped at channel
28, A&E.
The First 48
was on, and his eyes were glued to the screen. I’d watched
the show a few times before moving out of the country. I guess now wasn’t such a
bad time to do some catching up, since I was being held there against my will.

As I sat there, my stomach started growling. I never ate my
sandwich from Feather-N-Fin. If I knew Tony had intentions to leave me, I would
have eaten it before I got out of the car. I didn’t know how long I’d been there,
but through the thin curtains that covered the windows I noticed that the street
lights were on outside, so I knew it was past my dinner time.

Breon was so engrossed in his show, I was afraid to ask him for
something to eat. But my stomach persisted with the rumbling.

“Excuse me,” I said to get his attention.

He turned and looked at me. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“I know you probably think I’m crazy for asking you this, but
I was hoping you could get me something to snack on, because I am starving over
here.”

He hesitated for a moment. “I was told not to leave this room
for nothing,” he said. “But I guess I can get you something.”

Knowing that this guy wasn’t all that bad made me happy for the
moment. I gave him a half-smile. “Thanks.”

He walked out of the room and returned a minute later with a
piece of chicken wrapped in a paper towel and a clear plastic cup of red juice.
“I got you a piece of some KFC we had earlier, so it’s room temperature, and I got
you some fruit punch to go with it.”

“Thank you so much!” I replied. I was happy as hell when he walked
in the room with that shit in his hands. I knew he wouldn’t untie me so I could
feed myself, so I didn’t ask. At this point, all that mattered was that I was
about to put something on my stomach. Well, maybe that wasn’t all that mattered
because, if he untied me and told me I could leave, I’d leave that cold piece of
chicken behind in a flash. But that wasn’t happening.

Breon approached me with the chicken in his right hand and the
cup of fruit punch in the other. He held the piece of chicken right in front of
my mouth so I could bite it. I chewed, and then I bit into it again.

Under normal circumstances I would have felt really stupid letting
some complete stranger feed me a cold piece of chicken, but unfortunately the
situation I was in wasn’t normal, so I refused to complain.

Once I had devoured the entire piece of chicken, he pressed the
cup of juice between my lips. I opened my mouth just enough to drink. It didn’t
take me long to drink the entire cup of fruit punch, and when I was done I let out
a loud belch. “Excuse me,” I said.

Breon smiled. “You ain’t got to apologize. You a’ight,” he assured
me as he held the chicken bone in one hand, and the empty plastic cup in the other.
Without asking me, he used the napkin he’d held the chicken with and wiped the grease
and the red ring of juice off my mouth. I was speechless. But when I got back my
voice I thanked him once again.

He smiled again. “I told you, you a’ight.”

“I know. But I can’t help it. The way I’ve been treated since
I’ve been here is far worse than I’ve ever been treated in my life, especially by
a family member.” I waited for Breon to make a comment, but he just shrugged his
shoulders and gave me a blank expression.

It really didn’t surprise me that he didn’t want to respond.
The entire time I’d been here he was the only one who acted like he didn’t want
to be part of the decisions when it came to me. And now that I looked at him closer,
he seemed like he was a little standoffish. People like him preferred not to get
into situations that didn’t concern them. I was like that too, so I guess he and
I had something in common.

I watched him as he strolled back into the kitchen area to dispose
of the paper towel and the empty plastic cup. When he came back into the room, he
sat back down on the sofa and resumed watching
The First 48
. I tuned back in, but
I couldn’t help but think how long it would be before my uncle, Kasey, and Dré came
back. The thought of them coming back to torture me some more made me uneasy. The
food and drink I had just consumed was bound to come back up if I thought about
it any longer. Talking to Breon would definitely take my mind off him.

“Hey, Breon,” I said.

He took his eyes off the television and gave me his undivided
attention. “What’s up?”

“How do you know my uncle?”

“Me and my brother Dré met him through our cousin Tony right
after his baby mama Rhonda got killed. I’m not sure how they met, but I heard it
was during the time when the homicide detectives went to Nikki and started asking
her questions about the murder, since Rhonda was snatched up from the hair shop.
But, besides that, me and Dré copped a couple of brand-new flat-screen TVs from
him a while back. He told us he was the district manager for Wal-Mart, so he could
get us anything we wanted for the right price. When he called us last week and told
us he had some brand-new laptops he needed to get rid of, we called our homeboy
Mitch and he took ’em off L.L.’s hands with no problem.”

I got quiet for a second. I had to mull over what Breon had just
said. Uncle Lanier was always a straight-laced guy. I’d never seen him associate
with any thugs, so what did he and Tony have in common? I decided to put that question
on the back burner for now and get as much information out of Breon as possible.

“Do you know where they just went?”

“Yeah. L.L. got a call from some nigga from the Wal-Mart warehouse,
so he had to go.”

“Why did he need your brother and Kasey to go with him?

“Well, he needed Kasey to drive, and he needed my brother to
help him load some shit onto his truck.”

Getting information from Breon was easier than stealing candy
from a baby. Every question I asked, he answered. I had just a couple more questions
for him, so I held no punches.

“Kasey must be y’all sister, because she looks just like y’all,”
I commented, hoping he’d confirm or deny my suspicions.

“Nah, she ain’t our sister. She’s our cousin.”

“How old is she?”

“She either just turned twenty-seven, or she’s gon’ be twenty-seven
soon, because Dré is three years older than her.”

“Does she have any kids?”

“Nah. She ain’t got no kids.”

“What about you?”

“Yeah, I got two children.”

“Boys or girls?”

“I got a little man and I got a little girl.”

“Does your son look like you?”

“He sure does.”

“What about your daughter? I bet she’s really pretty.”

Breon smiled. The thought of his little girl made his eyes sparkle.
“Yeah, she’s a cutie, but she’s bad as hell. You know how terrible twos can be.”

“I don’t have any kids, but I’ve seen enough two-year-olds to
know what you’re talking about,” I said. “So what’s their names?”

I continued to make small talk with this guy because I wanted
him to warm up to me, so we could form some kind of bond. No one else in the entire
house gave a fuck about me. But for some reason this guy seemed like he had a heart.
Whether he knew it or not, he was going to be my ticket out of there.

Before he could tell me what his daughter’s name was, we were
both startled when someone knocked on the front door. He looked at me like he’d
seen a fucking ghost. I looked back at him and said nothing. I thought he was going
to get up and see who it was, but he didn’t move.

The knocking didn’t stop, so he pressed the mute button on the
remote, got up, and tiptoed down the hallway. Before he left the room, he instructed
me not to say a word. One part of me wanted to tell him to kiss my ass, but the
other part of me wanted to honor his wish. He was being nice to me, and I didn’t
want to ruin the progress we’d made so far.

The person at the front door continued to knock, but Breon refused
to answer the door. Several seconds later, he tiptoed back into the room. He looked
at me in a very weird way and then he took a seat.

Curiosity was burning inside me. “Who’s knocking at the door?”
I asked.

“It’s Dré’s baby’s mama.”

“Why didn’t you tell her he was gone?”

“Because she looked like she already had an attitude, so I knew
she wouldn’t believe me.”

When the knocking stopped, he said, “Good. She’s gone.”

Hearing him say she was gone almost gave me a nervous breakdown.
If I had gotten up the courage to yell, she probably would’ve thought Dré was in
here and tried to break down the door to see what was going on. Now my chances of
using her were gone.

Breon turned the volume back up on the television and continued
to watch.

I sat there with an expression of disgust on my face. I was devastated,
and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. With nothing else to do, I tuned back
in to
The First 48
.

After five minutes or so of watching TV, we were startled again
by loud knocking. This time it came from the back window. When I heard it, I knew
without a doubt that it was that same chick. She had walked to the back of the
house and started banging on the window of the room where we sat.

She yelled, “Dré, I know you’re in there, you no good motherfucker!
Let me in before I break this damn window!”

Breon stood and looked at me. He placed his finger up to his
mouth to tell me not to say a word.

“I see somebody in there! Dré, I know it’s your ass! Open up
the door and let me in there!”

“Help! They got me tied up in here!” I screamed. “Help me!
Heeeeeellll—,” I tried to say once more, but was silenced by a hard blow to the
back of my head, and then everything around me went dark.

 
W
hen I regained consciousness, I immediately felt a horrible
pain at the back of my head. My head was pounding uncontrollably. It felt like
I had been hit with a heavy piece of metal. I didn’t have to touch the back of my
head to know I had a great big lump back there. When I opened my eyes, I realized
that my mouth was taped shut again, and Breon was standing within a couple feet
of me. He didn’t look too happy, so I knew he wasn’t going to be nice to me anymore.
I don’t know what happened to that chick, or how he’d handled the situation, but
she was gone, and I was still here, so that said a lot.

My head continued to ache. The pain was so excruciating, I almost
started crying. I needed something to make the pain go away, but I knew Breon wasn’t
about give me any headache medicine. I just had to sit there and endure it.

After about an hour and a half, I heard voices coming through
the front door. Breon jumped to his feet and greeted the people in the hallway.
My heart started pounding all over again. I couldn’t tell what was hurting more
between my head and my heart, because both of them were getting to me.

“Where is L.L.?” I heard Breon ask.

“He had to make another run, but he’ll be back soon,” Dré said.

I heard Breon let out a loud sigh. I knew he was about to bring
them up to speed about what had happened while they were gone. I really didn’t
want him to tell them what I did, but I knew it was bound to happen. I was just
glad my uncle wasn’t here to hear it. I knew he’d be very angry and would try to
hurt me really badly.

“I had to knock that bitch out in there,” I heard him say.

“Why? What she do?” Dré asked.

“Yeah, what she do?” Kasey chimed in.

“Trice came over here and started knocking on the front door
real loud, but I didn’t answer it. So she went to the back of the house and started
banging on the window in the room where we got homegirl. I ain’t gon’ lie, the shit
scared the hell out of me, because I thought she was gone. But when she started
banging on the window in the back, she started yelling through the glass saying,
“I see somebody in there! Dré, I know it’s your ass! Open up the door and let me
in there before I bust this fucking window open.’ And before I could do anything,
that bitch in there started yelling like a madwoman, saying, ‘Help! They got me
tied up in here. Help!’ ”

“You bullshitting me!” Dré said.

“Nah, I ain’t. So right when she was about to scream again, I
punched her right in the back of her fucking head and knocked her ass out.”

“That bitch is crazy!” I heard Kasey blurt out. “I knew L.L.
should’ve let me stay here, because none of that shit would’ve happened.”

“Did Trice hear her?” Dré asked.

“Yeah, she heard her. But right after I knocked her out, I dragged
her ass out of the room and hid her in the hall closet, and then I let Trice in.”

“What she say?” Dré asked.

“She was like, ‘Who was that bitch I heard screaming? I know
y’all got some ho up in here.’ ”

“And whatcha tell her?”

“I told her that was the TV she heard, and that you and Kasey
went uptown to meet somebody.”