Keysha's Drama (15 page)

“Liz,” I called to her and she approached me. I wanted to tell her that I wasn't feeling right but my words got trapped in my throat. She thought that I was encouraging her to keep it up. She was all over me, and I felt horrified by it because I liked it. At that moment, I felt as if I was not me. I felt as if I was out of my body looking at myself doing things that I never thought or believed I would do. I finally spoke in Liz's ear.

“I need to get out,” I said.

“Why? This is so much fun. Come on, you're into it,” she said and kept dancing. Thankfully the song was ending and we were let back down. Once we were back on solid footing, Liz said, “Woo, girl, you're so hot!” She was glancing at me as if she wanted to kiss me. I didn't understand myself at that moment.

“I need a drink,” she said and excused herself. I found an empty seat and sat down. My brother came up to me.

“What are you doing here? You're grounded until tomorrow.” I just looked at him with an incoherent glare.

“When Dad finds out he is going to go through the roof. You're so busted,” he said. I could hear his words but I felt as if I had trouble fully understanding him. Something was definitely out of place. I touched him, and his skin felt really silky. It was a wonderful feeling.

“Wow, you have such soft skin,” I said. Mike studied me for a long moment.

“You are so smashed,” he said. “What are you on?” he asked, but I couldn't answer him. At that moment I only wanted to find Liz. I was missing her and needed to know her whereabouts.

“Where is Liz?” I asked. Mike didn't answer me.

“You need to leave,” he said.

“Where in the hell is Liz!” I shouted at the top of my voice.

“I don't know,” he said. I got up and walked around to search for her. I don't recall how long I'd been walking or at exactly what point I exited the club, but somehow I ended up sitting on the hood of someone's car. I placed my face in my hands to try and pull myself together. I was having difficulty remembering why I came outside in the first place. I got up and started walking deeper into the parking lot.

“Hey, baby, you looking for a party?” I heard someone behind me ask. I turned around and there were three guys glaring at me.

“What party?” I foolishly asked.

“We're having a party right here in the parking lot,” he said. I didn't care about his party. I only wanted to find Liz, so I began walking again. Off in the distance I saw two silhouettes. One silhouette appeared to be strangling or choking the other figure.

Whoa
, I thought to myself as I tried to wrap my thoughts around what my eyes were seeing.

“Did you get the job done?” I heard a male voice ask as I got closer.

“Yes,” I heard a female voice say. I think it was Liz.

“Come on, girl, you want to party with us.” The guy grabbed my arm and started pulling me away.

“Am I supposed to go with you?” I asked. My mind was in a fog. “Liz, baby, why did you leave me in there? Don't you know how much I need you?”

“Yeah, girl, my name is Liz. That's right, keep calling me Liz.” I heard a bunch of guys laughing.

“What's so funny?” I asked, but before I could get an answer I collapsed.

“Damn it. It's the first day on my new legs,” I said.

“Open your legs,” I heard a male voice say.

“Why?” I asked. I managed to get back to my feet. I couldn't see clearly and my vision was very blurry. I started walking again but I'd only taken about three steps and collapsed to the ground again between two cars. For some reason the ground felt as soft as a pillow and I was suddenly sleepy. I lay down and rested. I last thing I remember was someone yelling, “Get away from her!”

W
hen I woke up, I was in my bed fully clothed, and I had no idea of how I'd gotten there or why I was sleeping with all of my clothes on. I felt as if someone was inside my head smashing the walls of my skull with a sledge hammer. I had a migraine headache that was out of this world. As I became more aware of my surroundings, I could hear muffled voices arguing.

“What in the world happened to me?” I said aloud as I sat up in my bed. I looked around my room and, for a brief moment, I recalled sneaking out of the house to hang out with Liz. I knew that we went out, but the last thing I remembered was riding the mechanical bull with Liz. All of my other memories were very vague and unclear. The urge to puke was strong so I got out of bed and made my way to the toilet just in time. I remained on my knees puking for a good five minutes. I felt as if I'd been kicked in the gut by an angry horse.

“You know, I've never heard them fight like this before. If my parents get a divorce because of you, I swear I'll kill you my damn self,” Mike said angrily.

“Get away from me, Mike, I'm not in the mood today,” I said as I tried to remember what day it was. I puked again. I scratched my scalp with my fingertips and tried to remember what happened. I kept seeing flashes of myself riding the bull with Liz, but nothing more. I moved over to the faucet and turned it on so that I could wash my face and brush my teeth.

“You do realize how very wrong things could have gone for you last night?” Mike asked.

“Gone wrong?” I asked, confused.

“Last night,” he said as if I should've known. “You don't remember, do you?”

“Remember what?” I looked at him, confused. There was a long moment of silence between us.

“What do you think happened to you?” he asked. He appeared to be fascinated with me for the moment.

“I know that I went out with Liz. I'm assuming that I snuck back in the house and was so tired that I didn't take off my clothes,” I said. It sounded like the most logical explanation. I looked into his eyes and saw that my account of events was way off. I suddenly felt as if I were in a dream, falling backward into darkness.

“Aww, man, you were so fried, you don't even remember what you were doing?” Mike had a perplexed look on his face. “You have no idea of how much trouble you've gotten yourself into or how you—”

“You can't scare me, Mike, so don't even try it,” I interrupted him. My stomach started doing flips and I had to puke once more.

“Here, let me help you,” Mike said, handing me a warm face cloth.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You looked like you were doped up last night.”

“Doped up? What the hell are you talking about? I don't do drugs.”

“Sure, you don't do drugs.” Mike didn't believe that I was telling him the truth. “Whatever you were on, it had you all whacked out. I'm the one who brought you home and Dad is the one who put you in bed. You were so out of it that you thought Dad was Estelle.”

“Estelle,” I said, wondering why I would have thought that.

“I think you were hallucinating. By the way, who is Estelle?”

“My aunt. She passed away earlier this year.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that.”

I paused in thought for a moment as I tried to remember what happened to me. Again, I could only see quick flashes of what had gone down. I did remember feeling very aroused, and I didn't understand why.

“Mom and Dad know about you sneaking out of the house and your dope problem.”

“I don't have a dope problem,” I said as I exited the bathroom.

“Yes, you do, and you'd better get help for it because that just isn't cool.” Mike didn't say anything else. He just went into his bedroom and shut the door. I began walking down the stairs but stopped midway so I could sit and listen to Jordan and Barbara argue about me.

“You gave it a shot, okay. I'll give you credit for trying to correct a mistake, but at this point you have to toss in the towel, Jordan.”

“She needs help, Barbara. She doesn't need another person to turn their back on her,” Jordan argued.

“You can't save her, Jordan. She's too far gone. If she stays in this house, she's going to ruin everything we've worked so hard for. She has to go.”

“And where do you suggest she goes? She has no other family.”

“I don't care where she goes as long as she leaves this house. We can call that social worker back and tell her that we tried but we can't deal with her. Let her go back to the group home until her mother can come for her.”

“Barbara, I'm not sending her back there. She's been through enough already,” Jordan countered.

“And what about us? Huh? What about what she's putting Mike and me through? She's using drugs, Jordan. My God, are you fully comprehending what this means? We're going to have to hide all of the valuables. She may let her drug dealer break into our home. Anything could happen.”

“I know that she has some problems, but I felt as if I was getting through to her. I felt like we were able to connect last week. She's a part of me, Barbara, and I can't change that.”

“She's playing you for a complete fool, Jordan, and you're too damn blind to see it.”

“I'm not blind,” he snapped back.

“Jordan, she acted nice to you all week so that you'd let your guard down, that's all. I'll bet you she planned how she was going to manipulate you in order to sneak out of the house.”

“She wouldn't do that to me,” I heard him say.

“She already has, Jordan.”

“Look, I'm going to put a special lock on the basement doors so that she can't sneak out at will. There are going to be severe consequences for what she's done, but I'm also going to look into getting her some help.”

“Why don't we just send her back, Jordan?” I could tell that Barbara was pleading with him.

“Because it's not her fault. It's my fault,” he answered. I was like, whoa, when I heard that one. I couldn't believe that he actually felt that responsible for me.

“If she does one more thing, Jordan, I swear to you, our marriage is going to suffer because of it.”

The next thing I heard was hard footsteps and a door slamming. I swallowed hard and then stood up. I wanted to defend myself and let Jordan know that I didn't do drugs and how I didn't understand what had happened to me. It was the first time that I really wanted to open up to him and explain myself. Hell, I even wanted to apologize to him for manipulating him just as Barbara knew I had. I'd never seen nor heard anyone stand up for me like Jordan had.

I walked down the rest of the stairs and into the kitchen. I stood at the archway between the kitchen and the family room and stared at my father. He was sitting down on the sofa glaring directly at me. His eyes were red with rage, his jaw was tight and his chest was still heaving from the confrontation he'd just had with Barbara. I wanted to tell him that there was just a big misunderstanding about me and that I didn't mean for things to happen the way that they had. I tried to speak but my words wouldn't come out of my mouth. My father's hardened gaze put the fear of God in my heart. I felt that at any moment he was going to snap at me in a way that would scar me emotionally for the rest of my life.

“Go back to your room and don't come back down here until I tell you to.”

“But—”

Jordan sprang to his feet, rushed over to me and locked his hand around my wrist. He hauled me back through the kitchen into the dining room to the staircase.

“This is not a damn game I'm playing!” His voice roared like thunder and was filled with hell's fury. It was the very first time that I felt afraid of him. I began to cry as I rushed back upstairs to my room. I wished that there was a way I could explain everything and make him believe that I was telling him the truth.

I
didn't have any appetite, so I didn't eat dinner that night. I remained in my room and started reading
Moby Dick
to escape from the pain I'd caused. The next morning I woke up very early. I was awake before anyone else in the house. I opened my door to go to the bathroom but stopped when I saw an envelope sitting outside of my door. I reached down to pick it up and saw that a letter from my Grandmother Rubylee had arrived. I went back inside my room and shut the door. I sat down on my bed, ripped the envelope open and read her letter.

Dear Keysha
,

It has taken me a while to get my thoughts together enough to write you. Prison life isn't easy, but I'm making the best of it. I'm working on my getting out of here so that I can have my freedom back. The prison guards in here aren't very nice, and the food is nasty. At night I sleep
on a hard bed with bedsheets that have a sour odor. The bedsheets smell like they've been inside of a Dumpster filled with spoiled food. Adding to my misery are the large spiders that chew on me all night while I'm asleep. Sometimes I don't sleep at all. I just stare up at the ceiling and try to make myself believe I'm not in here. The prison guards tried to break my spirit but I won't let them. I'm too strong, too smart and too tough for that to happen
.

I was trying to think of things you'd want to know about my life as it is now. The best I can do for you is to describe a typical day and what it's like on the inside of this place. I'm not in a prison cell like you see on television. I'm in a dorm room setting. Everyone is in a big room with a mattress and a locker. You can't hang any posters or pictures because the walls are solid white brick. The floor isn't carpeted, it's gray and made of concrete. Let me tell you, it gets bone-chilling cold in here during the winter. Prison is supposed to be about rehabilitating a person so that they can go out and function in society. However, I've run into more corruption in here than I ever did out on the streets. I've got myself a little trading hustle going on in here. One of the girls in the stockroom and another one in the cafeteria used to run the streets with me back when I was messing around with Stanback. I'm not sure if you remember Stanback. He was your grandfather but he was killed a long time ago. Anyway, my girl in the supply room makes sure that I get extra toiletries in my weekly care package so I can trade them for cigarettes
or other things I may need. Believe it or not, you only get one roll of toilet paper every seven days. If you run out before then you're up shit's creek without a paddle. So women come to me when they need hygiene products and I give my girls a percentage
.

When I wake up in the morning I have at least two or three women putting in orders with me. When I go to the cafeteria for breakfast, I give my order to my girl who is serving food and she gets it to my girl in the supply room who then makes sure that my weekly toiletry bag is filled with all of the right stuff
.

After breakfast I head to the break room where I sit and talk to people while playing cards or some other game to take my mind off of where I'm at. Around one o'clock we get an hour of free time out in the prison yard. I mostly walk around and talk to people but you have to be careful about that because not everybody around here gets along. You could easily end up in a fight and if you get jammed up you have to go to a hearing in front of a prison judge who then disciplines you by adding time to your sentence. So far, I've had four altercations and I've had seven months added on to my time. I've taken on the meanest and baddest women in this place and have whipped them all. You can't walk around this place with fear in your eyes because the women in here will take advantage of you. From two o'clock to six o'clock, I'm in the library shelving books. The small amount of money I make is placed on the prison books. The money is supposed to
help me start over when I get out. It's nice doing that type of work but I don't think it's going to serve me well when I get out of here. I just do it to pass the time. After that I go back to the cafeteria and eat dinner, which isn't very good. After dinner they usually have a movie for us to watch, and then after that I go back to my locker and fill my orders. After that's done, I lie on my back and try not to let the spiders chew on me
.

I'm not sure how you found out who your real daddy is. Your mama was out running the streets with so many guys during the time she got pregnant. It sounds like your father is a good, quality man with some money. Money is what makes the world go around, Keysha, even in prison. So when you do come to see me make sure you have some money for me. In fact, I want you to send me any allowance money that you get so that it can be put on the books for me. Since you're living in high society now, I know you can afford to send your Grandmother Rubylee some money. In fact, I know I shouldn't be writing this because sometimes the guards read your mail, but I'm going to risk it. Look around your daddy's house and see if you can find his bank account information as well as his social security number. If you can get that information to me, I know some people who can make sure that you and I both can reap all of the benefits of a man with good credit
.

Let me know when you're coming my way. Your Grandmother
,

Rubylee

I was sick after I read her letter. I couldn't believe she had the nerve to ask me to rip off my own father. I buried my face inside my pillow and screamed as loud as I could before I began crying.