Читать книгу The New World: The Awakening - Leahann Cavanaugh - Страница 6

Chapter 2

October 10, 2020

“I can’t wait till our birthday weekend,” Denise expressed as she slow ground the men’s ring case.

“Girl, what do you have on the agenda?” I said, laughing while I looked around to make sure no one saw her.

“It’s a surprise,” she replied, still slow grinding the ring case.

I was born October 20, 1995, and Denise was born October 19, 1992. Ever since we met freshman year, we have been inseparable. It was the first day of the second quarter and I had just moved from Atlanta with my adoptive parent. I was going through this “I don’t give a fuck” stage, and for the most part, you could read it on my face. Out of a crowd of girls and varsity jocks came the smallest yet loudest voice I had ever heard. This five-foot-one white girl came up behind me from the crowd. I just knew that voice didn’t come from that chick, I thought to myself.

“Four dollars eighty cents,” the lunch lady said, pissed she had to fill in for someone else on her day off. I paid it with a crispy twenty-dollar bill and stepped to the side.

“Five dollars eighty-five,” the lunch lady said to the white girl.

“Damn, I’m a dollar short.” She reached into all her pockets and even took off her right Jordan to look for her money in her shoe.

“Put something back then,” the lunch lady said to her.

“Come on, Kris, let me slide. You know I’m good for it. I’ll bring the dollar tomorrow,” the white girl said as if it was a usual thing for her to be short and chickee poo to let her slide and pay her later. The lunch lady looked at me then looked at white girl and, with the most devilish look, yelled, “I said put something back!”

I believe if I wasn’t standing there and the new kid, and the rest of the cafeteria had not heard what the lunch lady said to white girl, things would’ve happened differently. White girl looked around and saw all the faces staring back at her, expecting the unexpected. She looked at me and then back at the lunch lady. Something changed about the little, loud, outspoken white girl. For a minute I could have sworn she was black. She leaned in closer to the lunch lady and said, “Who the fuck do you think you raisin’ yo voice to? Bitch, I hop my little ass over this counter and make a real fuckin’ woman out of you.” White girl screamed as she slowly scrunched up her jeans near her thighs, preparing to leap. Damn, I thought.

“You little midget bitch, I have my daughters come down here and fuck you up for disrespecting me,” the lunch lady threatened, still trying to demand respect.

“Whoa! Look, here is the dollar that she owe. All this ain’t necessary.” I intervened, trying to defuse the situation.

White girl instantly blurted out, “Good lookin’, but this broke down seven kids having by six different baby daddies, food stamp sellin’ to support yo weed habit, keep jumper cables and an extra battery for yo hoopty havin’ president of Summers Eve Fan Club smelling like spoiled crab cakes ass. Hoe wanna talk about respect. Bitch, first lesson of my life was, in order to get respect, you got to give it, and I wish you would call a couple of yo raggedy beastly-looking ass kids to come see me.”

Damn, I thought I thought.

“You ain’t got shit to’ do with this!” the lunch lady snapped at me as if I just spilled her beans. Before I could even respond, white girl jumped to my defense like I knew her for years.

“Broke hoe, don’t come at her like that.” Then she started to laugh and said, “I bet yo name dimples on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, huh. Yo ‘other boss’ wanted to make sure yo name was appropriate for the cellulite that takes up 80 percent of yo body.”

The whole cafeteria laughed.

“This bitch so desperate she accept Chuck E. Cheese tokens for BJs so her youngin can experience the good life.” The crowd laughed even louder as tears began to roll down the lunch lady’s face while she texted rapidly on her phone.

“This bitch so loose her last two be outside pointing at guys talkin’ ’bout bing o key lock no cross count dat’s my daddy.” At the moment I was weak, and from how she came at me, I didn’t give a fuck about her feelings. I gave dap to the little white girl that was four inches shorter than I was.

I had long jet-black hair that was pulled into a ponytail. I wore a black baggy shirt and some baggy jeans. I always wore baggy clothes because at eleven, I had hips, tits, and ass that fit the description of a grown-ass woman, so I always kept my shit under wraps. White Girl had on a white shirt and some jeans as well.

Just as we got the full enjoyment of our laughter, ridiculously large, beastly-looking females appeared out of nowhere and looked at the lunch lady, who all of a sudden stopped crying.

Now in a situation like this you would think that one would realize the danger and stop laughing. Not White Girl and Lyric. I thought about what White Girl said about her kids in the beginning, and it made me laugh even harder.

“Aww, well, well, well, if it isn’t fat Alice and her garbage pals.” White Girl ranted as if she was begging for an ass whooping. White Girl new the lunch lady was a stripper and had a pimp before. She also knew she worked three nights out of the week at her other job. White Girl also knew that she had seven kids and the youngest two had no dads. How she knew all of this, hell, I didn’t know at the time. White Girl even knew that one of her daughters went to the school because she was in the same math class as her.

But what she didn’t know was that Lunch Lady started having kids early. By the time Lunch Lady was thirty-six, she had two seniors, a junior, a sophomore, and a freshman in high school, a second grader, and a kid in preschool. All her high school students went to that high school along with two of her nieces. White Girl also didn’t know that Lunch Lady would have graduated from UT that past summer with honors in criminal justice but had to withdraw because she ran out of financial aid.

“Oh, you think this shit funny?” Alice said with tears in her eyes as she slowly took steps toward White Girl and me. Before I could even respond, the lunch lady yelled out, “Don’t even worry about the black girl. Get that white bitch and show her what it feels like to really get her ass whooped.” All the attention was off of me and on white girl. All nine sets of eyes. Hell, I was even lookin’ at her because I wondered if she had a trick up her sleeve or something. The whole time this stare-down popped off, the lunchroom got quiet as fuck. I’m an observant person. I can see shit before it happens in any given situation. The shit felt like we were in slow motion. You got the beastly-looking bitches to your right, Lunch Lady behind the counter, still with pride in her eyes. She just knew her babies were about to make her proud. Then you got white girl and me to your left. My back faced Lunch Lady, and White Girl was facing team Beastly. I wasn’t worried about her old ass.

White Girl was head-on with them bitches like she was about to have a showdown with all them broads at the same time, and as she sized them up, she made noises with her mouth. The rest of the people in the cafeteria moved farther away from what looked like War World III about to take place. The whole time, White Girl had a conniving grin on her face and acted like she had everything under control. Next thing I knew, White Girl shouted the most stupid shit that I had ever heard someone throw the first punch over.

I don’t even think Alice heard what she said. “You fat Reece’s pieces covered in baby oil, you slip ’n’ slide on garbage bags in the back—” Before White Girl could get the word yard out, Alice lunged at her with all her strength. White Girl moved out of the way at the last minute and tripped Alice. She fell to the ground embarrassed.

“Don’t get up, that’s yo only warning,” White Girl taunted. Alice wasn’t pissed; she was furious. Soon as Alice got on her knees, White Girl took it to her face, straight little fist of fury to both eyes. Alice, not knowing what hit her, swung profusely but really wasn’t landing her punches. Alice did the worst thing you could do in any type of fight: she put her head down. White Girl really got her then. She got real creative with it. She started doing tae bo kicks to Alice’s side and smacking her in sequence while singing to herself, “I’m too legit, too legit to quit.” I don’t think she knew I could hear her, but I did.

I was shocked. I think everybody was. I stood there with my mouth wide open in disbelief while this five-foot-one, 145-pound white chick whooped the shit out of this five-foot-seven, 170-pound black chick. I snapped out of it when White Girl got serious and slammed Alice to the ground by her hair. I looked at the remaining six girls who stared in awe as their sister and cousin got her ass whooped. I guess Lunch Lady snapped out of it shortly after I did, because loudly behind me, she yelled to the other girls, “What the fuck y’all just watching for? Help Treasure.”

All at once they bum-rushed the site where the massacre took place. Before Thing 1 and Thing 2 could reach White Girl, I tripped Thing 1 and gave Thing 2 what Jay would call a knuckle sandwich straight to the left eye socket. Them broads looked like two anorexic niggas with two-day quick weave and fuzzy cheap ass kinky twist. Thing 1 went down easy; Thing 2 was out for the count. As I quickly turned to stomp on Thing 1’s back, White Girl was finally approached by Goony Goo Goo and Biggie Falls. Biggie Falls was a freshman, five foot six, 200 pounds, and was clumsy as hell. She was nice when she wanted to be but fell so much that she rarely found reasons to be nice. She had short hair, and it was not by choice. She had caramel complexion with dark-brown eyes, and she talked really fast.

“White Girl, watch out! Biggie Falls behind you!” I yelled, trying to warn my newly bought friend. At the time I didn’t even know that Biggie was clumsy. She turned around and kicked Biggie in the stomach and Goony Goo Goo in the crotch. Goony fell to the ground. White Girl then grasped Goony’s right cheek with her freshly manicured nails and proceeded to punch the taste out of her mouth with her right fist. I was amazed. Then Biggie Falls bum-rushed White Girl off of Goony and literally sat her fat ass on top of White Girl and started to punch her in the face—left, right, left, right, the whole time with her fat ass rocking. Overly kicking Thing 1, I lost track of thought, and that was when I tried to run to White Girl’s side when the fuckin’ little rascals came out of the blue and hit me with a nice blow to my right cheek and a jab to my ribs. It knocked the wind out of me.

“Look at this li’l bitch,” Buckwheat said. “Think she can hang with the big dogs, huh.” Buckwheat had dreads that touched her shoulders. I guess she was trying to be different because she had some dreads that were neon green, pink, yellow, and orange, like she was artistic or something. Out of all the beastlys, Buckwheat was the only one who looked decent, or shall I say presentable. It was something about her that made me not want to fight her. Last time I got this feeling was when I was about to fight Jay. Instead of fighting her, I felt like I should befriend her and protect her because she was important.

“I don’t want to fight you,” I said as calmly as I could.

“Fuck that!” Big Foot yelled and ran up and sneaked a punch to my left eye. I was pissed. Biggie was still on White Girl, not really hitting her, just fucking with her. Then this big foot bitch, a freshman who wore a size 12 in women’s, just really put me on edge. Big Foot was short and skinny with humongous feet. She had very pretty black hair and chocolate skin complexion. Then Buckwheat said something I bet to this day she wished she never said: “Who taught you how to fight, yo pussy-ass mama!” I could’ve given her the benefit of the doubt. She didn’t know my mama died givin’ birth to me. I blacked out.

I came to handcuffed to a metal railing next to the principal’s office, White Girl next to me. “Damn, mama, you a beast,” she said as she reached for my hand.

I accepted. “Yeah, you not so bad yourself,” I replied. “What happened?” I asked, confused of how it all ended.

“Well, all I can say is we won! I’m Denise, but you can call me KitKat.”

“I’m Lyric, but you can call me Lyric,” I implied, trying to be funny. Not knowing the extent of the damage we did, I sat back and basked in my glory. Eleven-year-old freshman whooped the asses of four big beastly-looking bitches. I was happy, especially since I just spent a buck and made a friend. A loyal one at that. All the joy and happiness went away when I saw Lunch Lady walk out of the principal’s office crying like somebody just died.

Come to find out when I blacked out, I grabbed a metal pole that was used to keep the metal doors closed on the lunch line and I beat Big Foot until she was unconscious. I didn’t know what I had done. She was rushed to the hospital. Thing 1 had two broken ribs, three missing teeth, and bruising on her back. Thing 2 had a dislocated jaw. Biggie had bite wounds all over her legs and arms. Goony had a broken jaw and fractured eye socket, and Buckwheat, well, she came out without a scratch. Alice had a broken rib and jaw. The lunch lady was fired because of her behavior and actions toward students. Her tribe called Quest was suspended ten days each. As for Denise and me, we both got ROY (rest of the year) due to the damage we caused to other students even though we were just defending ourselves. They did not invite us back the following year. We both did freshman year through homeschooling together, and we’ve been each other’s right hand ever since.

When I had found out that all the shit she had said about the lunch lady was true, I asked her how she knew. She said, “My dad is a cop, and my stepmom is a beautician. Last year I went to take yo daughter to workday with my dad ’cuz my mom was sick, and let me tell you, dicks talk just as much as pussies do. The precinct is just like the beauty shop, except the shit you hear there is actually true, not just a bunch of he-say, she-say shit. They got the evidence.” She was Nancy Drewing it at a young age.

“Yo, Lyric,” Denise said as she tried to get my attention. “Where the hell do you go when you zone out like that?”

“What’s up?” I replied, ignoring her question.

“You know, yo bitch gone be twenty-eight this year, so I’m trying to do something out my comfort zone,” she said as she taunted an older customer by licking her fingers and rubbing them down the top part of her unbuttoned blouse.

“Stop it, Kit, you gone give that man a heart attack,” I said, joking around. “What isn’t in yo comfort zone?” I seriously questioned.

For a minute she couldn’t even answer me. Then she looked at Miles flirting with another guy. “Maybe we could…”

“Aww, hell naw, you want me to fuck you up, don’t you?” I cut her off, a little upset that she would bring up the topic again.

“I’m just saying that would be out of my comfort zone,” she strongly suggested.

“No! Hell no! And if I did, I don’t think I’d fuck with white chicks,” I said, letting her know if I was gay, she wouldn’t be my type.

“How come?” Denise asked.

“Because for one a lot of y’all don’t have ass. For two, too bitchy; three, I just don’t like white chicks. No offense,” I said, just trying to end the conversation.

Denise always had a girl crush on me ever since we first met. I’ve never known her to mess with a female before her crush on me, but you can never tell with her and her secrets.

As we went over our birthday plans, this light-skinned man walked up and literally stopped time. He was in an all-black suit that had a small shine to it. You could tell it was tailor-made because it fit his body to a tee. He had on a white business shirt and a black tie with a gold tie clip attached. His eyes were hazel/light brownish in color, and his hair was cut short. His beard was attached to his sideburns and covered half of his cheeks and came together at his mustache.

“Honey dip look like the men in black,” Denise whispered to me in her “gotta get him” voice.

“Naw, he finer than Will,” I whispered back. As I looked over this man, he looked like he stepped out of the GQ’s sexiest men under forty 2020 edition. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I’ve never stared at a man for so long except when I used to stare at Jay.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Miles trying to give the signal that he was calling dibs on GQ. Usually I would let Miles have them and try his luck, but I just knew he was here for me. So I ignored Miles.

“Lyric! Lyric, I need to see you over here real quick,” Josh said as he signaled me to follow him.

“Fuck,” I said under my breath, mad because I knew I was gonna miss my opportunity.

“Yes!” Denise said as she moved right into position so she would be the first person GQ came into contact with.

“I need you to do me a favor,” Josh politely asked as if he was my BFF.

“What’s up?” I replied as I looked over at GQ.

“I need you to fire Denise for me,” he asked.

“What? Aww, naw, I’m not doing yo dirty work.”

“You recommended her,” he reminded me.

“Two reasons, for one, that’s my best friend. For two, I don’t even like you,” I ranted, still checking for GQ, but he was already gone.

“Damn!” I said out loud.

“What?” Josh asked.

“Nothing. All right, you want me to do it, I’ll do it, but today is payday, so after I fire her, she gone have to come in when the checks get here and get her check,” I said, swiftly leaving Josh’s side.

“What? Damn. I didn’t think about that,” Josh said to himself.

“So what’s his name? What did he buy? Did he have a wedding ring?” I drilled Denise.

“Damn, girl, for you to be asking those questions, I would’ve thought you already knew he was coming in here for you,” Denise replied, too salty she didn’t even have a chance.

“What?” I said, shocked I didn’t know who looked like that.

“Well, boo boo, he knows you. Had yo whole government Ms. Lyric Sadé Daniels,” Denise teased as she held up an envelope with a letter in it.

“Why didn’t you tell him I was here?” I said, pissed because GQ was sexy as hell and would have been worth the effort.

“He saw Josh pull you to the side, and he said, and I quote, ‘Although I want to wait, I can’t,” and he told me to give you this.” Denise waved the envelope in my face. Then she gave it to me.

“I hope this mean you gone finally get some butt,” Denise said as she tried to get some info out of me.

“Open it! Open it! I wanna read it.” Miles floated into the conversation.

“No, imma read it later,” I said, bursting everyone’s bubble.

“Did you get his name?” I asked hopelessly.

“Nope. Sorry, I was caught in his eyes. Girl, they were beautiful, and before I knew it, he was gone,” Denise explained. “But I did get his initials off his cufflinks though—J. G.”

It felt as if my heart stop beating then started again once I took that first breath after hearing his initials.

“Are you okay?” Miles asked, concerned.

I didn’t know what to say; I was stuck. “That couldn’t be him,” I said to myself. I could never forget what Jason Graham looked like. He was my best friend, my protector, the only person who ever showed me they loved me besides my grandma, God rest her soul. So many thoughts and feelings flooded my mind and body—feelings for him.

“Hello!” Denise yelled in my ear. I didn’t move.

“Man, just shake the shit out of her,” Miles suggested and she did.

“What?” I said, annoyed.

“Do you know him or not?” Denise demanded an answer like she was my mom and caught me in the house alone with GQ.

“I don’t know. I think I might,” I falsely stated. I couldn’t shake this feeling that kept attacking my heart. I rushed to the bathroom, locked the door, and took a seat against the wall next to the door. The letter read,

October 10, 2020

My Angel,

Sorry I’ve been away for so long. I’ve thought about you every second of every minute in every hour these past 8 years. I’ve missed you so much. I wish that this visit could have been on personal terms, but it’s not. I told you next time you see me, it’ll be time. The time is now, my angel. I am staying at the Renaissance Hotel downtown, suite 4201. I’m not going anywhere. Gather yourself and meet me there after your shift.

Jason

I didn’t know what to say or how to feel. It’d been eight years already, I thought to myself as I stood up and dusted myself off. Jason knew me so well. He knew his presence would overwhelm me. I gathered myself, walked out the bathroom, and proceeded back to the store to continue my shift. I couldn’t wait to get off to go see him, even if it wasn’t personal. Just to see him brought back old feelings, feelings that I thought I had buried. Guess I didn’t bury them deep enough.