Lacey
"You have a collect call from an inmate at...do you accept" my heart skipped beats, id been waiting for Lacey to call for a few days now. "Please press ..." I knew what to press.
"Hello?" Lacey was barely audible.
"Are you okay? Where are you! What the fuck really happened" I felt my voice going above it's normal monotone to damn near a yell.
"I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm in Carson" Lacey began to speak but I cut her off. "what the fuck happened Lacey, why are you there yet Chance trifling ass is still walking around!!" I was yelling now. I was sitting on the couch but now I found myself pacing the floor in the den of our home. A home id shared with Lacey and my sisters for a few years now.
"I had brass knuckles in my purse, that's a felony but you know why I carry em. They didn't take Chance because they were my brass knuckles."
Lacey's voice trailed off as I found myself zoning out. I knew why Lacey carried brass knuckles but I still didn't understand why she was the only one in jail. Chance was an unlicensed driver with warrants , gang file entries and I'm sure there was weed in the car when they got pulled over.
"Hello!" Lacey said into the receiver. I snapped out of my daydream.
"I'm here. Well are you okay? When do you go to court?" I asked.
"I mean I'm as good as I can be, have you seen Chance?" I immediately got heated.
"Why the fuck are you worried about a nigga that let you go to jail? He could've said they were his! He didn't even want to tell us what happened to you! TF!!" I felt myself trembling.
Chance wasn't going to tell us that Lacey was arrested had my niece not asked him. I honestly believe he didn't give a fuck.
"He does care, when you see him tell him I go to court on Tuesday..."
"I'm not telling him shit, he can look it up since he cares so much" I yelled at Lacey. To be so smart, this girl was losing her noodles and fast.
"well I have to go now, I'll be home soon" she hung up without saying goodbye. I'd pissed her off, I'm sure of it but I don't care because that's really how I felt.
I sat there for a minute with the cordless phone in my lap, just thinking about Lacey and the dumb ass choices she had been making lately. I was at wits end with it, people don't realize they hurt the closes to them when they did shit like this.
Just as I was about to go tell my aunt that I spoke to Lacey, there was a knock on the front door. I walked down the hallway, still fuming from my conversation with Lacey but I swear I became even more pissed when I seen who was standing on the other side of the door. Looking dirty and dusty as usual, Chance stood with his back facing the door, I knew it was him from his lack of haircut, typical dirty nigga shit. I clenched my fist around the cordless phone I held, when I opened the door it took everything in me not kick him in his fucking back.
I opened the door, he turned to face me. He must've noticed the fucked up look I was giving because almost immediately he began to apologize . "I'm so sorry Cuh, I didn't know they were gonna take her" I just stood there and looked at the butter between his teeth as he spoke. I hoped like hell he didn't think I was going to feed into his sob ass story.
"What do you want?" I said as I stood with one hand on my hip. Mentally praying he didn't say the wrong thing because everything in me wanted to kick his ass.
"Oh it's like that?" Chance said with a smirk on his face. That made me even madder.
"You think this shit is smirk worthy you pathetic ass nigga? This shit is a joke to you huh? You "girlfriend" is in fucking jail and you wanna come over her with a sad ass apology? How bout to go apologize to a bails bondsman and get her TF out!" Chance just stood there looking stupid and angry at the same time. I noticed him clenching his fist.
"Oh so you gone hit me? Muthafucka I wish the fuck you might try! I'm not Lacey! I know niiggas that's waiting to get in yo dirty ass! So by all means, hit me! " I looks at him as if he was less than the piece of shit he was.
"Have you talked to her cuh?", he spoke through gritted teeth. I guess I was suppose to be intimidated. I laughed, I laughed hard right in his face.
"Get the fuck off my property nigga" and I slammed the door in his face. I walked back down the hallway and into the den where my aunt was sitting now.
"Who was that at the door Cherish?" She asked me. I guess she heard the commotion.
"That was chance dirty ass, asking if I talked to Lacey" my auntie rolled her eyes, she hadn't gave a fuck about Chance since he'd put his hands on Lacey, something I don't think Lacey fully recovered from but for some reason, she went right back to him.
"So what did Lacey say happened", my auntie nostrils flared, I knew all of this infuriated her more than anyone else. My auntie had basically raised Lacey after the passing of "mema" , that's what we called our grandmother. Lacey's mom fell a victim to the streets, basically leaving Lacey and her older siblings to be raised by MeMa.
"She said they took her because she had brass knuckles in her possession and that's a deadly weapon. She's looking at a felony charge." I took a deep breath, I felt like the walls were closing in on me.
"Lord, where we go wrong with that girl? She had all the love in the world but she wants to be bad so damn bad" I could hear the cry in my auntie voice, which pissed me off almost instantly. I hated that my family had to deal with the constant pain from Lacey’s poor decisions.
“I don’t know auntie, I really just don’t know. I thought maybe I could talk some sense into her but shes stubborn as hell, cant nobody tell Lacey anything, she knows it all.” I began to walk back towards my room, I need to smoke before I went crazy. What the hell am I going to do, I thought to myself. I don’t know why but I felt responsible for Lacey and all her issues, eventhough I knew first hand I wasn’t to blame.
7 years before…..
Still mourning the death of MEMA, we all sat in the front room of her house, like we would always do. It was different this time though, nobody said a word, we all just looked around helplessly. Everyone was accounted for, except for my little cousin Lacey. Nobody had seen or heard from her since she left for school this morning, this was becoming a normal thing these days.
My name is Cherish, Cherish Campell to be precise. I am 19 years old, the second oldest daughter of Brenda, and middle grandchild of MEMA. My mema was a very loving lady, although she had a different way of showing her love for us, we knew she loved us. Mema was the glue to the family, she held us together, without her, I don’t know how we would’ve turned out. Mema had 3 daughters and 1 son, being as how she was a grandmorhter, she had to pick up the slack for one of her daughters, Tanya. Tanya was the oldest daughter, my mom, Brenda coming second and the baby girl , Stephanie. My uncle was rarely around or in our lives for that matter so he really has little significance in this story.
My eldest aunt, Tanya, grew up in the “drug era” and of course, she tried a few and ended up getting hooked. Mema never gave up on Tanya though, picking up where she left off, Mema had custody of most of Tanya kids. Tanya didn’t really give a fuck about responsibilities, she was just worried about the next hit and how she was going to get it. You’re probably asking yourself, “Why does she seem so heartless while talking about her aunt?”, ill tell you why though. I watched for YEARS how Mema would take care of Tanya and her kids, literally. Tanya didn’t have any worries because she knew Mema would be there when she couldn’t.
Tanya had been in and out of jail, rehab twice and still managed to be on drugs. Given birth to 5 kids in total, Tanya only had custody of one, Lil Charles. Mema had custody and raised the other 4 as her own, Terrance , Keisha, Brandon and Lacey were all raised under the same roof , Mema’s roof of course. My grandmother did it with ease though, you could never tell that something was bothering her, she always kept her poker face on. I cant say Mema struggled because she would never show weakness, it wasn’t until she got sick that I started see how much stress was on her.
Mema was diagnosed with Pancreotic Cancer and nobody knew too much about the disease and by the time we learned about it, it was too late. Mema was already too far gone so the doctors sent her home so that she could be comfortable. Lacey, being the closes to Mema because she was a baby when the courts handed her over to Mema, took it extremely hard. It was a downward spiral for Lacey and her behavior after Mema took her last breath. It all happened so fast and nobody could understand why or what to do about it. She began to rebel, horribly, and she didn’t care how it effected any of us in the family.
“I haven’t talked to her since she left for school this morning, and that was at like 7:10am”, I told my aunt Stephanie as I sat in Mema’s big rocking chair in the livingroom. It was now 8:30pm, and nobody had any idea as to where Lacey could be. Everyone looked at me like I had the answers they needed. Yes, I was the closes to Lacey but I had no idea where she could be, I was worried just like everyone else.
“You sure you haven’t talked to her?”, Terrance, my oldest cousin, asked as he sat across from me on the loveseat. Instantly my attitude went from bad to worse. I didn’t hate Terrance but he was just so mean and he didn’t seem like he really cared about us so I didn’t know why he was acting now. As a big brother, he was suppose to know what was going on his baby sister life but of course, he didn’t.
I rolled my eyes and said, “Yes im sure!”. My auntie Stephanie mustve felt the heat coming from me, because she jumped in.
“Well the police should be here any minute”.
We all looked at her, “The police”, we all said at the same time. “Yes the police, im filing a missing persons report, I don’t care if she aint been gone for 48 hours, this aint like Lacey.” She was clearly standing firm with he decision to get the police involved.
