Damaged (12 page)

Strands of hair floated through the air, landing on any and every thing. Hair was clogged in vents, wrapped around ankles,
and even under my clothes. I knew some might be in my damn panties, too. Don’t even ask me how it gets all the way down there.

I was lucky enough to get a chair at six in the morning since it took five hours to do the style I wanted and I only made
my appointment the day before. Chu was out of town driving Rob down to Greensboro, since he had to move into the athletic
dorm at A&T a couple days earlier than the other college kids. I was trying my best to stay out of the house while he was
gone. But it wasn’t like I could’ve went down North Carolina with them—Chu and Rob was too busy building a little hustle down
there with Smurf. Tep was about to get out in a couple months, so a lot of stuff was about to pop off for them.

Just as the lady doing my hair reached for another pinch of the sandy brown synthetic weave I wanted added for streaks, the
front door swung open. In walks Shakira looking like a slut with some super-short booty shorts, a yellow tank top with “Super
Star” written in black glitter, and her stiletto sandals. It was way too early for all that extra. I ain’t seen her in a minute,
not since Ebony Fire, and she looked real different, like she been there and back again. She had a few scars on her face that
ain’t used to be there, and her lip looked a little swollen. She was carrying a bag of blond hair extensions that was oozing
out of her plastic bag.

“Can I get some micro-minis?” she said to one of the braiders sitting on a stool gossiping in the front of the store.

“How long you want?” the African lady asked.

“To here.” Shakira pointed to the middle of her back.

“Two hundred and seventy-five dollars,” the woman said.

“Psst, you crazy,” Shakira said and then turned to leave. “
And
I brought my own hair. Nah. I’ll just go to the African Hair Gallery up in Silver Spring.”

“Two fifty,” the lady called to her back.

“Two twenty-five,” Shakira said, stopping in her tracks and turning around. “And I don’t want two people doing my hair at
the same damn time, neither. That shit don’t never look right.”

The lady sucked her teeth and said something in her crazy-sounding language and then the other Africans laughed but kept their
eyes locked on the scalps of their customers. Shakira put her hand on her hip and eyed the lady, who twisted her lips up and
pointed to the empty chair next to me. As soon as Shakira recognized me, she rolled her eyes before dropping her body into
the spinning chair.
No, that trick ain’t just roll her eyes at me like I give a kitty that we still don’t speak.

I watched as some girls came in and out, making appointments and getting loose braids re-plaited back in. A couple mothers
dropped by to feed their hungry children who had been sitting in the same seat for hours. Men walked through the door, too,
boyfriends and husbands who needed to pay up for the hairstyles that cost anywhere from $150 to $500, depending on what the
women got.

I was almost done, except for the ends. The lady still needed to burn them off to seal the tips. But just as she was running
the sizzling flame over the synthetic hair, melting them down, the front door burst open with a loud thud, hitting the wall.
A skinny man, wearing a black baseball cap and a blue bandana over his nose and mouth, tightened his grip on the black gun
in his hand. Two ladies screamed out, making everybody look at the door.

“Y’all shut the fuck up and get on the floor!” the man yelled. He was shaking worse than some of us.

“Oh, my God!” Shakira hollered.

“Bitch, I said shut the fuck up! Now get your motherfuckin’ ass on the floor. All of y’all!” he shouted, pointing the gun
at her. I watched the man scan the room with his eyes as everybody jumped to the floor, and then he told one of the hair braiders
who was sitting to get up.

“Get your ass over here, Nefertiti!” he yelled.

I laid my head on the dirty floor and waited for whatever was gonna happen next. Some of the women was crying and saying prayers.
The slender lady wearing a turquoise headwrap flinched as he pointed the gun in her direction.

“Get me all the money in this motherfucker! All the money!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. He was scratching and sweating.
I was scared and wished Chu was here.

“Hurry the fuck up!” the man yelled.

I could hear the lady running around the shop and the sound of her flip-flops smacking the floor. I could tell the guy was
high on some white, cuz he kept scratching his arms and was real hyped up. He was behind the lady every single step of the
way.

“Yeah, yeah!” he yelled. “I knew y’all kept a lot of cash in this bitch!”

One of the women screamed something in African, and the man said, “Shut the fuck up! I want the money from all the American
niggas in this bitch, too! Get it for me, Nefertiti!”

The woman was crying when she came to get the money I had.

“I’m scared,” I heard Shakira mumble beside me.

“Me, too,” I admitted.

“All right, now everybody take your bottoms off! I want all bottoms. Pants, skirts, dresses if you in ’em, and I want big
drawls and little drawls. I want them all!” the man yelled.

A few gasps went up in the air. One lady cried out like someone had just died, and then Skinny Man yelled, “Now! Take ’em
off!” To make his point clear, he shot off a round in the ceiling.

Everybody started jumping around and snatching their clothes off. Some people cried aloud. I pulled down my jeans, and Shakira
tore off her shorts.

“Hurry up! Nefertiti, give it here. Get all of ’em!” Skinny Man said as the African lady with the headwrap gathered everybody’s
stuff.

“Hurry up!” he yelled again.

We huddled up, hiding our private parts while Skinny Man backed out the door.

I watched the door for a few seconds before I realized that the man was really gone. Everybody ran around the store in circles.
The Africans took their headwraps off and wrapped them around their waists. Everybody else looked for other things to use.
Plastic bags with fake hair in it or hair magazines.

“Come on, Camille, let’s get out of here!” Shakira shouted.

“Oh, my God. I can’t believe this shit just happened!” I yelled, fumbling for my phone. The crackhead was so worried about
taking our bottoms and the cash that he ain’t even take our purses. I was gonna call Chu or Peaches—somebody.

“Let’s go, Camille!”

“I can’t go out there like this!”

“Hold on, hold on, hold on… I’ma call my cousin Marcha. She live right around the corner,” Shakira said, digging her cell
phone from her purse.

By the time Shakira’s cousin finally came with shorts for both of us, someone had called the police and they was passing out
yellow plastic blankets for everybody. We answered a few questions, gave a description of Skinny Man, and then we left the
store.

“Girl…,” Shakira said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe that mess.”

“Me either,” I said.

“That shit was wild. Come by my spot for a minute and get your nerves together,” Marcha said. “I got some green at the crib.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Shakira said. “You coming, Camille?”

I nodded. What was I supposed to do? Even though Marcha looked a little suspect with her gold nose ring, her wet set hairstyle,
and her spaghetti-strap green summer dress, when she knew her big ass needed, at the very least, a bra, I ain’t feel like
just going straight home. My nerves was still bad and I could still feel my hands shaking. Smoking weed was definitely a plan.

When we walked in Marcha’s apartment, I was surprised. It looked halfway decent for it to be in the projects. As soon as we
walked in the door, she turned on some old Rare Essence, and then she rolled a fat-ass J. After she took a few puffs, she
passed it to Shakira, and then it came to me. I sunk deeper into the couch and closed my eyes.

“Y’all should’ve seen your faces when I got there,” she said, laughing. “Looking like somebody’s newborn puppies, all scared
of the world.”

“Shit, your ass just don’t know. That nigga was geeking like shit!” Shakira said. “I thought he was goin’ shoot somebody on
an accident.”

I laughed cuz I was thinking that, too. “And if his ass scratched hisself one more damn time with that gun in his hand… he
was gonna shoot his damn self!”

Shakira laughed and blew a smoke ring in the air.

“I thought that was it for us,” I said, laughing again. “For real.”

“Look at it this way,” Marcha said. “At least your hair looks good.”

“True,” I said, smiling.

“And look at Shakira’s fucked-up head,” Marcha said, and she laughed. “Looking like a wet cat died up there. You sure that
lil’ nigga don’t got rabies?”

I laughed and puffed on the blunt. Even Shakira had to laugh at that. “Leave me alone. I was trying to get the shit done.
I know it look crazy.”

“Well, you better hurry up and do something to it ’fore
you know who
get here.”

“He coming here?” Shakira asked, looking obviously scared and running her fingers through her hair.

“Yeah, he said he was gonna be here around three, and it’s what…?” she said, looking up at the clock on the cable box. “Ten
minutes to three now.”

“Shit, let me get the fuck outta here. Come on, Camille!” Shakira jumped up and was at the door before I could even get off
the couch. “Shit, shit, shit. I owe that nigga some money! Let me borrow one of your scarves.”

Marcha tossed her an oily yellow head scarf and said, “You better hurry up and get out. And wash my damn shorts before you
give ’em back. I don’t know what your ass got!”

“Fuck you!” Shakira said as she closed the door.

“Who coming?” I asked as we walked down the street.

“Girl, this dude I do some work for.”

“Work?”

“Yeah, you know. I gotta do some stuff every now and then to make ends meet. Ain’t nothing.”

I left it at that. Part of me ain’t wanna know no more than that. The other part of me wanted to know all the damn details.
But before I decided to ask any more questions, Shakira said, “So does this mean we’re friends again?”

I tucked my lips into a straight line and then shrugged. “I guess.”

“Why you stop talking to me in the first place?” she asked, stopping and turning to look me in the eye.

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I just thought maybe we was growing apart.” That wasn’t quite a lie, but of course, it
wasn’t the whole truth.

“Oh… I guess we could’ve been. Ever since you got with Chu, you been different.”

“What you mean by that?” I asked, feeling the heat rising up my neck.

“I don’t know… I guess he just made you see things differently. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just different.”

“Hey, KiKi,” someone called out of a passing car as we walked down H Street. Shakira waved and flashed a smile.

“You going back to school next week?” she asked.

“Naw,” I said shaking my head. “You?”

“Girl, I ain’t been to school all year.”

I looked at her surprised. “Why not?”

“Girl, please. School ain’t putting money in my pockets, and I gotta eat, so…”

And then I remembered that Shakira grew up in a house with all girls on Saratoga Avenue. Her oldest sister, Sadonna, was only
twenty when their mother died. Instead of letting her three little sisters get shipped off to foster care like me, she was
taking care of them herself.

“What you been doing for money?” I asked.

“Psst… any and every thing. You don’t even want to know,” she said, shaking her head. “But hell, it’s money, so I don’t give
a fuck. What you been doing?”

I wasn’t surprised to hear her say that, even though it seemed mighty suspect to me.

“Ay, KiKi, wassup?” a guy yelled from the passenger seat of a red Lexus that was crawling down the street.

She smiled and waved. “Hey, Boo! We goin’ get up later.”

“Yeah, all right,” the guy said before the car pulled off.

“Nothing really,” I said when she finally stopped cheesing. “I just been chilling.”

“Chu must be taking care of you something good.”

It was my turn to stop cheesing, cuz he was, but I ain’t need her to know all that. “Something like that. I do all right.
I still got family,” I lied.

“And they know your ass ain’t been going to school? I can’t believe that.”

I stayed silent.

“Well, I’m about to catch the bus, so let me give you my number, in case you want to hang out or something.”

I listened to her give me the number, and I typed it in my phone even though I knew I wasn’t gonna call her.

“What’s yours?” Shakira asked.

I gave it to her, but I hoped she wasn’t really planning to use it.

“All right, girl, I’ll talk to you later.” Shakira reached over and gave me a hug. “We was lucky as shit today, wasn’t we?”

“Yeah, we was,” I said, hugging her lightly.

“All right, girl.”

I waved and kept walking, glad that I still had my SmartCard so I could catch the bus home, too.

A
s soon as I unlocked the door, I knew I should’ve turned right back around since Peaches was crying on the floor in the living
room with Nut standing over top of her smoking a cigarette, looking pissed off. I slipped my keys in my bag and said, “What’s
going on? Everything okay, Peaches?”

“That bitch always crying for some stupid shit,” Nut said as he walked to the kitchen, putting his cigarette out in the ashtray.

“Don’t call me no bitch, you lying muthafucka!” Peaches yelled.

“You better watch your damn mouth!” Nut shouted. “Or you can get the fuck out my crib!”

She gasped. “You goin’ put me out? Even after I just told you I’m pregnant?!” Peaches screamed, using the couch to balance
her as she pushed herself up off the floor. “You fuckin’ crazy muthafucka. You goin’ put me and your child out?”

I looked between the two of them, shocked and waiting to hear what Nut would say or do. When he said, “How I know that’s my
baby?” I almost lost it just like Peaches did. She ran up on Nut and started swinging and scratching. Nut grabbed her shoulders
and forced her to sit down on the couch.