Tough choices sometimes have to be made

Keisha’s piercing voice emphasized every word as her petite hand rested inside her custom-made pink leather purse. Caressing the cold steel of the Berretta 9mm, her brown eyes followed Tyrell like a hawk watching its prey. She noticed the expensive Rolex watch contrasting against his olive green Carthart jean outfit. Narrowing her large eyes, Keisha looked at her brother and said, “I don’t know who in the fuck you think you are Tyrell, but you best check that shit before I check it for you, motherfucker.”

Slamming his palm repeatedly against his chest, Tyrell raised his left eyebrow and declared as if he wanted to inform everyone with in a mile, “SHIT, KEISHA, I’M THE FUCKING CONNECTION FOR COCAINE AND MARIJUANA IN LOUSIANNA. I’M THE MOTHERFUCKING DRUG KINGPIN THE FUCKING COPS DREAM OF BUSTING. I’M A NEW BREED OF HOODLUM. I’M A NOTORIOUS UNDERWORLD ENTREPRENEUR WITH STREET SMARTS AND A COLLEGE EDUCATION.”

Keisha replied as the sound of her fingers snapping together interrupted Tyrell’s rant, “Actually, NEGRO, you’re nothing but an ex-convict on an ego trip wearing an expensive watch. Besides, if you were all that, then why you got caught in Texas?”

Tyrell looked at Keisha and raised his eyebrows while crying out as if her words physically injured him, “Ouch that ain’t a nice thing to say about your only brother, sis!” His eyes squinted and focused on Keisha’s face. “Anyway, by fifteen, I was slanging coke every day. By the time I left Roosevelt College in 88, you know for yourself, I earned two thousand dollars a day. Shit, I paid for four years of my college and all of yours before I got busted with that kilogram.”

As Tyrell picked up a water glass off the top of the entertainment center, Keisha inhaled and rolled her eyes. Crossing her legs, Keisha removed the pistol from inside her purse, laid it in her lap, and replied, “Yeah, yeah, I know the story; but, see you’re forgetting something. You did five years because you couldn’t think your way out of an open paper bag with the instructions. Shit boy, I got you where you are. After I graduated from Roosevelt College and married Del, I got you the job at On-The-Move Cargo and Freight. Then right after his parents died your worthless ass come a begging for money to buy this place. Well, we invested the money and Del got you the deed.”

Tyrell walked in front of her to the big screen television. Retrieving a tape, he turned and answered while staring at her fingers stroking the pearl and chrome gun, “I don’t care if you and Del helped me, I’m gonna kill the motherfucker before he kills both of us.”

Balling his well-manicured hands up tightly as if ready to hit something or somebody, Tyrell pounded the side of his legs and cried out like a child throwing a tantrum, “Why won’t you understand that or are you so fucking in love you’ve lost focus on what we’re trying to accomplish here?”

Wrinkles formed in Keisha’s forehead as she waved her hands in the air and shouted over Tyrell’s whining, “LOST FOCUS!” After Keisha retrieved the plastic cup of iced coffee, drops of water ran across her pink and white fingertips and dripped onto the cast iron desktop. Silence covered the room as she took her napkin, dried her hand, and mopped the spot. Tossing the napkin into the black trashcan, Keisha said, “Shit, motherfucker, you’re forgetting Del and I invested a half a million to help you purchased this shipping company from Worthen Bank and Trust. While you and Del oversaw ya’ll drug dealers and illegal businesses, little ole Keisha ran There-In-A-Hurry.”

Flinging her hands in the air, Keisha looked into Tyrell’s eyes and said, “I can’t believe now that I’ve turned it into an international import/export company and M.E.C. Holdings into a local entertainment and retail giant.. .” Keisha sipped loudly from the cup and returned it to the desk. Standing with her legs spread with the pistol in hand, she said, “I just can’t fucking believe you got the nerves to stand up in my face talking about he wants to kill you, so you gotta kill him first. What kind of fucking brother are you, Tyrell?”

The thin edged black cast steel desktop pressed into her behind as Keisha leaned against the front of the desk and said, “And, what kind of a fool do you take me for?” Keisha chambered a bullet and slowly approached her brother. As if fingernails were drumming against a chalkboard, her shoes clicked loudly across the tile floor of the enormous office adding to the tension. The padded grip of the 9mm warmed her hand as she fingered the trigger. Keisha stopped walking, stared at him while aiming her gun at his forehead. Her voice diminished gradually to a whisper as she informed him, “Besides, I’m not gonna stand by and just watch one of your tired ass old men take him out. You can’t expect me to do that and you’re fucking crazy if you do, Tyrell.”

Tyrell’s eyes ballooned to the size of a quarter. He threw his hands in the air and said with a nervous quiver in his voice, “Wait, WAIT ONE MINUTE, Ms. Annie Oakley, put that pea shooter back in your purse. There ain’t no need for the drama.”

Returning to the chair, Keisha placed the gun into her purse and watched Tyrell push a tape into the VCR then strut over to the desk. Leaning back in his chair, he swung his boots onto the desk, then pushed his glasses up on the end of his nose and picked up the remote control. Tyrell pointed the remote at the large screen and started the video. The light from the twisted metal floor lamp glistened off his baldhead when he folded his hands in his lap, turned, and looked at Keisha. He explained, “Look, I got fucking proof that he’s trying to take me out. A few of my men spotted Mitch Johnson tailing me last week and ambushed him outside one of my dope houses. Let’s just say that before he died, he told us that Del hired him to kill me. Shit, if you don’t believe me then watch this tape.”

The camera focused on two gloved men beating and pistol-whipping a man tied to a metal chair. Keisha watched as the gangsters bombarded their victim until he begged for death. He told Tyrell everything; about how his boss wanted Tyrell dead because he’d become so powerful and his territory had become large and very profitable. No sooner had the last words fallen from his shattered mouth, one of the men strode forward, stuck the muzzle of the pistol against the helpless man’s head, and pulled the trigger. Mitch’s blood sprayed across the tarp after the large 44-caliber bullet ripped a large section of skin and bone from the defenseless victim’s forehead. He then kicked the chair over. As the body fell to the ground, most of the pitted brain emerged from the grotesque wound and leaked some semi clear fluid from inside the brain cavity. The corpse, no longer recognizable as human, lay in a quickly gathering pool of blood and fluids.

A thick silence followed after Tyrell hit the stop button on the VCR. He walked over to Keisha and touched her shoulder. As if concerned that somehow she’d become traumatized by the events she’d just witnessed, Tyrell said, “Are you alright, Keisha? I know that was hard to watch but I thought you needed to know. He’s trying to kill you and me so I got to take him out. After all, we’re blood; we have the same mother. Besides, I ain’t gonna let nobody hurt my little sis, and you know that!”

Keisha stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out of her light pink sundress. Her sad eyes followed the water flowing down the rocky waterfall into an oblong shaped fish tank. Miniature sunken ships, treasure chests, seashells, and a giant coral rock littered the bottom. The sun lamp drenched the watery scene with its warmth as an array of fish shot from between the holes in the rock into the shipwrecks.

Returning to the chair, Keisha picked up her matching purse, and walked towards the door and replied, “Yeah, I hear you. I remember overhearing Del talk about taking someone out because they’d gotten too big. I never imagined he was talking about you. Still, Del is my husband and my problem. I’ll solve it myself.”

The click of her gem-studded heels stopped short when Tyrell’s fist slammed against the top of the gray metal desk and his eyes stared into the back of her head as Tyrell threatened, “So, it’s gonna be like that little sister? Well, you just remember if you don’t handle this, I’m gonna kill him myself and if you get in the way, I’ll….”

Spinning around and placing her right hand on her hip, Keisha glared at her brother and said, “I can’t believe those words came out of your mouth. You’ll do what, Tyrell?” She immediately sashayed across the office, placed both of her hands on his desk, and stared into his bloodshot eyes and said, “Yeah, during our childhood, you used to get me to do your homework and your chores because I was scared of your dad. But, we’re not kids now, brother. At least, I’m not.”

The more she looked at him, the more she remembered the hardships of her childhood. She recalled how much she despised her stepfather for the things he’d done to her during her childhood. The thick white tips of her hot pink fingernails appeared to dig into the desk every time she drummed them against the black cast iron. Her large eyes gradually grew smaller as her face tensed up while she spoke. “So, what you’re gonna do, BITCH? You gonna run and tell your daddy that I won’t do what you say? Well, too late, Tyrell.”

Straightening her stance, Keisha shoved her hand into her pursed, stared at Tyrell and said, “You never noticed that he don’t come around for money anymore? Well, that’s because after I graduated from college, I spotted his worthless drunk ass coming out his so-called rent house in the Ward.”

Pulling a picture from her purse, she flung it at him and said, “A few months after I married Del and you took over the Ward, I took that perverted old man out by the river, and put a bullet in his pathetic head. Now go run your ass to hell and tell him!”

The thin flat picture flew through the air and landed inches from the edge of the desk. Tyrell’s robust finger stretched out and picked it up. He bowed his baldhead as his narrowed eyes peered over the rims of his glasses and closely examined the body lying face up by the muddy Mississippi. He looked at her and slid the picture back to her and questioned “Who you trying to fool, Keisha? You had Del kill him; stop lying.”

Slipping the snapshot back into her purse as Keisha glared at Tyrell. Her arms folded across her chest. Her slender fingers squeezed and released her forearm. Fighting back tears brought on by her memories, Keisha replied, “That doesn’t mean anything, Tyrell. I never told you this but the real reason I stopped going on those camping trips was your father used to rape me after you went to sleep. That’s why I came to your tent at night instead of sleeping in my own tent.”

Unfolding her arms to retrieve her pink silk hankie from her purse, Keisha dotted the corners of her eyes then returned the hankie to her purse. She batted her long eyelashes and leaned on the desk. Her wide spread fingers supported her weight as her high-pitched voice trailed to a whisper as she explained, “I was trying to escape him and as long as you were close, I was safe. Anyway, as I said I brought Del into this plan to get you to where you are right now; he’s my responsibility. I can see that he is getting in the way, but that is my problem to handle.”

Standing up, Keisha touched the corner of her eyes with her fingertip and stared at Tyrell. Her eyes looked at the clock on the wall and at the fish tank. Spontaneously, her arm reached across the corner of the desk. Her hand slapped the back of Tyrell’s head. Keisha pointed and waved her finger at him and said, “For the last time, you mess with Del, you’re messing with me. YOU GOT THAT, TYRELL?”

Keisha strutted out the office to the parking lot, started her car, and sprayed gravel leaving the parking lot. A few minutes later, she located her husband coming out of one of his dope houses.

Keisha said “Get in the car, Del; he’s looking for you.”