Earl Sewell - The Keysha Diaries, Volume One

“Yeah,” he said as he answered the phone.

“Hey, Ronnie, it’s me, Keysha. What are you doing?” I asked.

“Why?” he shot back at me.

“Um...” I lost my nerve for a minute. “Do you really not love me anymore?” I don’t know why I asked that question. I suppose in some sort of way I just wanted someone to care about me.

“You know I don’t,” he answered coldly.

“Do you want to come over? My mother isn’t home. We could talk and stuff.”

“Naw, I’m not even going to get down with you like that, Keysha. It’s over. A baller like me has got to move on.”

“You know what, Ronnie, I should come—hello, hello?” Ronnie had hung up on me. I slammed the phone against its cradle and started crying. I let go of my tears for a minute before I got myself together and headed back home.

* * *

The following morning, I got up and headed to my first day of school completely unprepared. I walked through the halls dazed and spaced out because I had so much on my mind. I was worried about Toya and Junior and didn’t know what to do. I was worried about my mother and how she was going to deal with the eviction notice. I was worried about school because, even though it wasn’t socially acceptable to say I enjoyed school on any level other than to socialize, I actually really enjoyed my literature class.

I had no idea of how I was going to make it through school, and the person I depended on would most certainly leave me hanging, just as she’d done so many times in the past.

I just entered my history class and took a seat at the back of the room. I was hoping the teacher, and everyone else, for that matter, wouldn’t notice me. Once the roll call was completed, the course syllabus was handed out. Just as we were about to go over it, the principal and two police officers entered the classroom.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered loudly. Toya must have tricked on me, and now the police were there to arrest me. I wanted to run out of the room but I couldn’t because there was only one way in and one way out. The principal began searching the room, and I scrunched down in my seat as far as I could without actually going up under my desk. I was doing the best that I could to hide in plain sight. The principal finally found the student the police were searching for and I was thankful that it wasn’t me.

“Dang, girl, you were trying to get up under the floor,” said Lynn Jones, who was one weird girl.

“Yeah, whatever,” I said to her.

“What did you do that has you afraid of the police?” she wanted to know.

“None of your damn business,” I snapped at her for being nosy.

“Well, forget you, too. The next time the police come into this class I’m just going to start pointing my finger at you so they’ll see you.”

I leaned over in my seat and looked directly at her. “If you do that I’ll put superglue on all of your clothes during gym.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she said, not believing me.

“Try me,” I said, unafraid of her. She didn’t say anything else to me so I dropped our conversation.

* * *

When I arrived home, I saw Toya’s grandmother standing outside the building. She was wearing a one-size-fits-all flower-print dress, some run-over and worn-out looking brown sandals, her black sunglasses for the blind, and she had her white walking stick with the red tip. When I approached her I spoke.

“Hello, Ms. Maze.” She turned to the direction of my voice.

“Who is that?”

“It’s me, Keysha. Toya’s friend,” I answered her.

“Oh, how are you doing, baby?” she inquired.

“I’m okay. I’m just coming home from school.”

“That’s good, honey. I wish Toya was more like you and stayed in school.” Ms. Maze hung her head low for a moment. “Oh, I don’t know what I’m going to do with that girl.”

“Um, where is she at?” I asked because I hadn’t heard from or seen Toya.

“She’s gotten herself and the baby into some trouble. I’m going to see what I can do about getting her out of jail.”

“Oh,” I said. I wanted to tell her everything but I couldn’t. I just didn’t have the courage. “Is she okay?”

“As well as to be expected,” she answered me.

“Do you think she’ll be getting out today?” I asked.

“I’m going to do my best to get her out,” she said.

“Um, where is Junior?” I asked as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

“Oh, baby, I don’t know.” Ms. Maze got choked up and couldn’t speak for a long moment.

“Keysha, are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Do me a favor, and stand here with me until the cab I called comes along. I’d like for you to help me get in the car.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling very bad about her having to go down to the police station to see about Toya. What made me feel even worse was the fact that she didn’t know what had happened to her great-grandson, Junior.

* * *

When the cab arrived I made sure that she got in without any problem. I then turned to head inside. I was hoping that my mother had come home. When I walked up to our apartment I saw there was another eviction notice posted to the door. I snatched it down and walked inside. The notice said that we now had two days to either pay the rent or be put out.

“Mama!” I called out even though I knew she wasn’t home. The Murphy bed was still inside the wall and hadn’t been used.

“Damn!” I shouted because I didn’t know what to do. I paced back and forth across the floor trying to figure out where she’d gone and where she could be. It wasn’t uncommon for my mother to disappear for several days at a time. Especially when we lived with my Grandmother Rubylee and my Aunt Estelle. I really didn’t care about her disappearing then because I knew that either Aunt Estelle or Grandmother Rubylee would be around if I needed them. Now our lives were much different, and I had no choice but to worry about where Justine was. I was driving myself crazy trying to figure out what I should do. I finally decided that there wasn’t anything I could do. I could only hope that in my hour of need, my mother wouldn’t leave me hanging. I could only hope that by some miracle she’d manage to keep a roof over our heads.

six

When I woke up the following day, I was hoping to discover Justine had come home during the night. To my horror, she hadn’t. I swallowed hard and tried not to panic. It was clear that she wasn’t going to make it back home. I held on to hope that she’d be home by the time I returned from school, but in the back of my mind and deep in my heart I knew the chances of her returning were slim to none.

I walked over to the bed and got down on my knees. I peeked beneath the mattress and removed a small box filled with photographs. I opened the box and pulled out the first one, which was taken when I was about six years old. My Aunt Estelle took the photo. In the picture I was wearing my favorite blue dress. My hair was combed and braided beautifully. It was Easter Sunday and I was holding a stuffed bunny rabbit and smiling as hard as I could. I remember being so happy that day. It was one of the rare times that everyone was happy. I pulled out another photo of my Grandmother Rubylee and me. I was nine years old in this photo, which was taken at Rainbow Beach. My skin was so brown because I’d been out in the sun all day, and I had brown sand on my legs up to my knees. I was always pretending that my daddy lived in a real castle somewhere very far away and he was waiting for me to come and visit him. When my mother came over to see it, I told her that I thought my daddy lived in a castle like the one I was building. She laughed and said that I had been out in the sun too long and was becoming delusional. She didn’t like to talk about anyone being my father. She always told me that she was both my mother and my father.