Unique I

Chapter 4 - Get Him Before He Gets You

Unique took the longest shower of her life. No matter how much she soaped and scrubbed her body, she couldn’t get Fat Tee’s nasty, disgusting stench off her.               
     It had taken less than five minutes for Fat Tee to turn the fairy tale she’d been living into a nightmare. Unique just wanted to go back to sleep, and when she woke up, for everything to be like it was. But this wasn’t a movie: this was her life and that was one wish that wouldn’t be granted.          
       How can I make this go away? she kept asking herself over and over again.               
     Her first thought was to flip the script and do what she had been bred to do. Be the hunter instead of the hunted. How hard would it be for her to get her hands on a gun? Not hard at all, she thought. She’d never killed anyone before, but an ex-boyfriend once told her that killing someone wasn’t difficult. Living with the knowledge that you’ve taken another person’s life, he had said, was the most difficult part but the actual act gave you an adrenaline rush. The old Unique wouldn’t have had any problem whatsoever with knowing that she’d put herself out of the misery and had rid the world of Fat Tee’s low-life ass. But she was neither the same girl she used to be nor did she have any desire to be.               
     So, what were her other options? She couldn’t tell Kennard how her jacked-up past had caught up with her. What would she say?               
     Hey, honey. I know you said that you didn’t want to talk about our pasts, but I have one little bitty thing to share with you. It’s really no big deal at all. It’s just that back in the day, I used to set niggas up to get robbed, that’s all. I know how it sounds, but it wasn’t really like that. They weren’t like you; they deserved it. . . . Trust me, this is as hard for me to say as it is for you to hear, but I have to tell you this. There was this one dude that I lived with for one week. Yeah, that’s how long it took for me to rock him to sleep with the pussy. After he broke down and came up off of the combination to his safe and a few other secrets, I passed the information to my boyfriend and gave him the keys to the dude’s house. He stole everything the dude had to his name: drugs, money, furniture, everything. Now the dude has surfaced and wants to collect. He wants a million dollars.               
     Not an option at all! She wasn’t trying to send Kennard running, full speed, in the other direction, but she had to come up with something.               
     After it seemed like her skin was washed raw, she finally abandoned the shower.  She examinined her entire body in the mirror, and was glad to not find any telltale bruises on her body or face. She exhaled as her cell phone rang while she was toweling off. It was the administration department of the culinary school. Fortunately for her, the ventilation system was still screwed up, and class would most likely be canceled all week. “We will notify you when the problem is corrected or if we relocate the classes,” said the woman on the other end of the phone.               
      Puh-leeze. Lady, you even seen real problems? she thought to herself after thanking the woman for the information and disconnecting the call.
     At least she didn’t have to go to school and, sitting around a bunch of strangers, feel like a victim. That wasn’t what she needed, not this day anyway. What she did need was someone she could confide in, someone that would understand and be nonjudgmental.
     There was only one person in New York who fit that criteria.               
   Tyeedah and Unique had met in the prison camp at Alderson, West Virginia, the same place where Martha Stewart had served her time for insider trading. Unique and Tyeedah had worked out together. No one could keep up with either of the girl’s endurance. In the beginning they didn’t talk much. But after months of grueling calisthenics, light weights, and running around the track, they opened up to each other, finding out that they had more in common than just a passion for toning their bodies. Tyeedah knew a lot about Unique and had seen her scheming ways in prison and accepted her for who she was. The friendship forged by Tyeedah and Unique in prison was stronger than two people just trying to pass idle time. They really rode for each other, and the friendship transcended the prison walls.               
     After a quick phone conversation touching on the basics, Tyeedah told Unique to get her ass to her house. Unique followed her friend’s instructions and got dressed and drove to Brooklyn, knowing this wasn’t going to be a pity party. She confided in Tyeedah not because she wanted a shoulder to cry on, or needed an ear to listen, but because she knew that, if push came to shove, whatever solution she came up with, the odds were that Tyeedah would be her co-conspirator to help her carry it out.               
     “I can’t believe this shit,” Tyeedah said, after hearing the entire story. “For a whole lot less than a million dollars, I can have that clown merked. Deese folks that I’ll get to take care of it would make that shit look like an accident.” It sounded like some Lifetime Channel drama, but Unique knew one thing for certain: her friend was dead-ass serious.               
     “I don’t want to kill anyone,” Unique said firmly. “That’s not the route I want to take.” Unique had done a lot of foul things in her life. Her actions might have ultimately even caused the death of people, but she wanted to always be able to keep her conscience clear of never being the person behind the trigger.               
     Tyeedah looked confused. The Unique that she knew had more heart and bigger balls than the above average dude. She was unsure about this girl sitting on her couch. It looked like Unique, walked like Unique, but wasn’t sounding like the Unique that she had grown to know and love.
     “Then where are you going to get a million from without asking or telling Kennard? Even then, is he going to give you that type of cash to hand over to some nigga? Bitch, please.” She looked her friend up and down. “I know your shit might be golden, but this sounds like a job for Robert Redford and an indecent proposal,” she said. “I know I don’t have to remind you that this shit is serious, do I? Fuck. The bastard raped you, Unique. Hellooo! Where is the Unique I did hard time with? The one who didn’t give two fucks in a bucket about a nigga or the rachet-ass existence he calls a life.”
     Unique thought hard and long about what her friend had said before answering. “I don’t wanna be her anymore. She was bad news. Big-time. To be honest . . . ,” she tried to explain, “Fat Tee is only having a reaction to an action I had already put in motion. If I hadn’t set him up in the first place, he wouldn’t have the need to seek retribution or compensation. It’s not like I’m an innocent victim in all this. The shit’s like a merry-go-round.”
     “Okay . . . fine. If you want to be this ‘new and improved’ person, I support you one hundred percent. But”—Tyeedah paused for emphasis—“first you’re going to have to get rid of the skeletons that belong to the old you, which could possibly tear down the new you.”
       Tyeedah let her words marinate for a second. Unique took a heavy, restorative breath.
     “I know you feeling Kennard and don’t want to fuck up what y’all got. I get that, but you have to handle this nigga, Fat Tee, before you end up with nothing. Maybe, not even your life,” Tyeedah spat. “Who says he’ll stop at a million dollars?”                    
     Everything Tyeedah said was the truth. Unique knew this. But where would it end?
    Unique asked, “And how do I deal with the next nigga that finds me? Every nigga Took and I robbed probably saw my face on that show, so tell me how does this all end? Like I said before, it’s like a merry-go-round. And where it stops, nobody really knows.” After a few moments of silence, she wondered, “Maybe if I can give Fat Tee something to hold him, he’ll back off until I can come up with a better solution.”                     
     “Fuck that!” Tyeedah said emphatically. “You pay one time, and then you gotta keep paying. That’s the way it is for people like him.”                     
     “So you’re saying, short of killing the dude, there’s no way to make this right?”                     
     “Girl, you don’t owe him shit. I dig all that action and reaction stuff. And if you really believe that,” she said, “then when you and Took robbed Fat Tee, that was a reaction to what he had done, right?” Unique had told Tyeedah that Fat Tee was getting drugs from Took, but when Took got locked up, Fat Tee reneged on what was owed him and gave Unique the runaround when it was time to pay up.                   
     As crazy as it sounded, what Tyeedah was saying had merit.                     
     Unique shook her head. “But I didn’t know Took was going to take everything from the man.”                     
     Tyeedah wasn’t finished putting on her case. “But don’t act like the bastard didn’t deserve it. From what you told me, the fool showed his entire black ass when Took went to jail. So, didn’t Took have a right, according to your action and reaction philosophy, to get what was his, plus a little interest? The way I see it, his bitch ass is just crying over spilled milk after stealing the damn cow.”                     
     Unique was starting to feel all of that eye-for-an-eye stuff Tyeedah was talking. But she couldn’t help but think that with her and Fat Tee, it was now about to be a silver motherfucking tooth-for-a-tooth.                     
     “So what do you suggest I do?” Unique said, resigned and frustrated.                     
     “I say, merk him or tell him it’s a part of the game. And he better hide under a rock in Virginia and pray that you don’t get the urge to get loose lips and tell Kennard what he did.” Tyeedah realized that she had never seen Unique this indecisive or vulnerable. Her normal take-charge attitude was frayed. The magnitude of the situation and all that was at stake clearly had her friend shaken.                     
     “To be honest,” Tyeedah said, “I don’t know what you should do. But the bottom line is, whatever you decide, know I got your back.”                     
    “Thanks, girl.” As Tyeedah gave her a reassuring hug, Unique’s cell phone rang. It was Kennard’s ring tone.                     
     “Hey, baby,” she said, putting the call on speakerphone. She tried to sound cheerful, hoping he wouldn’t see through the mask.                     
     “Where are you?” he asked, sounding upbeat.                     
     “Tyeedah’s house. School’s canceled until further notice,” she said.                     
    “Catch a cab to Forty-seventh and Fifth Ave., and I’ll drive you back to get the car. The parking down here is ridiculous. I want to show you something, so hurry up and get here. Just call me when you’re about to pull up.”                
    “Okay, baby.” He obviously wasn’t taking no for an answer. “I’m leaving in five minutes.”                     
     When she ended the call, Tyeedah was dancing and singing like she had lost her mind. The entire vibe was different.                     
   “What’s wrong with you, girl? How you go from shoot ’em bang-bang to Dance Central?”                     
     Unable to contain her exuberance for her friend, she said, “Kennard wants you to meet him at Forty-seventh and Fifth.” Unique looked at her like and? “That’s the Diamond District, girl. As in diamonds, jewels, and stones . . . oh yeah . . . diamonds, jewels, and stones . . . ” She sang the words like a nursery rhyme.                     
     “Really?” Unique got a little excited herself.                     
     “Yes, Ms. Thing, really.”                     
     After giving up on trying to guess what Kennard was up to, Unique asked Tyeedah to help her get a cab. “I’m going to leave my car here,” she said.                     
     Tyeedah scooped her house keys up off the counter. “You know that’s a damn shame your country butt still can’t hail a cab? Sooner or later we gonna have to get you up to speed on that.”                     
     Unique smiled. She would never get used to the yellow-cab lifestyle. Just knowing she was going to a destination without a concrete ride home drove her crazy. That was one of the things she missed about the South. People drove everywhere and there was always free parking.                    
    Once outside, Tyeedah flagged down a taxi in no time. And before Unique pulled off she reminded her one last time, “You have to get that motherfucker before he gets you.”