Wifey 4 Life by Kiki Swinson Page B

flash. But that wasn’t happening.
    Breon approached me with the chicken in his right hand and the
    cup of fruit punch in the other. He held the piece of chicken right in front of
    my mouth so I could bite it. I chewed, and then I bit into it again.
    Under normal circumstances I would have felt really stupid letting
    some complete stranger feed me a cold piece of chicken, but unfortunately the
    situation I was in wasn’t normal, so I refused to complain.
    Once I had devoured the entire piece of chicken, he pressed the
    cup of juice between my lips. I opened my mouth just enough to drink. It didn’t
    take me long to drink the entire cup of fruit punch, and when I was done I let out
    a loud belch. “Excuse me,” I said.
    Breon smiled. “You ain’t got to apologize. You a’ight,” he assured
    me as he held the chicken bone in one hand, and the empty plastic cup in the other.
    Without asking me, he used the napkin he’d held the chicken with and wiped the grease
    and the red ring of juice off my mouth. I was speechless. But when I got back my
    voice I thanked him once again.
    He smiled again. “I told you, you a’ight.”
    “I know. But I can’t help it. The way I’ve been treated since
    I’ve been here is far worse than I’ve ever been treated in my life, especially by
    a family member.” I waited for Breon to make a comment, but he just shrugged his
    shoulders and gave me a blank expression.
    It really didn’t surprise me that he didn’t want to respond.
    The entire time I’d been here he was the only one who acted like he didn’t want
    to be part of the decisions when it came to me. And now that I looked at him closer,
    he seemed like he was a little standoffish. People like him preferred not to get
    into situations that didn’t concern them. I was like that too, so I guess he and
    I had something in common.
    I watched him as he strolled back into the kitchen area to dispose
    of the paper towel and the empty plastic cup. When he came back into the room, he
    sat back down on the sofa and resumed watching
The First 48
. I tuned back in, but
    I couldn’t help but think how long it would be before my uncle, Kasey, and Dré came
    back. The thought of them coming back to torture me some more made me uneasy. The
    food and drink I had just consumed was bound to come back up if I thought about
    it any longer. Talking to Breon would definitely take my mind off him.
    “Hey, Breon,” I said.
    He took his eyes off the television and gave me his undivided
    attention. “What’s up?”
    “How do you know my uncle?”
    “Me and my brother Dré met him through our cousin Tony right
    after his baby mama Rhonda got killed. I’m not sure how they met, but I heard it
    was during the time when the homicide detectives went to Nikki and started asking
    her questions about the murder, since Rhonda was snatched up from the hair shop.
    But, besides that, me and Dré copped a couple of brand-new flat-screen TVs from
    him a while back. He told us he was the district manager for Wal-Mart, so he could
    get us anything we wanted for the right price. When he called us last week and told
    us he had some brand-new laptops he needed to get rid of, we called our homeboy
    Mitch and he took ’em off L.L.’s hands with no problem.”
    I got quiet for a second. I had to mull over what Breon had just
    said. Uncle Lanier was always a straight-laced guy. I’d never seen him associate
    with any thugs, so what did he and Tony have in common? I decided to put that question
    on the back burner for now and get as much information out of Breon as possible.
    “Do you know where they just went?”
    “Yeah. L.L. got a call from some nigga from the Wal-Mart warehouse,
    so he had to go.”
    “Why did he need your brother and Kasey to go with him?
    “Well, he needed Kasey to drive, and he needed my brother to
    help him load some shit onto his truck.”
    Getting information from Breon was easier than stealing candy
    from a baby. Every question I