Chapter 2 Kay’lo Mensah #2
“I got you, sweetheart,” he replied, and the way he said it made her smile with her eyes before she tried to hide it. He was standin’ tall over her, but somehow takin’ up all the space. He handed her the keys and bit his bottom lip soft, and she just shook her head again.
I watched their interaction and couldn’t hold it in.
“See… this that white privilege shit,” I said.
He glanced at me, amusement in his expression. “Where I’m from, being white don’t mean shit. I’m the black sheep there… trust me.”
The door clicked behind us, and that was all I needed to hear to know this nigga came with a whole story of his own.
I sat down on one of the old metal chairs in the staff room while he locked the door, and the room smelled like bleach, paper, and that faint hint of weed he kept tucked on him.
He moved around like he had been in this damn room a thousand times, and I knew for a fact he had.
He pulled the chair out across from me and sat down with a slouch that ain’t match the place we was in.
He ain’t act like no inmate, and he ain’t move like one either.
He had this calm way of existin’ that made it feel like he wasn’t trapped at all, and for some reason it made me relax even though I ain’t fully trust his ass yet.
Kelli dug in his sock and pulled out that small bag again. He set it on the table and started breakin’ the weed down with a calm he ain’t have to think about. His fingers moved smooth and quick, and he talked without lookin’ up.
I watched his hands for a minute ‘cause they told me more about him than anything he said. His knuckles was thick and swollen like they stayed bruised, and they had that dense, hardened look you only get from hittin’ somethin’ over and over.
His skin was busted in a few places and healed rough in others, and it made me wonder who the hell he had been puttin’ down before he ended up in here.
He rolled the weed into the papers, and the way his fingers moved was too controlled to belong to somebody soft.
He smirked when he finally caught me payin’ attention.
“How the hell you gettin’ weed inside jail?”
He lifted the paper to his lips and sealed it slow. “The CO you just saw,” he said. “She brings it in for me.”
I stared at him ‘cause he said that shit so smooth. “Man, what you got on her? You ain’t gettin’ all this shit for free.”
“Nobody in here do shit out the kindness of their heart,” he said. “She likes me, and she likes money. I give her both.”
He lit up, took a pull, and passed it to me. I inhaled slow and felt my whole body calm down in a way it hadn’t since I got locked up. He watched the smoke leave my mouth and nodded like he already knew I needed it.
“You been here long?” I asked ‘cause it felt weird that he moved around like he owned the bitch.
“A year,” he said.
“A year?” I frowned. “For what?”
He leaned back and tapped ash in a cup on the table. “Gun charges,” he said. “I got picked up out here movin’ around when I shouldn’t have been.”
I looked at him ‘cause somethin’ about that ain’t make sense. “Out here? I ain’t never seen you before. You from Trill-Land?”
He shook his head once. “Candy County. Slab Ridge area.”
I stared at him even harder ‘cause that was far as hell. “Nigga, that’s like a whole world away from Trill-Land. How the hell you get caught up out here?”
He shrugged like it ain’t matter. “I come out this way to buy guns, fight and blow off steam. Wrong night, wrong cops, and my last name don’t save me out here. My family was pissed, and since I’m the black sheep, they left me sittin’.”
“They ain’t try to bond you out?” I asked.
“They could’ve,” he said. “They just didn’t. They figured jail would straighten me out, make me come back home ready to fall in line. And I refused, so here I am.”
“You still sittin’ for gun charges?” I asked.
“For now,” he said. “I’ll be out soon though. Could be any day.”
I took another hit and passed it back to him ‘cause I wanted to hear the rest.
“My family owns half the correctional facilities back in Candy County,” he said, and he said the shit like none of it mattered to him.
“Private prisons, transport, medical centers, security contracts, all that. When I got picked up, I tried calling my people. They told me I made my bed, so I needed to lay in it. I guess they figured sittin’ in a Trill-Land jail would make me better. ”
I stared at him ‘cause I needed him to break that shit down again. “Hold on. You tellin’ me yo’ family own a damn prison empire, and they let you sit in this bitch for a year?”
“They didn’t let me,” he said. “They want me to fold. I refuse.”
I shook my head ‘cause that was the coldest shit I ever heard. “Yo’ people sound racist as hell.”
He let out a low laugh, like he wasn’t surprised I said it. “They just… the type that think money make them God. If you don’t fall in line, you get cut off. I’m the one they couldn’t control, so they let me sit.”
He passed the blunt back to me. His face stayed calm even though everything he said was heavy. He ain’t blink through none of it.
“That’s fuckin’ wild,” I said. “You ain’t think to fight ya way out that shit legally?”
“I could walk out tomorrow,” he said. “I just won’t give them what they want. Like I said, I’m the black sheep. They want me to come crawling back so they can shape me into the next face of the Varrari Empire.”
“So what you do instead?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Fight underground MMA and hack shit I shouldn’t touch.”
“Bare knuckle?” I asked, starin’ down at his hands.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m good at it too. Better than anybody they ever tried to groom into a champion. Which they hate even more.”
I sat there quiet for a lil’ minute ‘cause it was the first time I met somebody in this place who wasn’t just talkin’ to talk.
Everything about him felt real and cold at the same time.
The weed wasn’t better than the shit I smoked with my cousins, but it still hit me deep, and I leaned back in the chair while he rolled another one like he had all night.
He glanced at me once. “So, what you in here for?”
“Ain’t nothin’ crazy,” I said ‘cause I wasn’t about to give him the whole story. “Niggas came to my shop playin’ with me. I handled it. The cops showed up, and here I am. I ain’t runnin’ from shit I did. I deal with whatever come behind it.”
He nodded slow, like that made sense to him. “You got people on the outside?”
“Yeah,” I said. “My wife. She pregnant. I found out while I was locked up, and that shit been sittin’ on me ever since.”
Kelli ain’t jump in. He ain’t say sorry or none of that weak shit. He just looked at me for a long second and took a pull, then passed it back.
“I get that,” he finally said. His voice dropped a lil’. “I had a girl too.”
I raised my eyebrow and listened.
“She got pregnant right before I got picked up,” he said, his eyes on the table. “She told me she was keepin’ it, and we talked about it like we was really gon’ do this shit. Then a couple weeks after I came in, I got a letter from her sayin’ she got rid of the baby.”
The room felt smaller, but he didn’t change his tone.
“She didn’t even tell me she was thinking about it,” he said. “She just did it. Said she couldn’t bring a kid into my world.”
I let the smoke out slow. “Was she white or black?”
“White,” he said. “Sweet girl too. Too sweet for the shit I came from.”
“Damn,” I muttered ‘cause there wasn’t nothin’ else to say.
He nodded once. “Yeah. Damn.”
I thought about Toni bein’ pregnant with my baby and how I damn near lost my mind the day I found out she was takin’ birth control behind my back. I couldn’t imagine her killin’ my seed. The thought alone made my stomach twist.
“You think about it a lot?” I asked him.
“Every day,” he said. “I think about the baby more than I think about being free.”
I hit the blunt again and passed it back ‘cause there wasn’t nothin’ else to offer him but silence and smoke. He inhaled slow and leaned back, and for the first time since I met him, he looked like the weight actually sat on him.
For that hour, we just talked. Not about bullshit or about jail.
We ain’t even talk about the drama that usually comes with bein’ locked up.
We talked about life and family and the people we lost. We talked about the kind of men we turned into ‘cause of the pain we had to eat.
And somewhere in the room, between the smoke and conversation, I realized he was just like me— tough on the outside and bruised on the inside.
The door finally opened, and the CO stepped back in with her arms folded.
“Kelli, wrap it up,” she said. “Next shift comin’.”
He stood up first and nodded at her like he respected her more than he should. Then he looked at me.
We walked back through the hallway with the same confidence he had when he led me here. He cut corners like he mapped the whole place in his head, and when we reached my cell, I stopped and held out my hand ‘cause I couldn’t even lie… this white boy had been solid.
He looked at it for a second before shakin’ it slow.
“Good shit,” I said.
“You’ll sleep better tonight,” he replied.
I stepped into my cell, and the CO closed the door behind me. For the first time since I got locked up, my body settled a lil’. Not fully, but enough for me to breathe without feelin’ like the walls was squeezin’ my chest.