5. Uzi Reaves
Uzi Reaves
“You know that I don’t be on that mushy shit, but sister, I’m proud of you.
You saw a problem that was happening in our city, and you moved your feet, doing what you could to help with the problem.
I’m not surprised that this is the route that you decided to go.
I always felt like once we got out of the game, that you were supposed to teach shit like this.
I don’t know anyone that can take a gun apart, clean it, put that shit back together, and load it with bullets as quickly as you do.
You just have always known how to protect yourself,” my little sister, Benelli said to me, as she stood inside the massive training room with me.
Four months ago, I saw a problem, immediately brought it to my husband, and once I got the support, and the backing from him, I quickly started moving my feet.
I’m talking, the very next day, I went into that mode of strictly brainstorming, writing down my overall goal, the locations that I had in mind, the amount of girls that I was going to have, and the budget.
The cost was so pricey because luckily for me, there was already a warehouse shell on the land, so all I had to do was find a good construction company to gut it out, renovate it, and convert it to the vision that I had in mind.
I wanted it to have a training room, that was big enough to fit the forty women that I was going to take on, along with myself, and the staff that I was going to have with me.
The training room would be used on days like today, when the girls would simply get educated.
I stood in the room now, with my sister by my side, and there were rows of tables that stretched out in this entire space. In front of each chair, there was a packet that was waiting for each woman once they arrived.
My vision was to also have a full gym. I loved to get in the gym anyways, and I wanted to get these women conditioned, work on their strength and endurance.
I was able to have a custom indoor gun range built, which was on the second floor.
There was a locker room here, a cafeteria, and outside, this warehouse was sitting on so much land, that we could go outdoors some mornings for drills, and other shooting exercises.
I wanted outside to mirror the woods that my daddy used to take us when we would shoot, and that’s what it was giving.
“Thank you, sister. I appreciate you for coming down here and helping me. I know it’s five in the morning, and you have shit of your own to take care of, but you came anyways, and I love you even more for that,” I said to my sister, pulling her in to me, getting mushy, as I wrapped my arms around her, and repeatedly kissed her on her cheek.
To know Benelli and I is to know that me, and this girl have come along way.
I’ve gotten into some of my best fights with her.
We used to be hard down fighting each other, as if the goal was to kill each other.
We would fight, and then make up like nothing ever happened.
It was her mouth that I couldn’t do. Till this day, her mouth was still slick, but I’ve learned to ignore a lot of the shit that she says because if I don’t, we’ll be throwing down again.
I remember in our dad’s final days, he would often tell us that we only had each other, and we needed to stick together, instead of going against each other.
Benelli and I had gotten super close after the passing of our father.
All our life though, she’s always been the kind of sister where if I was rocking, then her ass was rolling.
I called her four months ago, telling her what my plan was with this program, just venting, and she jumped right into action, asking me where she needed me, and letting me know that the days she was able to come down here and support, that she would do it.
Here she was, keeping her promise, doing what she told me she would.
“Girl please. You know you don’t have to thank me for showing up. You’re my sister. You rock, I roll,” she assured me, telling me what I already knew.
“Let me go out front so that I can grab the ladies. I’ll be right back,” I let my sister know, and she nodded her head, letting me know that that was cool.
She went and took a seat in the first row, sitting down with the rest of the staff.
I had to hire staff with this. This wasn’t something that I could pull off on my own because it was too many girls for me to think that I was enough to cater to all of them on my own.
Every staff member that I had was going to be essential to this program.
I had to hire an operations manager. I mean, I could do that part on my own, but I’m already responsible for so many things in my life right now, that I needed the operations manager to help take the load off.
Alongside myself, I also hired a couple of lead self- defense instructors.
They would help me with the physical side of training.
Also, assistant instructors, an entire firearm training staff, and they were all licensed to teach gun safety, just as I was.
That was a class that I had to undergo these past few months to even pull this off.
There was an officer that was planted in front of the warehouse, and he would just help in keeping an eye on the building.
A couple of nurses were on staff too. Nyne, my little sister would come in and help in medical whenever she could because my little sister had her nursing license.
Right now, her schedule was just so busy because she was always on the move with her husband Caine, who was a big-time rapper.
So many positions were filled going into this business.
My daddy always told me that when I did something, I had to go big, or go home, and hiring all this staff, running this big warehouse was my definition of going big.
I stepped outside of the training room, directly into the huge reception area. It was loud out here because all the women were standing around, talking amongst each other. There were three desks up front, which is where my nurses were. They were responsible for checking the ladies in.
I scanned the room, just to get a feel, and see who was all here.
I didn’t know these women personally, but when they applied for the program, they had to tell me a little bit about themselves, send over a picture, and things like that.
I wasn’t sure if a lot of the women knew each other prior, or if they’d just met, but a lot of them were all clicked up, talking amongst each other.
Literally almost everyone had someone that they were clicked up with, even if it was just one person.
There was one person, however, who stood in the back, and she wasn’t clicked up with anyone.
The smallest one here, but for whatever reason, my eyes darted right to her.
She stood in the back, near the entry doors, and just from her distance away from everyone, you could tell that she didn’t know any of the ladies here.
Not only that, but she probably wasn’t interested in getting to know them either.
Seeing her, I instantly remembered her profile.
I guess I just didn’t recognize her because on the picture that was sent in of her, her hair was curly, but right now, it was straight, and she was wearing a fitted cap, that was turned to the back.
Seeing her outfit, all I could think of was the fact that he had style. It made her stand out.
She wasn’t dripping in designer, or anything like that, but what she had on was a statement.
I loved the bright red varsity jacket that she rocked, with a pair of black pants that stopped just above her ankles.
You could tell she intentionally went for that flooded look.
You could see the white, high socks that she wore with a fresh pair of red and white Jordan 1’s.
A green, fitted hat was on her head, just giving the outfit a little color pop.
That sandy brown hair against her skin that was almost golden was a combo out of this world.
She was too busy with her hands in her pockets, staring off into space, that she didn’t notice that I was staring at her.
I planned to teach that in the class too…
self-awareness. She should have been alert the second I walked out of the door and known that someone had been watching her for the past five seconds.
“Oh my God! It’s really you. It’s Uzi! I’m fan girling so bad right now,” a beautiful brown skinned woman, that looked to have been in her middle thirties said to me, as she stood amongst the rest of the women, with her eyes on me, looking up at me with a gleam.
I didn’t consider myself world famous. I was hood famous though. You couldn’t bring up Miami, hustle, and killing niggas without mentioning my name. I was humble though, so people didn’t have to treat me like they were fans of me whenever they saw me.
Her reaction caused all the women to join in. They started doing the same, sending out compliments, letting me know how beautiful I was, and telling me that they respected me for what I was doing for them.
“Good morning. ladies. I want to thank all of you for being here. By now, all of you should have already checked in with the staff that I have up front. If you haven’t, please take care of that now before you enter the training room.
You all can go ahead, and line up, so that you can make your way inside.
There aren’t any assigned seats, so once inside, feel free to sit wherever you want,” I went on to say, and they immediately started moving.
I inched out of the way, so that they could all start moving into the room.