5. Uzi Reaves #2
It didn’t take long for them to walk past me, and just about all of them smiled, and waved at me, as they walked past, and walked through the doors.
The girl that I pointed out, that had been standing towards the back, she was the last one to make it inside.
The second she was close enough to me, she paused for a second, so that she could look at me.
I had the perfect view of her now. This girl was beautiful as hell.
I mean, drop dead fuckin gorgeous. I could tell she was rough around the edges though.
Her swag, and just the way she moved showed that.
“You got a thing for being in the back?” was the first thing that I asked her.
I was just trying to break the ice, make conversation because she looked uncomfortable. Everyone knew someone here, and had been talking amongst each other, but I noticed that she hadn’t, so I was just trying to be the person that she could talk to, even if it was just for a quick second.
“I don’t know where I’m at. I’m in unfamiliar territory. The back helps me scope the scenery, and gives me a sense of relief,” her voice was soft.
I expected that kind of voice to come out of such a small body. She talked with confidence though. Looked me in my eyes as she spoke to me, so confidence, and reminding her of who the fuck she was, wasn’t something that I was going to have to instill in her during her time here.
“I mean, scoping out the scenery is cute, but what does that do for you? It helps you out, how? The scenery is just one small thing out of so many to put your focus on. It’s the people that you gotta be on the lookout for.
The threat is not the scenery. Most times, it’s the people that’s standing inside of it.
Do as you will with that when you walk inside, and you pick a seat,” I said, and that was basically my way of trying to tell her ass not to sit in the back because something told me that she would.
She nodded her head, as if she heard me loud and clear, and then she went ahead, and walked inside of the training room. The nurses that I had on staff, that were running the front, doing the check-ins, they came inside next, so that they could take a seat.
Once everyone was inside, that’s when I walked in, and I closed the door behind me.
I scanned the room, just wanting to see where she had taken her seat, and she did exactly what I knew she would.
She found her a spot in the last row, choosing to sit right on the end.
Her eyes weren’t on me though because she’d already opened the pamphlet that was on the table, and she was looking through it.
I didn’t speak on it. I walked through the middle aisle, making my way to the front of the class.
All the staff that I’d hired were sitting in the front.
My sister was sitting up front as well, and she had her phone in her hands, recording me, as I walked up front.
There was a smile that was genuinely placed on her face.
You couldn’t fake that kind of love, and support.
You could see it through her eyes that Benelli was so proud of me.
I made it to the front of the training room, and I looked ahead of me.
I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t scared to talk in front of a room full of people.
My daddy didn’t raise me, and my sisters to be shy.
I’ve been confident all my life. Plus, I was passionate about this area of life, so I went ahead, and cleared my throat, so that we could begin.
“Good morning, everyone,” I greeted them for the second time.
The first time was when I was standing out front in the reception area. Everyone spoke back, their voices filling up the room, and once that was done, I went right along.
“Like I mentioned out front, I really want to thank you all for showing up. I’m a pro advocate of women knowing how to protect themselves, so it really means a lot to me that you all have taken the first steps.
For those of you who don’t already know me, my name is Uzi.
You don’t have to be formal with me in here by calling me Mrs. Reaves.
Uzi will do. I know that a lot of you are already familiar with who my father was, so, I was taught self- defense, and basic gun training at an early age.
With that, I have the proper knowledge on teaching gun safety, and these past few months, I took the time to go through training, so that I could become certified, and be able to teach this class,” I started out, taking glances at each woman around the room as I spoke to them.
You really would have thought that I was this country’s president by the way they were sitting in their seats, hanging onto my every word.
“I’m not sure if many of you are tuned in with what’s going on in our city the way that I am, but for the past few months, I’ve been noticing a pattern.
A very dark, depressing pattern. Too many women are walking around here without basic protection, and they aren’t prepared.
They aren’t prepared for random dangers, confrontation, or becoming the next victim,” I continued, taking a pause because I wanted to see which avenue that I wanted to take next.
“There’s a packet sitting in front of you all, and that’s the foundation.
The foundation of what this program is built upon.
There’s a lot of women in this room, and some of you may be friends, associates, or whatever the case, and although sisterhood is the goal that I have in mind, I don’t want any of you women to look at this class as a time to have fun and hang out with your girls.
This isn’t that. If you’re looking for a hangout spot, Miami has plenty of clubs, and lounges for you to choose from,” with that, everyone started filling the room with laughs.
“We’ll have our days to have fun, but right now, this program will be built on structure, and it’s something that I want you all to take seriously.
You’ll ultimately be learning how to handle guns, and shoot, and with that, it’s not play time.
My goal here is to teach you the proper training when it comes to handling a gun and shooting it.
The things that you’ll learn here are all things that I would want you to take out with you into the outside world if there ever came a time where your life was in danger.
There are so many women that have been killed innocently, and if they just knew the proper way to protect themselves, their stories could have ended a bit different.
The goal here is to change that,” I finished, and like I’d just stood up here, and gave my Grammy award winning speech, they each clapped for me.
Once that was out of the way, I moved on.
We shifted to going over everything that was inside of the packet.
I literally went through each page because I didn’t want them to miss anything.
I went into further detail about the structure of the program, the expectations that I had for them, along with the dates, and times that we were going to meet each morning.
Once we got through the packet, I had each member of my team stand, so that they could introduce themselves.
Each of them explained their role, and what they planned to bring to the program.
Once the last staff member was finished, one of the ladies that was sitting in the back raised her hand.
I pointed at her, letting her know that she could go ahead, and ask her question.
“Ummm, I don’t know. This sounds like a lotttt.
I don’t want to sound ignorant, but I thought that this was going to just be a cute little self- defense class, where we learned how to throw a couple of punches, maybe shoot the gun a couple of times, and then after, we all meet up for drinks or something.
I didn’t think that it was going to be all of this.
I didn’t think that I was going to be learning how to take a gun apart, load bullets into it, and put it back together.
Uh- uh. That’s too much for me. Make me feel like we’re preparing for war or something.
I’m a young girl. Only twenty-five. This too muchhhh,” she dragged, and I was clenching my jaw, really trying to watch how I responded to her.
I glanced over at my sister, and she had the same look on her face as I did.
Benelli wasn’t the sister that was going to match gazes with me, and voice for me to calm down.
Nah. If anything, she was the sister that was going to nod her head, and tell me to get that bitch, so she was the last person that I needed to be looking at.
I did however sigh, and I rolled my eyes, not being able to control the way she had annoyed me with that dumb ass statement.
“You said that you didn’t want to sound ignorant, but that’s exactly how you sound, love.
Let me get this straight, basically what your telling me is you would rather be standing at a gas pump one night, gassing up, and a nigga runs up on you, threatening you to give him your purse.
Keep in mind, you said this too much, and that you’re a young girl.
Because that’s your goofy ass mindset, let’s say after today, you drop the class, right?
Because you dropped the class, you lack the basic skills, or in your case, you really just lack common sense.
With no skills, you didn’t move fast enough, you panic, and now you’re stretched out on the pavement with multiple bullet holes in your head, all because you gave away the chance to learn how to protect yourself?
” I tilted my head to the side asking her, and all throughout the room, you could hear the “oohs” from what I’d just said.
She had nothing to say.
“Lastly, at age twenty-five, consider yourself a late bloomer because that’s pretty late to just now be finding out how to properly protect yourself. My babies knew how to handle a gun by the time they were five,” I ended it, not going to speak on it anymore.