street. "You remember Porscha Waters? The burnt, crispy, nappy-headed hoe that lived on Fifth Street?" Her aunt was forever calling someone dark-skinned when she was the shade of dark tar herself.
Keisha thought for a moment, before her memory was jogged. "Yeah."
"Well that's her boyfriend, dead out there in the street with some of his friends." Linda shook her head with disgust. "That boy should have known better than to get involved with that damn girl. Her ass ain't been nothing but trouble since coming out her momma's stankin ass coochie."
"What happened?" Keisha asked, glancing at the street that was covered with cops.
"Don't know for sure," Linda muttered. "But I think it was a drug deal gone bad and poor Walter was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, not knowing that little chickenhead had set him up." She shook her head. "It's a shame too, because that boy had just gotten a scholarship to go to a prestigious college."
Keisha felt a moment of sorrow for a lost life. A mind was always a terrible thing to waste...or in this case, loose unnecessarily. It was a shame how her people could not get it together and stop the senseless violence.
"Girl, get yo ass on up in here," Linda said, breaking her out of reverie, motioning for her to come inside.
Keisha immediately wanted to protest, preferring to get back to her children since she now knew that her Aunt was okay, but she knew how rude it would look if she suddenly left when she hadn't seen her aunt in months.
Her aunt's chronic smoking made her old house smell like a hundred cigarettes. The floorboards creaked as Keisha walked into the dingy living room. The house was neat and orderly, but still had a moldy smell that mixed in with the smoky scent, causing Keisha to become slightly nauseous.
Several of her aunt's puppies came running out the back, jumping on Keisha's legs, barking and carrying on.
"Y'all get y'all motha fucking asses on up out of here!" Linda yelled, kicking at the poor things with her toothpick-like legs.
"Auntie please," Keisha complained, trying unsuccessfully to pet the dogs.
"Nah, girl, un uh," Linda snapped irritably, slapping the dogs upside the head. "These motha fuckas make me sick." The dogs eventually ran off back where they came from, unable to take anymore abuse from the human skeleton.
Shaking her head with disbelief, Keisha quickly walked over and sat on the edge of the worn-out looking couch that looked like it was from the eighteen-hundreds, trying to not make a face.
"You want some juice?" Linda asked, coming to sit down beside her. Keisha wondered why the woman did not have a cigarette in her hands as usual. A chronic alcoholic, that's all her aunt did, drink and smoke from sun up, sun down.
In fact, Linda was usually stark-raving drunk around this time of day.
Knowing her house was roach infested, Keisha quickly lied, "No, I just had one before I rushed up here."
"Well, well, if it ain't yo most beautiful niece," said a gravelly voice.
In walked Linda's current consort Big Willy with his shirt off, looking for all the world as if he was due any minute. The portly man was dark-skinned with a face that looked like it had been cooking out in the hot sun all day.
"Keisha girl," the man drawled, his breathing labored from being so fat and old, "how you doin?"
Before she could answer, Linda said, "She was doing fine before you come walking yo hungry, gorilla-lookin ass up in here."
"Auntie!" Keisha exclaimed. Her aunt was forever treating Willy like shit, even though he was probably the nicest man she had ever been with. Almost every man Keisha could remember Linda being with, had beat her, cussed her out, and treated her worse than a stray dog.
Her ass should be happy someone want her, looking how she look.
"Girl, please," Linda snorted, "you don't know what I go through with this ugly bastard."
Keisha shook her head. This was one of the reasons why she avoided her auntie's house like the plague. Her aunt was
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