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 tothe 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’restretched 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.
I could tell that she didn’t like my choice of words, but this was something that I was serious about. I was invested in this. I was passionate about it. She better be lucky that she got me up here to respond to that ignorant statement, and that it wasn’t Wesson because he would have laid her ass out to pieces.
From there, I went around the room, starting from the second row, since all the staff was in the front, and I made the women introduce themselves, and say a little something about themselves. We were now at the third row, and a beautiful heavyset woman stood up. I noticed her when I walked in, but I didn’t speak on what stood out to me. There was a scarf that was around her head, and she had it so far down, as if she was trying to cover something on her forehead.
When she stood up, I noticed the way it took her awhile, and the entire time that she stood, you could tell that she was in some kind of pain. Every part of her body was covered. It was a warm day out this morning, yet she was in full armor of clothing. Again, as if she was hiding something.
Her name was Tamera, and when she spoke, you could see the pain in her eyes. She was 36 years old, and she let us know that she was a stay-at-home mom. When I asked her what she liked to do for fun, she couldn’t tell me. I could feel her sadnessradiating all the way to the front of the classroom. You could tell that she lacked so much confidence because as she spoke, she did it with her head down the entire time. I wanted to talk to her after class, just to see if she was okay.
From there, we moved on, and the next person went after her. We finally made it to the last student. It was Ms. “scope the scenery out”. She stood, still with the fitted cap on her head, hands in her pockets, and she looked ahead of her. Because she was in the back, everyone had turned in their seats, so that they could look over at her.
“Hey. I’m Riot,” she voiced, loud enough for all of us to hear her, and just like out front, her voice held a lot of confidence in it.
This damn girl saw 39 people go ahead of her, heard them say what made them sign up for the class, and naming what they liked to do for fun, and some even talked about their jobs, yet she only stood up, said her name, and you could tell that that was all she was going to say. She tried to take her seat, but I cleared my throat, stopping her from sitting.
“What made you sign up for the class, Riot?” I asked, my eyes focused on her.
I loved her name. I’ve never met anyone else with that name.
“I didn’t. My cousin signed me up for it,” her ass had the nerve to say, looking me deep into my eyes as she said it.
“Your grown, right? How come you couldn’t sign up for the class yourself?” I shot back at her.
“Because I was in jail. I just got out Friday,” she said, and that’s when I took a deeper look at her, and it hit me that I remembered her face from the viral mugshot. Crazy because she was just as beautiful in that mugshot as she was in person.
Her response made some of the women in the room laugh at her. You really would have thought that she told a joke by the way they were chuckling. You could see it in her eyes that if she really wanted to, she could attack, but she allowed thelaughs to bounce off her shoulders, and she continued to stand confidently.
“Well, welcome home, and we’re glad to have you. Answer the last part. What do you like to do for fun?” I asked because this was a three-part introductory, and she’d only answered two so far.
“I like to read,” she said, and her response made me smile because I was the same way. I’ll read anything. I loved to educate myself on anything.
She eventually took her seat, and then I thanked the class for coming, and let them know that we would meet again Saturday morning. Some had questions for me after the class ended, so they stuck around. I hated that Tamera had gotten out of here so fast, so I didn’t get the chance to speak to her privately. You know Riot’s ass was gone too. Literally, the second that I told them that they were dismissed, she was already out of the door.
I answered all the questions that the women had come up to ask me, and from there, I thanked my staff for coming out, and everyone started spilling out. Moments later, it just left Benelli and I in the room. We went over to the table, and we sat in the chairs. I was right next to her, head just spinning, thinking about so many things.
“I know you wanted to tackle that bitch that raised her hand, saying how she didn’t expect the class to be structured like this,” Benelli spoke first, and I rolled my eyes at that, as I threw myself against the chair, and I folded my arms.
I turned my head to look at her for a second.
“Girl! Did I? What you think about Tamera?” I asked her, just wanting to learn from her if she got the same vibes that I was getting.
“Which one was that again? Shit, it’s so many of them, that it was hard to keep up,” she responded.
“The heavy set one. She had the scarf on her head and was talking with her head down the entire time,” I let her know, and when she started nodding, I knew then that she knew who I was talking about.
“She going through some shit at home. Some deep shit. Then, you heard her say that she’s a stay-at-home mom. Shit, them kids probably driving her the fuck crazy,” she went on.
