Free All Or Nothing by Blake Karrington Page B

herself because she sure wasn’t fooling Shantell.
    Out the corner of her eye, Shantell could see her mother’s associate growing more and more impatient. She kept fidgeting around in her pockets, as if she was looking for something. Even her mother looked like she was ready to go, her eyes darted around the yard.
    “Look Ma, I ain’t gonna hold you up any longer. I see y'all ready to go do whatever. But listen here go my cell number. When you get ya’self together give me a call.” Shantell told her.
    “Alright, I will.” Brenda swore. “You’ll be the first person I call. I promise baby.”
    With that Shantell walked off, comfortable in knowing that she did her part. Shantell extended a help hand to her mother. There was nothing more she could do but wait. The ball was in Brenda’s court it was up to her to make the next move.
    Behind her Shantell heard the back door open and slam shut. She knew damn well that her mother was up to no good but she was powerless to stop her. Brenda was a grown woman, she had no authority over her. To Shantell Brenda was like a drowning person, if She tried to save her now, Brenda would bring them both down. And Shantell wasn’t about to allow that. She had her daughter Jordan to think about. Nothing came before her, not even her own mother.
    The days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months without any call from Brenda. So Shantell pushed her mother out of her mind. Once again, she felt stupid for even extending and invitation to her...Brenda would never get off drugs. Shantell felt like her mother would meet her maker while getting high. Or she would die in some drug related incident, shot down like a dog in the street by some young drug dealer. Shantell feared that one of these two fates would befall her mother She was doing anything and everything to get high.
    When Shantell did get the news she wasn’t the least bit surprised. Though it hadn’t happened like she thought, Brenda was arrested in a house raid. The police had kicked in her door due to the high level of drug traffic. Besides Brenda, a few drug dealers and crack fiends were arrested.
    Shantell hoped that her arrest would be a blessing in disguise. She hoped that this brush with the law would scare Brenda straight, that her time in the Mecklenburg county jail would get her clean. She hoped that jail would save her mother’s life as it had done countless others in the hood.
    While her mother was in jail the only thing that Shantell could do, was to pray. She prayed that god would lift the curse, known as crack from her mother’s soul. She prayed that one day they could be a family again.
    A few months later…
    When Shantell got the word, she didn’t believe it was true. She had heard the whispers for years now. Still she paid them no mind. She knew how people gossiped. So she chalked it up as that a rumor or just idle talk. This was until she began seeing reports of it on the news. It had taken her some time but Shantell eventually gotten around to investigating it herself. Now, here she was parked on the side of the road, with her daughter in tow, staring in disbelief.
    If seeing is believing, then her eyes were bearing witness right now. Currently her vision was testifying to the finality of Piedmont Courts. This was the end of her childhood existence as she knew it.
    “Well I’ll be damned!” She cursed. “Look at this shit here. They really are tearing this rotten bitch down.”
    There it was dozens of two story brick, dilapidated buildings huddled close together with no signs of life. Piedmont Courts, the place she was raised, was abandoned, boarded up, fenced off and scheduled to be demolished by the city of Charlotte,. The place looked like a ghost town, even in its heyday Piedmont Courts was a graveyard for lost souls.
    Dancing at Club Champagne had literally been the best thing that ever happened to Shantell, at least financially. Each and every day she proved she could not only survive, but