Queens in a War Zone: Neighborhoods Can Also Be War Zones

By Jaytilya M. Watkins

Queens in War Zones is a story about five African American females who grew up in a treacherous suburb in Birmingham, Alabama. One of them will tell the story of the challenges they faced while living in this hazardous community. She will also tell the regular complications each of theVm endured as young women. Through all the trials and tribulations, nothing could separate their bond and love for one another. The story will take a fatal turn when one of them knocks on deaths door to save a loved one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532050459

Jaytilya M. Watkins

Jaytilya M. Watkins was born in Dallas, Texas, but moved to Monroeville Alabama with her parents when she was a child. She’s twenty-eight years old and was born December 22, 1985. She wrote her first book, which is titled “The Misunderstood African American Female,” June of 2014, under her pen name, Raytilya Martin. She has always liked writing and realized this was what is wanted to do. She enjoys writing and will continue to write more books.

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Copyright © 2018 Jaytilya M. Watkins.

Autor Credits: Jay M. Watkins

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-5044-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-5045-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018906069

iUniverse rev. date: 07/27/2018

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Loss Of A Loved One

Chapter 1     Bessemer A.K.A. THA BESS

Chapter 2     Our Inspirations Growing Up

Chapter 3     The Unfamiliar Paths Some Of Us Walked Through

Chapter 4     My Prom Night Crush

Chapter 5     Our Graduation Ceremony Experience

Chapter 6     How Jayan & I Happened

Chapter 7     What We Did That Summer

Chapter 8     What We Did That Fall

Chapter 9     That Next Year

Chapter 10   New Year/New Discoveries

Chapter 11   The Year Of Challenges

Chapter 12   Our Honeymoon Destination

Chapter 13   After the Honeymoon

Chapter 14   Beautiful Graduation Day

Chapter 15   Red Graduation Party

Chapter 16   Present Day/Keshia’s Funeral

Chapter 17   After the Funeral

Acknowledgments

What Was My Motivation For Writing This Book?

INTRODUCTION

"QUEENS IN A WAR ZONE" is a fictional story about five African American women who met as kids in a violate suburb and grew up there. As they grew so did their bonds for one another. They became more than just female friends, they became sisters. After a tragic killing of a loved one, Narrator LaShay Lanette Adams (one out of the five girls) will remember the struggles, loses they experienced, and pain they suffered while growing up in the violate suburbs of Bessemer, Alabama. She will also reminisce about the challenges they faced while also sharing with you the fun times they had together from children to young adults.

THE LOSS OF A LOVED ONE

A s the church choir sings, the man behind the piano plays and the man behind the drums hit it. People stand up and sing alone. Gazing upon one of my best friends lying in a casket I begin to cry harder. I still can’t believe she’s gone. Last week she was alive. She was alive joking around and laughing. She was on the road to success. Now she’s lying on her back in a permanent sleep she can never awake from. All the fun we’d had together from when we first became friends to the last time we kicked it I was seeing it in my mind which was making me cry more. Why her? Is the question I’ve been asking myself since it happened! She didn’t deserve this. Why do people especially stupid ass niggas have to take other people’s lives over stupid ass shit? Do they not realize how precious life is? Once a person is dead, that’s it! I don’t believe in that fairy tale bullshit I hear people say when they say you’ll see them again in the afterlife. You may see them again or you may not. There’s no guarantee you’re going in the same direction after you die. You might be going to Heaven and they may be going to Hell or vice versa. The Good Lord may give you a second chance and let you live on the new Earth while sending the other person to Heaven or Hell. You never know. I have to accept and live with the fact that one of best friends, my sister, is gone forever. All this over what! Something that wasn’t worth her dying over? Tragedies such as these have always happened & are still happening in Birmingham, Alabama especially in the suburbs we grew up in.

CHAPTER

ONE

Bessemer A.K.A. THA BESS

B essemer is listed as the number #1 worst suburb to live in Birmingham, Alabama. If you haven’t gotten robbed, raped, carjacked, shot, killed, or if your home hasn’t gotten invaded here in where we call THA BESS you know someone who has. It’s also a lot of gang activity, dope dealings, and gun selling that goes on. The cops can only do so much. Lots of them get either shot & injured or shot & killed. Yep, outlaws don’t discriminate; they’ll shoot cops as well as civilians. The media tells the story but not the whole story. It’s stuff that goes on in this city that the news doesn’t cover. If you live here you better keep you a pistol close by and pray that’s all you can do. Even though it’s dangerous here I’ve had some of the best times with my family and click. It’s five of us females and one male in our click. They are the sisters I never had. In fact, we call each other sisters. I don’t know what I would’ve done without them. We’ve cried and laughed together, we’ve argued amongst one another. We’ve even fought each other but at the end of the day, we’ve always had each other’s back. We could fight and fuss at each other but if an outsider (someone who wasn’t in our click) tried to do it we’d straighten them out quickly. That was a no-no! It’s been this way since we were young, I can still remember how we all became a click just as if it happened yesterday.

Mom separated from my dad when I was 10 years old. They were on the verge of divorcing when we moved to Bessemer. According to what she said she caught dad in the bed with Auntie Niecy. It happened while I was at school. She was a nursing assistant so I’m assuming she couldn’t afford to move my brother and me to the suburbs where the middle-class and high-class people lived with her income alone. Before she left him we were living in a middle-class suburb called Gardendale. My dad was a pilot for Southwest Airlines in Birmingham so with their money together they could afford a house in a middle class, suburban neighborhood. But once she became single she couldn’t. Although she could’ve stayed in the house she didn’t want to. So, she moved where she could afford a place for us. Plus, Bessemer was where she was born and she knew everyone in her age group who still lived there. She said the Gardendale was pleasant and quiet but those people who lived there acted too stuck up for her. She was right they did. I remember only having one friend there named Amber Walters, she was white. We went to Gardendale Christian Academy together before we moved and mom took me out of that school. We moved to Tha Bess on Bessemer Rd. in a white house with brown trimmings. If was as if my sisters and I were destined to meet each other because the house was in the center of their houses. Kayan Evans was the first out of the four of them I met. Mom’s friends were helping her move our things inside the house. I also helped by moving some of my stuff into my room. It was morning time. Bessemer appeared to be quiet during the day. The only time it wasn’t quite was when cars drove by with loud music and bass making it louder. Instead of enrolling Jeffery (my brother) and me into a school that day she decided to wait until the next day. Kayan and Jayan (her twin brother) lived in a brick house two houses down from me. They were twins, they weren’t identical twins, but they looked similar to each other. You could tell they were siblings. They both had hazel eyes. Jayan was a shade lighter than Kayan. They were both tall, much taller than me. All five houses were beside each other but had spaces between them. Kayan and Jayan’s parents’ house was made of brick. It was bigger than the other four. The other four houses were made of wood. The house by their house was green and the second biggest. Later on, I would find out that’s Keshia’s dads’ house. The other one was where I would find out Casie lived in and it was gray. It was the smallest. The last one was yellow and I will find out that was Sonia’s auntie’s house. Her mom also lived there. It was next to the largest house. The house we were moving into was brown. It was a fair, size it wasn’t too big or little. The only grass was between the houses and on the edges of the sidewalk. The gray house was the only house with flowers surrounding it. The green, house had bars on the window. There were other houses across the street. When I was on my way back to the U-Haul to get more things out I saw a bus leaving. Then I saw Kayan and Jayan run out of their house but the bus had already left. As I picked up a box of toys and walked towards the house I could see the disappointment on their faces as they stepped on one of the steps to their porch. Jayan turned his head towards me and looked. He looked as if he was trying to figure out who I was. They went to their house and I went in mine. When I went back out they were in the car and their mom was rushing out of the house to get to the car. Apparently, Ms. Evans forgot something because when she did get into the car she got right back out and rushed into the house. By this time, my mom handed me luggage from out of the car. She went back inside the house. As I was about to walk up the steps of our porch, I heard a loud voice say Hey so I turned around. It was Kayan standing outside the car signaling for me to come to her. So, I put my luggage down by the steps and rushed over there. When I walked to her she was standing by her mom’s car on the passenger’s side and Jayan was sitting in the back seat with his window down. He spoke to me and I spoke back. Kayan and Jayan told me their names and I told them mine. So, you’re living over there now, Kayan asked. I said Yea, me, my mom, & my brother. Cool, she said. So, what school are you going to, she asked. I don’t know, I said. By this time their mom rushed out of the house. She saw me spoke and got into the car. Kayan got into the car too on the passenger’s side. We go to Bessemer City Middle School, I hope to see you there she said, as her mom cranks the car. Me too, I said. See ya around, she said. I said okay as her mom drove away I waved back to Kayan and Jayan, they waved back. After they left I continued my task. Mom enrolled me into Bessemer City Middle School that next day where I would see Keshia Dozer and Casie Prey. We all were in Mrs. Monson’s 5th grade class. All except for Sonia, she was in Mr. Truman’s 5th grade class. I finally met her in P.E. Even though we all except for Sonia were in Mrs. Monson’s class, I didn’t have any encounters with Keshia and Casie until P.E. when Kayan introduced me to them along with Sonia during P.E. This happened after Coach Alexia made us do exercises and allowed us to go on the playground. I was swinging on one of the swings when Kayan, Keshia, Casie, & Sonia walked up. Kayan introduced me to them and them to me. They spoke to me and I spoke back. Keshia was brown skinned with dark, brown eyes. Her hair was braided to the back. Casie was light skinned with dark, brown eyes. Her hair was in one ponytail. She was wearing glasses. Sonia was light skinned also but lighter than Casie. Her eyes were greenish. She was wearing two, long, ponytails in her head. I was darker than all of them. Later on as I approached high school my fellow classmates would call me sexy chocolate. Every, since that day we’ve been closer than shadows on the ground. Well, except for Sonia. She had attitude problems towards me at first. She had that I’m All That personality when I first met her. She was standoffish and looked over me as if I wasn’t there. Don’t worry about her Kayan used to whisper to me. She acts that way towards people she barely knows. She acted that way towards all of us when she first moved where we live at. She’ll get over it once she gets to know you she whispered to me. Sure enough, after a few months of hanging around me, she finally treated me as one of her sisters. As for that I’m bigger and better than the universe personality, she kept. Kayan and she would always argue about it. Actually, all of us have gotten into arguments with her about it. It never did any good. She was and is always going to be TOO MUCH TO HANDLE! This was why we sometimes called her T instead of Sonia. Sonia was born on March 21, 1998. Kayan was like the leader of the bunch because she was born before we were. We were all born in 1998 but she was born in the beginning of 98 which was on January 13th. She always gave the right advice. Even though, she was the same age as us she was a thousand years above us in wisdom. She was smart and most of the time made the right decisions. She was never scared or too bashful to speak her mind and didn’t care who liked it or not. She wasn’t rude to whoever she spoke her mind to. She wouldn’t embarrass any one in a crowd. If she had something to tell you she would call you off to the side and tell you. But if you tried to embarrass her in front of a crowd, she would do the same to you in return. Don’t get it Twisted, she wasn’t scary. She wasn’t scared to fight either, if you wanted to take it there. And if she fought ya she wouldn’t hold any grudges after it was over with. She would speak to ya and act as if nothing ever happened if she saw ya in public. That’s what I love most about her that genuine heart she has. Keshia is the goofy one in our click. She was born on October 26th 1998. She’s the one who jokes and plays around making everyone around her laugh. Even when she was angry about something she still smiled which made it hard for anyone to tell when she was mad or sad. Whenever she would get into an argument or fight with someone she always smiled. Some of our classmates nicknamed her Smiley." Keshia was always a delight to be around. Casie was the nerd in our click and the youngest. She was born on December 15th 1998. She was a computer whiz, mathematician, video gamer, and novel reader. She likes to read both fiction and nonfiction novels. She loved reading crime, love, & scientific novels the most. Kayan was smart but Casie was super smart. Whenever we had problems in math or science, she was the go to person. She was also good at fixing computers & electronics (Tvs, radios, car stereos, toasters, remote controls, DVDs, CDs, and more). She’s a sweet person but she was too sweet meaning she would let other kids bully her just to get acceptance. We used to take up for her if ever we would witness someone doing it. She didn’t like to fight and refused to fight. Her belief was it’s always better to walk away and there are better ways to handle a situation other than fighting someone. As for me, I would fight but I wasn’t going to argue with nobody. I’d just say what I had to say and shut up because all of arguing is a waste of time. I’ll save all of my wind for the fight cause I know I’m a need it. Yea, I’ll fight but if I can I’ll try to avoid it if possible because I knew and still know that trouble is very easy to get into and hard to get out of once you’ve walked across that trouble zone. My click and I have done just about everything together at school and after school. Because we lived beside each other and Kayan & Jayan lived in front where the school bus picks and drops us off at. We all would go to there after school. We would sit on their porch and do our homework together while eating snacks and drinking juices. After our parents, recognized how close we all were, they would take turns amongst each other keeping us and taking us places together. Mom didn’t have to hire a babysitter for Jeffery and me. We became a part of each other’s family. If I wasn’t spending the night over their house they were spending the night at mine. We were always supervised by parents when spending the night at each other’s houses. We always obeyed the rules of each house when we would spend the night.

CHAPTER

TWO

Our Inspirations Growing Up

W e all had dreams growing up. Kaya wanted to be a singer. She loved Mariah Carey, she was her inspiration. Please believe, sista could sing. She could also dance too. Jayan (her brother) was good in rapping, he could also freestyle too. They use to have rap battles on the playground and he would win. He and she used to win talent show sometimes at our school when our school would have them. They used to earn awards at our schools for Most Talented and they were. No one could sing at our school or in our class better than Kayan and no one could in school or our class freestyle or rap better than Jayan. Kayan would sing the hook and Jayan would do the freestyles. Kayan and Jayan would also write songs together but sometimes they wrote separate songs. We used to love to listen to Kayan beautiful voice as she would sing her written song to us for our opinion. Even though Jayan had his own friends, he used to hang around us sometimes. Keshia wanted to be a standup comedian. Just like I said before she loved to laugh and make others laugh. She also wanted to get into acting. She was very good at imitating characters in her favorite movies as well as other movies she had seen before. Casie wanted to be something that involved dealing with computers. Casie always said there’s going to be a great need for someone who had knowledge of how to fix the computer. We didn’t believe her then. Later on, in life, we would find out she was right. She wanted a career in computer science. I never forgot about that time her grandma found a computer in a dumpster on her job and brought it to their home for Casie. Not only did Casie figure out what was wrong with it by taking it apart, she also figured out how to put it back together again and did it. It took her a few weeks but she still managed to do it. After she fixes and put it back together she reprogramed it also. We were so fascinated about that. When her grandma learned of her knowing how to fix electronics she blabbed to everyone at her job and the neighborhood. Lots of neighbors on Bessemer’s Rd. would come to her wanting her to fix their electronics. They would even pay her money for doing it. Or they would buy her whatever she wanted from the grocery store to eat or drink. Whatever she would get she would always share it amongst us. Sonia’s dream was either to become a millionaire or marry a millionaire and be their trophy wife. Don’t Get Me Wrong! She made good grades in school but she didn’t have a desire to be anything although she could’ve been anything she wanted to be. One good talent or gift she had was persuasion. She had the power of being able to get people to do what she wanted them to do, especially the opposite sex. She uses to have boys giving her their snack money or to buy her snacks at school. As for me, ever since mom bought me my first baby doll with hair, I knew I wanted to become a hair stylist that was my dream. While Keshia joked around, Kayan song, Casie fixed electronics & computers, and Sonia pretended to be a millionaire, I did hairstyles on my baby doll’s hair and sometimes theirs as my hairstyling skills progressed. Pretty soon their mom’s didn’t have to do their hair because I was doing it. I would continue to do it throughout the years on into high school. By that time, I had become a pro at doing hair. I could do any braiding styles, quick weave & sow-in styles. You name it I could do it. Fellow students in our grade, 10 th , 11 th , & 12 th was paying me money to do their hair. And one thang about me I wasn’t overcharged for the styles I was doing like these shops were, and still, are doing. In our high school years we all still had those same dreams but for some of us, unexpected things would happen that would steer us down unfamiliar paths. Paths we really weren’t planning on walking through.

CHAPTER

THREE

The Unfamiliar Paths Some Of Us Walked Through

K ayan got pregnant in the 10 th grade by her first boyfriend. His name is Damen and he was in the 11 th grade. She continued to attend school until a week before her due date. She had a boy and named him Jordan Meek Evans. Even after she had her baby she didn’t fall behind on her school work. She stayed on top of that while taking care of her baby. I admired her for that. There were so many girls who dropped out of school that same year after having a baby who didn’t go back. She returned back to school a month after having her son. She also got her a part time job after school. She still pursued her singing career and didn’t give up on it. We knew a dude who lived down the road from us who had his own studio in his house he built in one of his rooms. Everyone called him Po-Joe because he was super skinny and his first name was Joe. She would go into a studio and record songs. She and Jayan would record in his studio. Jayan recorded all of the time but Kayan recorded in her spare time. They formed a sing and rap group. It was just them in it. They called themselves K&J! On weekends after work, they would perform at talent shows in Birmingham. They would also record and perform songs separately. Their dad would become their manager and promoter. We were their supporters. We always attended their shows and cheered for them. Kayan never let the fact she had a baby interfere with her plans of being a singer she never gave up but Jordan always came first regardless. When Jordan wasn’t with one of his grandmas or that sorry azz baby daddy of hers, he was with her. I called him sorry because she would have to beg him to keep Jordan, he wouldn’t want to do it on his own. They broke up six months before she gave birth to Jordan. He turned out not to be that Prince Charming he pretended to be before she became pregnant by him. Sonia also got pregnant after talking about and picking at Kayan for doing so. She was the main one always saying she wasn’t going to get pregnant until after she graduated and met her millionaire future husband. Too bad, it didn’t happen exactly like that for her. Her baby’s daddy name is Ryan Sliverstone. According to her, Ryan’s family was rich and lived in a rich neighborhood in Birmingham named Homewood. His mom is a doctor and his dad was a politician. He went to some Christian private school on the wealthy side of town. She met him at the mall in Birmingham one day when we all went. I must admit, Ryan was very attractive. He was tall with an athletic body. His hair was blond and he had blue eyes. His skin was tan. He looked similar to the late, Paul Walker . And everyone knows Paul Walker was handsome. He appeared to be nice but quiet. How they ended up in a relationship is a mystery. He was too scared to show his face in our neighborhood and he had every right to be because one of these drug dealers in our neighborhood probably would’ve thought he was a decoy for the police and killed him. So, I’m assuming Sonia would meet up with him at a secret location on his side of town. She told us whenever she would miss the school bus she would catch a cab and meet up at that location. He would pay the cab fare.

Unlike Kayan, Sonia dropped out of school thinking Ryan was going to marry her. We all tried to talk her out of it but she was too hard headed to listen to us. She assumed his parents would eventually accept her and Ryan would buy them a house in Homewood to live in with some of his trust fund money which was $200,000. Or at least that’s what he had her believing at the beginning of the pregnancy. The whole time she didn’t know Ryan didn’t tell his parents anything about her or her unborn baby. "You see, Ryan Sliverstone and the Sliverstone Family are white. They lived in the upper parts of Birmingham that frowned upon who they considered beneath them. Sonia (just like us) lived in a poor, violate, community. On top of that, they were racist and didn’t believe in interracial relationships or marriages. So, had they even known their son was having any type of relations with an African American female who lived in a community that they despised it would’ve felt as if he had taken a knife and stabbed them in their backs. That would’ve been devastating for them. Ryan knew this. He cared for Sonia but he had a yearning for acceptance from his parents. According to Ryan, he had two sides to him. One side was the popular, smart student, Captain of the football team, and softball team Ryan, who was pressured constantly by his parents to be the best at everything. Who was taught by his parents to never hang or socialize with people who weren’t