Was I Keisha Williams?
The Protégé of Robert Kelly
This week I have been binge watching Season 2 of The Chi. I don’t know how I missed the whole last season but here we are. As the season progresses I am seeing my younger teenage self more and more in Keisha Williams’ character. Smart AF, cute, think she’s grown, lives in the hood but still has nice things, a little brother that annoys her but who she would also kill for, surrounded by a loving family, has a mom that works to provide all she can for her, and still she is out here looking for love in all the wrong places.
Like Keisha, I started having sex in high school. My first was with this guy they called Sincere (he got his nickname from the movie Belly lol). I went to an all-girl private school and he went to an all-boy private school that was around the way. I use to take the city bus to school and we took the same bus route every morning. He was your typical athlete, tall, super lean, light skin with braids, and I thought he was the finest boy I’d have ever seen. We met my freshman year in high school and of course I wasn’t allowed to date then but by my sophomore year I had given up the goods.
By my junior year in high school, I was now allowed to date. My mom had no idea I had been sneaking out for years at that point. I had a part-time job after school at this clothing store in the neighborhood and a lot of drug dealers use to shop there. I was in there selling Girbaud jeans and $500 Pelle Pelle leathers left and right lol. While working there I met this guy that was older, he had a car, a phone and a two-way pager (a big deal in 2002), and he wore these huge diamond earrings which where probably cubic zirconia thinking back lol. He shopped with me every week and would always ask to drive me home after work. I would decline and then he started waiting with me at the bus stop. Finally, I let him take me home one day when it was raining.
After that, he started picking me up from work and taking me to get food before dropping me at home regularly. I vaguely remember his name or age but if I had to guess I would say he was probably about 23-24 and I was 17 years old at the time. I was a cheerleader so I worked out a lot and my hair would be in ponytails most of the time. Every week he would give me money to get my hair and nails done. You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t grown now.
Of course my mom couldn’t know I was hanging out with this man so he would always pick me up or drop me off on the corner closest to where my bus stop was in case my mom was looking out for me to come home from work. No one really knew I was dating this guy except for my best friend at the time. We were seeing each other for a few months and then one day this girl called my mom’s house. Now this is before I had a cell phone so she called the landline ☎️!
I remember my mom handing me the phone and I asked “Who is this?”. She asked me did I know this guy by name and I said “Yeah”. She didn’t sound like your typical high school girl but she also didn’t sound older like someone my mom’s age either so I was perplexed as to who this was. I asked again “Who is this?” and she replied she was my secret boyfriend’s girlfriend AND baby momma. Whoa 😳. Now I am shook AF! She then proceeds to tell me how I can have him and she will come to drop off his clothes and all his other things to my house. Whole time I’m sitting on the porch at my momma’s house where I still share a room with my little brother. This is beyond me. Never have I wanted to go back to being a child so bad in that moment. Scared my mom may be listening I just hung up the phone and ran to my room thinking she was really going to come to my house with his things. I don’t think I slept a wink that night. I also never saw or spoke to him again after that.
Now adult me is like was I Keisha Williams?! Out here thinking some hair and nail money made me a woman while dating the protégé of Robert Kelly. Oh how I wish there was a Reg in my life to drive down on that J.A.N. and whoop his ass one good time.
And maybe even steal his car even though he didn’t drive a BMW like Keisha’s guy did. He had a box Chevy with rims on it but that was still good currency in the hood. Lol.
I will be starting Season 3, the current season of The Chi, this weekend so please please no spoilers!
-Sincerely, Sis