Old Friends 4 Sale (BOOK 2) || PRN

Twelve | Sign O' The Times

The soles of my feet fare falling numb, my legs turning into overcooked lines of mushy spaghetti as my sister, best friend, and I search for the hospital entrance. I spot it. Lit up in words painted in the shade of red I imagine decorates all of hell's entirety, I see the single word I'm looking for. Entrance. Running— or sprinting rather— into through his entrance of the hospital, I see people gathering around the entrance. Interested glances rooted in curiosity, wide-eyed stares and nosey noses facing the sky are the least of my interests. Not having supposed to run out of the car the way I do leaves Mike and Ike chasing behind me. I sprint right past the group of staring people. This is not a good time for the public to be sniffing my ass.

As we look for the nearest informational desk. we see a man on a stretcher being rushed around the main floor. Mustard yellow slacks, Stacy Adams loafers polished to perfection, and a gold Rolex on his wrist. I can't make out his face as Aaliyah's hair blocks my visions. She's standing beside me, begging and pleading the woman behind the desk to give her a slither of insight as to where my brother resides in this moment.

Commotion with the man on the gurney. The words of the medic moving him around pierces through my bubble of distress. "We've got a male, age forty-four. His son was shot and he's been hit by a car coming here!" I can't say how but I hear her every word through my ringing ears.

I can feel an angel lean against my left ear, whispering directions that only my heart can make out. I feel compelled to look to the man in the stretcher on my right. My head shoots in his direction, phonics of terror fly out of my mouth with no control the exact moment I recognize the face.

"Dad?" My unsureness has been birthed by disbelief. I don't want to believe this is happening. Pushing through Mike and Ike, I slither away to stand in the open as I await the male to return my gaze. My father stares me in the eyes. "Dad!" I scream as he is already being pushed into the distance of the hallway. Mike pulls me back. I turn back to Alexis and Aaliyah, who are still trying to get information.

The front desk's receptionist is intentionally choosing not to cooperate. Alexis, now, loses the very little bit of cool she could've had left.

Alexis bangs on counter, yelling at what is starting to feel like the top of het lungs. "Listen, I need to know where the fuck Edward Johnson is!" The receptionist reaches for the walkie-talkie when Alexis snatches it from its place on the desk. "No, you're not doing shit until I know where my little brother is!" Ike steps in to pull me away from the situation.

"Are you immediate family?"

"I just fucking said—" Aaliyah has to pull Alexis away. She's losing it.

I step up, pushing them aside as Aaliyah, folds her arms and hysterically cried. "She is, and so am I. We all are." The woman catches a glimpse of my face. Her eyebrows lift and they finally shift between my sister and I. Recognizing this gawk has become a specialty of mine. While I cannot say why its taken her so long, I do know this woman is coming into the know about who I am and what I do for a living. The energy shifts. After realizing who I am, suddenly, she is typing away. "I should be an emergency contact for him," I chime in.

"Uhm, okay..." She gathers a number of clipboards in her hands. "Ms. Lyric, I'll need every visitor in your party to fill out a visitor's form first and present valid government issued ID."

I never thought I'd ever be so happy to be a public figure. I've got to admit... It has it's perks sometimes. The way the sight of my face gets her act together is equally as largely astonishing as it is disgraceful. 

Chanel Johnson.

It's the first thing I write and as the pen effortlessly glides across the paper, I can feel my skin itching as I cringe. Damn, I hate my name. The name given to me at birth is the name that got me teased for two years when my family relocated to the northern side of my city. I hated it so much that I eventually started going by Cindy as Aaliyah hyphenated her first and middle name. Now, where the hell does Cindy come from when the starting point is Chanel? I don't know but it got people off of my back. It wasn't until college that I had the freedom to go by my first name. And even then, it was mostly my friends from the Black Student Union who referred to me as such. I was even CJ for my final year.