The Big House on the Prairie.

[Soapy]

The Big House on the Prairie
Chapter Five :: Exodus, Part Five

By the time that I knew of the extent of Keiyana’s mental health struggles — including a diagnosed bipolar disorder which she had stopped taking medication for — it was too late. At first, I thought it was just Keiyana being Keiyana. We were in a new city, away from our families, away from the familiar. I had gotten used to her mood swings, which predated Las Vegas, where she’d have a few good days followed by a string of a few bad ones. Instead of missing school, she was now missing shifts at her job, losing out on potential income that we couldn’t afford to.

The tighter the money got as we tried to balance being responsible quasi-adults while still enjoying ourselves, the less she was able to take a day off to deal with her "blues". It didn’t help that when she was in on her manic state, she would go to the Strip, usually by herself whenever I was still at work, and spend most of her paycheck on clothes and jewelry that we couldn’t afford. When she would "snap out of it", it would only spiral her into an even deeper depression as she realized the never ending hole she was digging for herself.

While I was beginning the appreciate the simplicity of life, not a lot being expected of me except to clock in at a certain time, perform a specific set of tasks and clock out, Keiyana was not. She struggled with the relative anonymity of our newfound existence, not realizing how much she would miss being a bit of a celebrity in Prairie View. Out here, she wasn’t Baby Book’s little girlfriend. She was just the girl that needed to refill the water cooler in the hotel lobby and help out with the laundry if the cleaning people were running behind.

By our third month, she started hinting at potentially returning to Prairie View while for me, that was the last thing I wanted to do. Going back would mean going back to my father, going back to being a Gurley. Ignoring the upcoming college football season was easy enough out here but back in the thick of it, it would have been impossible to escape the lingering stares from people wondering why I was still here and not on their TVs, suiting up for the Texas Longhorns.

As a compromise, I told her that we could visit Prairie View but that we owed it to ourselves to try to stick it out. The lease on Irene’s apartment would be up for renewal in April and we owed it to her to at least make it through the lease and go from there.

I had a good relationship with Irene which Keiyana started to read too much into. She had opened her apartment to us, allowing us to stay with her at a relative cheap rate and wasn’t stingy. She knew we were two kids, still figuring out life so if she had some extra leftovers from a dinner she went out to, she’d ask us if she wanted any. On the rare occasion that she did cook, she somehow always managed to "accidentally" make too much food and in an effort to not let it go to waste, offered us some. If her schedule allowed it, she would drive us to work. I liked her boyfriend, Kyle, as well. He was an easy-going guy who, when he picked up that I didn’t really want to talk about football all that much, stopped bringing it up. Instead, we would go hang out at the bar after our shift, nursing a Coke while he chugged down beers. He even took me to my first strip club and always made himself available to hang out with on weekend nights, partly because he wanted a designated driver but I still appreciated the sentiment.

The more Keiyana started pressing about us returning to Prairie View, the more I would say that it would be unfair to Irene and how we would be leaving her out to dry. Somewhere along the line, Keiyana started to take my genuine appreciation for her, and her boyfriend, as something else. The accusations were subtle at first, not like how she normally would flat out accuse me of cheating in the past. She’d ask if I thought Irene was pretty or if this dress we saw at the mall would look better on Irene. Initially, I took these questions as a sign of growth instead of her usual angry attacks but in retrospect, she was likely working herself into the frenzied state that she would eventually reach.

That morning, I was supposed to hang out with Kyle and another one of our co-worker, Rob. We were going to drive out to where our co-worker’s brother had a ranch and was going to let us ride the horses after Kyle and I had gotten into a friendly debate the day before on how difficult horse-racing was. Kyle, a city boy, said it was akin to driving a car. I assured him it was not. The plans fell apart almost instantly as Kyle had gotten too drunk the night before and was too hungover to partake. Not wanting to waste the opportunity to be at a ranch, perhaps more homesick than I was willing to admit, Irene agreed to drive me out there. Initially, she was just going to drop me off as it was an off-day for her as well but when we got there and Rob’s girlfriend, who she was friendly with, was there too, she decided to stay.

Keiyana was working that day so when she called Irene to see if she could pick her up from work, Irene told her it’d be a while because she had been hanging out with me at the ranch. By the time we got home, Kyle had recovered and had already left the house as he had a security shift that night. When I first walked in, Keiyana seemed fine. She was scrolling on her phone with her dinner, mostly finished, in front of her. I kissed her forehead, asked her how her day was and told her that she should come with us the next time as the ranch was pretty fun and I thought she would enjoy it.

About a minute into my shower is when I heard the first scream. It seemed faint, almost as if it was coming from another apartment in our building. The second scream, however, was deafening. They got weaker after that.

Next release: 8/1/2025

[redsox907]

[djp73]

[Soapy]

time to get active!

[Soapy]

The Big House on the Prairie
Chapter Six :: Wilderness, Part One

Even in my younger years, I’ve always been a fan of documentaries. I enjoyed being able to see life from a rearview mirror, seeing different people’s perspective on things. Growing up in a fishbowl like Prairie View, I often wondered how people viewed me and my family, how they truly viewed us beyond the pageantry and quasi-royalty status that had been bestowed upon us since my grandfather began telling tales about being related to O.W. Gurley.

World War II is probably the most documented event in human history and I’ve watched countless documentaries on the war with Winston Churchill’s character, specifically his speech, always resonating with me. His speech peeked my interest and when I began doing my research (aka Wikipedia and asking ChatGPT about it), I learned about what people called his 'wilderness years' when he was out of office following his first stint in politics. I had only known about Churchill’s story when it came to the war, I didn’t know that even prior to that, he had already had a storied political career. The idea that this second act, following these wilderness years, would be what he would be remembered for gave me hope that perhaps my second act could also be that.

The thing I remember the most about Keiyana’s arrest was how long everything took. It was a slow, grueling process as a million thoughts and none at all ran through my mind. I couldn’t imagine hers.

It took a while for the police to get there, so much so that I considered packing up our things and leaving. We didn’t for a few reasons. She didn’t attack a stranger; Irene would easily be able to tell the police who we were and they would just as easily found us. We didn’t have the means to get anyway as neither of us had a car and an Uber ride as a getaway just didn’t seem practical. The third, and most important, was that Keiyana was in no state to be doing anything.

She was sitting down on the corner of the kitchen, her knees tucked closer to her chest. She didn’t say anything as she just looked into the distance. There were a few scratches on her face, a small cut by her lips but she had gotten the better of the exchange with Irene locking herself into the bathroom to call the police. The quick glimpse I had gotten of her when I ran out into the kitchen to break up the fight, she had a giant cut right above her eye and her lips were split open. Her right eye was already beginning to swell and there was a pool of blood spilling from her mouth.

I was the one to answer the door when the police finally came, nearly forty five minutes later. I met them at the door and tried to tell them that Keiyana wasn’t a threat to anyone and that she just gets angry sometimes. The grandson of a lawyer, I knew better but also didn’t want them coming in expecting to have to neutralize a threat. Keiyana wasn’t argumentative when they entered the house but she wasn’t cooperative either, refusing to talk to anyone.

After the police got done talking to Irene in another room, they told Keiyana that she was being charged with assault and battery, ran her Miranda Rights, cuffed and escorted her to the back of the police cruiser. By then, Kyle had arrived, looking for answers and asking me for them. I didn’t have any. The task of booking an Uber to follow my girlfriend as she was being arrested felt surreal to me as I pulled out my phone.

Time slowed even more once we got to the station. They told me she would be booked and processed and then be scheduled for a bail hearing. As I waited for her to get processed, sitting in the waiting room, not knowing what to do, I called my grandfather. There was concern in his voice as soon as he answered the phone. I had a good relationship with my grandfather but neither of us were the calling type, the random check-ins.

He told me that she likely would get bail and it wouldn’t be more than a few thousand dollars since it was her first offense, to which I only had to pay ten percent. He didn’t know any lawyers in Nevada but that he could put me into contact with someone that might. He told me to not return to the apartment as my presence, and certainly hers, could be seen as witness intimidation if the case went to trial. He promised he’d help me out, offering to get us a place to stay until the issue was resolved but that his assistance came with a stipulation. I would need to return to Prairie View. I didn’t need to stay at my father, he offered his home instead, but that he wanted me to leave Las Vegas.

"That ain’t no place for you, son," he told me, "You need to come home."

I politely turned down his offer.

Next release: 8/2/2025

[Captain Canada]

Messy female characters - a Soapy staple

[Caesar]

Messy female characters - a Soapy staple

He really be on some Tyler Perry shit if we keeping it a buck. Not a single well adjusted Black woman in sight.

Ol’ boy lucky Keiyana went upside Irene’s head instead offing him in his sleep tbh.

[djp73]

crashout

[The JZA]

[redsox907]

I was expecting she offed herself with how the last update ended, but I don’t know if this is better or worse

At least a dead girlfriend is good motivation. Take it from my experience Baby Book - they never get less crazy.

Get out before you’re intercepting passes with a hole in yo hand