Authors: Keith Thomas Walker
“Uhn-uhn. Girl, you should sue.”
“Sue for what?”
“They not supposed to be putting they hands all on you.”
“They’re not supposed to sit on someone’s neck, either, but they did that.”
“They sat on Rilla’s neck?”
“Yeah,” Candace said and downed another mouthful. Trisha had a way with food. Hamburger Helper meals didn’t call for paprika, but Candace tasted it. There was thyme in there, too. “It was a real fat cop, too. I tried to run up to him. I think I was gonna hit him or something.”
Trisha chuckled. “That’s
romantic
. I can see yo pregnant ass doing that shit, too.”
“There was nothing romantic about my day,” Candace said. “Watching Rilla on the ground like that . . . .” She shivered. “I get chills every time I think about it.”
Trisha nodded knowingly. She wiped her baby’s nose and asked, “Them people still won’t tell you what his bail is?”
Candace had made at least ten calls to the county jail since getting home.
“No. He’s
still
not arraigned yet.”
“That’s messed up. Bet they don’t be doing white people like that. They tell them what they charged with right then. They don’t wait no eight hours to get arraigned.”
Candace didn’t know if that was true or not, but the longer they held Rilla with no charges, the longer she could hold out hope for a happy ending.
“They arrested my nephew for murder when I was pregnant with Peter,” Trisha said. “They held him in the county jail for
two years.
When they couldn’t build a case against him, they just turned him loose. They made him do two years for nothing.”
Candace’s whole face drooped. She brought a hand to her mouth and chewed on her longest fingernail.
“Did Rilla have dope on him?” Trisha asked.
“I don’t know,” Candace said. “I know he sells dope over there. That’s the only reason he goes to those apartments.” She scraped up her last spoonful of Hamburger Helper and almost licked the plate clean. She stood and took it to the kitchen instead.
“That was good. Thanks.”
“It’s cool. You can eat over here whenever you want to. And if you get lonely at your apartment, you can spend the night over here.”
“Thanks,” Candace said, realizing what a good friend Trisha was. “I really appreciate that.”
“Maybe he didn’t have nothing on him,” Trisha said. “They would have let him out by now if he didn’t, wouldn’t they?”
“Maybe,” Trisha said. “When they do raids like that, they take everybody who’s around there. If you don’t have no drugs or a pistol, they’ll take you for whatever tickets you got. Damn near every nigga in the hood got a warrant for something. Maybe they just holding him on tickets again.”
That was Candace’s secret prayer. “I hope so.”
“What you gon’ do if it
is
drugs?” Trisha asked.
Candace shook her head. She didn’t want to cry again. She thought she had run out of tears, but her vision grew blurry anyway. “I don’t know,” she said, and tried to force the pain away.
“You thinking about calling your parents yet?”
Again, Candace’s eyes twitched. She looked up at the ceiling this time to keep the moisture in. “I called them,” she said. “I talked to them. They know what’s going on.”
“What’d they say?”
“It didn’t go well,” Candace said. She looked her friend in the eyes and allowed herself to weep. “They know I’m pregnant, but I’m not going home anytime soon. I don’t want to talk about that anymore.”
Trisha was usually unrelenting, but she let it go with that.
The front door swung open, and in stepped the only woman in the city who could make Candace feel ugly simply by walking into the room. Delia wore a sleeveless V-neck catsuit that evening. The material was dark blue and stretchy; it fit her like a rubber glove—except down past the knees, where it flared out into bell bottoms.
Delia had her hair down. It was jet black and shiny, straight and flowing. Candace wiped the tears from her face, all of a sudden aware of her fat stomach, swollen feet, and puffy cheeks.
“What’s up, bitches!”
“Oh, God, it’s Foxy Brown,” Trisha said. “Girl, how you keep them titties from falling out?”
Candace wondered that, too.
“The same way Jennifer Lopez did when she wore that green Versace,” Delia explained. She strutted like a model, bringing in the smell of Christian Dior perfume with her.
“Hell, I don’t know how
she
did it, either,” Trisha said.
“It’s an industry secret,” Delia informed her. “Don’t hate.” She walked right up to Candace and put a hand on her hip. Candace looked up at her and her heart stopped. The dreaded moment of truth had finally arrived. Candace steeled herself for the accusations:
Bitch, why you sleep with my man?
Speculations would follow:
I heard that ain’t even Rilla’s baby. Bitch, you got pregnant with CC?
Then would come the hair pulling and rolling around on the floor, the slaps and the scratches. In a way, Candace was ready to get it all over with. It would be a perfect way to end this awful day. Waiting for this confrontation was probably harder than the actual incident would be.
But Delia still didn’t know about CC and Candace. She came to talk about something moderately worse.
“Why you ain’t at the house?” she asked. “Rilla’s been trying to call. CC’s been calling, too.”
“I have my cell phone with me,” Candace said. “Them jailhouse phones can’t call to some cell phones,” Delia said.
“Why not?”
“Hell, I don’t know why, but they can’t.”
“How do you know Rilla called me?” Candace asked. “You talked to CC?”
Delia gave her a dumb look. “Girl, CC at the house. I just left from over there.”
Candace’s jaw dropped. “They let him out?”
“What are you talking about? He wasn’t never arrested.”
“He wasn’t?”
“Naw, fool. Who told you CC was in jail?”
“I saw the police there,” Candace said. “I saw Rilla. The police had
him
handcuffed.”
“Bet you didn’t see CC in no handcuffs,” Delia said, and that was true.
“He got away?”
“The police can’t never catch CC,” Delia informed. “He got some long legs. He can jump a fence without climbing it.”
“Yeah, I seen him do that before,” Trisha agreed.
Candace felt like she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs. The Hamburger Helper became a petrified log in her gut. How unfair was that? If not for CC, Rilla wouldn’t have gotten wrapped up in the dope game again. He would have been more focused on his music, and would probably have his demo ready by now. Rilla had a girlfriend from out of state who depended on him. He had a baby on the way (
maybe
). Candace wouldn’t wish jail on anyone, but CC deserved to be there much more than Rilla did.
“I can’t believe he got away from all those police,” she said.
“He just ate me an hour ago,” Delia countered. “I’m pretty sure I know what I’m talking about.”
That’s messed up.
“He talked to Rilla,” Delia said.
“When?”
“A little while ago. You could have talked to yo man, too, if yo ass was at home to answer the phone.”
“What he say?” Candace asked. Her heart thumped so hard she felt it in her ears.
“Rilla said he had a
whole bunch
of dope in his pocket,” Delia informed her. She dropped the bomb as casually as if she was giving directions. “They charged him with possession with the intent to distribute. He said they’re already trying to railroad him. Because he’s kind of famous, they set his bail at a hundred thousand dollars.”
“
A hundred thousand
?” Trisha gasped.
Candace didn’t know how to feel yet. “Is that a lot?”
“Hell, yeah, that’s a lot,” Trisha said. “A dope case ain’t supposed to have nothing but a five, ten thousand dollar bail.
A hundred thousand—for dope?
” She wrinkled her face like she smelled something foul. “That’s wrong. Your bail is only gonna be
fifty
thousand if you kill somebody.”
“So what does that mean?” Candace asked. Her face was scrunched up, too. She couldn’t stop her leg from shaking.
“It means he ain’t getting out,” Delia said.
And then it hit. Candace felt like a pipe bomb went off in her rib cage. The floodgates released in her eyes again, and she wanted her mama. More than anything in the world, she wanted to feel her mother’s arms around her.
“They can’t hold him
forever
, can they?”
Delia looked down at her like she was a mangy dog. “You don’t know shit about jail, do you?”
Candace shook her head and dug for a napkin in her purse. Everything she pulled out was used and wadded. Trisha tossed her the baby’s face towel, and Candace blew her nose into it loudly.
Delia sat next to her on the couch. “Here’s how it works, youngster. Rilla’s charged with something big. He’s going to either say he did it, and take some time, or he can go to court and fight it. If he do that, he gotta get a lawyer. But
before
that, he gotta bail out of jail—if he can.”
“He has to pay a hun-hundred thousand to bail out?” Candace’s eyes were red and puffy. Her nose was pink. Her lips quavered.
“You have to get a
bail bondsman
to make your bail,” Trisha said. “Like if your bail is five thousand, most people don’t have that. But if you pay the bondsman ten percent he’ll pay the rest for you.”
“So Rilla can get out for ten thousand?” Candace asked. That was more money than she’d ever had in her entire life, but still, it sounded a lot better.
“Right,” Trisha said.
“So unless you know somebody rich,” Delia added, “Rilla has to stay in jail until he goes to court.”
The only people Candace knew with that kind of loot were her parents, and they weren’t even close to being an option.
“How, how long before he goes to court?” she asked.
“I told you about my nephew,” Trisha reminded. “But it usually takes about three to six months.”
Candace wondered what would happen to her in six months without Rilla. Or would it be only six months? Rilla got caught red-handed, and he was definitely guilty of his crime. Candace had to consider the fact that she might never see him again. She wondered if she still needed his signature for an adoption if he was in the penitentiary.