Authors: Kevin Bullock
“You’re right, it does. I find myself reading Job whenever I start questioning God’s will. It gives me strength.”
“Amen. You amaze me at times. The average man would’ve been…crazy by now if he experienced the things that you have. That’s a conversation for another time. Let me tell you the bad news. Ready?”
“Lay it on me.” Hammer braced himself.
“I’m transferring to another prison, Bobbit. I just can’t take it here anymore.”
“What?!”
“I decided a few weeks ago.”
“Uhhh, I guess that is bad news. What made you decide that, after being here for so long? Everything that’s going on has been going on since the beginning.”
“You’re right. The incident with you was the final straw. I have enough sense to know that these guys are going to get out one day, and I don’t want to run into one who is bitter that Sergeant Goines beat them up. I refuse to be killed over something that I disapprove of in the first place.”
“I understand that.”
“The other bad news is that there’s an eighty percent chance that Warden Felts will try to provoke you in the couple of days. He may attempt his most heinous act yet.”
“Why?! I haven’t done anything to that man!”
“I know that. Just be careful.”
This really bothered Hammer. He didn’t know how much of Felt’s taunting he could take without losing his composure.
“Do you have any idea of his motive this time?”
“Maybe because he found out that I’m moving you to the minimum security facility in Hillsborough.”
“You…what?”
“That’s right, Bobbit. You’re transferring with me. That’s what I told you I’ve been working on! I cashed in on some old favors.”
Hammer was flabbergasted. “Are you serious?”
“I wouldn’t kid you, friend.”
The men stood simultaneously to shake hands.
“Thank you, Chaplin! I wish I could hug you.”
The Chaplin came around the desk with is arms extended.
* * *
When Cataya saw the Lexus pull up to Fannie’s house, she bolted out the door, excitedly. Ching got out the car wearing a pair of dark Prada shades and a black t-shirt that read in rhinestones: ‘I AM NOT A RAPPER’.
“Hey!” she screamed, as they embraced.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, missing you.”
“Miss, also.”
She gently removed his shades so she could see the bruises around his eyes. She then kissed both of them.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
“I okay. He no fight straight up.”
“You’re so silly! Come on inside.”
He trailed her. “Where aunt?”
“At work. Have a seat while I finish my hair.” She handed him the remote control to the television. “Here, watch some TV.”
“Okay.”
She disappeared upstairs as soon as Dehila exited from the kitchen wearing a nightgown that hung just below her butt. Ching couldn’t help but to notice that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her dark and erect nipples protruding visibly through the almost non-existence sheer fabric were hard to ignore.
“You must be Ching?” she asked, walking provocatively to the window. The gown lifted mid-ways up her butt when bent to open the blinds.
Ching felt very uncomfortable in the room with her. It wasn’t that she was mostly naked, it was the fact that Cataya was up stairs and he knew that she wouldn’t approve of Dehila attire. “Yes”
“Nice car. I ‘ve always wanted a Lexus. How does it drive?”
“Good.”
She made her way next to him on the couch. “Is it true that those models park their selves?”
“Yes. With a little help.”
“Cool. I’m Dehila, Cataya’s
older
cousin.”
“I’m Ching.”
She shook his hand in a lingering way. “Is that a real diamond in your ear?”
He nodded, wondering why her hand was on his thigh.
“It’s huge. How many carats is it?”
“It-“
“You don’t have to answer that,” she said, cutting him off, “know it costs some money. Money that you obviously didn’t mind spending.
He shrugged.
“What’s the wildest ting you ever done, Ching? I want to top it.”
He knocked her hand away when it reached his manhood. “Chill, Dehila!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention to where my hand was. Anyway, I was wondering if could borrow twenty dollars until this afternoon. I give it to Cataya if you’re not around.”
“Uhhh-“
“I swear Ill pay you back as soon as I get it.”
“As soon as you get what?”
Asked Cataya, as she came down the stairs.
Dehila jumped up from the couch. “Nothing. So where are y’all about to go?”
“Ching, did she just ask you for some money?”
He nodded.
“Don’t be asking him for nothing! He’s not going to support your habit!”
“If you think that you’re going to be living up in here for free, you’re tripping!” Her face was balled up in a mask of fury.
“Oh, please! This is Aunt Fannie’s house that you just so happen to be living in free, also. I’m the one who has been helping her out, while you snort up every dollar you get.”
“I don’t have time for this.” She marched to the stairs. “You’re getting on my goddamn nerves!”
“You’re getting on mines, too. And you need to go put on some clothes. Looking like a prostitute. Come on, Ching. Let’s go!”
Once they were in Ching’s car, he lightly tapped her chin with his index finger. “Today good day, no frowning.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Where we eat?”
“It’s this Japanese restaurant I know you’ll like. They prepare the food right in front of you and do all sorts of tricks.”
“Cool. Which way?”
“Wait.” She then pulled out a pair of shades from her purse. “You’re not the only one who’s not a rapper.”
They laughed, hearty.
* * *
Dehila made a beeline to Cataya’s suitcase as soon as they left. It became very apparent after a brief search that Cataya had taken her money with her. So she began to scheme on another way to satisfy her craving.
Her new Facebook boyfriend had promised to come over at eight. That gave her little comfort right now. She knew that it would be nearly impossible for her to wait nine hours without putting something in her system.
Her habit had gone from a light gallop, to an all out Kentucky Derby race. She came to the conclusion, which was rare for beginner users, that she needed some drug abuse treatment.
Everybody except Cataya had ignored her silent cry for help. This gave her the delusion like maybe she wasn’t that bad off after all; like she had her habit under control, but hadn’t quite figured out how to master it.
Dehila was standing at the window when the obvious solution to her current dilemma came to her. She went to her uncle’s room and discovered that there was more valuables in there to last her well past eight o’clock.
* * *
It had taken well past two hours for the hospital to complete Rafeal’s paperwork. He waited patiently, nevertheless. EL The One DeBarge taught him that every efficient killer had patience, and he must have it, too.
Rafeal sat on the city bus; unfazed by the crowds and noise. Nothing could break his newfound focus. The three weeks that he had spent in the psychiatric ward seemed to him, like eternity.
It hadn’t been his longest stint there, but the anxiety of waiting to settle things made it seem that way.
His anxiousness was the product of EL The One DeBarge’s teachings. He had given him a new perspective of looking at himself. He felt at peace now. Mainly because he now knew his purpose.
It wasn’t until the guy beside him got off the bus that Rafeal observed a female starting at him.
“Hey, there.”
“Hey. You don’t remember me, do you?”
Rafeal studied her face. “You do look familiar, but I can’t place your face.”
Tell her to show us her tits. We might recognize her then.
“My name is Gwen. I work at Walgreens on Fayetteville Street.”
“Huh?”
The woman got up to sit next to him. Rafeal didn’t take his eyes off her breasts until she started back talking. “I said, my name is Gwen. I work at the Walgreens on Fayetteville Street. I use to see you come in there to get your prescription filled.”
Ah, shit! That’s where I remember those tits from. Those juicy specimens. Ask her to see them.
“Okay. Yeah, I remember you now. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing fine. Haven’t see you in awhile; you cured now?”
“You can say that,” he responded, thinking about the doctors that had deceived him for all those years.
“That’s good for you, uhh. I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
“Rafeal…My friends call me Raf, though.”
And I’m EL The One DeBarge. All my friends and haters call me ‘schiz’ Ask her what’s up with those titties.
“Nice to formally meet you, Raf.”
They shook hands and began to converse on a level that Rafeal hadn’t experienced with a woman on a long time. It dawned on him that there were other things he hadn’t experienced with a woman in a long time.
So when the voice finally convinced him to ask her, he was shocked when she beat him to the punch, postponing his plans for another day.
–—Chapter Seventeen–—
Hammer had plenty to cry about, but the tears in his eyes weren’t the ones of sorrow. They were of joy; the joy of being in the last stage of his prison sentence. It was the joy of being able to say that he had kept his morals intact, and he was coming home in one piece.
While Hillsborough’s minimum-security prison offered a lot of privileges that Bunn hadn’t, Hammer wasn’t particularly concerned with any of them. He was more caught in the fact that this was the last prison that would ever house him.
He had always wondered what it would be like when he was released. How would he act and if he would cry. Hammer still didn’t have the answers to these questions, and that didn’t bother him none.
Some mysteries were not meant to figure out until they unraveled themselves. Hammer knew that this was one of those occasions.
His thoughts were interrupted when his childhood associate sat down beside him.
“Believe it or not, I’ve named all seventeen trees on this compound,” Al. B announced.
“Oh, yeah?” Hammer wiped his eyes.
“For real. This here might sound even crazier. They’re the only things in my life that’s consistence.”
“What about your kids? Aren’t they still in your life?”
Al B. let out a bitter laugh. “I wish. They couldn’t get over the fact that I killed their mother. I can’t blame them, either. That was an awful thing I done.”
“Do you regret it?”
“I…” He shifted in his seat. “I regret taking my kids through that, because I murdered her in front of them. But more than ever. I regret getting caught.”
“That’s the way it usually is. Most of us would commit the same crime if we knew that we would get away with it. I know I would. If a man can’t protect his family, then what use is he to them?”
“Zip.”
“On the flip side of that, your woman has to stick with you if you ever got caught up ‘protecting and providing’. They want a man who can make things happen by all means, but when we get locked up for doing just that, they get a change of heart.”
Al B. nodded in agreement. “You’re right. I gave that ungrateful bitch the world on a silver platter. She gave me her ass to kiss in return. I was locked up for thirty lousy days and I started hearing how this bitch be all drunk in the club talking about how life goes on. Not to mention how she started fucking all of my supposed-to-be-friends, and spent majority of my money. Maybe a sucker ass square nigga can take that shit, but not me. I kid you not, Hammer. I cried like a little girl in that cell when I first found out. Imagine that. Pretty Ass Al. B crying over a female. After all them bitches that I’ve slutted out and made leave their man just to be with me for a night. She was the only woman I gave me heart to. She was my kryptonite, that ended up destroying me for the most part.”
“Sounds exactly like LeLe. I bent over backwards and beyond for that woman, and she skipped out on me the first chance she got.”
“I remember when you first got locked up. I was at Central Prison, working on my seventh year. They was saying that you killed a man that she was having an affair with. I heard something about how you caught them in bed together.”
“That’s some bull! I’d never kill a man for that.”
“I figured that, it just didn’t sound right. That’s something that an immature minded person does; like I used to be. The only time that you’re suppose to do that is if the man violates.”
“You’re right,” Hammer said, nodding his head. “You’re absolutely right.” A quietness fell over the men. That’s when Hammer decided to re-live the day that had changed his life forever.