First Round Lottery Pick (15 page)

I sat around trying to decide whether or not to go see Tori before it was too late. I went as far as to call Jalen so he could take me, but he didn't answer. I took that as a sign to just let things be. Plus, I didn't want to upset Tori anymore than she was, because she had planned to have the abortion in the morning. I ended up falling asleep.

Next thing I knew, my mother was pushing me on the shoulder. “
L
, you need to get up,” she kept telling me.

I looked over at the clock. It was a little past three in the morning. “Ma, you all right?”

“Get up,
L
. We need to go to the hospital,” she said, her voice trembling.

I tried to sit up in the bed. “Hospital? For what?”

“It's Jalen, baby. Something happened, and he's in the hospital.”

I jumped out the bed and scurried to put on my clothes without even asking my mother what had happened. Out of all the money I had made in the last couple of weeks, I still didn't have a car, so we had to wait for a cab to pick us up and take us to Jalen.

When we got there, he was in intensive care. The doctor told us he was lucky to be alive in his condition. It was crazy because the same nurse who'd he met when he was in the hospital and who starred in his wild movie was standing by his bed, checking his chart.

I stepped inside.

She tried to smile at me, but a tear dropped down her brown face.

“What happened?”

“He was beaten up,” she said.

“What? By who? For what?”

“I don't know. I have never seen anything like this thou-gh, and
J
is so sweet. You're Langston, right?”

I nodded yes.

“He called out for you a few minutes ago. He's going in and out.”

Before I could ask another question, she ran out the room.

My mother came over to stand next to me and put her arm around me. We tried to call out for Jalen a few times, but he wouldn't answer. It was dark in the room. Jalen's face was covered with bandages, and he was motionless. I just started calling out to him over and over again.

When my mother ran out the room, I stood silent and looked down at Jalen, not knowing what else to do.

“
L
, that you?”

Jalen's worn out voice scared me. I leaned down toward his face. “
J
, it's me. I'm right here. I'm right here, man.” I was about to lose it.

“I'm fucked up, ain't I?”

“No, man, you a soldier. You goin' to be okay. You're good, man.”

“Take a good look at me,
L
.”

“I am looking at you, Jalen. You're going to be okay. Just relax.”

“No,
L
,” he said. “Take a good look. That nigga took off my arm and leg.”

I pulled back the covers on Jalen's body, and my eyes cut through the darkness. I saw that his left leg and right arm were completely gone. Instantly my hands started to shake as I held the cover. I wanted to throw up and cry at the same time.

“Jalen, who did this to you, man? Who did it, gotdamn it?”

Jalen didn't answer me right away. He was back out. I bent down and put my head on his chest and began to cry. My tears couldn't stop flowing. “Jalen, please . . . tell me who did this to you.”

I heard Jalen trying to speak. Then he whispered, “Toy.”

“Toy?”

“I was riding through The Vil.”

Jalen's voice was so faint, I had to put my ear next to his mouth just to hear him.

He continued with, “Toy pinned me in with his car, jump-ed me with some crew. They beat me, and he told me if I didn't have my arm and leg, it would be hard for me to keep up with you when we go to France.”

“He said that? He did this?”

“And he raped Tori,
L
. That bastard did that too.”

“Tori?”

“He said her baby is probably his. He said he was on top of her for hours. He is the one who had her raped.”

It was the first time in my life that I felt my mind totally snap. My whole body was boiling, and I was in shock.

I tried to tell Jalen that he would be okay, but I couldn't speak anymore. All I could do was look down at him as he fell back to sleep. I bent down and kissed him on the cheek and headed out to the streets.

When I reached the exit of the hospital, I heard my mother calling out to me, “Langston, where are you going?”

I didn't answer. I looked at her, kissed her on the forehead, then just started walking away as she continued to call out my name.

I was walking through the streets in the darkness like a zombie. I was sweating, my tee was soaked, and my heart was pounding with straight fire. Probably out of force of habit, I stopped in The Vil. It was quiet on the street, except for a few drug dealers on the prowl, along with a few young bucks who should have been at home and tucked in bed.

I got an adrenaline surge when I saw Jalen's Escalade zoom right past me. Then the brake lights came on, and the car stopped. Like a bunch of magnets, the few people left on the stre-et all gathered around to see who was in it.

I wanted to know too, so I stood and watched for a minute. Then I walked up slow. There was one young buck on a bike holding himself up by gripping the car door and talking to the driver, and two or three others walking around, checking out the rims Jalen had just put on his ride.

When I got up to the car, I took the young one hanging on the door by his arm and threw his ass off the car and onto the ground.

The punk driving Jalen's whip looked out. “Yo', man, what is your problem?” he said. Then when he saw my face, he said, “What's up,
L
?

I didn't know this fool who'd made himself comfortable in Jalen's wheels. “Where'd you get the whip?”

He answered, “Huh?”

I punched him in the face and snatched his ass through the car window then drug him on the pavement. I lifted him up in the air. “The car, where did you get it?”

“C'mon,
L
. I don't know, man. It was sitting down by Maryland pool. I walk by, look in, the music on, nobody in it, but the keys, so I take off.”

“That's all you know?”

“That's it, man. I swear to you,” he pleaded.

I looked back at the crew looking at me. “Y'all need to get your young asses out the streets. Go home! Go!”

They all took off running, except for the fool I had just yanked out. I kept my eye on him and got into Jalen's car.

“Hold up, man. I just bought a chicken meal. I ain't even bust it open yet,” he said.

I looked over in the passenger seat and saw his food. I dropped his smoking-hot three-piece on the ground piece by piece, kept the drink, and drove off.

The shock of seeing Jalen was wearing me down. I just wanted to cry, but my anger kept me going. I wanted revenge. I had a feeling Jalen didn't get rid of his tool like I told him, because he didn't trust the streets. He knew someday for some reason he was going to need to use it to protect himself.

I reached under the seat and found his piece and began to think that he must have really been surprised by the fools that jumped out on him because he didn't get a chance to reach for it. Now I had his pistol and was going to make it right as soon as I could.

When I pulled up to Toy's house, I tucked the pistol in my pants and knocked on the door a few times.

Without any questions, I was planning to blow his face off as soon as I saw him, but he never answered the door, and his car wasn't out front.

I drove over to The Strip Club, and sure enough, I spotted his ride. I got there just in time because just as I parked far enough away so that he couldn't see me, he came out the club holding Katrina by the arm.

“C'mon, bitch, get in the car,” he was telling her.

“If you don't get off me, Toy,” Katrina said. “Why you always have to be pushing on me?”

“What the hell your stupid ass going to do about it?” he barked.

“I wanna go home, Toy. I'm tired. I been dancing all night.”

“You can walk your ass home from my place when I'm finished, so get your ass in the car.”

“No, I wanna go home.”

Toy smacked her.

I was on my way out the car, but my phone rang. “Yeah?” I answered it as Toy and Katrina struggled.

“Hey, baby. It's your mom.”

“Hello, Ma.”

By this time, Toy had pushed Katrina in the car and was on his way to the driver's side to get in.

“Langston . . . Jalen's dead, baby. He just passed away.”

I could hear my mother crying on the phone. When I finally opened my eyes from the pain, Toy and Katrina were gone.

Jalen's funeral wasn't my first, but it was my worst. I was barely coping with anything that had to do with life. My boy, who I'd been with every day since I could remember, was gone.

I went to the wake and cried until my eyes hurt. Jalen's mother didn't want an open casket, and I was glad. I wanted to think of only the good memories of him, but it was going to be hard to do after the way I saw him laying up in that hospital bed the night he was beaten.

Everyone gathered in Jalen's spot in The Vil, and people were running in and out bringing food and telling his mother how sorry they were. Most of the people who came through were parents who had lost kids in The Vil over some senseless nonsense too, so they knew exactly what to say to Jalen's mom.

It hurt me to see Jalen's mom try to deal with him being gone. Jalen's crazy ass was the first of her seven kids to graduate from high school, and he was her last born.

She was trying her best to be strong even as she tried to explain to Jalen's locked-up father what happened to his seed. She had no idea who killed Jalen. The police didn't know when they came out to talk to her, and they did their investigation like they barely cared.

I decided I was going to keep everything Jalen told me to myself and finish what I planned to do the night he died, because that was my boy, and I owed him.

I sat with Jalen's mom for a long while and tried to ease her pain, letting her know I would continue to pay Jalen's salary. It was the least I could do. After all, he was one of the main reasons I was going pro.

Jalen's mom told me to take his car though; she didn't think she could stay strong with it in her face every day and Jalen not driving it with his wide smile, and hat cocked to the side .

I was tired of everyone coming up to me asking how I was. Jalen didn't deserve to get beaten to death and have his arm and leg taken from him in the process.

When Jalen's mom heard someone ask me if I was okay again, she began to cry out. It was her third time within thirty minutes. Her daughters gathered her up and started to take her to her room.

Another tear rolled down my face as I looked at a picture of me and
J
washing our raggedy hand-me-down bikes with a rag and a bucket with holes.

I looked up from the picture when the front door opened and Tori walked in. She looked around at everyone then heard Jalen's mother crying out, and after one look into my eyes, she began to cry.

I stood up to grab her, and she fell into my arms. I started shedding tears again for Jalen.
Damn! Our boy is gone. Damn! He is gone.

Every funeral I had ever been to had rained, and Jalen's was no different. I watched from a distance though from the backseat of one of the limos as they got ready to put
J
in the ground after the service. I didn't want to see him going down into the earth, nor did I want to hear any more crying because I think I would have had some kind of breakdown if I did.

We hadn't been at the cemetery more than five minutes, but I saw Tori looking around then back at the car. She came toward me with her umbrella, and I opened the door so she could get inside. She sat down and wiped a few drops from her face, as we sat in silence looking on at what was going on outside.

“You're not coming out, huh?”

“Naah, I've had enough. Jalen already in heaven anyway,” I told her.

“Yeah?” Tori wondered.

“Probably already trying to get a summer b-ball tournament set up or something.”

“You know his ass is. Probably trying to play a game of one on one with Jesus, with his crazy self.”

I swear, I wasn't trying to cry again. “That was my boy, Tori. Jalen was my brother.”

She said, “I loved him too. You just not supposed to go out like that,
L
.”

I moved toward the window and looked out. I couldn't believe Toy had the nerve to be in attendance at Jalen's funeral. I don't know how long I stared at him, but I know I was thinking whether or not to go out there and kill him on the spot.

“What's wrong?” Tori asked.

“Nothing. I'm cool.” I took a deep breath. I needed to talk about something else. Anything. “So how did it go?”

“What?”

I looked down at her stomach.

She hesitated before saying, “Oh, it didn't. I couldn't do it.”

“No?”

“I couldn't.” She exhaled loudly. “I mean, like you said, so what the baby won't know its father? How many kids in the hood know them anyway? Plus, this baby is going to have all of me inside it anyway. I promise you that.”

I pounded my fist on my leg.

“What's wrong,
L
?”

“It seems like everything that's happened comes from me and going pro.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It don't matter. Just know that it's fucked-up to lose your best friend and girl in the same week.”

“Well, I've been thinking about that too,” Tori said.

“What you mean?”

“Just wondering what would happen if we just moved on, got away from here, and just did us.”

“Really?”

“Mmm-mmm, you sit around and dream as a little girl of one day not having to live in the projects anymore and having a man with a family that you can cling to. Yeah, I thought about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And you were thinking about me?”

“Of course, I was.”

I took my time before I spoke again. “You should do more than think about it though. You and the baby come with me. We'll get married and leave all this behind. No more projects, no more guns, no more murders. Just us and that little one inside you.”

“But it's not yours, Langston. This baby won't be your blood.”

“It will still be mine. I'll love it to death because it's part of you, and that's on my word.”

Tori started to smile.

“So you'll do it? Oh, hold on a second.” I reached into my pocket and gave her the ring I was still holding on to.

Tori's smile widened some more.

“You will?”

“Yes, boy, I'll marry you. Ain't no way I'm staying here without you.”

Tori gave me a hug then a long kiss afterwards. I could see through the window they were finally lowering Jalen into the ground, and people were beginning to walk away.

“You see, Jalen. We're going to do it, baby! Me and your girl going to get married, man.” I looked at Tori. “You know we should name the baby
Jalen
.”

“And if it's a girl,
Jada
.”

“Yeah, cool. I like that.”

We both had tears running down our faces. I wiped mine away. “Now c'mon. Let's go say one last good-bye to our boy.” I grabbed a bottle of liquor from the limo to share with Jalen and showed it to Tori. “You think
J
would like this? It's Johnnie Walker Blue Label.”

“Oh, hell yeah. Jalen would drink anything.”

I helped Tori out the limo, and we walked hand in hand to Jalen's grave then had our own little private time with our boy without shedding another tear.