Natural Born Hustler (3 page)

She prayed that he was okay, but once she made it to the driver’s side of the car where he’d gone down and found him
curled in a fetal position with blood gushing out of his wounds and mouth, she feared that her prayers might be in vain.

“
Noooo!
” she cried out. “Don’t die … You can’t die … I won’t let you!” she screamed, dropping to her knees beside the man she loved with all her young heart. She had to pull it together for Fame.
I gotta get him some help. Where’s my phone? Dammit! What did I do with the fucking phone? Calm down, Desember. You can’t help if you’re panicking
. She rose and hurried back inside the car and grabbed her cell phone, frantically dialing 911 before remembering that she had turned it off earlier.

She punched the button to repower the phone and waited an agonizing six seconds—which felt to her like six hours—before it finally turned on.

“What’s your emergency?”

“I need an ambulance,” she screamed at the nonchalant-sounding voice. “My man has been shot, and I think he’s dying!”

Minutes later an ambulance pulled up. The doors located on the rear of the vehicle sprang open, red lights still screaming emergency. Two young EMTs jumped from the ambulance with the efficient speed and ability of the trained and familiar. Together they moved a collapsible gurney from the truck to the ground and gently but efficiently rushed Fame to the hospital.

Desember held Fame’s hand. She hadn’t released it since she made the 911 call. The truth of the matter was that her love for him ran so deep, she felt that if he was dying she was too. When they were there on the nearly deserted road waiting for help, Fame fought for breath to speak, and she could hear the gurgling of blood in his throat. Fame had managed to say, “I … love … you … D.”

Trying to be strong with tears in her eyes, she held it together. “I know you do, baby. But right now try to save your energy. We gonna need all the strength in both of us to get through this. We gonna make it, baby.”

Fame was in bad shape, and Desember wasn’t quite as sure as she sounded. But she wouldn’t give up, and neither would Fame.

At the hospital, two oversized glass doors slid open as they approached, allowing entry into the emergency room. The senior ambulance medic had already called in the situation on the way to the ER: trauma patient, black male, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, multiple gunshot wounds, critical condition. They assumed that the slug that entered from the back had clipped Fame’s lung, which could prove to be fatal.

Two nurses met them in the ER. It had only taken the emergency vehicle six minutes to arrive at the scene, and another seven to get to the hospital. The technicans were relieved that they had done their job getting their patient to the care he needed. Now it was up to the hands of a skilled surgeon, God and Fame’s will to live.

“We’ll take ’im from here,” the brown heavyset nurse said to the techs. The nurse standing by her side, Mildred, was a white older lady with short dark hair. Mildred’s eyes quickly assessed the situation before settling on the clasped hands: one a young woman’s and the other a young man’s, both stained with blood, holding onto each other for dear life. “You’ve done all you can do,” she said, “but you’re going to have to let go now.”

Desember looked up into Nurse Mildred’s bright, but slightly tired, blue eyes and saw a woman with compassion to her plight, but with a job to do. Reluctantly, she pried her hand away and said, “I love you, Fame. You know I do.”

The nurses and doctors whisked Fame away to the trauma room. “We’re going to need you to fill out a few papers, ma’am.” Desember hadn’t seen the nurse walk up. This one was tall, wearing a colorful yellow and purple smock. “Are you related to the patient?”

“Yes, I’m his wife,” Desember said confidently. Though they were not legally married, in her heart they were. Marriage was nothing but a piece of paper and in the real world it didn’t mean shit. The love they shared meant everything; she was his partner in life, and if it came down to it, in death too. They had been living together and fully committed to each other for the past three months. In their eyes the feelings they shared for each other ran deeper than most couples’ who had been together for years. They were down for each other unconditionally.

Nurse Mildred looked at Desember. “This is Nurse Shelia, and she’s going to take you to a cubicle and ask you a series of questions, mostly about his medical history, allergies, etc.” She gave Desember a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. “I will check on you later,” she said.

Desember went with the other nurse and answered her questions to the best of her ability, until she was distracted by a bunch of ruckus going on down the hall.

“There that bitch go right there!” Fame’s sister, Faith, shouted, pointing at Desember so that there was no mistake about whom she was speaking.

Desember knew that all hell was about to break loose, because Fame’s family was first-class ghetto. This was one of those times she wished she weren’t an only child, but still she’d go toe to toe with his sister or his brothers if she had to.

The nurse could see the tenseness in Desember’s face. “Everything going to be okay?”

“I don’t know. Those are his family members and they can be a mess.”

Nurse Shelia responded, “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Well, like I said, I don’t know what to expect from these fools. So, if anything goes down,” she grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and jotted down a number, “I need you to call my mother and let her know if they lock me up or something, because I got a feeling this may get out of control.”

“I won’t let that happen. It won’t come down to that,” Nurse Shelia assured her.

By that time the police had also arrived, and they came over to Desember as she sat in the booth with the nurse, waiting to question her about the shooting.

Faith got louder to gain the attention of the detectives. “Y’all gon lock that bitch up or not?” she addressed one of the cops, her mother, Francine, by her side. Her brothers, Fabian, Frank and Frazier, took up the rear. “She set ’im up. I know that wicked bitch set ’im up. All you gotta do is check the bitch’s fucking police record … I know the bitch had something to do with my brother getting shot.”

“You must be crazy.” Desember got up from her seat. The shit was maddening; being accused of complicity to the assassination attempt on Fame’s life was insane.

“She ain’t even supposed to be around him no ways!” Faith yelled. “What da fuck she doing around him!”

“It’s none of your business what we do together,” Desember said. “Hate it or love it, your brother loves me. We love each other.”

“Right. And you set him up, beyatch. You can try to sell that love shit to somebody else, ’cause I ain’t buying it. He’s with you and coincidentally he gets shot.”

“Why would you think that Ms. Day is responsible for the shooting of your brother?” the older of the two officers asked Faith.

Fabian spoke instead: “I just got my brother out on bond almost two weeks ago …”

“And that bitch was in too,” Faith said.

“…  and the judge ordered those two to stay away from each other,” Fabian finished.

Frank spoke. “That might be true, but shorty”—he shook his head and waved his hand at Desember—“she ain’t got shit to do wit it,” he said in a sure tone, but his appearance looked crazy; he had a cigarette behind his ear, and half of his thick long hair was braided while the other half was wild. He had on a jean jacket with no shirt underneath and wore a white gold necklace with a diamond medallion. “I’ll bet my life shorty wouldn’t cross my brother.”

“I just want to know if my son is all right,” Francine said to the nurse, the worry in her voice and eyes clearly visible.

“He’s in surgery now,” the nurse explained. “It’s going to be awhile before we know if … whether or not he’s going to make it. The bullets damaged a vital organ, but he has the best surgeon we’ve got doing everything possible to keep your son, your brother, alive.”

Frazier, three years Fame’s senior, looked into Desember’s eyes for a sign to indicate that she had something to do with his brother getting shot. He almost agreed with his brother Frank, because all he saw was a young girl, in love and frightened. But
that wasn’t the same as innocent. If he found out that she had something to do with Fame getting shot, she would have to pay.

Tears crawled to the corners of Faith’s eyes. “Let me at that bitch!” she shouted.

Her mother held her back, trying to calm her down, fighting her own tears in the process. “You’s a dead bitch. A dead-ass bitch,” Faith echoed the threat twisted with anger, pain, hurt. “I promise you, bitch: you dead.”

Desember didn’t take Faith seriously, because everybody knew that real killers didn’t give a heads-up before they moved. She needed to focus on who tried to kill Fame. Or were they both the target? She had too much to deal with, and she didn’t need the added burden of Fame’s family coming at her.

Officer Lyons’s left eyebrow rose about an eighth of an inch, as if his mind was processing information and jotting down mental notes to review later. “Look, I can’t let you threaten her like that—or anyone else, for that matter.”

“It ain’t no threat, it’s a promise.” Faith said.

“Well,
you
are going to have to keep your
promises
to yourself or
we
are going to have to place you in custody. And under these circumstances, it’s not necessary. Everybody is under stress. You should focus your energy on what’s important: pulling for your brother to make it.”

“Yeah but you need to lock up the motherfucking bitch who did it, instead of eating doughnuts and all that shit! Do yo’ fucking job!” Faith screamed, damn near spitting on the man during her outburst.

“We will, but we can’t if we’re refereeing fights between the people who love him most.” He shook his head a moment before continuing. “I understand you’re upset,” Officer Lyons
said to Faith, “but all of your threats and hostility aren’t going to help matters any. Everybody needs to calm down; we’re in a hospital, not a bar.”

“Look, mister, we know where we at, and believe me, we wish we weren’t here.” Francine leveled her eyes at Officer Lyons, her voice like chips of ice. “It’s my son, their brother, on an operating table fighting for his life,” she hissed. “We know damn well where in da hell we at. Smells like a got-damn hospital to me.”

Officer Lyons nodded to his partner. They had worked together long enough that the younger officer knew what his senior partner wanted. “I’m going to have to ask you all to have a seat in the waiting room for now while my partner and I talk to Ms. Day.” Francine and her children reluctantly obeyed the officer’s wishes.

Officer Lyons pulled a chair up and asked Desember to take a seat. “I only have a few questions,” he said. “Basically routine. I’ll try to make it as brief as possible. Okay?”

She nodded her head. “Okay.”

“So, uh, how long have you known Mr. Maurauder?”

What does that have to do with someone shooting him?
she thought. “I’ve known Fame just about my entire life,” she said. “We went to school together.”

“Then you probably know him pretty well, I suppose?”

She nodded to the question. “I suppose.”

Officer Lyons was watching her while at the same time trying to appear not to be studying her, but instead thinking about the questions he was asking. “Do you know of anyone who would have a reason to want to kill him?”

Desember knew that if she answered that question honestly it would create more trouble and more questions; trouble and questions better left avoided.

“No,” she lied. “I can’t think of a single person that would want to see him dead.”

He gave her a peculiar look. She wondered if he could sense that she wasn’t telling the truth.

“Okay,” he said. “How long were you two together today?” He seemed to be going in another direction.

“He picked me up—tonight—from my mother’s house. Then we went to the movies.”

“What did you see?”

“
Dreamgirls.
”

“Was it any good?” he asked.

“Was what any good?”

“The movie.”

“I’m not sure. We left before it was over.”

“Oh. Okay. Uh, can you tell me why you were parked on the side of the road? Was there a problem with the car or something?”

She thought about the question and her answer carefully before saying, “No, the car was fine. It was us that was running a little hot, if you must know. We hadn’t seen each other in two weeks.”

He smiled. “I see,” he said. “Can you tell me why, uh, Famis Marauder,” he read Fame’s full name from some notes, “would be carrying a fully loaded pistol?”

“I didn’t know he had a gun,” she said, “loaded or otherwise.”

Desember was aware that she looked and felt like a mess: blood was on her skirt and T-shirt, her new sneakers were filthy and her head felt like a professional volleyball team had used it in a title game.

Fed up with the senseless Q&A, she asked one of the officers,
“Do I have to put up with this shit right now? I’m wearing the blood of the only man I ever loved … and I’m exhausted.”

Officer Lyons told Desember that she could go home and clean up. “But we’re going to have to talk to you again later. Maybe you’ll remember something then that you don’t now.”

Desember replied, “No problem, but I won’t be going home. I have to be sure he’s okay before I can go.” There was no way she could leave while her man’s fate was undecided. The police understood.

One of the officers asked Nurse Shelia, “Is there a safe place Ms. Day could wait?”

“I can take her to the private chapel,” Shelia said, glad to help. “She can wait there in peace,” she added.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be in peace
, Desember thought to herself.

But she followed the nurse to the elevator and then rode up to the sixth floor, then turned down a hallway, past a nurses’ station and into a small nondenominational room designed for worship.

“If you need something, just go to the nurses’ station and ask them to page me. As soon as we know anything at all, I’ll let you know.”