Chapter 41
Although it was against the law and a clear violation of my civil rights, luckily the hotel room had a hidden camcorder in my hotel room the whole time I was there. It was what I needed. With the camcorder hidden in my room it filmed everything that happened the night Calhoun and Toi came to my room. That included Toi shooting Calhoun and trying to shoot me. Once the case for Calhoun was tried, she received twenty-five years to life for first-degree murder. The case of Devin Johnson was reopened and she was then tried for the murder. Ron Jasper was also tried for perjury.
Deyja and I were both present for the Devin Johnson trial. Since Ron so easily lied on me, not caring about the fact that I was innocent, it felt good to see him go down. He received five years. Now seeing Toi go down . . . I didn't know how to respond to that or how to even feel. At one time, I deeply loved her. I had planned on marrying her. And I never really knew her at all.
After the verdict was read and the judge told her she was being sentenced to another life sentences she sobbed, standing next to her public defender.
As the two officers escorted her out of the courtroom, she caught sight of Deyja sitting in one of the rows of benches.
She tried to rush toward her but the two officers had a tight hold on her.
“You bitch! What the fuck are you doing here?” she demanded. “That's why I was fucking your fiancé!” she yelled.
Deyja didn't respond. She kept her face calm too, which I knew had to be hard.
That's when Toi saw me. She smiled and said, “Chance, I love you, baby! I still do!”
They had to drag her out of the courtroom; the way they had dragged my mother out the day I was sentenced.
Once Toi was gone and we were all able to leave, Deyja rushed right past me. I wanted to stop her but I figured she needed more time.
Now fuck that.
I thought as I made it outside. I chased after her as she rushed to the parking lot.
Tears flew from her eyes.
I walked toward her and as she neared her car, I yelled, “Deyja!”
She froze in the spot she was in.
I did too, not knowing what the correct move to make was. And in a second I didn't have to do anything.
She spun around and walked toward me.
I started walking too, fast as hell.
Then she started sobbing and threw herself in my arms.
I grabbed her tightly and hugged her, stroking her back. “It's going to be okay, baby.”
“I'm sorry I didn't believe you,” she said, sobbing on my shoulder.
I kissed her on top of her head.
She pulled her face from out of my shoulder and looked at me. I started wiping the tears from her face.
“All this time I grieved for a man who was unfaithful to me.”
I nodded.
There was a slight pause before she said, “This connection between us is so tainted, so ugly, so horrible. I don't think we shouldâ”
I wasn't going to let her shoot me down.
“I don't know what to make of this all this crazy shit either. Our exes being involved with each other. Toi killing Devin, you losing seven years of being happy, and me going to prison for all their lies. But I know that us meeting wasn't just by chance. This was supposed to happen, baby. Deyja, there is something special about you. You saved me from myself. You were the hope I needed at a time that I didn't feel my life was worth living. I owe you. And I want to spend the rest of my life paying you back for that. I am sorry that your fiancé died. I hate the fact that I spent seven years in prison for his death. But all of this, these crazy-ass circumstances, brought me to you. I want to be with you. Give you all the love you can handle. Because I do love you.”
“I'm scared.” Her bottom lip trembled.
“Baby, you done with all that. I swear no more harm will ever come your way. And I won't ever do anything to hurt you. Hurting you would be hurting a part of myself because as far as I'm concerned, you and I are one. Please let me back in. Let me take care of you.”
She took a deep breath.
She then cupped both my cheeks in her hands, gave me that smile.
And I knew I was back in. In her life. Nothing felt better than kissing her lips and finally knowing I wasn't at risk of losing her again. Deyja was finally mine.
Epilogue
Turns out the ACLU launched a civil suit against the County of Los Angeles on my behalf. I won. I was awarded a total of seven million dollars. A million for every year I had spent in that prison. It turns out that there was reasonable doubt in my case and the district attorney was just in a hurry to finish my trial so he could go on vacation. So they used Ron as a witness although a polygraph test clearly showed that he was lying. There was also evidence that would have tied Toi to the murder scene, like her fingerprints and saliva on a glass. Also the fact that there were vaginal secretions on Devin due to the fact that she had had sex with him the night he was murdered. There was a Black & Mild with saliva on the tip that would have linked Calhoun to being there that night and Ron's fingerprintsâwhich didn't matter because he had already confessed to being there. Since the case was reopened after Calhoun had died and you can only get DNA from a dead person up to a week after their death, they subpoenaed Calhoun's father into court and used his saliva to match Calhoun being there because of his saliva on the Black & Mild. DNA was something else. It's crazy that none of this was ever included in the first trial. They did not even have the proper record of who handled or even bagged all the evidence, which the courts called âChain of Custody', which was extremely important when DNA evidence was being handled. The DA attacked the fact that there was a witness and blood in my car and left it at that. In addition to the seven million dollars I received, they also took the charge off of my record and it was back clean.
So of course I couldn't just keep the money for myself. I paid a visit to Delano Prison, a place I never wanted to head back to but I was coming back for a different reason than why I came before. I came to pay Lewis a visit. And sure enough, he was there. After he gave me a hug and asked what I had come up there for, I slid a check in his hand for a cool million dollars so he and his family didn't have to be prisoners to that hellhole any longer.
He started down at the check and his eyes got buck. “Shit, are you serious. Chance?”
“What you think? Get the fuck out of here, while you still got your health. Open up some type of business.”
His lips trembled and his eyes were watery. “You just saved my family's life, man.”
I smiled.
He hugged me.
When I pulled away I told him, “Stay in touch, man.”
“I will.”
I turned to leave that place but not before I heard, “Yeah, I quit, muthafuckas!”
I threw back my head and laughed.
I figured that God gave me that money to do something good with it. So I bought houses for both of Calhoun's baby mamas, gave them one hundred grand apiece, and set up savings accounts for both his kids so that when they turned eighteen their college was fully paid for and they would each have a car. Now they didn't have any excuse not to go to college and make something of themselves. I even kicked fifty thousand Mateo's way so he could open up his own office.
When I set the check in front of him, he couldn't believe the shit. He read it over and over again. Then after reading it for the fourth time he stood and sang,
“Vido mas. Vido mas!”
before giving me a hug.
“No problem, man.”
“Let me have the waitress make you a
carne asada
burrito. For old times.”
“Naw, I gotta go, dude,” I said, laughing.
“If you need me you know where I am, Chance. And I always carry this.”
I busted up laughing when I saw him pull half of a folded-up soda bottle out of his pocket.
My next plan was to open up a nonprofit law office to help inmates who are falsely accused of a crime and did not have the money or knowledge to fight the case.
I also paid a small chunk of money to have my mother's body moved to
Forest Lawn Cemetery
and for her to have a tombstone.
When they finally deposited her body in the grave, I remember feeling the same pain I felt when I had found out that she died. I cried and hugged her tombstone, wishing that she was still here, aching for her.
Except this time I wasn't alone like I was when I was in prison. I had someone offering me comfort, arms rubbing up and down my back, kisses and the promise that she would help me get through this . . . Deyja. She was now my family. Which meant I had to put a lid on things so I could move forward. So that I could be fully happy, be at peace.
Now I could let my mama rest in peace, because I was now at peace.
Trouble don't last always
. Mine was buried with Calhoun and resting in the cell with Ron and with Toi. It couldn't touch me or hurt me anymore.
Still, I needed closure. When we left her grave site, I started feeling like I had to put some things to rest. I decided to open up the package that Emily had given me when I got out of prison. I couldn't believe it had taken me so long to do so.
Inside were a bunch of pictures of me when I was a kid and some with my mother and me. There were even a few of Calhoun and me hanging out in the Springdales. I even found all the letters that I had written my mom while I was in prison. I was surprised to find one addressed to me but with Ellen's address on it. It was dated a week before my mother had passed.
I opened it up quickly.
Chance,
I pray that you are okay in there and I still don't understand this. You are not supposed to be there. I wish I was out and could help you, baby. Thing is, the doctors have told me that my heart is really bad. I don't know if I'm going to live to see you get out of there but I know one day you will get out.
I smiled.
But there is something that I need you to know before I do pass that you never knew. This is a secret that I have been keeping from you. I'm so sorry that I did. I hope you will in your own time forgive me for this. Years ago, I was pretty wild. I made a lot of bad choices, Chance. One of them was getting involved with a man I had no business getting involved with. But at the time, I didn't care. I had my own place in the Springdales, felt like I was grown and could do grown things and it wouldn't catch up with me. My neighbor invited me to her home for a birthday party for her son and I met him there. From there we carried on an intimate relationship. The man I was sleeping with already had a wife and told me that if I ever got pregnant by him I would have to have an abortion. So when I did get pregnant with you I didn't tell him for fear that he would make me abort you. When he found out that I was pregnant I lied and told him that I had been sleeping with another man from the Springdales so he wanted nothing to do with me even though he would leave me on a regular to go home to his wife. He always told me that he loved me, but that his duty was to wife and that she came before me. He couldn't handle the thought of me being unfaithful to him and said that his wife was also pregnant and that she needed him. So he ended things with me. Chance, the man you thought was your father is not. Curtis Redding didn't claim you because you were not his. Your father is Tony Parks, Calhoun's father.
The letter dropped from my hands.
I shook my head and thought I hadn't read it right. So I snatched it up from the floor and read the words again.
Chance, the man you thought was your father is not. Curtis Redding didn't claim you because you were not his. Your father is Tony Parks, Calhoun's father. I hope you can forgive me for keeping this secret from you. Once you came into the world you became my meaning and my purpose. That's why I named you Chance. You were truly a blessing. Understand that once you came into the world I tried to do the best that I could to take care of you. And while providing for you was a struggle, being your mother wasn't because you made it so easy and joyous.
Love you with all I have in me,
Mom
Tears streamed down my face. The revelation had me shocked beyond words. Calhoun was my brother. Tony Parks was my father.
I shared the letter with Deyja, who was sitting next to me at my house. A house that after I married her, I wanted to make her own as well. Her eyes were as wide as saucers, even though she tried to keep a smile on her face to keep me calm.
I stood up and went to the kitchen.
She followed after me as I grabbed my car keys off the kitchen table.
She hugged me from behind. I turned around and put one of her hands to my lips and kissed it.
“Where are you going, baby?”
“To see Tony Parks.” I couldn't bring myself to call him Dad even though my mother said that is who he was. All this time. All this time, the man I always wished was my father really was?
“Do you want me to go with you?”
I turned around and kissed her. “I will be okay, baby.”
I walked outside and got into my white pearl Cadillac Escalade.
I rolled over to Calhoun's parents' house, in shock the whole way there.
Once I got there, I hopped out of the car and went up to the steps. I had no idea what I was going to say.
The thing about my letter was my mom never mentioned if Calhoun's dad ever found out. Probably not.
When he opened the door I noticed his eyes were red and swollen. The last time I had seen him was at Calhoun's funeral. Maybe it was dumb that I went because he had betrayed me. But he was gone and I didn't want the bad to be my last memories of him. I thought of the bond we had shared. The good times, from rolling around eating chili cheese Fritos, to breaking into Fred Sanford's house and being attacked by that crazy-ass monkey, to losing Paul. Fuck all the other shit. He was gone and the wrong he did would be between him and his God. Not between him and me. He had lost his life behind the shit.
Tony Parks took me out my thoughts about Calhoun and to the present. The reason why I was there.
“How you doing, Chance?”
As I stood there, facing him, I scanned all the features on his face, noticing for the first time in my life that I did favor him. In all those times he came by to get Calhoun, why didn't I ever notice before?
I cleared my throat. “Fine, sir. Can I come in?”
He stepped back, giving me space to walk inside.
“How are you holding up since the funeral?” he asked me.
“Gets better day by day. Listen. There is something I wanted to talk to you about. It's about my mother.”
I studied him and how the mention of my mother made him look even more depressed.
“Before my mother diedâ”
A sob choked my words. “This is so hard.”
His eyes narrowed at me as I managed to get control of my shaking shoulders and wipe the tears off my face with my free hand as they started to fall. My other hand held the letter.
I took a deep breath and continued. “Before my mother died, while she was in prison she wrote me a letter.”
I handed it to him. “And I think you should read it.”
He looked surprised, but he opened the letter and read it.
I kept my eyes on his face as he did. By the time he got to the end of the letter, his eyes were watering and his lips were trembling.
He dropped to his knees on the floor and shouted, “Dear God!” His whole body wracked with sobs. “I didn't know! I didn't know!”
I rushed forward and placed a hand on his back. He grabbed me and hugged me, sobbing and repeating the whole time, “I didn't know. I'm so sorry, Chance. I should have known! I should have known!”
I nodded and broke down crying, still hugging him.
And maybe, in that moment, I should have said, “Fuck you nigga, you knew! You never did shit for me!” Or, “Where were you when I needed a father? I'm grown now!” “Why you crying now?”
But why do any of that? Yeah, I never had a father but I'm not worse for wear. I'm okay. I grew up respectful, with morals and values. I was a black man who grew up in the projects and managed to not only graduate from college, but not break the law. I was blessed. I had more money than I ever thought I would. I had a beautiful woman who is so special and sweeter than any woman I had ever been with. And more importantly, I had my freedom. I considered myself to be pretty fucking lucky. Despite being innocent, there were so many black men in prison who would rot away there for some shit they never did. That made me a blessed individual. And after all I had been through, I was still standing like the man my mama raised me to be.
So I continued to hug him.
I hugged him like he had always been in my life . . .