by J. Gail
Quanisha was quiet for a moment. “Yea, I know. And so did Tony. He just got released from the hospital today, but I don’t know where he is though.”
“Tony was released from the hospital? What was he in the hospital for??” Tony’s grandmother started panicking.
“Miss Teresa, you tellin’ me you didn’t find out by now that Tony was in the hospital?”
“What hospital is he in child! Speak!” Tony’s grandmother said, growing impatient.
“He ain’t in the hospital no more. He got released today I think!”
“Oh my God. Oh my God.”
“Miss Teresa calm down, he alright. He just got into a little fight,” Quanisha said, undervaluing the ‘fight’ Tony had gotten into. “I went to see him last week.”
“Where’s he at now??” Tony’s grandmother demanded.
“I don’t know for sure Miss Teresa, but I was told he went home with some nurse,” Quanisha said and choked back her emotions. “I’m not sure what’s goin’ on.”
“Quanisha, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Jackson said, sensing that Quanisha was about to cry.
“Nothin’ Miss Teresa, I’ll be aiight. Listen, let me get you his doctor’s phone number.” Quanisha retrieved Dr. Stephen’s pager number from her purse and read it off. By the time she got off the phone, she was very much affected by Mrs. Jackson’s panicked state. She noticed a piece of the blunt that she and Randy had been smoking still sitting in a tray on the coffee table. She immediately picked it up and went to light it on her stove.
She couldn’t believe that Mrs. Jackson had no idea what had happened to Tony in the past few weeks, and now she and Quanisha couldn’t even get in touch with him. Quanisha took a long drag from the blunt and began to feel sorry for herself. Tony was engaged? There was just no way that could be true. He had told her that he loved her. How could he run off with that stupid nurse? Quanisha felt a sharp pain in her chest when she thought about how the nurse had been right, and she had been wrong all along. Maybe Tony really wasn’t her man anymore.
Chapter 14
“Jenny! Get off my fuckin’ back!” Tony yelled as he shook Jenny off of his shoulders. She had been kneeling beside him on the couch and trying to give him a massage, but was annoying the hell out of him instead with just the sound of her voice.
“Fine! I was just trying to give you a massage. You know, I’m getting sick and tired of how you’ve been treating me. What the hell did I do?” Jenny was willing to accept that her relationship with Tony would not be easy, but she decided that she was going to make the best out of it. Many women had this type of relationship, and they just dealt with the negative side of it. They took the good with the bad, and that was what Jenny was going to do. She was going to do whatever she could to keep her man around so that she could finally walk down that aisle and get married. In the meanwhile, she could take a few insults from him, but once in a while she felt the need to say something back.
“You bother the shit out of me all day long, that’s what you do,” Tony complained. “Why don’t you go the hell to work or somethin’?”
“Because I took off time from work to be with you Anth—Tony. I love you, and I want to make sure you’re okay before I go back in,” Jenny explained.
“Bitch, you real crazy. Damn, you got me all fucked up!” Tony said and shook his head as he flipped through the channels. “I told you I don’t love your ass. Stop sayin’ that shit. And go to work, I don’t need you here.”
Jenny folded her arms and looked at Tony sideways. “You know, that’s no way to talk to your future wife. You shouldn’t be calling me a bitch.”
Tony slowly turned to look at Jenny. But this time he really looked at her. A very serious thought ran through his mind and he started to wonder if this woman that stood before him was really mentally challenged. He had done everything in his power to express to her that he wasn’t into her, but yet here she was, thinking she was his future wife!
“What did you say?” Tony asked incredulously. He couldn’t even bring himself to say the words. Jenny smiled and looked at him with excitement.
“Stop being silly,” she said putting out her hand and gazing at her engagement ring. “I know you’ve seen the ring, but baby I’ve got some of the nicest things to show you! I wanted to save the dress for the traditional wedding reveal… but never mind that, I want to show you now.”
Jenny got up from the couch and dashed upstairs. Tony could hear her footsteps walking around the room above him. He was sitting back on the couch with his mouth wide open in amazement.
“Yo, this is a bad dream,” he said chuckling to himself nervously. There was no way this chick was serious.
Jenny came back downstairs and all of Tony’s fears came true. There she stood with a long white silk wedding gown draped over her arm, a veil on her head, and a small box clenched in her hand.
“Who’s that for?” he asked, still in denial.
Jenny looked at him with a peculiar smile on her face. “Uhh, it’s for me, duh.”
“And, who you getting married to?” Tony was still playing along. He thought this was some kind of practical joke. He was half expecting a candid camera crew to jump from behind the couch.
“Uhh, baby, hello I’m getting married to youuu,” Jenny answered. Her smile was quickly becoming a frown as she saw the expression on Tony’s face.
“No you not, you playin’ right?” Tony said, laughing.
“Anthony, what are you talking about? We talked about this at the hospital. You said we were getting married!” Jenny said, looking as if her face was going to crack. Her eye began to twitch.
Tony started laughing hysterically. He couldn’t even control it. His ribs were killing him, but this laughter he was having was involuntary; he couldn’t stop. Jenny just stood there hovering near him, with a fear that her whole world was falling apart.
“Marry you! Girl I must be on drugs if I was talkin’ bout marrying you!” Tony cackled at the top of his lungs. “Matter fact you must be on drugs!”
The look of distress on Jenny’s face at that moment could break a stone cold heart. She couldn’t stop her eye from twitching as she spoke. “What are you saying? That you don’t want to marry me?”
“Hell no!” Tony said bolting up from his seat. He went instantly from laughing to dead serious when he finally realized that Jenny was serious. “You musta lost your mind!”
“Tony, you know we love each other despite our differences—” Jenny started, but was interrupted abruptly.
“Bitch you better get out my fucking face with that shit,” Tony threatened as he pushed Jenny and the dress aside. “Damnnn you crazy as shit! What the hell would I marry you for?”
“Nooooo,” Jenny suddenly started moaning. It grew slowly from a low moan to a loud groan.
“You ugly, you skinny and you got a negative ass. Your breath stink like dirty chittlins all the time. Your hair is stringy like a dog,” Tony said counting off reasons on his hand. “You broke as shit, you charge everything you own on a credit card, your pussy’s wack, your head game is wack. Your eyes are damn near sunken in your head, your teeth are fucked up, you annoying as hell… and you think I wanna marry you??”
“Nooooo!!!!” Jenny let out two piercing screams when she heard what Tony said. “Noooooo!!!!”
Tony was a little taken aback by her screams, but didn’t relent in his verbal assault. “And then on top of that, you crazier than a muthafucka. I don’t want your ass! Man, I’m gettin’ the fuck up out of here before you start trippin’ for real.”
As Tony started to pull on the jacket he had gotten out of his old closet at Jenny’s house, Jenny came over and latched onto him like a leech. Her white veil flailed in the air as she struggled with Tony.
“No baby, don’t go. Don’t go. Baby you can’t leave me again. I need you here with me. I’ll give you anything, I’ll buy you anything, just don’t leave me alone in here again. Please!” Jenny pleaded. “Baby I got you a present. I bought you a ring, it�
��s two whole carats!”
“Bitch get off me!” Tony said trying to shake her off. All he knew was that he needed to get out of there, fast!
“Tony you promised me. You said we would be together for ever. You promised!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. Tony finally pried her loose from his arm. He reached back and slapped Jenny hard right across her lips. She held her face in astonishment as Tony picked back up his jacket and headed towards the door.
Tony was trying to get the top lock undone when he felt a blow to his head. The last thing he saw was the door fading to black right before he passed out.
* * *
When Tony slowly came back to consciousness he was laying on the floor close to the couch. Jenny had dragged him there after she hit him over the head with a large crystal candy dish.
He heard a lot of commotion coming from the downstairs basement. Remembering his whereabouts, he pulled himself up off of the floor with all of the strength in his body and made his way over to the basement door. He held his ribs, which were hurting so badly that he actually wanted to go back to the hospital now. He could hear the sounds of Jenny cursing and throwing stuff around down there.
“Fucking asshole! If he thinks he’s leaving me again he’s the one that lost his mind!” she alternated between screaming and mumbling. It sounded as if she were looking for something down there.
“Damn, what the fuck is she doing?” Tony said quietly to himself. Instead of sticking around to find out, Tony closed the basement door slowly and locked the door. “That’ll teach that crazy bitch. She ain’t never gettin’ out, with her dumb lonely ass.”
Tony grabbed Jenny’s cellphone out of her purse and hurried up out the front door. He ran down the block and turned the corner, even though he had no idea where he was going. The one trusty number he remembered was Quanisha’s, and he didn’t hesitate to dial her number. He rubbed the back of his neck where a stress bump was forming as the phone rang and rang. He prayed that Quanisha would pick up.
Quanisha groggily reached for her phone. She could barely say hello before she heard Tony’s deep voice bellowing through the phone.
“Nish! Baby, I need you to come get me,” Tony said, sounding as if he was troubled.
“Tony, nigga where you been?” Quanisha said, struggling to wake herself up.
“I’m down in Darby you need to come scoop me baby. I’m in trouble.”
Quanisha rubbed her eyes and sat up in bed. “What kind of trouble?”
“What the fuck do it matter—” Tony caught himself before he got disrespectful with Quanisha. She was the only person that was going to get him out of this mess.
“Tony do you know that your mama and everybody been lookin’ for you? Where the hell you been at?”
“Nish, seriously, you gotta come get me right now. I’ll tell you everything later,” Tony promised. He already knew there was no way he was going to tell Quanisha about staying with Jenny. He would just tell her he got into a fight with Terrance, and that he had gotten left in Darby. Little did he know that she already knew everything.
“Aiight, well give me the address then,” Quanisha finally replied as she threw the covers back and jumped out of bed. She didn’t even care about the nurse, the so-called engagement or where he had been any more. She could put all that behind her. As much as she was pissed at him, and tired of his antics, she needed Tony. She didn’t have anybody else. All she cared about was that he was calling her now. All that mattered was that he was coming home.
Chapter 15
“Nigga pass the blunt, quit chokin’ up all the smoke,” Tony commanded Scoop from the passenger’s seat of Scoop’s truck.
“Nigga you in my car, puffin’ my weed. I’ll smoke on this shit long as I want,” Scoop answered before taking another long draw of smoke into his lips. He held it for too long and started coughing hysterically.
“Man gimme that, talkin’ all that shit,” Tony said as he snatched the roach away from Scoop.
It had been over a week since Tony had finally realized what was going on with Jenny. She had been lying to everybody. He had finally talked to his grandmother, and she told him all about the fact that Jenny had lied to her about his whereabouts, and that she had been out of the hospital for several days before him. His grandmother explained that some idiots had been pranking her at the house, and she didn’t even bother to answer the phone half the time, which is why she probably didn’t pick up the couple of times Tony had tried to call from the hospital.
Tony’s grandmother said again and again how she knew there was ‘something wrong with that girl.’ Tony couldn’t believe that he had been messing with a real life psycho. He still couldn’t believe she actually thought he wanted to marry her. Jenny even showed up at his grandmother’s house the day after Tony left her, asking where Tony was. Tony didn’t care; he was trying to set up his situation with Quanisha again and didn’t want to hear anything else about Jenny. To his great pleasure, Quanisha wasn’t asking anymore questions about Jenny, and he wasn’t offering any answers.
“Don’t you know Quita talkin’ bout she need a new ride now?” Scoop started complaining. “She said the car be actin’ up. Now she need a new one. Ain’t that a bitch?”
“That’s a brand new whip dawg. I don’t know why you keep puttin’ up with that crazy bitch and her bullshit.”
“Yo, don’t be talkin’ bout my lady like that bruh, you crossin’ the line,” Scoop warned.
“Didn’t you tell me that bitch pulled a gun on you?” Tony turned and asked his friend.
“That don’t matter nigga, I told you we put that to rest.”
“Whatever. I wish Nish would pull a gun on my ass,” Tony laughed.
“You watch, the way ya’ll shit go, you just might get what you wish for,” Scoop replied.
“Yea, whatever nigga. Bitch ass nigga. That’s why you broke as shit now, takin’ care of that dumb ass girl. She evil as shit.”
“You broker than me nigga, I know you ain’t one to talk. And your girl the one up at the hospital rammin’ on nurses. Check your own girl before you run your fat mouth about mines,” Scoop responded in a voice that told Tony he was stepping over the line, and that he was not to go any further with this conversation.
They sat in silence for a while as they both accepted the fact that they both were seriously hurting for money. Ever since they had gotten robbed, neither one of them seemed to be able to get back on track. Tony was so happy when he found out that Scoop had kept his car parked at Shaquita’s house the whole time he was at the hospital. It was one thing to be broke, but a much worse thing to be whip-less and broke.
“Yo, Lil Joe was tellin’ me bout this dude down Germantown that be dealin’ wit that plastic,” Tony said out of the blue as he took the last puff from the roach and put it out in the ashtray.
“What? You mean credit cards?” Scoop said frowning when he saw that Tony had finished off his blunt. This nigga don’t got no manners whatsoever, he thought.
“Yea.” Tony exhaled and took his time to think before continuing. “He said he get them mostly off the connects he got in the restaurants and bars. You know how people get fucked up and be leavin’ they shit by accident and don’t realize it. Shit like that. Well, he said he can get at least three of them jawns a night.”
“Word? Well, how that work? Don’t they be reporting them in stolen or somethin’?” Scoop inquired as he put his hand on his chin and rubbed it in deep thought.
“Nawww, not until the next day usually. That’s why you gotta get on them things early that night. Go to Best Buy or one of them other high priced stores and buy as much shit as you can fit in your cart,” Tony explained as he gestured with his hands.
“Man. So how we get on that?” Scoop said without much hesitation. His dealings with Rock had been going sour lately, and they weren’t making much cash. Rock was getting more and more vocal about not getting the right cut, and it was becoming a strain on the business relationship. On top o
f that, their main supplier had gotten locked up in a raid a few weeks before. His job paid pretty well, but not enough to pay the large bills that Shaquita racked up, on top of his own.
“We gotta give him like, $20 a card? I think… I gotta ask Lil Joe again. But you serious about that dawg?” Tony turned and nodded once at Scoop.
“Hell fucking yea I’m down wit that. What’s the worse that could happen?”
“Yea, I know. But yo, on another note. I heard that nigga Rock been talkin’ mad greasy down on the block on your ass. You better handle your business nigga,” Tony said trying to incite his friend.
“Mannn, fuck that nigga. I ain’t worried ‘bout his retarded ass. He petty as shit talkin’ bout that little change,” Scoop said as he started up his car.
“That’s what you get for fuckin’ with a nigga that smoke up the supply. You knew his ass was half crackhead.”
“Yea, well you live and learn. Yo let’s get outta here.” The truth was, Scoop was terrified about what kind of things Rock was spreading around the hood. They actually snorted coke together on a couple of occasions, and there were things Rock knew about Scoop that he never wanted getting out.
* * *
“How much you said?... 40? Man, what the fuck, you told me 20 the other day!” Tony yelled into Jenny’s phone. Gullible Jenny had left the phone on for him just so that she could blow it up all day long, trying to get in touch with him. She just wouldn’t give up.
“Well never mind then, you trynna rob me nigga… Naw, cause you know you just trynna get your cut off the top…I ain’t trynna hear all that man we already discussed this…Aiight well call me back then,” Tony said, clicking off the phone finally. He had to keep close tabs on the phone since his voicemail box was full. He left it full just so that Jenny couldn’t leave anymore messages.
“Man, that nigga trippin’,” Tony said to Scoop as they walked down South Street on a lazy Saturday afternoon. They were reaching out to the connection for the credit card scheme they were trying to get into. “He talkin’ bout $40 per card. Man, get the fuck outta here. That ain’t worth it.”