by Mark Anthony
My heart started racing from fear and I realized that we were both trapped in the car. All of a sudden I got really dizzy and everything started spinning around, and I felt real light-headed. I remember hearing this ringing sound in my ears and the sound became deafening. I remember thinking about my son LL, and about my daughter Sahara. Then I remembered an image of my mother’s face flash in front of my eyes. And before I knew it, I had passed out and my body was slumped in my seat and on top of Layla’s.
When I came to, I remember seeing lights and people everywhere. I also remember shivering uncontrollably, but although my body was shivering I was immobilized on a stretcher, I couldn’t move my limbs and my neck was in some sort of plastic brace.
“What happened?” I remember sounding those words to one of the firemen that was standing near my stretcher. My words were barely audible but he did hear me. And then he told me to relax and that I had been involved in a serious car accident.
“Can you tell me your name?” one of the paramedics asked me. “How old are you? What year is it? Do you know who the president is?”
The paramedic was asking me those questions in an attempt to gauge how badly I was hurt.
I didn’t answer his questions, partly because I wasn’t sure of the answers but mainly because I was cold as hell and I couldn’t breathe.
“I can’t breathe,” I mumbled.
He told me to relax and that they were gonna get me some oxygen as soon as they loaded me into the ambulance. Within seconds I remember being hoisted into the ambulance and seeing the doors close and speeding off with the sound of a siren glaring in the background.
I definitely felt like I was dreaming and at the same time I didn’t know if I was dead. But I do know that I was in tremendous pain, and so I just closed my eyes and began praying to God.
Chapter Ten
When I woke up, the first person that I saw standing next to me was Nicole.
“Baby, what happened? Where am I?”
Nicole explained that I had been in a terrible car accident and that I was in Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn. I could tell that she had been crying at some point, but I could also see a look of sternness mixed into her face.
Before Nicole and I could really begin talking, a detective stepped up to the other side of my bed and introduced himself and showed me his badge while his partner stood at the foot of my bed.
“Mr. Thomas, I’m Detective Gasparino from Brooklyn North, and this is Detective Joseph.”
After getting the introductions out of the way, Detective Gasparino told me that he was placing me under arrest.
“Under arrest for what?”
“For the possession of a controlled substance,” he coldly said and proceeded to read me my rights.
I frowned and looked at Nicole, and she exhaled and shook her head. When the detective was done he placed one handcuff on my wrist and he placed the other handcuff on the rail of the bed.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Lance, the paramedics found a small amount of cocaine in your pants pocket when they were looking for your identification.”
I exhaled and swallowed very hard. I knew I was fucked and I didn’t know what else to say.
The detective then informed me that they wanted to draw blood to test the blood-alcohol content but they had to read me something called my chemical rights. They explained that I had the right to refuse to have my blood drawn, but if I refused my license would immediately be suspended and that I would be hit with an additional criminal charge for refusing.
“I’m not submitting to no test. Nah, I’m sorry, you can’t draw my blood for that.”
The detective looked at Nicole, and apparently she had already informed them that she was an attorney and that she was also my wife.
“Lance, listen, just let them draw the blood and take the test. They already found cocaine on you so if you refuse they’ll be back in an hour with a search warrant from a judge giving them permission to take your blood without your consent.”
I shook my head and told them to just do whatever they had to do. So they called for a nurse and she proceeded to draw blood from my arm. The detective exchanged cards with Nicole and they soon left but a uniformed police officer stood guard right outside my room.
“Lance, what in Jesus’ name were you thinking ?” Nicole asked me. I could tell that she was disgusted.
I rolled my eyes and blew more air out of my lungs. The sheer terror and fear that I was feeling at that moment was beyond human words. I mean, in like a split second I went from partying with stars and being on top of the world to facing some serious life-altering shit. Shit that I wasn’t prepared for, nor did I know how to prepare myself for what was to come.
“I hope you know you just ruined your life! You do know that?”
“Why you gotta always be so dramatic? I made a mistake. It happened, what can I do?” I said, trying not to show my true feelings of fear.
“A mistake, Lance? Lance, a car accident—yes, that is a mistake. But driving drunk and high on cocaine—that isn’t a mistake! Driving in the wrong direction on Flatbush Avenue—Lance, that isn’t a mistake! What were you thinking?”
Oh, shit! I thought to myself.
I had no idea that I had been driving on the wrong side of the street. But apparently after I’d come off of the Brooklyn Bridge and I turned on to Flatbush Avenue, I turned into the northbound lanes when I should have turned into the southbound lanes and I collided with a small Toyota Corolla right in front of the famous Junior’s restaurant.
Nicole started crying as she told me that I had killed a twenty-four-year-old woman and badly injured her fiancé.
“What?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yes, Lance. Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening,” she stated while burying her head into her hands.
There are absolutely no words in the human language that can describe how bad I was feeling at that moment. I was feeling a sense of desperation and helplessness but I had no words simply because there were no words that could explain or make up for what I had done. The bottom line was that I was scared as hell, and at the same time I was feeling a ton of regret. Like I just kept thinking over and over that at the end of the day I was in this position simply because of pussy, and wasn’t no extramarital pussy worth what I was going through.
“And Lance, who is the lady that was in your car with you?” Nicole asked. She was visibly holding back tears.
“She was just a friend. One of Steve’s friends.”
Nicole came close to my bed and she placed her hands on the rails and tears began to stream down her face.
She leaned in a little bit and with controlled anger said, “The day you told me that Toni was pregnant by you I thought that was the worst day in my life and it was something that I would wish on no woman. But when the police call my house before the crack of dawn and tell me that my husband was involved in a car accident and that I needed to get to the hospital, I immediately start thinking the worst. And that feeling that came over me, thinking that you might have been killed—I can tell you that felt worst than knowing what you had done with Toni. And then I get here and there are cops everywhere, so I identify myself first as your lawyer and not your wife, because with the number of cops that were here, and with the media, I knew something wasn’t right. And then they tell me that they suspected you were drinking. And in my head I say, okay, it’s stupid, but what can you do? Then they tell me about the cocaine and they tell me there was another woman in your car and that the firemen and paramedics initially found you with your pants unbuckled and your penis exposed! I said to myself that someone had to be playing a dirty trick on me, because there is no way that you could be that stupid! There’s just no way! And then they tell me about the fatality and I knew that this whole episode had topped Toni’s pregnancy.”
“Baby, just hear me—”
“No! I am not hearing you out! I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired!”
“First of all, I am not your baby. Let’s get that straight. And second ...” Nicole paused for a moment and pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head before continuing on. “You know what? Forget it. It’s not even worth the stress. I’m gonna call Attorney Jones and I’ll have him represent you because I just can’t do this anymore. I can’t, Lance. I just can’t. I mean, you have no idea, no idea at all how much I love you.”
“Baby, yes I do.”
“No, you don’t, because if you did, you wouldn’t put me through this. And God only knows what else you’ve done and what you’re capable of still doing. I mean, I thought I had over-reacted by putting you out the house and I wanted to reverse that and have us move on, and then this.” Nicole shook her head and began crying much harder.
“Here, take this,” she said as she took off her wedding ring and placed it in the palm of my hand and folded my fingers over it.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving you.”
“Nicole!” I shouted as she turned and started to walk out of the room.
She turned back toward me and then she said, “In your heart of hearts, you know you had already walked out on me a long time ago.”
“I never left you and I would never leave you, you know that,” I desperately said.
“Lance, listen to me. I said, in your heart you’ve already left me and you can look at your left hand and it will tell you the exact same thing that I’m saying.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I gave you my wedding ring, Lance. And I had it on my finger to give to you. Even in our roughest times I never went without wearing my ring because I knew what it represented. But you, I don’t even have to ask you why you aren’t wearing your ring because I know why it’s not on your finger. I know why and you know why.”
Nicole took one more long look at me, and then she turned and walked out of the room for good.
I was speechless because to me it was like, what do I say? Nicole had pulled my card. She was right about everything she said. The sad part was that I had made it a lame habit of taking off my wedding ring in certain circumstances. I did it deliberately and it was stupid but at the same time in my heart I knew that I loved Nicole. It was just that I was constantly feeling conflicted. Conflicted about doing the right thing versus doing the selfish thing. I hated feeling that way, and in all honesty I hated cheating, and yet cheating made me feel normal on some level. It was like cheating calmed me and made me feel whole. So in some sense I was like the person who loved to drink and had a ball getting drunk, but yet I hated the hangovers and the consequences of drinking. But just like it’s not until a drunk is hungover and worshiping the toilet bowl, while puking his guts out, does he realize how good it feels to be sober. And with the asshole that I was, it took dire consequences like I was going through for me to realize just how much I loved and valued the calm, relaxed, monogamous family life.
What’s wild is that on a subconscious level I know I was living crazy and disrespecting Nicole because I knew that I could get away with it. Like I never, ever believed that she had it in her to put her foot down and say enough is enough. And just like a child will test a parent and push the limits of what they can get away with, and keep pushing those limits until the parent smacks the shit out of them and forces the child to show some goddamn respect for the parent-child relationship, I knew how to push the limits of my marriage because I never feared Nicole’s reaction. But this time it was different. I could feel it and I knew that Nicole was done, that she had had enough of my shit and it made me feel numb to even think about life without my wife. I was determined to set things straight again and get everything back on the right course.
I had fucked up big-time, but I was only at the tip of the iceberg in terms of really realizing how many lives I had royally screwed up.
Chapter Eleven
I forget exactly what time it was that Nicole had left the hospital. The sun was up. And since it was the dead of winter, the sun didn’t come up until about 7:00 A.M. or so. So I knew that it had to be after 7:00 A.M. But with the way things had been moving so fast it was probably more like twelve-thirty in the afternoon. But even though it was a bitterly cold winter day, the New York media proved that they would stop at nothing to get at the heart of a breaking story such as mine.
The media had gotten wind of the car accident when it was transmitted over the police scanners and all of the major newspapers and news stations dispatched crews to the scene of the accident and to the hospital. My accident was the lead story on the six A.M. newscasts.
In fact, it wasn’t until I had my nurse turn on the television in my room that I was able to realize the extent of the damages to both my car and to the car that I had hit. Both cars were almost unrecognizable. It was also from the news that I learned that Layla and I had to be cut out of the car. And of course, when the media found out that I was the one who was driving the car and that I was suspected of driving while under the influence, they went crazy with the story.
I was watching the local ABC news channel and I couldn’t believe how fast that they had gotten all of the details. They knew that I had been coming from an album release party for T.L. and they knew that I had just been placed under arrest for being in possession of a controlled substance. Other than the devastation that I had caused the innocent victims, the thing that I focused on the most was when the reporters spoke about all of the possible criminal charges that I was facing.
I had written about gangsta shit in my novels and about killings and drugs and jail and all of that. But this was no book that I was writing. This was real life. It was my life. And never in my wildest dreams did I see myself as the going-to-prison type. I wasn’t built for prison. So, although I was feeling horrible and scared as all hell, I knew that I had to scan my brain and get in touch with as many people as I could who could help me and go to bat for me. My ass was in a serious sling and my neck was in a noose that was getting tighter by the second.
At the same time as I watched the news coverage and feared and worried about what was to come, I couldn’t help but feel extremely remorseful for the damage I had caused to the victims of the other families. And regardless of what would happen to me and what jail time I was going to face, I was determined to not let this be one of those times where I painted myself as the victim in order to deflect attention from the real victims in this tragedy, because it was clear who those victims were. Just as it was clear who was the major asshole in this whole ordeal—that being, my black ass.
Eventually, the doctor came to my room and explained to me that I had a severely sprained ankle and my right lung had also collapsed and that I would need to have quick, minor surgery to reinflate my lung.
“Surgery?”
“Yes, it’s nothing major. We’ll give you a local anesthetic and then make a small incision in between your ribs. Once we do that we will insert a tube that will allow for the reinflation of the lung.”
By 4:00 P.M. that same day, I was able to leave the hospital. I was accompanied by Attorney Jones, my mother, and Steve. Unfortunately for me I wasn’t able to just hop in a car and go home. I was handcuffed and flanked on both sides of me by New York City police officers who were escorting me to a Brooklyn police precinct for processing, and then I would be heading off to jail before seeing a judge.
It’s funny, because although no one wants to go to jail, I knew that jail was what I deserved. I knew that, simply because it was very unfair that I was able to just walk out of the hospital with all of my physical faculties functioning okay, all the while I had put someone’s lifeless body in a morgue and I had another victim fighting for his life with severe injuries. I desperately wanted to go and apologize to my victims and their families, but on the advice of my lawyer, I decided against it for the time being.
Anywa
y, I ended up spending the night in jail, and the next day I went before a judge inside of a jam-packed downtown Brooklyn courtroom. The judge read me the riot act and he rightly so ripped into my ass in a stern, but eloquent, way as I stood before him as humbly as I possibly could.
The judge was careful not to talk to me as if I had been tried and convicted of my crime. But reading between the lines he knew that I was guilty. Since this was just my arraignment, he could only say but so much.
It wasn’t like I was going to jail right there at that moment so I wasn’t too nervous. But just the mere fact of me standing in front of a judge was sort of surreal. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. I had this feeling of embarrassment mixed with disbelief as I listened to the judge.
I had been charged with aggravated vehicular manslaughter, a crime that, in New York, carries a maximum of twenty-five years in prison. I had also been charged with driving under the influence, the possession of a controlled substance, and I was hit with various traffic infractions.
But since the cocaine amount that I had on me at the time of the accident was such a small amount, the most serious charge by far that I was facing was the aggravated vehicular manslaughter charge.
Attorney Jones was no slouch. He was one of the most prominent black attorneys in the New York City metropolitan area. So in a respectful way, he made sure that he checked the judge on how he was talking to me, all the while my lawyer made sure that he was honorable but he had to make sure that my legal interest were protected. He reminded the judge that I was in a position to make bail and that I had also been made perfectly aware that my license had been suspended, and that under no circumstances would I be operating a vehicle in the near future.
“So with all due respect, Your Honor, to both you and the families involved in this tragedy, my client is ready to post bail. All we ask is that we be given just a fair shot to present the full facts of this case before a jury and not at this arraignment.”