by Evie Rhodes
“Did you ask why?” Shonda finally addressed Tawney’s question. She laughed a dry humorless laugh. “Because you are being charged, girlfriend.”
“With what?”
Savoring the moment Shonda picked up her Uzi, which had been lying on the other side of the bench. She fired off a shot over Tawney’s head, because the heifer had asked her that stupid question.
She couldn’t believe Tawney was playing dumb with her, but so be it; before it was all over with she’d wish that she hadn’t. Shonda was nobody to play with, and Tawney was about to learn that the hard way.
“Count one—betrayal to your hood.” Another shot whizzed past the left side of Tawney’s face.
“Count two—betrayal to your race.” The next shot landed underneath the defense table between Tawney’s legs. She almost wet herself.
“Count three—being a sellout nigga. I gotta tell you this is the worst offense of all, ho.” This time she had damn near shot Tawney right in her stupid face. She had to stop herself almost on a dime, swerving the gun for another shot past the right side of her face instead.
She didn’t want to end this too quickly. That would take all the fun out of things. She noticed that Tawney did not wear fear kindly. Gone were that arrogant attitude, beauty, and grace with which she carried herself.
In its place was a scared, fragile, ugly, and twisted rag doll. Which is all Tawney had ever been with some cover girl makeup and Fashion Fair flair, in her opinion.
Yeah, that’s what she was, a skinny, ugly rag doll. Look at her now, all twisted up in fear. She was a punk-ass heifer if Shonda had ever seen one.
Suddenly Shonda rose.
She roamed around behind the bench. Tawney watched her every move warily. “You’re supposed to stand when I come into the room, you know.”
“But you’re a spoiled brat buppie. What would you know about that?”
Shonda continued pacing as though Tawney weren’t even in the room. She lost focus on Tawney for a moment.
It was too bad Tawney couldn’t have used the time to free herself, but it was pretty much useless. Shonda knew her stuff and Tawney couldn’t escape.
Shonda began to twirl as Tawney watched in shocked amazement. “I am very pretty, you know.”
Twirl. “I was a 4.0 average in college. Did you know that?” No response was required on Tawney’s part, and Shonda wouldn’t have heard her anyway. For the time being she had drifted into a place that only she inhabited.
Twirl. “With a 4.0 I could have been a Supreme Court judge one day.” Suddenly she frowned. “I think . . .” Sighing she let it go for now.
Twirl. “I always got good write-ups on my performance reviews too. I was always the best at all that I did. My mama always told me there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do.”
The twirling stopped.
“She was a lying witch of a mama if I ever seen one, though. She only told me that so I’d bed down with those niggas she wanted to strip for some cash. That witch was all about the paper.”
Shonda’s eyes roamed around the room unfocused. “That’s why she’s dead now. That’s what happens when you use people, you get dead, you know. How many people do you know that have killed their mamas, Tawney?” She threw her head back laughing.
She was back in focus now.
Tawney was not only astonished at the level of Shonda’s insanity, but also even in her current state of utter fear Shonda’s sudden change in grammar shocked her.
“You’re gonna get dead too, very soon, Tawney. I’m gonna give you some time to think about how I’m going to kill you. And then I’m gonna give you the verdict for your crime.”
“From there we’ll move on to your sentencing. In the meantime look there.” Shonda pointed.
In a far-off corner Tawney couldn’t believe what she was seeing with her own eyes. Hanging from a lightbulb in the ceiling was a noose.
Lest you should forget, you are in the alternate world of Out A’ Order. It is a world of its own making. Even though there is a bulb shining brightly in this room do not be fooled because there is nothing but darkness.
Close your eyes. I will take you there.
Chapter 42
You are traveling at the speed of light. So fast your eardrums are blocked and popping. The oxygen in the air is very little. The air is thin. You are going to a place that you have been running from all your life and that you did not want to believe existed.
In this place it is as black as midnight. And that in itself is the problem because in this place there should be only light. The light has been given and promised. Rejected. It has also been born, it has died, and then it has been born again.
There is a thief who broke in and stole the light. It is up to you to regain it. That is why you are now in darkness. That is also why I have brought you here. Follow the thread. You must listen to the right voice.
The realm in which you are now walking is the human mind. Only it isn’t an average human mind, nor is it of ordinary thinking. It is built on depravity, a skewed sense of seeing things, and a balance for reasoning known only unto itself. It is certainly not within the known boundaries that we live in.
Keep walking because the tunnels you see here are sealed off. They are sealed in blackness, which means not even the faintest of light filters through.
Imagine a hallway that you desperately need to get out of. You’ve got to get out because if you don’t you will die. You are being pursued. You can’t see it, feel it in the physical, or touch it. Yet you know it’s there, right behind you, breathing down your neck. You can now feel the heat and the stench of it in your face.
You see the exit sign leading out, but just as you near it you discover it disappears.
It was a mirage. In reality you are sealed off.
There is no exit, only a veil of black, like heavy drapery hanging suspended before you. There isn’t a ripple of an opening in the drapery. It just goes on and on, for endless miles. Frantically you search for an opening. Your fingers hope to find the tiniest of threads to break through. You find none.
Look over there to the left. Normally there would be a sign that says Stop. Within these walls the sign is missing. It is missing because it isn’t there. There is absolutely no stop sign. It doesn’t exist.
Try looking to the right. There could have been a sign saying Merge, but there isn’t. With whom would you merge? There are no others here like you. There is only the blackness. You can’t even see your own hand in front of you, although it is by this hand that you might die.
If you walk straight ahead you might run into Pain, and he would’ve told you that that would hurt, except he isn’t there to say so, and besides, it would’ve been too late. You’ve already run into the hand that might kill you.
If you do a complete turnaround maybe you’ll bump into Morality, except that won’t happen because she isn’t home. Don’t even bother to reach overhead to see if Respect is in the house, because I know you know at this point that he isn’t.
Respect doesn’t live here anymore.
You are an invited guest into the walls of Shonda Hunt’s mind. Within these walls lives only darkness. There are other things that live here as well. I said this was Shonda’s mind, but it could in fact be the mind of many. Perhaps it is. Or maybe it isn’t so.
How can you tell the difference between the truth and a lie?
The thumping that you hear but cannot see is the thirst for revenge. My God, it’s so loud that it is pounding like the beat of a drum. It is lust, it is murderous, it is competitive, and it knows no bounds. It’s parked in the home spot and has been a feeding ground for itself for many a year. Remember what I said about following the right voice.
And the beat goes on.
Now that I’ve brought you here, I have a responsibility to bring you out. But I know you’ll visit again in your own mind. That is how it goes with things that are unforgettable.
This is the world of Out A’ Order. It rules. Don’t be deceived
by those who are caught up in it. They look like you and me. Such is the deceitful brilliance of darkness.
However, if you listen intently you will hear the right voice. It lies in the sound of thunder.
Chapter 43
The stun gun shocked Tawney into a state of awareness. An electrical bolt shot through her body that caused the area behind her eyes to burn.
Her body shook from the effect.
Before she could recuperate Shonda tagged her again, this time only lightly on the arm as she engaged herself in the enjoyment of Tawney’s torture, as well as her helplessness. She didn’t want to hit her with a lightning bolt that would turn her into a corpse just yet.
Pulling Tawney’s head back to look into her eyes she said, “I’ve decided to skip right to the final verdict of guilty.”
She paused.
“For your crimes you will be slowly hanged so I can watch your fear in nanoseconds.”
Tawney tried to shake Shonda’s grasp and get to her feet. She made a minute amount of progress before she fell back to her seat. Shonda slapped her face for her efforts. Tawney’s eyes shot hot sparks of hatred at her.
Shonda threw the stun gun on the table. She backed up, throwing her hands in the air with major attitude. The robe swung around her as though parodying the death executioner that she was.
“I had Spence be rather merciful with Jasmine. I can guarantee you the same won’t happen for you.”
A distant ringing started in Tawney’s ears as though it were echoing from far away. Even through her pain she knew she must have heard Shonda wrong. Everything was beginning to get all mixed up in her mind because of the madness of these events.
“What?” she said to Shonda in a disbelieving tone.
Shonda searched her face. There was no indication that Tawney had even remotely connected to or believed what she’d just said. In fact it could have been almost as though she hadn’t spoken. Perhaps she’d better make it loud and clear for this heifer.
A weird shrill sound escaped Shonda’s mouth sounding very much like a shriek from the Darkling before she spoke again. “What are you, deaf? I said that your ass won’t receive the kid glove treatment given to the dead little princess.
“You should have seen the view from Spence’s scope up on the roof. Jasmine could have been in the lens of a camera, but she wasn’t. Although it was a Kodak moment.”
“She looked just like a little princess with red ribbons all in her hair, before she got blasted and ended up with a hole in her chest, and her arms spread-eagled like she was a bird that could fly, but she wasn’t. And I can testify to the fact that she couldn’t fly and she damn sure didn’t grow wings.”
Tawney stopped breathing.
She looked at Shonda in petrified horror. This time she heard her, really, really heard her. Her body trembled. She felt a fluid surging through her body like ice water being poured into her veins. She struggled to free herself to no avail.
Having center stage, Shonda pranced around the room narrating a vengeful stream of viciousness for Tawney that most mothers could never have even dreamed of in their worst nightmare.
“Yeah, Ms. Holier Than Thou. You’re the reason your daughter got hit. Your precious little Jazz, the one you can’t stop talking about at work. It makes me want to throw up.”
Shonda mimicked her. “Jazz did this and Jazz did that. Well, Jazz isn’t going to do a damn thing anymore, Tawney. Is she?” she shrieked.
“Hell naw, she isn’t because she’s gone now. I paid that punk major paper to end her life. I was sleeping with the nigga and still couldn’t get him to do it. He went all sweet on me, not wanting to hit a little girl. I waved enough paper at him to change all that, though. When he got finished sniffing that cream we had a contract.”
Shonda ventured close to the defense table again. She crossed her arms while staring into Tawney’s tearstained, shocked, and speechless face. “Hmmph. I know you blamed it on your husband ’cause he be an O.G., right? You thought it was his street sins. It figures. You niggas that have made it out are all the same. You think you’re all that.”
Tawney watched her warily like a caged animal. She uttered a silent prayer under her breath to the Lord pleading with him to hear her and deliver her from the hands of this demented evil. “Jesus.”
Just as she whispered the name of Jesus, Aisha, who was in her room in a suspended state between here, now, and there, wrote the name of Jesus in bold red strokes on a fresh page out of an artist sketchpad.
She slashed rather than wrote the name of the world’s sacrificial lamb, Jesus Christ. The hand that wrote it trembled with a power that no child possessed.
She then ripped the page out. It fluttered in the air and she scribbled furiously again.
The baby let out a loud howl!
Tawney’s heart felt like it had been ripped out as she thought about her beautiful little girl at the hands of this maniac.
She almost fainted and something inside her shut down at the thought. Somewhere in the winds of her mind a voice whispered, “Hold fast.”
Shonda continued on, really starting to feel her newfound status as Superpower. “Your house got shot up and you blamed Shannon, right? Wrong. Guess who?”
She turned to stare up at the noose that was waiting for Tawney. The imagery of her hanging there swinging was already in her mind’s eye. She would dispense with her, then take what was rightfully hers in the first place. “My connections reach long and far, Tawney. Sort of like yours at work.”
She smiled softly, dreamily at Tawney.
“Oh, and by the way, Shannon is much better in bed than the young punks who kidnapped you. That nigga has got game, but you know that, don’t you? That’s why you hooked him away from the ghetto princesses. Anyway, in the end you lose. He’s one of ours and he’s coming back. He’s gonna be treated like the fine ghetto prince that he is.”
Shonda walked back behind the judge’s bench. She sat down.
In contemplation she looked across at Tawney. “Spence was hot and had it going on too, but thanks to you he is no more. The last I heard he was resembling Swiss cheese somewhere.”
Shonda threw the gavel at Tawney, hitting her hard right upside her head. A large egg immediately took shape on her forehead. Blood trickled down her face. The blow almost knocked her out.
Tawney struggled once again, trying to free herself. She tried to wriggle her wrists free from the tight bonds, but her fingers were pure numb. She could barely feel the binds.
She was going to choke the life out of Shonda if she got free, and she wouldn’t do it quickly because she wanted to enjoy every minute of the wind exiting from her body for eternity.
Shonda continued to talk as though there hadn’t been a physical interruption. “Well, you were wrong on all counts, Tawney.”
Her face contorted in rage, her features squeezed together and frozen air expelled from her mouth, though how this could happen in a room in which Tawney was sweating she had no idea. “It’s your corporate sins that killed your daughter, Tawney. And they’re the same sins that are gonna kill you.”
She came down from the bench. Closely watching her, Tawney could feel rather than see a black power trailing her. It emanated from her, shivering in the air, and it was in full control.
She rushed over, shoving the makeshift defense table hard against Tawney’s chest. Tawney toppled to the floor. Shonda kicked her hard in her chest. It felt like the feet of ten men slamming into her chest. She lost air.
“Fortune rains on you, though, doesn’t it Ms. Corporate? ’Cause you managed to get my man Spence. You know him, right? The one who was buried in your daughter’s grave before she was even buried in it? Now, ain’t that a blip?”
Shonda was seeing red. “The damn thing had her name on it and y’all flipped my boy into the dirt instead!”
She stooped down, grabbing a handful of Tawney’s hair, and spat directly in her face. Tawney turned her face away.
Shonda yanked
it back front and center. “You’re scum, Tawney. Corporate sleazebag scum. Calling shots on people’s jobs. Writing people up. Pure corporate scum, but I can tell you there are no walls from the corporate world to protect you now. Not here in this place. This is my world, Tawney. I make the laws. I break the laws. And I decide who abides by them,” she stated with pure venom.
With that she kicked Tawney repeatedly in the chest. Then she stomped her in the face.
Blessedly Tawney passed out.
You are no longer an outside observer. You are now immersed in the fabric of Out A’ Order.
Chapter 44
Out on the street in front of the Clinton Avenue storefront Shannon tore up to the curb. He jumped out of the car. Marcus waited until he heard the door slam shut and then he crawled out from the floor in the back of the car, on the side of the street where Shannon couldn’t see him.
Shannon didn’t even know he was in the car.
He also had no knowledge that this child was in such a state of fear that he had gone to the police officer Campbell for help. So had Dominique. Unbeknownst to Shannon, Campbell had been getting an earful.
Marcus was afraid Shannon was going to be killed and he couldn’t stand the thought of that after having watched Jazz’s blood seeping into the gutter and her mother kidnapped by thugs.
His ten-year-old mind didn’t even want to think about what they had done to Jazz’s mother. He shivered. Deep inside, even though he had given the address to where she was being kept, he really didn’t believe she was still alive.
Those young boys who took her were feared and revered in the hood. They wreaked terror that would be written in the annals of hood law for generations to come.
Generally when they left a situation the only ones left breathing were them. They didn’t leave any life in their wake. In the Central Ward you only got one shot to make your mark. They had taken theirs.
In light of all this Marcus had talked to the cop Campbell, telling him everything because he knew that even when he whispered, “Someone please call 911,” no one answered.