by Leo Sullivan
I was slammed backward, rammed into a cabinet and, instantly, the wind was knocked out of me. I was slammed backward, rammed into a cabinet and, instantly, the wind was knocked out of me. After already enduring the fight with his partner, I was nearly no match for him. He hit me with a vicious hard right that sent me reeling with more stars and stripes exploding in my brain, like a kaleidoscope of color.
“You motherfucker! I’ma fucking kill you!” He sneered with feral lips pressed tight across his face as he reached back to punch me again. As I struggled, trying to get him off of me, I could tell by the expression on his face that his intent was deadly. He wanted to kill me.
He swung.
Wham!
It would have been a punishing blow, had I not managed to move, but the blow still grazed my face with enough force to cause new pain to ricochet through my body. As I moved with my back flat on the desk and objects falling to the floor, I couldn’t believe that no one had yet walk through the door.
My strength was waning, and I didn’t see any way out of my current predicament. As it was, I’d already killed his partner, giving him a license to murder me in self-defense.
“You black motherfucker. I’m going to kill you!” the Marshall raged, lifting his fist once more.
Just then, as I was planning a counter move, I saw something on the end of the desk only a few inches away. It was a pair of scissors.
The officer swung and I moved out of the way, closer to the metal object. When he reached back to swing again, so did I. With my weapon in hand, I plunged the scissors in his left eye causing blood to splatter like I had just slammed a sledgehammer onto a tomato. He howled like a wounded animal as his one good eye fulgurated terror. He tried to speak, he was in utter shock, but no words come out as his mouth. He staggered around as if someone has just turned the lights out before finally toppling over and falling to the floor, next to his comrade. His body trembled as life left his body. Though he wasn’t gone yet, he didn’t have much time left.
Neither did I. I had killed two Federal Marshalls so if I didn’t escape now, there was no way I would make it out of this courtroom alive. Once my new crimes were discovered, I’d be killed on the spot.
After taking the officer’s weapons, I rushed over and took the clothes off of the first officer’s body and pulled them on. My face was still drenched in blood and as I stood and listened intently for any and every sound, expecting at any minute for a storm trooper of arm forces to rush in.
As I stepped over the two bodies, prepared to open the door and make my excursion into the unknown, I hesitated momentarily and closed my eyes, shutting them tight. With both weapons in my hands, I muttered my hood anthem which was also considered the gospel to a gangster.
“I’d rather be carried by six then judged by twelve.”
Hearing a sound, I looked down at the handle when I realized where it as coming from. Someone was about to walk in.
With my fingers pressed against the trigger of each Glock in my hand, I took a few steps back, bit down on my bottom lip and prepared to face my worst nightmare.
7
Sunday
* * *
“You have no idea how much I love you…”
Lifting my head, I looked up, frowning slightly when I saw the way the intensity in King’s stare. Feeling nervous suddenly, I shifted, sitting up on the bed as I stared into his eyes. With one hand, I smoothed down my top over my belly, nearly flat with only a small bulge from the baby growing inside.
I was only three months pregnant and, though this child wasn’t expected, it was wanted and had already been smothered in love. As soon as King heard the news of me being pregnant, he went out and bought over a thousand dollars’ worth of clothes for his unborn child. All clothes meant for a boy because he was certain that I was giving birth to our son. I told him that it was bad luck to buy anything before I made it over three months, but he didn’t care. He was excited and, as much as I tried to play it cool, so was I.
A love like this was meet for the heavens, created by God almighty, I couldn’t have been happier and so was King. For the first time, he was actually open to considering if the child was a girl and the possibilities of what we would name her. One day he slipped and said he wanted to buy a big five-bedroom home in a plush neighborhood in Alpharetta and get married before I had the baby. I was elated, even though he had been drinking, smoking and we had just had sex and were pillow talking. King was a man that didn’t just speak words into existence, he made things happen in a major way. The next day when I breeched the subject of us getting married, he tactfully tried to skirt around it by saying he was just playing but I know he wasn’t. The cat was officially out of the bag.
August 7th is a day I would never forget. I had to beg, plead and threaten King to go with me to the doctor for an ultrasound. It had been like pulling teeth, but he finally agreed. That day, we drove with the top down in his sky-blue Bentley Coup. The wind was in our hair, the air was filled with merriment and intoxicating intimacy. For some reason, King couldn’t keep his hands off me.
In so many ways, he showed that he was excited about being a father even though he would never admit it. Normally, he would spend every night hustling hard in the streets with his crew but, lately, he had been really engrossed with the idea of having a child and possible settling down. Many nights that he would be out, he spent with me instead. He would even watch ‘soft ass chick lit movies’ with me, as he referred to them. I was learning that even though he was a thug and had been accused of some despicable things, people could change. Love makes people change and he was showing that to me.
We arrived at Dr. Jenkins’ office as scheduled and, as usual, I pretended not to notice the female staff members craning their necks to get a look at King. A few even spoke to him and ignored me, like I wasn’t the pregnant one who came in for a checkup.
Dr. Jenkins was a middle-aged woman with a cinnamon-complexion, pleasant smile and a great professional demeanor. She also spoke with a distinct dialect like she could possibly be from one of the islands. That day, we shared jubilant conversation; it was one of the happiest days of our life. Although I couldn’t wait to see our baby, my stomach was growling. I was so ready to trick King into taking me to the Cheesecake Factory to eat afterwards.
As the doctor applied some type of gel to my belly, I lay on the table staring into the dimness of the screen as King sat next to me like a proud father to be. His smile was beautiful, radiant and strong as he too looked at the gray mask of matter on the screen, an anatomy of a fetus. A human life that we’d created through love. The chatter of our voices as we brought up our ideas of would-be baby names was the current theme of our conversation, along with the cackle of suppressed laughter.
Until…
That little wand that was supposed to make magic had seemed to be failing us as it strolled across the surface of my brown, lubricated, belly in search of a tiny heartbeat. Our laughter died and was replaced by our stricken faces. We paused, anxious, as the doctor turned and stole a glance at the both of us, her expression stoic.
“Is everything alright?” I heard myself ask, but I wasn’t immediately given an answer.
The wand continued to search.
I stopped breathing and feared the worse as I suddenly became conscious of something. There was an absence of a sound that I expected, and it instantly told me what was wrong. She couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat!
Finally, King asked with his voice brazen, “Yo, what’s going on doc?”
“I can’t find a heartbeat,” she said with dismay as her eyes looked between the both of us. Her movement across my stomach slowed as she lost hope.
“Keep looking for it! What you mean you can’t find it?” King raised his voice, urging her on.
“King!” I admonished. I watched in horror as her hand moved across my stomach in search of something that should have been there. Life.
Finally, she stopped, and then turned and looked at us.
/>
“I’m sorry. There is no heartbeat,” she said with the straight face of a professional.
In my peripheral, I saw King’s shoulders hunch as his hand mopped at his face filled with sudden despair and disbelief. The entire time I stared straight ahead, devastated with the fear of the inevitable looking me in the face as I looked at the screen in front of me.
I walked out of the doctor’s office in a mental fugue as King held my hand. I could tell he took it harder than me, especially when the doctor was explaining how to get the remains of our child out of my womb.
“This is some fuckin’ bullshit!” he’d exclaimed before kicking over a chair.
Surprisingly, Dr Jenkins remained calm and recommended that we might consider counselling. All I could do was nod my head. I was in a trance. It was hard for me to digest something my mind and heart wasn’t prepared for: the death of our unborn child.
That week, King bought me a top of the line E Class 350 Mercedes Benz and made it his business to shower me with gifts and affection. He even chartered a Private jet to Paris. He was doing everything in his power to ease my mind from the tragedy of losing the child. In the meantime, he was coping in his own way.
The John Doe Boys was escalating rapidly. One night, I accidently walked in on him in the basement and his clothes were covered in blood. I pretended not to see it, but I did. My love for him was so strong that it blinded me. I had been with him since the age of fifteen, when he didn’t have nothing but dope boy dreams, a gangsta’s mentality and hood ambitions.
As promised, King got me pregnant again and three months in, I lost that baby, too. Once again, King blamed himself. It tormented him and he took it out on the streets. The violence started again, this time it was worse. Two of his rivals were found decapitated with their hands cut off and eyeballs gouged. It was horrific but it was also a retaliation move.
I never asked him about what I was hearing about him, but the streets were talking. Unconsciously, I was being groomed to be a gangsta’s wife and one day a widow. You never knew what you would do for love, until tragedy hit. Then you find yourself doing things you couldn’t even fathom doing before. Malik ‘King’ Shields broke my heart, but even to this day, I still loved him. Even as I lay in a hospital bed nearly dead and in a coma, I dreamed about him. I dreamed about what we had…
What we lost.
Monochromic lights and psychedelic montage flashbacks of King assaulted my brain as I lay in a state of catalepsy. My entire world strobe like I was floating in outer space. I could hear sounds: sycophant beeps droned, people talking. Someone was crying poignantly. Their voice was hysterical; I realized it was my mama.
“Sunday, baby, I know you can hear. Please, move your hand… your eyelids… something! Please Lord, help her!”
I tried to do as she asked but I couldn’t. It felt like my entire body was paralyzed. Including my brain.
Then something terrifying dawned on me. My baby! What happened to my child? I tried to will myself to move again, but I couldn’t. Then another daunting thought occurred to me. Where was Caesar? In all the haze, I couldn’t remember much that happened before I got here.
I was helpless.
“I’m going to need for you to sign some papers, waivers, and a consent form to have her taken off the life support system if her condition continues to deteriorate once we remove the baby,” the doctor said.
My mother must have just stared at him dumbfounded, because she didn’t respond. Then I heard someone else in the room, muttering something under their breath.
“To be truthful,” the doctor continued. “Things are looking grim. We think she has less than a two percent chance of making it and we are unsure of how the trauma of the shooting is going to impact the unborn child. However, we are about to attempt to perform an emergency Cesarean to take the baby out. You really should consider taking her off life support.”
“Dr… What did you say your name was again?” my mama asked in a stern, no-nonsense tone.
“I know he didn’t say what I think he just said?” I heard another voice in the room say. I could vaguely recognize it.
“Dr. Stevens,” the doctor responded curtly.
“Okay. Listen, Dr. Stevens, only God, my Lord in Heaven, can make a decision like that. As far as I’m concerned, if she is breathing then she is living. She is still alive, and she is coming home with me. So enough of that shit you’re talking. Do you understand me?”
I couldn’t believe I heard my Mama curse. She never cursed. I thought that maybe I was dead, or at least really close, as I eavesdropped on a conversation that I probably shouldn’t have been hearing.
“As you wish, but this can be costly. There is the matter of bed space for the facility—”
“Are you serious? I don’t give a damn about none of that. In fact, where are your superiors? I can’t believe you just said that to me!” my mama snapped.
“Right, I know you just didn’t say what I think you said! The fuck you mean, bringing up bed space? This ain’t no fuckin’ prison, this is supposed to be a hospital!” the familiar voice said.
That’s when it occurred to me who it was. My girl, Kelly. She was the other one I heard in the room sobbing. The last time I saw her was the day that I was shot right after he told me that I was fired for giving her free weed.
Suddenly, I heard a scuffle with a chair overturning.
“If you don’t get your hands off me, I’m calling the police and having you arrested for assault!” the doctor protested.
“Lord, girl, let him go,” my mama said. All I could hear around her was pushing and shoving.
“I should punch yo’ white ass in the face!” Kelly vented some more.
I tried to move, open my eyes, move a leg, an arm, or even yell but nothing was moving. Then I heard footfall and a door slam shut.
“Child, why did you grab that man like that and shove him around? He almost tripped over the chair and hit his head on that machine.” She was flustered.
“I don’t care! My friend is dying and she’s lying right there pregnant with a baby, that is possibly dying, too. Then on top of that, this man worried about some fuckin’ bed space,” Kelly retorted.
I could hear tears in her voice. She was pacing the room as she spoke.
“Listen,” my mama began poignantly. “Violence ain’t going to cure nothing. Violence is what got my babies here, her boyfriend in the room down the hall, and his brother murdered. This girl, my child, has been in a coma for nearly three weeks fighting for her life. If you want to fight, then help her fight!”
It hurt me to my core as, instantly, I had flashbacks of the killings. I remembered mask gunmen storming into my apartment, the name Daze and a face with no mask…
“No, but this hurts me to my soul,” Kelly said, still crying and sobbing.
“I know, but all we can do is leave it in the Lord’s hands. We have to pray for her, Caesar, and the baby.”
My mama’s hand rested on my stomach, and it felt like that gave me life. Her touch caused my very soul to awaken. Only something as strong as a mother’s endearing love for her child could do that. At first, there were a lot of white lights beckoning me, calling me to walk down what looked like a tunnel. But then I felt my soul being moved in the opposite direction and things started to get clearer. Like smoke evaporating and crystalizing, it felt like I had returned from someplace that I wasn’t meant to come back from. Even though I couldn’t move, it was emotional for me having my mother’s hand on my belly, on my unborn child.
“Look! Look!” I heard Kelly exclaim, along with the sound of feet moving like she was jumping up and down.
“What is wrong with you? These people gon’ kick you out if you don’t stop it. I already know you high because I smell weed all over you,” my mama said with aggravation.
“No, she is crying! Look on the side of her face, there are tears. Sunday is crying,” Kelly shouted.
“Jesus help me, Lawd! She is!”
M
y mama grabbed my face and held it in her hands as she continued to cry.
“If you can hear me, baby, wake up. Please, wake up so I can take you and the baby home.”
I tried to move, but I couldn’t, my body wouldn’t let me. I could hear and even smell my mama’s sweet Jasmine perfume.
Just then the door opened. The sound of radios and the murmur of hospital sounds, along with the churr of walkie-talkies followed.
“There she is right there. I want her escorted off the premises immediately!”
Dr. Stevens had returned and must have brought with him police officers or something.
“You play-play ass officers better not put y’all fuckin’ hands on me!” Kelly protested loudly.
“I am not a play police officer; I am hospital security. I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’re going to have to leave promises,” the male voice said.
“Don’t be sorry because I ain’t going nowhere.”
“Just stop it!” my mama protested, then added emotionally. “Doctor, come here. Look, she is crying.”
Dr. Stevens walked over; I could feel his presence towering over me, palpable like a second layer of skin.
“She is,” the doctor said softy. I felt a hand on my cheek. Then he began messing with the tubes in my arms, the EKG machine and, eventually, the breathing tube.
“Interesting. I am looking at her CT brain scans and, suddenly, there is activity,” the doctor marveled.
“What is that?” my mother asked.
“It shows all the neurological injuries she suffered due to the trauma to her head. It’s looking better, even though we were unable to remove the bullet. It was too close to her prefrontal cortex. That is where her ability to index memories would be and damage to that area would cause a list of other problems that are too long to name. There is the possibility that she will be blind in one eye, but the severe facial and skull damage could be surgically repaired, though costly.”