Army of One

by A. K. Henderson

  Army of One

  A. K. Henderson

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two - Shamar

  Chapter Three - Block

  Chapter Four - Shamar

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six - Block

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten - Back to business

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Urban Books, LLC

  300 Farmingdale Road, NY-Route 109

  Farmingdale, NY 11735

  Army of One Copyright © 2017 A. K. Henderson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-6228-6858-2

  This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.

  Distributed by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Submit Orders to:

  Customer Service

  400 Hahn Road

  Westminster, MD 21157-4627

  Phone: 1-800-733-3000

  Fax: 1-800-659-2436

  Prologue

  Well, another day in this goofy-ass group home, with these bum-ass niggas and this dumb-ass woman. This is a depressing existence I’m living.

  Shamar wrote on his notepad as he sat in his room staring in the mirror on his dresser. He continued writing, hoping to drown out the noise in the background from the other occupants of the house.

  Two years in this hell hole has turned me into one desperate nigga. I can’t imagine anybody having to live through this. Sometimes I’m actually glad they separated me from the things and people on the west side because I never wanted to have to become the type of dude I’d have to be in order to protect myself from some of the stuff I’ve seen in the streets. I’d rather be locked up in one of them cold cells in Cook County than to do another year in here.

  Writing was the only thing that could calm Shamar down when the stress of living in the group home began to weigh heavily on him. He was almost out of there and couldn’t wait to go find himself. He figured Mrs. Turner, the director of the group home, knew how he could be allowed to leave; but, of course, because he was only seventeen she wasn’t giving up any info. He knew all he had to do was catch her slippin’.

  Shamar was fourteen when an accident killed his mom and landed his father in prison. The state got involved because none of the family would take him in. Mrs. Turner knew Shamar’s father from back in the day, and somehow she pulled some strings to keep the state from shipping Shamar off to a group home in Indiana. The only drawback at the time was the fact that he couldn’t contact any other family on his own.

  “Man, Joe, I miss the hell out of her,” Shamar said to himself as he examined the bracelet that once belonged to his mother. It was made of silver with two charms that draped over the top of his hand when he wore it. One charm was a small cross, and the other was a heart. When Shamar was eight years old, his parents had taken him to see the place where they had first met. The picture of the two gazing into each other’s eyes was ingrained in his mind. His mother, Darlene, wore a small heart on a necklace around her neck. In the same fashion, his father, Shamar Sr., wore a small cross around his neck.

  It was midday, just as the sun had reached its peak. The sun’s rays seemed to meet and shine on their charms at a perfect point.

  Shamar looked at his dad and said, “Look at your neck, Dad. Look at Mama’s too. It’s sparkly.”

  Shamar Sr. smiled and laughed, pulling his baby boy in close to them as they both hugged him.

  Moments like this one were the only things his parents had left him with.

  Darlene had given the bracelet to Shamar on his fourteenth birthday, the last time they were together. When he saw it, his eyes began to well up. In retrospect, Shamar believed that his mother knew it would probably be the last time they saw each other, and she remembered how much those charms meant to him. The following evening, as he played basketball at a park near his house, his mother was taking her last breath in an overturned car about to go up in flames, and his father was being handcuffed by police.

  Not a day went by that he hadn’t thought about her and the last day they spent together. She always said she would take care of him and his father, and Shamar knew she meant it, but being alone in the world without them really screwed with his head. It was starting to get to him, and he had to get out of the group home.

  “Shamar, didn’t I tell you to clean this place up? I don’t know why I keep you ungrateful little bastards around. All you do is eat and sleep. Hurry up and get this stuff up before I go upside your head!” Mrs. Turner yelled, interrupting his thoughts.

  This was the soundtrack to his life. Every day it seemed it was on repeat, playing at the same time every morning. At 7:30 a.m. promptly, Mrs. Turner marched up and down the hallways, barking orders like a drill sergeant.

  I swear she needs to shut up, Joe. It’s every day with her, the same thing. You ain’t doing this . . . you need to do that. I’m too old for this here, he thought.

  Shamar poked his head out of his room, hoping today he’d catch Mrs. Turner in a good mood. He had something important to ask her. As she made her way down the narrow hall, she neared his doorway. With his nerves and stomach tied in knots, he took a deep breath and spoke up to get her attention. “Um . . . Mrs. Turner, I got a question for you,” he said.

  The obnoxious clunking of her heels on the hardwood floors came to a halt. Mrs. Turner stood with one hand on her hip, and the other held a cigarette to her lips, which were painted with bright red lipstick. “What do you need, boy?” she snapped.

  Shamar hesitated at first but quickly shook off the nervousness and answered, “When am I getting out of here? I mean, I’m getting a little too old to be hanging around here, don’t you think?” As soon as those words left his lips, he regretted asking. However, now was as good a time as any. He had to know something, and this wasn’t the first time he had questioned her.

  “Shamar, I told you to stay out of my business, didn’t I? Don’t worry about getting out of here. I’m the one who’s taking care of you. You’ll leave here when I say you can leave. Now get that room cleaned!” she said, lightweight scolding him before storming off.

  Shamar knew something was off about her. He had been with her in the home for four years now, and at almost eighteen he was beginning to feel like she didn’t want him to leave at all. He knew she couldn’t keep him there forever, but until he had some kind of paperwork showing it he was stuck and he felt helpless.

  Mrs. Turner was a fifty-year-old widow and unbeknownst to Shamar she had been trying to find every reason she could to keep Shamar around. He was more like her prized possession, and as much as she acted like she despised teenagers her infatuation with him went beyond the normal bounds of guardianship.

  For a woman her age, she was actually quite stunning. Shamar knew she was a widow, but besides the fact that she was so aggressive he couldn’t help but wonder why she was still single. He wasn’t much into cougars, but it was obvious she was a bad one in her younger days.

  When he noticed her getting ready to
go out one Friday night her five foot three frame fit snug as hell inside her jeans, enough to make any young dude get hard. Her thick hips and perky breasts caught his attention every time she pranced around in her house coat. Regardless of what he thought about her physically, Shamar still had a disdain for her because she was the only thing that stood between him and his freedom.

  It had been nearly two months since Shamar had last inquired about his being able to leave the group home. One day as he sat in his room he stared out of the window admiring the Chicago skyline. He had his notebook in front of him, which he always kept close to write in as a way of controlling his temper. He imagined he was writing to his mother.

  Shamar was only two weeks away from what he believed would be his last day there and he had waited four years for this day to come. Mrs. Turner hadn’t given him any information about his ability to leave but, by this point, he had already made up his mind. It would be his eighteenth birthday, and he was going to leave whether she liked it or not. He wanted out, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. In his mind, Shamar decided either she was going to let him leave, or he was going to make her put him out. Legally she could only keep him until his twenty-first birthday, but she made sure not to disclose that information to him.

  Mrs. Turner insisted she was only trying to protect Shamar from the streets and it did not help matters when he got locked up a couple summers before for fighting with a cop. Thanks to that and Mrs. Turner’s connections it was almost guaranteed that his last years as a teenager would be hell.

  The noise in the hallway intensified the longer Mrs. Turner continued her rant. Most of her aggression seemed to be directed at Shamar. He constantly found himself at odds with the authorities like her. His cocky attitude, dreads, and excessive tattoos drew much attention. He continued to pen his frustration through random thoughts as he became more irritated by the sound of Mrs. Turner’s voice.

  People say I’m a firecracker, but that’s because I can’t stand when niggas test me and question my ability to hold my own. I try to stay away from people because these dickheads in this group home make a nigga like me very irritable. Mrs. Turner, in her constant drunken state and sloppy demeanor, makes her the most disgusting person I have ever known.

  Mrs. Turner interrupted his thoughts when she launched a Bible at him, hitting his shoulder. He couldn’t believe she had the nerve even to throw a Bible in his direction. He looked at her like she had two heads. “Man, what you do that for? I told you I was gon’ clean up. Man, keep messing with me, Joe. I swear to God, I—” Shamar snapped.

  He was fully prepared to spaz out, but she interrupted him. “You gonna what? Boy, you ain’t gon’ do nothing! You need to pick that Bible up and get you some religion instead of sitting around here doing nothing. Pick it up!”

  Mrs. Turner hurled threats and insults at Shamar at times, but it was usually when she felt insecure about him asking when he could leave. She didn’t think he picked up on it, but he could tell her anxiety was beginning to increase the more he stood up for himself. Shamar finally conceded and picked up the Bible, throwing it on the bed in an effort to get her to shut up.

  As she stormed off, he leaned his chair back against the wall and scribbled on his pad.

  I feel like I’ve been here so long I don’t even know what the world is like outside of this place. I go away in my mind when I want to leave here. From here I only wonder what it’s really like to actually be able to go somewhere beyond Chicago and, Mama, you always promised you would take me somewhere special one day, but those promises are long gone along with you. Joe, I swear if this old ho don’t stop talking to me I’m going to throw this book at her head.

  With Mrs. Turner still outside his room, Shamar could hear her stilettos pacing back up the hallway. The smell of her perfume invaded the room, and a cloud of cigarette smoke hovered underneath the light in the middle of the ceiling. As much as he wanted to pop off again, he knew it would only take one more screwup for her to convince his social worker to extend his stay another six months or more and he was not about to let that happen. The truth was that Mrs. Turner was trying to manipulate him to get a reaction. To her disappointment, he had just sat there staring at her with a grim look on his face hoping that her rant would be over soon. By now he was so stressed that the blunt he had stashed inside the front pocket of his hoodie was starting to call his name.

  After another couple of minutes, Mrs. Turner finally felt that she had gotten her point across and she headed down the hall to continue her morning room inspections. Two more weeks, just two more weeks, he kept repeating to himself.

  Five years later

  The word had gotten out that Shamar was on his way back from Arkansas with what was going to be the last pack he would ever move. For three years after leaving the group home, he had gone undetected by the local law enforcement. Now it was time for him to get out of the game, and out of the Midwest, before his luck ran out. Shamar Jackson was a neighborhood hothead with an infatuation for firearms. He found himself living in a small city in Indiana after bouncing around for a couple years. He only ran with two people in the town of Michigan City, Kaduwey and Dee Block, and if anyone ever said anything sideways about either of them in his presence, it was on sight with him.

  It was just after midnight on the Friday before Labor Day, the last pack was dropped off, and it was an all-out celebration in honor of Shamar leaving Indiana for good. Through some slick talking and calling in a few favors Shamar found himself enlisting in the Army. It was his only way out of a bad situation. The streets were starting to heat up, and too many people knew his name. It was only a matter of time before the law caught up with him.

  His baby’s mother, Jelisa, was still trying to wrap her mind around not being able to see him for the next couple of months. As they sat cuddled up in the passenger’s seat of his Chevy Caprice, a couple of jump-out boys from South Bend stood in the midst of the crowd as everybody made their way out of the venue to the parking lot. Shamar knew something was off by the look on the two guys’ faces. With his arm wrapped around Jelisa’s waist, Shamar tapped her on her leg, signaling for her to get up.

  “Hey, go over there with Ashley for a minute. I need to handle something real quick,” he said, trying not to raise concern. She did as he said and, like clockwork, Block and Kaduwey both emerged from behind Shamar’s car and stood on both sides of him as he stood up. “Y’all see what I see?” Shamar asked.

  “Yo, keep it cool, G. We ain’t here for all that,” Kaduwey said, noticing Shamar’s hand slowly moving toward the strap he had tucked under his hoodie.

  “Yeah, dawg, don’t do nothing stupid. There’s too many people here,” Block agreed. They both knew that once Shamar locked in on somebody, there wasn’t much anyone could say to talk him down.

  “Ay, fam, what the hell is you staring at? You got a problem or something?” Shamar questioned.

  The two goons continued ice grilling them as one reached for his waist. Without hesitation, Shamar pulled out and started busting in their direction. The crowd scrambled as the sounds of women screaming and tires screeching filled the air. The would-be robbers returned fire as Shamar and his crew ducked behind his car.

  “G, I told you to cool out. What the hell are you doing?” Kaduwey yelled while also returning fire.

  “What you mean? You see they bussin’ at us too. Just be glad I got the drop on them,” Shamar answered.

  The two jump-out boys took off, darting across the lot and disappearing into the crowd. As the crowd dispersed, police sirens were heard in the distance. The three friends jumped in Shamar’s car and followed suit, seeing that their girlfriends were already gone. They drove down Washington Street and made the first turn available, heading toward the west side, in the opposite direction of everyone else.

  Once they got to Block’s spot and the coast was clear, the fellas sat in the basement and shared a laughed.

  Block commented, “G, you wild, boy. I’m telling
you. How are you leaving tomorrow and you shooting up the spot tonight? That don’t make sense. You must really want to go out with a bang.”

  Shamar grinned and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it’s definitely time for me to get out of here. I’m gonna mess around and catch a case real quick,” he said.

  “Well, G, it’s been real, homie. Just make sure you don’t come back here all shell-shocked. Then we really won’t be able to do nothing with you,” Kaduwey added.

  Shamar went to the bar and poured three shots of Hennessy. They stood and raised their glasses and toasted one last time. Shamar spoke, saying, “Y’all my Day Ones. It’s all love to my death!”

  Chapter One

  Jelisa couldn’t believe Shamar had to go back overseas so soon. He had just come back from Germany, where he had been stationed for two years. She couldn’t come with him because they hadn’t gotten married yet. They had just eloped on Christmas Eve while Shamar was in the process of moving back stateside. Jelisa had had her fill of the long flights every few months to go visit him in Germany. She was led to believe that after they married she would be able to go anywhere he went.

  It was now March and after having only been back in the States for a few short months Shamar’s new unit was already preparing to send him off to join the rest of his company, who were already deployed. Knowing that he was newly married, his unit gave him some extra time to get prepared to go. On this day, his unit was due to leave Fort Riley, Kansas, for Iraq in less than two hours and tensions were high. Shamar did his best to keep his composure in an effort to keep Jelisa calm, but deep inside he was terrified. It seemed that their three-year-old daughter, Mya, was the only one who picked up on it.