Jessica quickly said, “I gave a bottle of the same kind of poison to the police.”
He shook his head, and said, “They already know you are innocent, they just don’t get too many actual murders in these parts, and I guess they wanted to play policeman for a change.” He gave them a smile and said, “You are free to go. Do you want me to give you a ride back to the cottage?”
They suddenly heard a honk and it was Chubby who was parked across the street in Vonda’s car. Mr. Greenberg simply waved to them and drove off.
When they arrived back at the cottage Jessica wanted to leave it immediately and began packing up her luggage. As she packed, she found Kenny’s wallet sitting above the fireplace mantle. She was going to throw it in the garbage but she decided against it.
After driving in silence on their way home, Vonda tapped Jessica on the shoulder and handed her Tiny’s letter to read. Vonda reached over and clicked on the side light so she could read it.
Dear Jessica and Vonda,
Y’all are in extreme danger. You been set up by Jessica’s boyfriend Kenny. I heard him speaking on what I think was a walkie-talkie while I was in the hospital. He thought I was unconscious, but I heard everything he said. He was talking to a man and told him that he set up everything and that they would clear out the building that night and was sure that some of you wouldn’t make it out the building alive. I knew that you were pregnant, Jessica, and I couldn’t allow you to chance it and be part of that so I dropped a dime on you and ratted you out to your P.O. I hope you ain’t too mad at me, but that was the only way I knew to keep you away from that shit. I’m going to the building now to watch my girl Vonda’s back, so nothing would happen to her either. I ain’t got long to live, but I’m going use what little time I have left for the people I love the most, so don’t feel sorry for me, just remember me forever just as I am.
Tiny
GET ’EM GIRLS
Jessica bit down her lip to prevent herself from crying, but she easily lost. She cried like she never cried before as Vonda hugged her and began to lose it too. Chubby could no longer focus on the highway because his eyes began to water as well, so he pulled off and got out the car to release his emotions so his sister and friend would not hear him. Vonda stepped out of the car, followed by Jessica, and walked over to Chubby. The three embraced in a circle as they cried together in the middle of nowhere while the snow rained down upon them.
Epilogue
Three weeks later, Jessica, Ms. Jones, Vonda and baby Silver were at the bus terminal in Times Square, eagerly waiting on a person they hadn’t seen in nearly two years. They watched the bus pull in and could barely contain themselves when he suddenly appeared smiling from ear to ear when he spotted them. It was Jessica’s brother Jordan, who’d been away in Minnesota in a long-term treatment facility for the past eighteen months.
If it wasn’t for his smile they would never had recognized him because he’d packed on so much weight. Ms. Jones was brought to tears as she embraced her son who she hadn’t hugged in four years since he first began using drugs. Vonda hugged him next and then introduced Jordan to his niece.
Jordan held his niece in his arms and kissed her gently as he told her, “I’m your uncle Jordan.”
Jordan finally looked up from Silver and spotted his big sister Jessica and handed Silver back to Vonda. He approached her slowly with his head down and he looked up when they were eye to eye. Jordan suddenly reached out and embraced his sister and cried as he whispered in her ear.
“Thank you, Jessica. Thank you for saving my life. I know why you did what you did, and I understand it now.”
Jessica nodded and embraced her baby brother as she cried happy tears, knowing God delivered him back to his family. They pulled away and wiped away their tears.
Jessica said, “Ok, let’s go home, Jordan.”
“Hold on,” said Jordan, “I still got to get my other bags from off the bus.”
They watched the driver unload the passengers’ luggage from the side of the bus and waited for him to retrieve them. When Jordan walked away it was then did Jessica notice for the first time that he now walked with a permanent limp.
She thought back to the night she’d last seen him in the abandoned building and told Shooter to shoot him four times in his legs but not to kill him. It was the only way she knew to get him off the streets long enough to be away from the drugs and enter a long term drug program. Jessica visited him in the hospital not long after while he recovered from his wounds and reminded him again that before he caused their mother another day of pain, she would do whatever it took to prevent that from happening. She gave him an ultimatum to either die a slow, miserable death from the drugs, or die a quick death from a bullet if he continued using. At that moment, Jordan looked his sister’s eyes and knew she was deadly serious and made the smart decision then and there to go away as long as it took to beat his addiction.
**********
Since Vonda received her Master’s in Sociology she went on to run not-for-profit crisis centers for women and girls who were either addicts, homeless, or battered women and provided treatment and temporary shelter until they found permanent residency or long term treatment. Her work hadn’t gone unnoticed as Vonda received millions of dollars of donations from people all over the world who recognized her unwavering dedication to humanity and her community. Not long after she opened her first crisis center, she was able to finally convince members of Tiny’s family to seek treatment, including her mother, and they been they was able to beat their addiction and all have been working at the center clean and sober ever since.
Needless to say, two years after Tiny’s mother sobriety, Vonda gave her a certified check for one hundred thousand dollars and told her it was a gift from her daughter. Vonda saved thousands of lives, but she was unable to save the ones closest to her—her other four brothers over the years lost their lives to the battle of addiction.
Chubby never missed a beat and remained the person he always was. Every Sunday over the years, including holidays, Vonda, Chubby, Tiny’s mother, Cleveland, Sweets and his family, and the entire Jones clan, would meet up at Ms. Jones house and eat Sunday dinner together and have a ball. They would ask Chubby, when he will become a changed person and settle down and have a family instead of being terror in those streets.
Chubby would normally rock back and forth, but this time he got honest and admitted, “I gave that life up long ago, but I am what I am, I love my family and I will do anything to protect you. If you get in trouble with the law, you’d call a lawyer, if you get sick, you’d go see a doctor, but if you get in trouble with these niggas out here, you call on Chubby. I’m a gangster and you can’t change a lion into a lamb.”
As much as they wanted to change him, they knew he was right.
Chubby broke the silence and smiled. “But don’t worry about me, because I’m a businessman now, I don’t bother nobody.” Chubby was in fact a businessman, and was actually well off and had many legitimate businesses, and secretly had enough money to last him a lifetime, but he chose to remain in the same neighborhood, same apartment, and same small room with his mother and walked the streets of Harlem like a king. But, what Chubby truly loved the most were his god-children, Silver Jones and Chancellor Haze.
It was no surprise when Jessica found out her mother and Cleveland had become an item, and soon after they sat her down and told her they were getting married. Jessica couldn’t have been happier for them. A few years after they got married, Cleveland and Ms. Jones moved to Florida and brought a nice house and have been living happily ever since.
It took Jessica nearly two years to finally find the strength to contact Kenny’s family in New Jersey. A year earlier, Jessica went through Kenny’s wallet that and found several contact numbers, one which had above it “Mother.” But she never had the nerve to reach out to her.
But the older Silver got, the more she realized how important it was to know the other side of her family, so one d
ay, out of the blue, Jessica dialed the number and made arrangements to meet them at their home in New Jersey. The day she was supposed to meet them, Jessica did not know what she would be walking into because of Kenny’s connection with his uncle, plus the fact she’d never met any of his family members. So, she asked Chubby to come with her.
When Jessica pulled up in front of the large, Victorian-style home in a beautiful suburban neighborhood, she felt a little more at ease. She looked at Chubby. “I’m going to ring the doorbell first to see if everything is ok, and if anything wrong should happen, forget about me and just get my daughter out of here safely.”
Chubby remained silent and just stared at her.
“Chubby, I’m serious. Get my daughter out of here!”
Chubby reluctantly nodded and got into the driver’s seat.
Jessica took a deep breath and proceeded up the walkway. Before Jessica could make it to the door, it had opened and an older couple stood at the doorway smiling. Jessica introduced herself and they eagerly shook her hand and hugged her. Jessica was overwhelmed by their by their friendliness and knew it was genuine.
The woman spoke first. She was in her late fifties with smooth, radiant skin. “Hi, Jessica, I’m Kenneth’s mother Deidra, and this is my husband, Kenneth’s father Leland.”
He took off his dark glasses to get a good look at her and it was then, did Jessica saw where Kenny got his hazel eyes from—his father eyes was just like his.
Still excited, Kenny’s mother asked, “So, where is the baby at?”
Jessica took a quick peek inside their home and said honestly, “Is it possible I can come inside and talk to you first?”
The couple sensed something was wrong and welcomed her in. After nearly twenty minutes went by, Jessica emerged from the home smiling and waved for Chubby to bring the baby out. Chubby went to the rear door and brought out Silver and carried her up the walkway. The couple shook with anticipation as they approached. When they saw Silver’s face, they knew instantly that she was their first and only grandchild.
Jessica found out that his parents knew nothing of their son’s child until one day Kenny had called and told them he had a daughter and that the baby’s mother had died and he had custody of her and wanted them to raise her. They told Jessica that they were happy to take their grandchild, but he never contacted them, and shortly that they were notified that he died.
When Jessica asked about his uncle, Kenny’s mother’s eyes turned cold and she explained that he was arrested for murder and died before he could be sentenced nearly a year ago. She always blamed his uncle for Kenny getting mixed up in his side of the business because he was a bad man. Jessica decided against telling his parents everything that went on with her son to spare them more heartbreak.
Over the years, Kenny’s parents enjoyed their time with their only grandchild and pampered Silver as if she was a princess. Since Silver was Kenny’s only biological daughter, his entire estate, which included five residential buildings throughout the city of New York, including the infamous Castle of Greyskull, were transferred over to Silver as the owner, and her mother Jessica and uncle Jordan now ran them.
**********
Almost twenty years to the day four impressionable teenagers got charged with a murder they didn’t commit, the case was reopened when Nikki of the Lenox Avenue crew came forward and turned herself in and told the authorities the whole truth that had been weighing her down for years. She apparently found God and told her pastor of her past atrocities and he simply advised her what was stated in the bible in John 8:32—“Then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
As a result, Tay-Tay was found and arrested, and she made consistent statements backing up Nikki’s claim. A month later Jessica and Vonda learned through the District Attorney’s office that they were exonerated of the crime they were charged with twenty years ago. Nikki and Tay-Tay, who were now productive citizens with families of their own, avoided jail time only after Vonda and Jessica spoke on their behalf at their sentencing. When Jessica got her turn before the judge to make a plea on their behalf, she removed a letter and opened it.
“Twenty years ago, me and my three best friends, Vonda Williams, Claresse Maynard, and Lynise Davis, had our whole lives ahead of us. We went to our prom and found love, or what we thought was love and decided to become women that night and give away what was sacred and holy—our virginities. Because of that decision we made a secret pact to keep it between the four of us, which it was our right to do.
“Unfortunately, the most memorable night in our lives also turned into the most tragic—a girl was murdered. To make a long story short, four innocent young girls, still in their prom gowns, were all charged with the murder. Because of this pact we made, the only truth we left out to the authorities was that we all were in a hotel to spare our parents the embarrassment. The one fatal omission also proved to be a life changing error and cost us six years of our life.
“The day we were convicted, we made another pact, that no matter what happens when they close those gates on us, we would stick together and do whatever was necessary to make it out of prison alive. I stand before the same court, twenty years later, to tell you that we failed at our pact and two of our best friends didn’t make it out alive. They died the same day they entered prison. They would die a miserable death years later, but it was all the same, because of the injustice that would ultimately suck away their souls.
“One would wonder why, after so much pain, after so much hurt, why I would defend the very people that played such a role in ruining our lives? The answer is simple, I already have too much blood on my hands, and I refuse to bloody them any further and take another person’s life by doing the same thing the penal system did to us. They suffered equal burdens over years, I’m sure, and salvaged their lives the best way they knew how and became productive citizens.
“We ask you, to not weigh down our burden any further. Today we chose life over death. So, Your Honor, on behalf of Claresse Maynard, Lynise Davis, myself, and Vonda Williams, the four of us still stand by our pact. We still stand collectively together in spirit, for we are and forever will be, the Get ’Em Girls!”
Also by Treasure E. Blue
Harlem Girl Lost
A Street Girl Named Desire
Keyshia and Clyde
Flexin’ and Sexin’ Volume 2
Contacts
[email protected]
[email protected]
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Harlem Girl Lost 2 Page 27