He opened his window. There was a knock at his door.
“Yeah?”
Without opening his bedroom door, Nina asked Donavan, “You want to pop some popcorn and watch a movie with me?”
With one foot out the window, he told her, “Naw, I’m cool.”
She wasn’t gone yet, he knew she was still standing on the other side of his door.
With her forehead pressed against his door and a tear running down her face, Nina said, “I’m sorry, Donavan.”
“Don’t sweat it, Mom. I’m all right.”
He would show them. If the Ike-man had been the Pope, then he would become king. He had a self-assured smile on his face as he climbed out of the window. It still amazed him that his mom hadn’t noticed that he had sneaked out of the house the last three Friday nights. But hey, when her life is so busy, busy, busy, who could expect her to add supervision of a wayward son to her to-do list?
Mickey sat across the street, watching Donavan climb out of the window. Bad little nigga. Somebody sure ’nuff spared the rod on that one. Mickey had driven back over to the house to put a couple nice clean bullets in the assistant DA’s new family. Then Isaac pulled up.
He banged his fist against his forehead. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” How could he have forgotten that Isaac’s son still lived in Dayton? Well, because Isaac didn’t write and didn’t call, that’s how. “See,” he wanted to shout at Isaac. “You didn’t keep in touch like you promised, and your son was almost dead. You shouldn’t have played me, Isaac.”
Mickey chewed on his nubby nails. “So now what am I going to do?” He hated Charles Douglas III with all that was evil in him. He wanted to hurt him. Give him some pain to carry with him for the few years he had left on earth. The man had been dogging him for years. It was Charles who caused the FBI to investigate him. Charles who stood in court and told the judge that Mickey was a menace to society. Charles who tried to block his bail.
“He’s no better than a dog,” Charles had told the judge. Just like his dopefiend mother, had said. But Mickey had shown her. Sometimes, when he was feeling real low, he liked to remember the day his worthless mother had come to him begging for some crack.
Oh, she needed him now. She said she was sorry about the way she had treated him. Of course he wasn’t a failure, wasn’t a loser. “Thanks for the apology, Mom. Now get your dopefiend self on the street and work for your drugs like the rest of my hookers.”
Mickey laughed out loud. He had to put his hand over his mouth so Isaac and Nina wouldn’t hear him. The look on his mother’s face that day was priceless. He’d pay money to see it again.
Charles had called him a dog. Well, he could call him a stalker now. Mickey liked the sound of that. Yeah, the night stalker. He just never imagined that the DA’s woman would be Isaac’s baby’s mama. Talk about total turn about. This girl needed to pick which side of the law she was going to pull her men from. She was probably a bad mother just like his had been. Maybe she was the informant that got Isaac sent up all those years ago. Maybe offing her would be doing Isaac a favor. Paying him back for all the advice and upstart money.
“Don’t waste tears over that one, Isaac. I’ll have a bullet in her before you send off the next child support check,” Mickey whispered with a smile on his face as he thought of the good deed he was about to do for Isaac. But then the smile faded as he realized that relieving Nina Lewis of her life meant Isaac would have to watch the kid. Isaac had been his mentor. He’d taught him everything he knew about running the streets. Now he was on top. He commanded respect. No way was he going to give the man who helped him get where he was today the full time responsibility of raising Chucky.
Mickey drove away from the house wondering where Charles’s mother lived.
9
An hour had passed before Isaac realized that he’d forgotten Donavan. He slammed his fist on the steering wheel. Here he was disappointing his son again. “God, I make my own self sick.”
Isaac knew the signs of a hoodlum. Shoot, he had given new meaning to the term. And his son was heading in that direction fast. He needed a firm hand. A good beating every now and then would keep him on the straight and unhand-cuffed way. But Nina wanted to coddle the boy. Breastfeed him until he drowned on the eleven-year-old milk she was dishing up.
He wanted to turn around. Go back and get his son. But he didn’t have the strength to see Nina again. Couldn’t look at that engagement ring and remain calm. He barely got out of there without smashing his fist against the porch banister as it was. If he went back now, Nina would feel vindicated in all her rightness if he lost his cool and got to acting typical; with fist smashing into something.
Anyway, he was still fuming from her last comment. She had the audacity to tell him to be a man and handle his business. What had he been doing for the last five years? Forget all this drama. He didn’t need Nina Lewis and he certainly didn’t need Usually Wrong.
Isaac considered that maybe it was time for Donavan to move in with him. He’d approached the subject with Nina on several occasions, but she always resisted. Her son needed his mommy. And anyway, what would she do with all that breast milk if she let her son grow up and become a man? Man, ha. His son was a hoodrat. “Like father, like son. Is that the way it’s going to be, Donny-boy?”
Isaac was no fool. He’d come from the streets. The streets of Dayton still sung his praises. He knew a potential state employee when he saw one. Donavan might as well have the license plate making tools in his hands right now.
But Isaac hadn’t said ‘Yes’ to Jesus just so he could stand in a courtroom and watch the gavel come down on his only son. He’d deal with the situation. Put Donavan back on an eleven-year-old good-kid kind of path. But not this weekend. He was drained. He would go home, lick his wounds and prepare his Sunday morning sermon.
The cushion of his bed did little to calm his troubled mind. He was tired, but didn’t want to sleep. They were on his bed again. Pressing on him, weighing down his mattress. Scream, he told himself. But one of them had clamped his mouth shut. Prickly tentacles massaged his scalp, taking him under. Dragging him into the abyss. One awful night in Isaac’s jail cell, God had allowed him to experience hell. Actually, he had a reunion down there. Met up with all the people he had sent to eternity, in one way or another. Now, these demons thought they had free reign. Thought they could just bring him back whenever they were having a slow night. Oh, Lord, help me. I’m having another nightmare!
“Look at you. Big, bad, Isaac Walker crying for help.”
Oh, God, not again! Not this again! But as he lifted his head, he knew the demons had won. Isaac was spending another nightmarish night in hell. Sweat drizzled from Isaac’s coal black hair. It clung to his nose like icicles. Could he live through another night of God-awful torment? Evil evaded his space and demanded his attention.
Destroyer, that old enemy demon taunted him. “What’s wrong, Ike-man? You’re not allowed to talk to us no more? Don’t you want to come out and play?”
Isaac didn’t open his mouth. The torment was worse when he talked back. He tried not to take in the suffocating smell of death and decay. No use. The odor slithered up his nostrils and crawled down his throat, gagging him. He tried not to think about his brother, Donavan, or his ex-girlfriend, Valerie, being tormented in this place for eternity. But that was useless too. Tears creased the corners of his eyes. It was all his fault. If he had been a better brother; if he had left Valerie alone, maybe she would have gone back to church and rededicated her life to the Lord. Life was full of coulda-shoulda-wouldas. He’d go back if he could, right the wrongs. “Oh God, if only I could change it!”
Destroyer’s heat stained breath beat down on him as he lay on the scorching, hot floor of hell. “Serve your daddy again, Isaac. Let Lucifer help you change it.”
“Never!” Isaac said as he stood up.
Two of Satan’s henchmen brought Donavan’s mangled form into what the demons called the Fun Room. Although the de
mons had plenty of fun, none of the inhabitants of this room had any. They were too busy having their limbs torn off and being used for target practice to have any fun.
Isaac fell on his knees. “Help me, Lord. I don’t know what you want.” A sob caught in his throat. Tears mingled with sweat. “Don’t know how to fix it.”
Destroyer’s flesh devouring fangs cut into Isaac’s back as he pulled him off his knees. “Shut up, fool. Ain’t no God down here. You pray in hell, you pray to Lucifer.”
Isaac’s back ached as Destroyer dug into him, but his mind was made up. He would serve the Lord with his last breath. No devil in hell would stop his praise.
“The Lord is everywhere, beholding both good and evil,” Isaac shouted.
Destroyer pimp-smacked Isaac and flung him against the wall of lost souls. The wall was sticky from the heat. The souls that had been encased inside the wall seemed to scream out to him; begging him to save them. But the wall was so sticky, Isaac didn’t even know how he would get himself unglued from it, let alone open up the wall and begin pulling lost souls out of its God forsaken clutches.
Isaac tried to pull himself off of the wall of lost souls, but he couldn’t get free. The cries inside the wall tormented him. Isaac felt defeated. He just wanted to give up and remain attached to this wall.
Then Destroyer began taunting him again. “Watch this, Isaac. Then you tell me again how your God is everywhere.”
Isaac was still struggling, trying to get away from the wall when he looked at Destroyer. Destroyer pointed in the direction of the two demons that were tormenting his brother. But it was no longer Donavan, his brother, standing between two demons with arms stretched wide, but Donavan, his son. When would this nightmare end?
Destroyer lifted his sword and Donavan looked at Isaac and cried, “Help me, Daddy. Help me.”
Desperation hit Isaac like a hurricane. Knocked him over, left him for dead. “Oh, God, don’t let this happen. This is my son, Lord.”
Destroyer’s blade dug into Donavan’s chest.
“Aaaaaarrgh!”
Destroyer laughed then cut into Donavan again.
With a resolve to get his son away from these monsters, Isaac knuckled up and mean-mugged his opponent. Nostrils flaring, mac-daddy stance in place, he told them, “Leave him alone. I’m the one you want.”
Destroyer snapped his crust-laden fingers. Two grizzly looking demons pulled Isaac off the wall and threw him around like they were Hulk Hogan in his pre-arthritic days.
Oh, it’s on. Let one of ’em drop me. I’m gon’ beat him like he stole something. But before Isaac could get his rumble on, a bell went off. His first thought was to find the judges and ask them to stop ringing that bell. Ain’t no sense letting the bad guys win when he wasn’t tired yet. He quickly realized that the bell was ringing inside his head. Probably from that punch he had just taken.
When the demons got tired of slapping him around, they slung him on the floor next to Donavan. Now, both he and his son screamed in agony as the hell-bent demons ripped through their bodies.
“Aaaaaarrgh! Aaaaaarrgh!” Isaac screamed while jumping around in his bed. The sudden movement jarred him. Isaac awoke panting. He gasped for air and reached for the telephone and dialed.
The phone rang three times before a groggy voice said, “Hello.”
“Put Donavan on the phone,” he told Nina. No time for acting like he had manners. He needed to make sure his son was still alive.
Nina looked at the clock on her nightstand. Three A.M. “Isaac do you know what time it is?”
“Nina, please. Just go get Donavan for me. I won’t call your house this early in the morning again. But right now, I need to speak to my son.”
Putting the phone down, she pulled back the covers and got out of her warm bed. Yawning as she headed to her son’s room, Nina called out, “Donavan. Donavan.”
Donavan was closing the window he’d just climbed back into when he heard his mother calling. Quickly discarding his jeans and faking a yawn he said, “Yeah.”
Outside his door, Nina told him, “Come get the phone. Your daddy wants to talk to you.”
“Aw, Mom, I’m asleep. Can’t it wait ’til morning?”
“No, Donavan. It sounds important.”
Donavan snatched the door open and stormed down the hall to his mother’s room. He picked up the phone and growled into the receiver, “Yeah, what is it?”
“What have you been doing?” Isaac demanded.
Donavan let out a bored yawn. “What do people do at three in the morning, Dad?”
“Don’t you get smart with me. I’ll come back down there and give you the beaten you should have gotten last night.”
“But I didn’t get it, did I, Dad? And why not? Because you left me. Didn’t think one more thing about me after you got mad at Mom, did you?”
Isaac sighed. “I’m sorry about that, Donavan. But I need to know, son. What did you do after I left last night?”
Rolling his eyes, Donavan told Isaac, “I went to bed. What else could I do?”
“Donavan, don’t lie to me. This is important.” Isaac knew with everything in him that something bad was going on with his son, and the thought terrified him.
Donavan’s voice boomed back with anger. “Look, don’t call here accusing me. You don’t know what I’ve been doing, and you don’t care. So get off my back!”
When the dial tone sounded in Isaac’s ear, all he could do was shake his head. Chip off the ol’ block indeed.
10
Donavan didn’t find JC until Saturday afternoon. He was in a “conference” with bad luck Baby Dee and Mark Smith. Baby Dee was a high school drop out who’d once convinced his best friend to rob a pawnshop on Third Street. The owner was a mean something who didn’t believe in giving up his money without a fight. He locked the door and commenced to beating Baby Dee and his friend with a baseball bat. They pulled the plug on his friend a week later at Good Samaritan.
It had always been a mystery to Donavan why a smart college student like Mark Smith still hung around JC. Sure, they had been best friends throughout high school, but Mark was in his third year of college. JC was on his third felony. Absolutely no future in that friendship.
“Man, my scholarship is busted. If I don’t get some money quick, I can forget about graduating next year.”
So that was it. Mark needs money, so he came to the thug-and-loan for help. Good luck cashing that check.
JC looked toward Donavan. “Hey, Shortie. Can I catch up with you later? Me and my boys got business to discuss.”
“I’m staying.” Donavan wouldn’t be put off. “Mark needs money, and so do I. If you’ve got a solution other than pulling the lint out of your pockets, I want to hear it.”
JC laughed. “All right, Shortie. I’ll cut you in.”
A young girl and her baby were hugged close together on the dirty brown carpet of a crack house on Fifth Street. She had a pipe in her left hand. The baby lay crying, cradled in the crevice of her other arm. The pipe was receiving more attention than the baby.
An old gray-headed man slumped against the wall next to her. The dirty pipe he held looked more like an extended member of his dirty hand.
Donavan stood in front of ten pounds of gold chains with a VCR in his hands. He looked around the room. It was empty except for a chipped and stained wooden table with three padded chairs and a pullout drawer underneath the table top. “I want to trade this VCR,” Donavan said after taking in his surroundings.
“I can’t touch it, young blood. I got too many VCRs as it is,” Mr. T, the gold chain wearing drug dealer said.
This was Baby Dee’s bright idea.“Let’s rob the crack house down the street and split the money .” The baseball bat beating probably shook loose the last good brain cells the boy had, and here he was following the counsel of a brain dead dummy. “You go in and distract him, Donavan. We’ll bum rush him before he knows what’s up.”
“But it’s all I’ve got. Com
e on man ... I need this,” Donavan begged.
“Cash money, man. You think my supplier’s gon’ take a VCR when he comes collecting his money?”
Donavan stood there for a moment longer. Sweat ran down his forehead as he gave his best imitation of a body twitch. The boy was good. Looked like a regular crackhead. His eyes pleaded with Mr. T. “I need it, man.”
“All right, all right.” He eyed his customer’s arm. “Gimme that gold watch, and you can get your high on.”
Not just any watch, but a sixth grade graduation present from his dad. Donavan looked at the gold band. His dad had even had it inscribed ‘God is great in you, but the watch was a lie. His father was a liar too. He needed the money JC promised. He was thinking about running away and everyone knows that a runaway needed money to set out on his own. If he had to steal to get it, who could blame him? He was just following in his old man’s footsteps. Donavan unlatched the watch and slowly handed it over to the dope man, Mr. T. “I’m gonna buy this back from you. Okay?”
Mr. T read the inscription and laughed out loud as he handed his customer his medicine. As Donavan reached out for his ounce of pleasure, JC and Baby Dee rushed Mr. T.
They shoved the dope man against the wall. Baby Dee stood in front of Mr. T with his gun trained on his chest. JC positioned himself next to the victim, his gun at the man’s temple.
“Give it up, homeboy. This is payday,” JC told him.
Mr. T put his hands up and tried to move his head away from the gun. “Are you stupid? You know this is Mickey’s money.
“Mickey don’t scare me,” Baby Dee told him. “He’s getting ready to be some dude named Bubba’s date to the prom.”
“Don’t count Mickey out so soon,” Mr. T warned them.
“Shut up.” JC hit him with the butt of the gun. “Let go of the money or say your prayers.”
Mr. T pointed at the wooden table and told them, “The money is in the drawer underneath the table top. Take it; it’s your funeral.”
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