Stalker

by Brenda Hampton

  “No, I’m not done.” She looked at me. “Go! He doesn’t want your business. Find someone else to do your basement. Don’t come back here again, because I’m sick of seeing your face.”

  Clinton shook his head, turning to me as well. “Saturday at noon,” he confirmed. “I’ll be waiting for you to pick me up.”

  He walked off, and so did Velma. I got in my car, thinking about how crazy Velma was. She was nothing like me. Then again, maybe that’s why she didn’t like me. Maybe we had something in common in our own little special way.

  Chapter Ten

  When Saturday rolled around, I didn’t worry about going to get Clinton. I was sure he would be disappointed, but my mind was focused on my court date on Monday, as well as on Kendal. She and I had settled our differences the other day, but when I went to her room this morning, she left a note on the bed, telling me that she had left to go stay with Tammi and her mother for a while. Said we needed a break from each other, because, according to her, things weren’t working out here. I was so damn mad. I called Tammi’s phone, and as my pitch rose, she gave the phone to her mother, allowing her to deal with me.

  “Lower your tone, Abby,” her mother, Barbara, said. “Kendal asked if she could move in with us for a while. I told her that I wanted to speak to you first. I left you several messages to call me, but I didn’t get a return phone call.”

  “I don’t know what number you’ve been calling because I haven’t received one message from you. Kendal needs to come home right now. She and I can talk through whatever she claims she’s going through.”

  “She doesn’t want to come home, Abby. She doesn’t like it there. I think it will do the two of you some good to be away from each other for a while. That’s just my opinion.”

  “To hell with your opinion. I didn’t ask for it, nor do I need it. You tell my daughter to come home right now! If she doesn’t, she will never be able to come back here again.”

  “I honestly don’t think she cares. Threatening her is not going to make her want to come home.”

  “Like hell it won’t. I don’t want to come over—”

  “Listen, Abby, calm down. Just let her stay here for a few days. Then we can all get together next week and talk about what’s been going on. Does that sound okay?”

  “No, it doesn’t, but you know what, Barbara? If she wants to stay there, fine. I’m not going to kiss nobody’s ass, especially my child’s who is just spoiled fucking rotten!”

  Not wanting to hear anymore, I ended the call. Just who in the hell did Barbara think she was? I truly felt as though Kendal had betrayed me. I was so worked up that I needed a cigarette. I hadn’t smoked in years, but things were starting to get hectic around here. If I had one of Clinton’s joints, I would have smoked it. Instead, I drove to the store and got me a pack of cigarettes and a stick of gum. As I waited in line, a man behind me kept whispering, “Mmmmm, seeeexy. Damn, you look good. I only wish you were mine. Mmm, mmm, mmm.”

  I tried to ignore him by not turning around. I was clearly annoyed, and after I paid for my items, I left the convenience store. Unfortunately, he followed after me.

  “Ay, ay, you with the big ol’ booty. Don’t you hear me talking to you?”

  I was seething inside. I hated for a man to disrespect me in that manner. Did he really think I would turn around and start conversing with him? I kept it moving, but when he jumped in front of me, that got my attention.

  “Damn, what’s the rush? I was just trying to say what’s up.”

  Talk about a thug, he was that, and then some. Pants hanging down low, eyes fire red from him being high, breath stinking, and lips were very crusty.

  “You said what’s up, now move on.”

  I walked around him, but that was when he grabbed my arm. He sucked his rotten teeth, and his eyes twitched as he narrowed them.

  “You think you too good for me or something?”

  “No, really, you’re too good for me. I’m a crazy bitch. And if you don’t let go of my goddamn arm, I’m going to reach for this gun down in my pants and blow your brains out.”

  Crime in St. Louis had gotten out of control. There was too many innocent people getting killed, and many of those crimes took place at gas stations and convenience stores. I didn’t leave home without my pistol, especially at night.

  He released my arm. “My bad. Have a nice night, li’l mama.”

  “You too, big brother.”

  I walked away, knowing that I had taken a risk by challenging him. He could have shot me dead right then and there. Thankfully, he didn’t.

  As I neared my vehicle, I saw that it was slightly leaning. I looked at my front tire. It was flat. My heart dropped to my stomach as I searched around for someone suspicious on the parking lot. I wondered if my tire had been slashed or if the air had simply come out of it. Something felt strange, so I kept on looking around. It didn’t make sense that someone had been watching me; then again, I wasn’t so sure. I finally bent down to look at the tire, but I didn’t see any slashes or cuts. I did, however, see the dude who had approached me getting into his car. I waved my hands up high to flag him down.

  “Hey,” I said with a smile as he lowered his window. He was smiling too. “Hi. Would you mind helping me with my tire? It’s flat, and I need someone to put the spare on. It’s in the trunk.”

  He nodded and sucked his teeth again. “What’s in it for me? I’ll change it, but what you gon’ do for me?”

  “I’ll go inside, buy you some soap so you can wash your nasty ass. Or maybe buy you some toothpaste so you can tackle that horrific breath of yours. Which one would you like?”

  “Bitch, fuck you! Go in there and buy you some weave. Your bald-ass head looks shitty.”

  His comeback didn’t even faze me. He sped off and damn near crashed his car into a utility pole. I shook my head, thinking about this bad day and night I was having. The upside was I’d finally come across a man who was willing to help me. He removed the tire, showing me a thick nail that had punctured it.

  “You must have run over this,” he said. “There’s a little slash here too, but that could’ve come from glass or something else.”

  “Thank you,” I said as he put the damaged tire in my trunk.

  He pulled out the spare and squatted to put it on.

  “I really appreciate this.”

  “No problem. Just be sure to get a new tire soon. Spare tires don’t last long.”

  I thanked the man again. After he was finished, he went inside to wash his hands. I sat in my car, taking numerous drags from a cigarette that was tightened between my fingers. Today wasn’t a good day for me. My anger had boiled over. I don’t know why so many people kept on disappointing me, and this is what I got for being too fucking nice. I sped off the parking lot, almost hitting a car that was taking too long to exit the lot. As I swerved around it, I rolled my eyes at the woman who was sending a text message with her hands high on the steering wheel.

  “Stupid bitch,” I yelled.

  She didn’t hear me because my window was up. I sped down the dark road, swerving around cars that were going too slow, while continuously puffing on my cigarette to help calm my nerves. They were definitely rattled, and the more I thought about my court date tomorrow, I became so unhinged that I had to pull my car over and take several deep breaths. I clenched my chest, and as I counted out loudly, my heart stopped racing. I started to feel slightly better, thank God for that. As I pulled away from the curb, I hoped and prayed that my trip to the courthouse would lift my spirits.

  * * *

  The following day, I sat in a courtroom filled with people, waiting for the judge to call my name. There was no sign of Brent yet. I wondered if he was still coming. The judge had already made it clear that more detailed cases would be dealt with last. He seemed okay, until a black man stood there with an attitude that pissed him off.

  “Sir, you keep mumbling, and I can’t hear you. Speak up.”

  The man chuckled
and grinned. “I mean, if you can’t hear me, Your Honor, maybe you need to step away from the bench for a few minutes and go clean your ears.”

  Some people in the courtroom had the nerve to laugh. I just looked at the poor fool and shook my head. He had no clue how much power the judge had over him. Cooperation was badly needed. Even I knew that.

  “Get this idiot out of here,” the judge said to the bailiff. “I don’t have time for this.”

  After that, every case he listened to went downhill. Fines were astronomical, he kept cutting people off—it seemed as if he had somewhere else he needed to be.

  “Your Honor,” a prissy petite woman said, “I was not speeding. The officer who pulled me over was very mean to me, and my three-year-old daughter was in the car as well. She couldn’t stop crying because his voice was so loud as he yelled at me.”

  The officer defended himself as the woman dabbed her teary eyes. Today, the officer seemed very polite. “I never would have yelled had she not cursed at me and threatened to call her husband who’s a lawyer. She made ongoing threats about him having the power to have me fired.”

  The judge put a stop to the madness when he gave the woman a hefty fine for speeding and for not wearing a seat belt. Basically, her tears didn’t work. That made me nervous, and when I looked up and saw Brent enter the courtroom with his wife, I became even more nervous. They were holding hands. Both of them had on suits; his was black, hers was navy. She wore it well and her black high heels made her look taller. She looked at me, my hair in particular, and rolled her eyes. I looked rather nice too. The white ruffled blouse I wore, along with my gray pencil skirt, was suitable for the courtroom. I didn’t want too many of my curves to show. The more conservative, the better.

  “Is Abigail Wilson in the courtroom?”

  I quickly stood. “Yes, Your Honor, I’m here.”

  “Step forward. Do you have an attorney with you?”

  “No, sir, I don’t. I’m here representing myself.”

  My legs shook as I stood at the wooden table in front of him. My palms were sweaty, and I took a deep breath because my stomach was starting to hurt. The pain deepened more when he called Brent’s name. He was asked the same about an attorney, but Brent replied that he didn’t have one either.

  “The person I brought with me today is my wife. She’s been subjected to some of the terror Miss Wilson has brought our way, and she’s my witness.”

  Yeah, yeah, whatever, I thought, terror, my ass. Brent knew better. From the way he had spoken, I could tell he was prepared.

  “If I have any questions for your wife,” the judge said, “I’ll ask her to step forward. Meanwhile, ma’am, please go have a seat in the courtroom.”

  Ha! I wanted to shout out loudly. She wanted to be by Brent’s side, but the judge wasn’t having it. He summarized the charges against me and asked for a plea.

  “Not guilty, sir. May I please tell you why?”

  The judge peered over his glasses, looking at me, and then at Brent. “Okay, folks. What’s going on here? You first, Miss Wilson, and please make it brief.”

  I quickly went into great detail about how Brent had abused me, used me, and refused to let the situation go. My photos backed up everything, especially the photo I had recently taken of him lying on his bed with no clothes on.

  “For whatever crazy reason . . .” I said tearfully as the judge flipped through the photos. A frown was on his face. He sighed too. “I still love this man with all of my heart, even though he has done me wrong. I knew that being intimate with him the other day wasn’t the right thing to do, but he was so forceful. I just didn’t want to fight with him again. I tried not to fight with him, even when he made me cut my hair off so I could look more like his wife.”

  Brent just couldn’t bite his tongue and wait until he was called on to speak. Had he been here earlier, he would have known that the judge was not in the mood for his outburst.

  “She’s lying!” Brent barked as he looked at me. “I can’t believe you’re lying like this. Just who are you, Abby, some kind of psychopath?”

  The judge’s face was twisted as he looked at Brent. “There will be no such talk like that in my courtroom. Do not speak unless I ask you to. And don’t you say another word to her.”

  Brent shook his head in disgust. The judge addressed me again. “Tell me about the school incident. Why were you there?”

  “Because Brent had jumped on me the night before. I was so upset after I left the hospital, and I really wanted to do something that would make him stop this. I confronted him at work, but it was never my intentions to scare those children. Brent was the one who started yelling at me, and then he ordered his students out of the classroom. He was the one who scared them, and after they left, he punched . . .” I paused to wipe a tear and swallow the lump in my throat. “He punched me in my face for coming there. But all I wanted to do was talk to him.”

  “Come on, Abby,” Brent shouted. “Quit lying! I did not punch you. I have never, ever put my hands on you, and you know it!”

  The judge responded before I did. “If that’s the case, how did she get all of these bruises on her body?”

  Brent shrugged and was unable to come up with the right answer. “I . . . I don’t know. I guess she put them there herself.”

  The judge gave him a look that could have shattered him into a thousand pieces. He glanced at the photos again. “Mr. Carson, look at this picture. Tell me if that’s you, and tell me when that photo was taken.”

  The bailiff gave one of the pictures to Brent. I wasn’t sure which one it was, but I had an idea. Brent looked at it and shook his head. “That’s me, but I can’t recall when the photo was taken.”

  I willingly helped the judge out. “It was taken last week while I was at his house having sex with him. His wife had left, and he invited me to come over.”

  “No, you were having sex,” Brent barked at me again. “I wasn’t, and I never invited you to come to my house. Your Honor, this . . . This crazy woman broke into my home, came into the bathroom while I was taking a shower, and pretended to be my wife. She put a knife to my neck while she performed oral sex on me.”

  There were a few gasps in the courtroom, but dead silence as well. Brent didn’t know how ridiculous he sounded. I wanted to laugh, but in no way would I halt what was about to go down.

  “So, the picture was taken about a week ago?” the judge asked.

  “Yes, I believe so, sir. I couldn’t stop her from taking it because she had a knife in her hand.”

  “Did you report the break-in to the police?”

  Brent sighed again. “No, sir. I didn’t think they would believe me, as you don’t seem to right now.”

  The judge asked Brent’s wife to step forward. She had a mean mug on her face. Her eyes stayed focused on the judge. He hit her with a question that she wasn’t prepared to answer.

  “At any time, did your husband tell you about Miss Wilson breaking into your home, entering the bathroom, and pulling a knife on him?”

  She answered with a straight face. “No, he did not.”

  Boom! I thought. This Negro didn’t even tell her.

  “I . . . I didn’t say anything because she, my wife, has been fearful of this woman. She keeps showing up at our house, following us, making threats—Your Honor, it’s been hell.”

  “The only person going through hell has been me,” I said. “I don’t want to take up much more of your time, sir, I know you’re a very busy man. But Brent Carson wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to be with his wife, but he doesn’t want to let me go. If he would just let go and leave me alone, he and his wife, I’ll be okay. She’s blaming all of this on me, and for God’s sake, look at what she did to my car.”

  The judge flipped through the photos, again, looking at the damages to my car.

  “Bitch, you are good!” Lajuanna shouted. “I can’t even listen to any more of this. Are you done with me, Your Honor?”

  “I
am now,” he said, pointing to the door. “Out! You will not use that type of language in my courtroom.”

  Bye, Lajuuuuanna. This was hilarious. And after she left, or should I say, was ejected from the courtroom, things got even worse for Brent. The judge had the students’ sworn statements about what had actually happened that day. But he was so livid with Brent’s behavior that he didn’t even question why I wrote what I did on the chalkboard.

  “Excuse me, but I lost my job because of her actions! A black man don’t get no justice in the white man’s courtroom . . . This is flat-out ridiculous! I haven’t had an opportunity to tell you all that this woman has been doing to me and my wife.”

  The judge fired back. “I don’t know if she’s been doing anything to your wife, but it is quite clear that she has been doing a whole lot of things with you. I’ve given you ample opportunities to answer my questions, but you seem not to be able to recall certain instances that can help you clear your name. I don’t believe for one minute that Miss Wilson has been innocent in all of this, but I do believe that you have put her, as well as your wife, in a position that seems to have everyone at war.”

  The judge almost had it right. I wanted to clap, but couldn’t.

  Unfortunately, for him, Brent couldn’t control his anger. “No, sir, that is not the case! That is not the fucking case, and I need you to do something . . . anything to stop this woman who is on the verge of hurting someone or getting hurt her damn self! If you refuse to do anything, I will take matters into my own hands and deal with her myself!”

  “Looks to me like you’ve been doing that all along. Maybe you need to sit in jail for a few days and think about your actions. Think about why this is happening to you and figure out a way to calm yourself down. You—”

  Brent cut the judge off as he was speaking. “And maybe all you need to do is just listen. Clean your ears and listen!”

  Well, that just about did it. The last thing the judge wanted to hear was another black man telling him to clean out his ears. At the snap of his fingers, he ordered that Brent spend five days in jail.