by T. Styles
I walked toward her, to tell her I was sorry, but something evil was coming over me. I hadn’t been with a woman in over ten years and Lourdes had a body like a Goddess. I reached to caress her hair and then pulled my hand back as if she could burn me in a furnace of my lust. That’s when I felt my erection rising and then another thought went through my head as I watched her half dressed body. Immediately, I took a step back to free myself of her and the carnal lust that threatened to consume me.
As soon as I stepped into the hallway Diane confronted me as a couple of guys walked by.
“Is everything okay in there?” She asked and brushed at a strand of hair from her forehead, yawning. “Why is she crying?”
“She wouldn’t share it with me,” I lied. “But she’s okay.” My voice sounded strained to me. It felt like I was leaving a crime scene and, in some ways, I was.
“Okay, I’m going home,” Diane, continued. “It’s been a long day. Be sure all the doors are locked. You got my number. If you need anything, call me.” She stifled another yawn and I could see the dark bags under her eyes. I nodded my head and watched her walk off.
As soon as I entered my room, the house phone rang. I started not to answer it but I did anyway.
“Yo, let me speak to Jamal,” a raspy voice with a deep Baltimore accent said. I could hear music in the background along with a woman’s laughter. Something about the voice piqued my curiosity.
“This is Jamal. What’s up?” I asked.
“You, nigga. Mothafuckas on deck, riding around with that rocket looking for your ass and that Brinks truck money. Fuck with a nigga and I’ma make sure shit be lovely for you out here. Feel me?”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and lost my composure. Some nigga was trying to press me. “Who the fuck is this?” I yelled into the phone.
“It’s Steve. Nigga, you know my voice.”
Instantly, my blood turned to ice water. “Steve,” I repeated his name with my top lip curled in disgust.
There was a soft knock at my bedroom door.
“Who is it?” I yelled.
“Lourdes…I need to talk with you please,” she said in a soft voice. I wished that she would go away as I ignored her and focused on the phone.
I held the receiver so tight it felt like I was going to crush it when I spoke.
“Damn, nigga, I come home and this is the respect I get after what you did with Tanya?“ I asked with my jaw clinched.
“Dawg, I’m playing good Samaritan, for real. Tanya don’t even know who the baby daddy is. I just stepped up to the plate. But yea, I hit it. Shit happens, ya heard?”
“No, I don’t know what you mean. I’m the same nigga who, when your daughter was kidnapped, put in the work, put some niggas in the dirt, put my life on the line out of love for you and that baby.”
“I appreciate that but a lot of shit done changed.”
“That’s good because I changed,” I said. “Gave my life to Christ because if I hadn’t, there would have been a problem. I would have camped out in your mama yard with that chopper, waiting on anything that rolled up. You know how I rock. I taught you the game, nigga. And now your name came up in my mom’s murder. What’s up with that?”
“I ain’t have shit to do with that but niggas had been sniffing around your mama crib for years looking for that cheddar.”
“And you didn’t try to stop ‘em?”
“You was gone too long and it’s too many goons in this city. You a street dude, you know what the business is.”
“All I know is you was stealing niggas bombs, about to get wacked in the projects when I took you under my wing. I showed you how to slump a nigga and not get caught, how to dispose of a body, even kidnap a nigga in broad daylight in a matter of minutes.”
“Yea, you did, but I took this shit to another level. Your shit outdated,” Steve boasted and again I heard a female cackle in the background. “Nigga, you need to get on the team.”
“Or what? Nigga, don’t take this religious thing lightly and make me go back into the old me.”
“You’ve been gone too long…”
As Steve talked, I saw some suspicious activity across the street. A powder blue Chevy came to a slow creep in front of the house and just sat there. The windows were tinted and I couldn’t see inside. Several people began to scatter, my instincts told me something was about to go down.
“Fuck with me. Come on out and let’s go for a ride,” Steve’s voice became gritty when he said sinisterly, “Don’t try to buck, you know what this is, my nigga.”
My legs nearly buckled as I watched Steve step out of the Chevy parked in front of the house. Lourdes’ knocking on the door grew louder.
“Come on, man, you can’t be serious!” I shouted into the phone as it suddenly dawned on me what was about to go down.
Lourdes entered the room, probably thinking that I had shouted for her to come inside. She looked like a bundle of nerves as she wrung her hands together rapidly. Her eyes scanned the room and then landed on me. I shot her a warning glare as fear crept through my gut like a serpent. I watched two dudes get out of the car. One of them was slender and tall, and the other guy was muscular with broad shoulders and no neck. He was built like a tank. They each had AK-47s.
“Nigga, this ain’t for me and you. I know damn well you ain’t fitting to do what I think you gonna do,” I yelled into the phone and Lourdes flinched like she wanted to run out the room.
Steve was about to abduct me, take me to some honeycomb hideout and beat and torture me until told him where the money was. I knew this because I taught him ghetto guerilla warfare on how to inflict as much violence and terror as possible in less than three minutes.
Steve was thirteen when I took him on his first caper to abduct Shawn Swanny, an old school kingpin. Now, looking out the window, the tables had turned; karma had come searching for me with an AK-47.
“Man, I’ma keep it one thousand with you. It’s a lot of niggas, thirsty niggas, trying to come off in that bitch to get at your ass. Mike Brown and them niggas was going to run up in there earlier. I don’t know what the fuck you moved to Belair Road for. Tanya even tried to get you to move with her and you wouldn’t.”
“Oh, so she down with the lick too?” I asked.
He denied she had anything to do with it but his slip of the tongue revealed the truth.
I watched him nod at the two dudes with the assault weapons then glance at his watch. They pulled their ski masks down over their heads and rushed toward the house.
“Oh, shit! Oh, shit,” I blurted out and I frantically looked around the room for something to grab, anything to use as a weapon. On the dresser next to a dusty Bible there was a vase containing pencils and pens, and a pair of old barber shop scissors.
Scissors?
I grabbed the scissors just as I heard the front door open with an explosion that sounded like hell’s furry on earth. Someone had been shot and was crying out in pain.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The gunshots resonated again.
In precise military fashion, just as I had taught Steve, he sent his goons to extract me from the house. It wouldn’t take over three minutes, a hundred and twenty seconds of agonizing terror and bloodshed.
I raced over to the door, nearly knocking Lourdes down as she watched me with intense eyes. But I made it there too late. I could hear footfall approaching. I shut the door. My heart ricocheted around my chest as I motioned for Lourdes to hide. Her eyes opened wide with terror. But there was no place to hide in the small room, except under the bed.
Just as she was getting ready to move, there was another shotgun blast; it tore through the door, propelling Lourdes across the room like a rag doll. Wood splinters and debris, along with a plume of smoke, rose in the room. The whole time, I was shaking like a leaf on a tree with the large scissors in my hand. My back was pressed tight against the wall when the tall gunman entered cautiously. All he had to do was look to his right, where I was standing
in plain sight.
“I got him,” I could barely hear him say to his partner. Debris clouded my vision. I think he thought he shot me but he still cautiously entered the room.
With the eight-inch scissors in hand, I held my breath and waited. He took another step into the room. There was no way he was not going to see me pressed to the wall. He took a step forward with his hand on the assault rifle.
Silence.
Something cracked under his feet, but he didn’t look down. I continued to hold my breath. Lourdes moaned and began to move around and that got his attention but it didn’t help much, either. He took another timid step towards her thinking she was me. In the distance, I could hear a siren. The police were coming. I can’t lie, that may have been the first time in my life I was happy to hear police coming.
“Hurry up!” his partner said, and that got his attention.
He slightly turned his head as he walked further into the room. With all my might, I drove the scissors into his eye as far as I could. I felt them hit the base of his skull. He howled sharply as blood squirted in a stream across the room. Inadvertently, he squeezed off a shot that shattered the bedroom window. I grabbed the AK-47 out of his hand just as his partner let off a shot that barely missed my head.
I shoved the dying muscle-bound man into his partner, who then slipped on some blood, sending them stumbling to the floor. More shots were fired. I heard a woman scream and a vase was thrown across the room at the gunman. To my surprise, Lourdes was on her feet and she was bleeding. The tall gunman tried to run downstairs. But he was at a severe disadvantage; he would have to turn his back.
Just as he reached for the doorway, I let off a shot and blew hole in his back. Blood splattered the wall like paint and the blast tore away a large chunk of his rib cage. That was when I saw A.J., one of the participants in the program. He was standing in the door of his room with a look of shock in his eyes. I never liked him anyway. He was probably the inside man that helped set me up. I thought about shooting him too.
“I’m outta this bitch,” I said and turned, looking at the dead man sprawled on the floor with a hole in his chest and blood pooling around him.
“Take me with you,” Lourdes shouted from the top of the stairs. Her voice was a fearful falsetto.
Startled, I turned in her direction. There were tiny cuts on her face. She had a deep gash in her arm from where she was grazed by a bullet. She was lucky to be alive. Her hair looked frizzled, like she had stuck her finger in an electrical socket.
With two dead bodies, another man wounded, and a chick bleeding, there was no way in the world I was going to be able to explain that to the cops. I went back to my room to grab my book bag that still had a few of my meager belongings. With the AK-47 in hand, I stepped over the dead dude with the scissors protruding from his eye and headed for the hallway.
“Take me with you,” she shrieked again. This time, she grabbed my arm with a bloody hand and something panged deep inside of me, as the sirens grew louder.
“No,” I shouted.
This crazy chick ran into her room and grabbed her briefcase and then ran back into the hallway as I checked the magazine in the chopper. The briefcase fell open as she caught me at the top of the stairs. All kinds of cosmetics and what looked at a syringe spilled down the stairs. With agility she managed to scoop each item up as she spoke.
“I’m going with you. Please don’t make me stay here,” she said as tears streamed down her blood-streaked face.
“Listen, shawty, once I walk out of here it’s going to be some serious gun play and bullets flying. Stay your ass in here.”
“I’m going with you. I’ll be okay.”
There was something about her that touched my heart and I hated it.
The moment we walked out the front door, it was on. Steve stood outside waiting by the car for his goons to return with me, their victim. He glanced at his watch again and looked up. The last person he expected to see was me as I stepped out the house, making that chopper sing.
The first shots riddled the Chevy, rocking it so violently the passenger windows shattered and one of the doors nearly came off. Steve jumped two feet in the air, dodging bullets and seeing me fast approaching using the same element of surprise I taught him. The scene could have been comical the way all the dope fiends and hustlers scattered, but it was deadly. Steve pulled out a 9 mm and fired a couple of shots and then took off running, just as a white Baltimore City police car turned the corner. Trapped, Steve could have turned back and engaged me in a gun battle, but instead he fired at the police officers, causing the patrol car to crash into a parked car.
The police returned fire and more pandemonium erupted. I hopped into the blue Chevy and the keys were in the ignition. Lourdes tried to get in on the passenger’s side but the damaged door wouldn’t open. Just as I was about to mash out, burning rubber in the process, she tossed the briefcase in the car and dove into the passenger window headfirst.
Her naked ass hung out halfway and her legs dangled dangerously outside. She eventually pulled herself in and sat in the seat. I pulled over into the parking lot of KFC. A stream of police cars, with their sirens blaring, sped right by us.
“You could have killed me,” she yelled adjusting her skirt. The gash on her arm looked worse.
“I never told you to bring your ass in the first place,” I yelled back at her just as a police helicopter appeared out of nowhere and hovered overhead.
We both stopped yelling. I had the AK-47 on my lap. The sun and my own salty sweat burned my eyes as I squinted up at the sky. The helicopter took off westward. Relieved, I scanned the streets for more cops.
“You may need some medical attention,” I said.
“I just want to go home,” she responded. “I don’t like Baltimore.” Her bottom lip trembled and she hugged herself and began to rock.
“Okay, I’ma get you home,” I said with my thoughts elsewhere. I didn’t even know where home was.
I did know I was in big trouble. The kind of trouble that only Weinstein could get me out of. Thank God that house had cameras to show that this wasn’t my fault. I just hoped the cameras worked.
I turned down Perry Hall because I needed to ditch the car and find a phone and a place to lay low.
Lourdes must have read my thoughts because she winced in pain and yelled, “Let’s stay over there!” She pointed at the La Quinta Inn.
“What?” I asked. There was a partial blunt in the ashtray along with a plastic bag with some weed in it.
“I need a bath and change my clothes,” she continued. “Plus my arm is hurting and if we go there maybe we can think of another plan.” She grabbed the weed out of the astray.
That may have been the smartest thing Lourdes said that day. I made a U-turn in the middle of the street, parked behind the hotel and watched as a young black prostitute walked into a room with her white trick.
I didn’t have any money for a room, but to my surprise, Lourdes opened up one of the cosmetic cases and took out a crumpled wad of cash. “Officer McDonough gave it to me before she left.”
I shrugged not knowing if she was a whore or an addict. It didn’t matter because she saved us and I was able to rent a room. Ironically, they placed us on the backside, right next to where the young prostitute and her trick were lodged.
Once in the room, I headed straight for the phone to call my lawyer. Lourdes placed her briefcase on the bed and switched on the T.V. with the remote. Immediately, my prison picture appeared in the end segment of the newscast.
“Jamal Shield, who was arrested a decade ago in connection with an armored truck heist, is armed and dangerous. If you see this man, you are asked to contact the police.”
Lourdes’ jaw dropped as she looked at me befuddled. All I could do was stare at the TV, stunned. How was I going to explain this to my daughter? I had let her down.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LOURDES
When I opened the bathroom door, and dropped the towel t
o my feet, I submerged myself in a cloud of steam. Slowly, I eased into the tub and allowed the warm water to relax me. The clear water was now pink, tinted with my blood.
I removed fragments of glass from my face and the wound where the bullet grazed my arm was throbbing. I was in the worst pain I had ever experienced in my lifetime.
I still didn’t understand what happened. How did I get there? One minute, I'm in the basement of the school witnessing a murder, and the next I’m witnessing many more deaths at the hands of the man who was charged with protecting me.
With all of the questions looming over my head, what I wanted to know the most was who was Jamal? When we were at the home, I saw him murder people like they were targets in a video game. Like their lives were unimportant and they didn’t matter.
I had no idea earlier today, as I stood in Jamal's doorway preparing to apologize for crying in front of him, that it would end in me being pushed into a metal rainstorm that would alter my body, and give me a brush with death.
When the water was so cold my fingers and toes wrinkled, I rose from the tub, and tied a hand towel around the wound on my arm. Afterwards, I slipped back into my bloody miniskirt and top, and wiped my hand over the foggy mirror. I took a moment to observe my face.
Part of me wanted to cry when I saw the scars but the other part wanted to cry because of the horrors I witnessed today. Instead, I took a deep breath and made a new decision. I would never cry again, for anyone, or anything.
After putting makeup on my face, using my products, I opened the bathroom door. All of the lights were out but the moon offered a little light. In the bed closest to the window, I saw Jamal lying sideways. His body was faced the window and even though I was scared of him, I couldn’t help but feel that he was not the monster he was made to be.
I switched on the lamp and the muscles on his back twitched. His body appeared to shine against the dim lamp, which sat between the twin beds. Why did he move me so?