by E. N. Joy
“It has everything to do with us when you are rooting for him and cheering him on, blaming the women and calling them gold diggers. I’m an independent woman in the sense that I do my own thing. I don’t clock in for anybody. I started my own business, and I’m my own boss. Is that too much for you? Does that intimidate you? Make you feel less needed?”
“I don’t even want to watch it if it’s going to cause us to argue.” Lynox went for the remote, but Deborah quickly grabbed it so that he couldn’t turn the television off. “Then you can watch it by yourself. I’m not doing this.” Lynox pulled the covers over himself as he simultaneously turned away from Deborah.
Before he knew it, Deborah threw the remote at the sixty-two-inch flat-screen television, which was mounted to the wall, cracking it.
“What the . . . ?” Lynox said, quickly sitting up in bed. His eyes traveled in the direction of the cracked television. “What the heck is wrong with you, woman? I know you have lost your mind now. Look what you’ve done to our television.” Lynox wasn’t furious as much as he was shocked.
Deborah looked at the television, shocked herself that she’d snapped that quickly. She hadn’t taken the consequences of her actions into consideration before acting.
Lynox snatched the covers off of himself and walked over to the television to take a closer look. Realizing that there was nothing that could be done with the now fizzled-out screen, which emitted only sound, he looked to Deborah. “You really wanted to throw that at me, didn’t you?”
Deborah put her head down.
He walked over to Deborah’s side of the bed as he spoke. “I’m not going to put up with this, Deborah. All of this because I didn’t want to finish talking about that nonsense of a show? Something that ridiculous set you off? That scares me.”
“Well, you had plenty to say at first, when you were talking about that cheating bastard. I was watching you watch television as if you wished you were that man. That’s what scares me.”
“Well, do you want to hear something really scary?” Lynox said, not waiting for Deborah to reply before continuing. “If things get to the point where I feel like the next time it’s my head and not that television, I’m not sticking around. And just know one thing. If I go, my boys go with me.”
Hearing that—hearing Lynox say that he would take her boys away—hit a nerve with Deborah. She jumped up out of that bed like a cat and landed square on her feet in front of Lynox. “Nigga, I wish you would!” Deborah snapped.
Lynox was appalled. He did not care for the use of the N word in any shape, form, or fashion. Nigga, nigger, and Negro were all ugly words in his book, even though he usually let her slide with the word Negro. He would never use those words around his sons or ever allow them to use them. And he dang sure wasn’t going to stand there and allow his wife to call him one.
“What did you call me?” Lynox had heard his wife very clearly. He wanted to give her a moment to think about what she’d just said and take it back, right before she vowed never to use that degrading word in their home again.
“You heard what I said, nigga,” Deborah said, not backing down one bit. He’d expressed to her many times that he didn’t care for that word, no matter the color of the person who was saying it. This time Deborah put so much stank on the word, it was like she’d taken her nails and scratched them down Lynox’s bare chest as hard and as deep as she could.
“Wow. And you call yourself a Christian.”
“Oh, honey, if I wasn’t, you best believe I’d be calling you something far worse than the N word, what with you talking crazy, saying some you gon’ take my boys from me.” Deborah rolled her eyes.
“Oh, I guess you’ve watched so much ratchet reality television that you’re acting like these women.” He flung his hand back toward the broken television. “I guess next you gon’ start clapping your hands to each and every syllable that you pronounce. You already calling me out of my name, so I guess next you’ll be calling our sons out of their names too.”
“I’m warning you, Lynox. You better stop bringing my boys into this.”
“Our boys,” Lynox retorted, correcting her. “And whenever it comes to the safety, well-being, and peace of mind of my boys, I will not bite my tongue.”
“You know darn well I’m a good mother, so don’t even go there. I wish you would try to take them from me. No judge in his right mind would give you custody. You’re always somewhere writing or away touring. At least when you were always writing, you’d be here at home. Now you’re not even home, for the most part, when you’re writing.” Deborah was referring to the fact that Lynox had been spending a great deal of time working with Reo. “I’m the one at the PTO meetings, the parent-teacher conferences, the doctor’s appointments. I’m the one doing homework and everything else.”
Lynox typically didn’t engage in all this tit for tat with Deborah. Actually, for the better part of their relationship, they had never really argued. But in the past few months, that was all Deborah seemed to want to do. Now it was to the point where she was forcing Lynox to act out of character and respond to her.
“Yeah, but I’m the one who makes enough money so that you can stay home and do all those things,” Lynox retorted.
“Stay home and do all those things?” Deborah repeated, the very words leaving a bad taste in her mouth. “I don’t just stay home. I work too. Yeah, you might pay for the mortgage and all the bills, but you would be doing that whether I was here or not. But as far as you taking care of me and paying my personal bills . . .” Deborah shook her head. “I don’t think so. I pay my own car note. I get my own hair done, nails—”
“As you should,” Lynox snapped back. “It’s your car, it’s your hair, and they’re your nails. Why do black women think a man has to do all that for them?”
“Oh, so let me guess. Now I’m a gold digger, like the women on television? All black women just gold diggers with attitudes. Well, need I remind you that you are married to a black woman? But I guess you want you a white woman, then. Or one of them light-skin girls, like Klarke.” Deborah thought for a minute. “I bet she’s why you like being up over at Reo’s so much. Writing this book with him is an excuse.”
“Now you’re really talking crazy,” Lynox said, letting a chuckle come out under his breath. “Why would I be over in that man’s face, trying to get at his wife?”
“As far as I know, they might be into that type of thing,” Deborah said. “Wasn’t one of his little freaky-deaky books about a couple who did that type of thing?”
“That was just a book.”
“Yeah, but Mr. Reo has a thing about hiding his and his wife’s life behind the written word.” Deborah thought for a minute. “You know what they say. Writers always write about what they know. Wouldn’t surprise me if the three of you were over there getting it on.” Deborah didn’t actually feel that way. Yes, Klarke had alluded to the fact that she might have cheated on her husband, but Deborah didn’t honestly believe they were all over there making out.
“You disgust me right now,” Lynox said through his teeth. “I swear to God on everything, I really do just want to go get my sons and get out of here. Give you time to get your head together, because I’m really starting to believe that you are a nut job.”
“Threaten me about taking my kids one more time.” Deborah was enraged, partly because her husband had called her a nut job, but anything about her children superseded that.
“It’s not a threat. If you don’t get it together, you are going to wake up one morning and find me and my sons gone.”
“Ha. Tyson ain’t even your son, so I’d call the police and charge you with kidnapping so quickly . . .”
Lynox had stopped hearing Deborah after she professed that Tyson was not his son. She had said some cruel things tonight, had even called him out of his name, but that right there had taken the cake. She might as well have snatched his heart out of his chest, thrown it on the ground, and stomped all over it. He was frozen, with
hurt etched all over his face.
The look that showed on her husband’s face was one Deborah had never seen before. A pain streaked throughout her being. If only she could reach out and take her words back. But they were long gone, embedded in Lynox’s heart, his mind, forever.
Lynox gritted his teeth together and began shaking his head. His look of hurt and pain quickly resolved into one of anger. “Tyson’s not my son, huh? Well, I guess if I told the judge about how children’s services got called on you before and how you denied even having a son for the sake of getting a man, perhaps he might end up not being your son, either. And that reminded me of something. I was at the peak of my career when we got back together. The fact that you went as far as even denying having a child, because you knew that was a deal breaker for me, just might make you a gold digger.”
At that point, not only was Deborah glad she’d struck Lynox in the heart with her previous comment, but she also wished she had more daggers to throw at him. Since she didn’t, she resorted to throwing her fist. Like a windmill, she began swinging on Lynox. “Muthasucka, don’t you eva, you son of a witch.” She cussed at him and hit him. Cussed at him and hit him. “I wish the eff you would, you witch-butt nigga!”
Lynox tried his best to grab her arms, but she had the strength of a madman at this point. She’d clocked him so hard on the ear that he liked to think his eardrum had busted. She was definitely getting the best of him, but that was only because his mother had raised him better, had told him never to put his hands on a woman. Like he’d told himself before, before he put his hands on his wife, he’d leave her first, and that was what he was going to do if he could get her to stop hitting him and scratching him up.
But her fists were continuously coming at his face, and she was landing some pretty good blows. After so many blows and so much name-calling, Lynox couldn’t take it anymore. He turned his head and pushed her, hoping she’d land on the bed, but when he heard a thump and the cussing stopped, so did his heartbeat. Without even looking, in that split second, he knew something was wrong. He turned to see Deborah lying near one of the night tables, her head leaning up against it.
“Deborah, Deb, honey,” he said, racing over to where she lay. Deborah was nonresponsive. “Deb?” Lynox lifted her head, and that was when he felt the moisture on his hand. He pulled his hand from behind her head and noticed it was covered in blood. He then looked at the edge of the night table and saw a streak of blood on the front corner, which was where her head had slid down. “Jesus.” It was a low call to his Lord and Savior at first, and then it was a loud cry. “Jesus! Deborah, what have you done? Look what you made me—”
“Mommy, Daddy.” There was knock on the door, and Tyson’s voice could be heard calling out on the other side. “Mommy, Daddy. I’m scared.” Terror was in the little fella’s voice.
As badly as Lynox wanted to comfort him, he couldn’t let the child bear witness to the scene in the bedroom.
“Tyson, son, go back to bed. Wait there until Daddy comes and gets you. It’s okay.”
“But I heard Mommy. She screamed. I’m scared. I want Mommy. Did you hurt her again?” Tyson began to cry.
Lynox tucked his lips in and thought. “Tyson, please. Everything is okay. Go back to your room, and Daddy will be in to talk to you in a minute.”
“I want my mommy. I want to see Mommy.” He began to cry even harder.
“Tyson, son, okay. Just wait a minute. Go to your room and wait.”
“But I want—”
“Tyson!” Lynox’s voice was so thunderous, it echoed off the walls.
This only made Tyson cry even louder. Then the baby’s cries filled the room through the baby monitor.
“God, help us,” Lynox said, his eyes filling with tears as well. His family was hurting right now, and he felt so helpless. He didn’t know what to do. But there was one thing he had to do, and that was to call for help for Deborah.
Lynox went and grabbed his cell phone from off the dresser. He dialed 911. Once the operator answered, he spoke into the phone. “Yes, we need an ambulance. My wife was hitting me. I pushed her and . . . she’s bleeding. Please help.” Lynox gave the operator their address, since he’d called from his cell phone and the address hadn’t automatically popped up in the system. After that, the operator asked him a series of questions while she dispatched help to their house.
“Is your wife breathing?” the operator asked Lynox.
He walked back over to Deborah and put his hand on her chest. He could feel her heart beating. “Her heart is beating.”
“Check her pulse.”
Following instructions, Lynox took Deborah’s flimsy wrist and held it between his index finger and his thumb as he took her pulse. “Yes, I feel it.”
“Now put your ear to her nose.”
Lynox did so. A tiny wind hit his ear. “Yes, yes. Thank you, Jesus. She’s breathing. She’s breathing.”
By now Tyson had stopped wailing so loudly, but Lynox still could hear his tiny whimpers through the door. The baby must have cried himself back to sleep, because his wails were no longer blaring through the monitor.
“Good. That’s good,” the operator said.
The operator kept Lynox on the phone, instructing him not to move Deborah, in case she had some type of spinal injury. Since Deborah seemed to be as stable as possible for the moment, the operator decided to throw in some questions for Lynox.
“What happened to your wife again?” the operator asked. “You said you pushed her?”
“Yes. We were fighting. Well, she was fighting me,” Lynox said. “I pushed her. I didn’t mean to hurt her.” As strong as Lynox had tried to be thus far in speaking with the operator, he now broke down in tears.
“Sir, the medics are at your door,” the operator told him.
Lynox heard the doorbell ring. “I hear them. They’re here.”
“Okay. We can end the call, and they will take care of your wife.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Lynox was more than grateful to the operator for helping to make sure Deborah was stabilized and for sending help. He ended the call and walked over to the bedroom door. He turned and looked at Deborah. “I’ll be right back, baby. You’re going to be okay.” Lynox opened their bedroom door and darted right down the steps, not even paying attention to small Tyson, who was sitting against the wall next to the door.
Lynox was going down the steps so fast, he missed one and fell. He managed to grab on to the handrail to stop his fall, but not until he’d slid down about four steps. He pulled himself up and then ran to the front door.
“She’s upstairs,” he said immediately upon opening the door to the medics. He turned and ran up the steps he’d just fallen down. Halfway up the steps, he heard a piercing screech. “Tyson!” The blood drained from his body as he imagined the fear Tyson must be feeling from seeing his mother lying on the floor in a pool of blood. The last thing Lynox had wanted was for him to see his mother like that.
“Mommy, my mommy,” Tyson cried out when Lynox entered the room, followed by the two medics.
By this time, two officers in separate patrol cars had arrived on the scene. One of them rapped on the door while simultaneously entering the house. Upon hearing the commotion going on upstairs, and especially Tyson’s screaming, they drew their guns and scaled the steps. They couldn’t take any chances with a domestic violence call. When they entered the master bedroom, Lynox was trying to pry Tyson off of his mother.
“Mommy.” Tyson had blood on his hands and a death grip on his mother.
“Come on, Tyson. Help is here to take care of Mommy,” Lynox said. “She’s going to be okay.”
“No. Get off of me,” Tyson cried. “You hurt my mommy again. You hurt my mommy.”
“Sir, step away from the boy,” one of the officers said upon hearing Tyson’s words. He tucked his gun back in his holster, but the other officer kept his drawn.
“I need to take care of my son!” Lynox exclaimed.
“Sir, move now,” ordered the officer with his gun drawn.
Lynox looked over and noticed the gun for the first time. The man in him—the husband and the father—just wanted to protect his son, his wife, his family. But that black man in him knew better than to do anything but what the officers had requested. There wasn’t anybody videotaping this event, which might provide a modicum of safety, but then Lynox considered the fact that even when there was proof positive of police misconduct in incidents involving a black man and law enforcement, the officers still got away with unjustifiable shootings and/or injuries. With that thought, Lynox did what he would teach both his African American sons to do, and that was to obey the police regardless. Human survival was based on human behavior. Not only did Lynox want to survive this ordeal, but he wanted Deborah to survive it too. And he could see that his little situation with the officers was distracting the medics, so he released Tyson, put his hands up, and then backed up.
The officer who had put his gun away immediately snatched up Lynox and put him in handcuffs. This only made poor Tyson even more hysterical.
“Come on, son. Let us help your mommy,” the female EMT said to Tyson. “You want us to help your mommy wake up, right?” She spoke in as tender a voice as she could muster.
Tyson nodded and wiped his tears as his shoulders heaved and he tried to catch his breath.
“Okay, then I’m going to need you to go with the nice officer while we help your mommy.” She nodded at the second officer.
Tyson’s eyes followed the direction of her head nod. “Nooo,” he said. “I saw on TV the police shoot black boys like me. He’s going to shoot me.” Tyson cried harder.
“No, baby.” The EMT shook her head. “That was the police officer on TV. This isn’t that police officer. See? Look at him.” She once again nodded at the officer.
Once again Tyson’s eyes went back to the officer. He examined the police officer. Just as some white people might think all black people looked alike, for little Tyson, all police looked alike, and he wasn’t having it. He adamantly shook his head.