by HD HOTEP
“…It’s all an act… We sell an experience…”
Sadie had sold the dreams, the experiences, and her body for almost thirty years. She’d been effective, utilizing all her skills and beauty to the fullest. But never had she stopped ‘acting’. Never had she stopped ‘selling the experience’. Ma Ma Bee had taught her. Molded her. Ingrained certain characteristics within her. And Sadie had used these things to their fullest potential, ignoring what Ma Ma Bee’s teachings had ultimately acquired for Ma Ma Bee; a painful, meaningless death.
She stared at the protesters in front of her home for a moment before easing back to her love seat. Her phone rang nonstop. She ignored most of the calls. Photographers staked out her home, waiting to glimpse the slim, yet curvy lady who had grown to be bigger than belief.
She picked up her card for the 10th time that day, opened it, and smiled. Literally hundreds of faces appeared in her mind. The faces of men and women she’d swindled and robbed blind. I have had my fun, she thought. But now the fun was certainly over. Her home was guarded 24 hours a day. She was stuck, feeling like a near extinct animal in a zoo.
She envisioned a beautiful wedding, a handsome Moe in a full tuxedo. An appreciative crowd of invited spectators. A beautiful baby on the way. A family. True love. A ‘normal’ life. A dream.
“You blew this one Sadie,” she said with a smirk. “But at least you blew it big.”
She reclined in her love seat, feeling like a thick patch of mud beneath a boot, and stared at that card.
You’ll always be my Queen, it said.
Chapter 20
A Lasting Impression
December, 2014
The time had passed like the speed of light, it seemed to Sadie. But she’d preferred it that way. She didn’t want this thing drawn out for an eternity. She wanted to know what would become of her life. She wanted all of this foolishness to be over with. And she’d gotten her wish.
Sadie’s trial had brought numerous people out of the woodwork. People from all over the country. Her nationwide headlines drew the attention of men and women she’d victimized well over ffiteen years ago. Byron Blount, owner of Blount Object Productions, Mr. Lyle Bernstein, and Gabriel Thomas were just a few of Sadie’s past victims who’d ‘jumped on the case.’
Witness after witness tore Sadie apart, even crying on the stand.
“I-I-I… believed her. I believed IN her. She played me for a fool,” Lyle had said, staring directly at Sadie from the witness stand.
The courtroom on each day of her trial had been jam packed to standing room only.
Moe Garrett sat in the crowd, quietly comforting Sadie throughout the trial with his eyes. Numerous victims testified against Sadie. And the individual she’d listened to in the Starbucks coffee shop even testified.
“I knew that Denmark Palacio, also known as Cricket, was selling large quantities of that stuff…”
“Could you clarify stuff for me?” the prosecutor interrupted.
“…uh, the violent, live movies. He was selling her large quantities of them. I even met with her and she seemed very frustrated that ‘Cricket’, I mean, Denmark, had gotten locked up and couldn’t get her anymore new material,” he’d said under oath.
Sadie listened, day after day, to all the hardships she’d caused others. She listened to all the holes she’d assisted others in digging financially, for themselves. People she’d forgotten ever having had dealings with popped up and verbally punished Sadie from the witness stand. The witnesses seemed to be a never ending line of abuse for Sadie. And all of them behaved as if they’d lived their entire lives as Saints.
Damn, Sadie thought to herself. Do these people forget anything?
She sat and took it, her only comforts were the solitude of her team and Moe’s ever comforting eyes. None of her escorts had testified against her. And Denmark, AKA Cricket, had also never mentioned her name, nor agreed to ever having done business with her.
Today, the prosecution would be introducing their key witness, believed to be the nail in Sadie’s coffin. Sadie sat stock still, chic in a Gucci skirt dress and Gucci heels. She shook her head, her hair thrown back over her shoulder.
“…calls Sylvester Simon to the stand.”
Sylvester Simon stood up from inside the court room. He wore a black Brooks Brother’s suit, a Dior tie, and Stacy Adams shoes. He put on prescription glasses by Oakley.
The courtroom fell silent. Several sighs escaped the throats of a few spectators. Sadie’s eyes grew enormous.
Sylvester marched up to the stand almost robotically. His facial expression had changed. His body language had changed. It was as if he was a totally different individual than before. He was sworn in and took his seat. And there before Sadie, the jurors, and the paparazzi, sat ‘Moe’, Maurice Garret, the key witness.
“Mr. Simon, please tell us who you are and what you know of Ms. Beatrice Miller?” the prosecution asked.
Sadie was in a state of shock, petrified, frozen, eyes becoming blurry pools of murky water. Her heart began beating out of control. She began to perspire. She could hardly breathe.
“Something terrible happened to me when I was younger. I was terrified and helpless at the time of this particular traumatizing incident. I vowed never to allow myself to be victimized again. I went back to college and became an almost world class wrestler. Later, I became a bounty hunter and ultimately a skip tracer, locating missing people. From there, I became a private investigator. I’ve worked with the FBI on numerous occasions, assisting them, free of charge, with numerous cases. I’ve had an extensive amount of time to really get to know Ms. Miller,” Sylvester Simon continued.
He took the jurors back to her childhood, up through numerous aliases, including Leona Lane, Evelyn Foster, Goldie Kaan, Charise Gables, Allison Houston, and of course, Sadie Whyte. He broke down the logic for her nicknames, including Ms. Fly Trap, Snasty, and Ms. Oktapussy. He took the juror state to state on a life-long spree of fraud, sex and trickery.
The close-ups of Sadie’s face during Sylvester’s testimony were probably worth more than she’d ever made in her lifetime. One in a billion.
“…Ms. Miller is, I believe, the worst kind of criminal. She’s incapable of feeling emotions or remorse for her numerous crimes, and possibly is incapable of feeling at all. She’s arrogant, purely evil, and what I would refer to as the epitome of menaces to society.”
Sadie stared at him, in pain, enraged, disbelieving.
“…ain’t no good … men… the odds of you findin one is NONE… They’re all tricks…”
This was the man who’d taught her how to enjoy life, to laugh, to be herself. He’d brought her back to life. He’d taught her to care. She thought she’d beaten the odds. He’d even been the reason she’d attempted to give it all up. She’d tried to give it all up, not only for him, but for herself.
“…ready to give it… up. I’m tired. I want to be real with people, with you, with myself…”
He knew she’d tried to give it up. But he’d persuaded her to continue, she thought, still in a state of shock.
“…I think you should go with it… I don’t want you to stop…”
And now, he’d told the jurors that he believed she was incapable of feeling. But Sadie knew that Sylvester knew she’d fallen in love with HIM.
This couldn’t be possible, Sadie thought, tears streaming down her face.
***
Harlem, New York
1986
“He was makin me fuck him. I told him I ain’t want to,” she said, grabbing her clothes.
The overweight Sylvester scrambled into the sitting position with an expression of disbelief on his face.
“She’s lying man. She’s lying.”
Sylvester had never been so afraid in his life. The huge gentleman who had taken his money had scared him in a way that changed his life. He vowed never to be placed in such a vulnerable situation again.
***
Sylvester Simon was ex
perienced, the crème of the crop. His success record was 18-0. He did not miss. He was professional, thorough, obsessive, and determined to win. He played no games. And finding that, secretly, he’d also been one of Sadie’s victims many moons ago, made his mission to put an end to her all the more personal.
He knew of her childhood. He knew she’d been raped on more than one occasion.
“I remember doing a little time for assault. A guy was in an alley trying to rape this girl… I CARE what happens to people…”
He’d gauged her psychology and used it against her. She’d been mentally and emotionally scorned. She was a nymphomaniac, so he’d teased her. She was confident to the point of cockiness. And yet, beneath it all, she was insecure, consciously living a lie. And behind his friendly, even goofy, harmless front, he’d gotten inside her skin.
“I don’t believe punishment is what Ms. Miller deserves. I don’t believe Ms. Miller is capable of rehabilitation. And I don’t believe she can simply be deterred from committing crimes in the future. What I believe Ms. Beatrice Miller deserves is permanent incapacitation,” Mr. Sylvester Simon said with finality.
When he crushed Sadie with his last statement, he didn’t have a hint of anger in his tone. He wasn’t emotional at all. He spoke matter-of-factly and appeared to be speaking about nothing more important than a college football game.
Sadie opted to take the stand in her own defense, against her counsel’s will. She’d been told that she’d be diced on the witness stand in a cross examination. But she didn’t care. She had nothing left to lose. She might as well already be sliced up and bleeding like a chicken being de-boned. She’d been hit with everything but the kitchen sink. So, why not the kitchen sink, she thought.
Sadie charged to the stand. The courtroom took on a hushed tone. She took her oath, swearing to tell nothing but the truth. She sat down, peering out at the on-lookers, poised in spite of herself.
“Ms. Miller…” the defense attorney began.
Sadie stared at Sylvester Simon, making sure he saw her eyes, and spoke, cutting the attorney off in mid-sentence.
“…I’M PREG-NANT!” she declared, staring directly into Sylvester’s eyes.
She’d over articulated the word ‘pregnant’. The implication was obvious. The courtroom went into an uproar, so completely from the obvious implication of Sylvester’s pending fatherhood that it took the judge 15 minutes to regain “… Order!”
“I’d NEVER get pregnant, unless I was in love… NEVER been in love…”
***
May, 2014
“I love you too Sadie,” Moe breathed into her ear, convulsing and shuttering before lying limp-bodied above her.
Moments later, Moe raised up and pulled out of Sadie. His eyes grew wide. Sadie stared back at him with equally as wide eyes… and smiled. Moe knelt above Sadie, the condom he’d worn torn apart and wrapped around the base of his now sagging shaft.
***
Before order could be thoroughly regained in the courtroom, Sadie leapt from the witness stand and began ramming her stomach repeatedly into the edge of the table-top encircling her seat. She stared at Sylvester as her dress turned red. She continued thrusting her belly into the pointed edge of the table-top with all her strength, her eyes locked onto Sylvester. US Marshalls charged her. Tears streamed down her furious, contorted face. Her dress grew thick with blood.
And this time, the expression on Sylvester’s face was worth much more than any dollar amount. An expression that would be etched in time eternally, an earth shattering sight to be remembered, living on, just as tales of the legendary, immortal, Sadie Whyte would never cease to exist.
“It’s all a game… baby… They’re all tricks…”
End