The Day the Streets Stood Still

by JaQuavis Coleman

  Sean put his hand on the wall for stability and lowered his head. He had to get his thoughts together before he could face Fox again. He jumped when he heard a light knock on the door.

  “We have time for a quickie,” Adina said softly from the other side of the door. Then she laughed. Sean turned around toward the closed door, his chest heaving wildly up and down. Is she crazy? he thought.

  “Umm . . . nah . . . I . . . I . . . I’m good,” he stuttered. He hurriedly put his dick in his pants and flushed the toilet. He rushed over to the sink, washed his hands and splashed water on his face. Still a bit out of breath, Sean looked up into the mirror.

  You can’t fuck Fox’s lady. Not after all he’s done for you. That shit would be foul and you ain’t living like that, Sean told himself. Loyalty was a lesson Fox had been drilling in his head since he was a little boy.

  Sean swallowed hard, with his nerves on edge; he unlocked the door and turned the knob slowly. When he stepped out of the bathroom he didn’t see Adina. Sean let out a long sigh of relief and headed toward the kitchen. He ran right into Fox and Meyer.

  “Aye . . . you good?” Fox asked, a strange expression on his face.

  “Yeah . . . um . . . I’m good. Listen, I’m about to get out of here. I told you about that thing with Big Mama and the house . . . I need to get her down there early tomorrow to take care of it,” Sean rushed his lies out of his mouth trying to find any excuse to get out of there. He knew Fox was real good at reading him and he didn’t want to take a chance on Fox figuring out what had just happened.

  “A’ight. That’s a real standup thing to do,” Fox said, pulling Sean in for a pound and a quick tap hug. “Call me if you need anything. You know I always got your back,” Fox said with sincerity.

  “Yeah . . . will do,” Sean replied, a ball of guilt sizzling in his gut. Fox walked him out with one last pat on the shoulder. Sean gave Fox a weak smile, guilt keeping him from showing a real one.

  Sean rushed into his car and quickly sped down Fox’s driveway to the gates. Sean couldn’t stop thinking about the hot, pink center of Adina’s pussy and what it would’ve been like to touch it, kiss it and stick his pole all the way into it. Sean licked his lips as the images of Adina’s beautiful box played over and over in his head. He was driving with tunnel vision and as he pulled to the first light after Fox’s street he almost didn’t notice the four black Chevy Impalas in a row that passed him going in the opposite direction toward Fox’s house.

  “Hmph, cops love that car,” Sean said to himself assuming the caravan of Impalas was the police. “Fucking pigs,” he murmured dying for the light to change so he could get the hell away from the area.

  As he tapped his hand on the steering wheel waiting for the light to change, he casually glanced over into this passenger seat and noticed the box sitting there.

  “Aww shit!” he exclaimed, slamming his fists on the steering wheel. “I fucking forgot the rest of his paper! Damn! I never forget to give him his dough,” Sean cursed himself.

  He had put the other half of Fox’s money into a boxed wine set just like Fox had instructed, but when Sean had arrived at the mansion, he had been so enamored with the house, he’d mistakenly only grabbed the gift box. Now, he was riding with the rest of Fox’s money, which was real risky.

  “Nah . . . I gotta go back. I can’t have him thinking I tried to short him. I’m not living like that,” Sean mumbled, shaking his head, disgusted with himself for being so careless. When the light turned, Sean busted a U-turn and headed back to Fox’s house.

  When Sean pulled up, he immediately crumpled his face in confusion.

  “Why they got the gate open? That ain’t like Fox,” he mumbled to himself, an eerie feeling coming over him.

  Sean drove slowly through the opened gates and just as he pulled around into the circular driveway, he noticed Meyer rushing out and climbing into a black Impala. A cold chill shot down Sean’s spine as he watched the car peel out of the driveway.

  “White bastard . . . don’t fucking trust you,” Sean grumbled as if Meyer would somehow hear what he was saying. Sean grabbed the boxed wine set containing the remainder of Fox’s money. He took a deep breath and told himself he would not look at Adina if Fox was around. Sean promised to just hand Fox the box with the money in it, give Fox a pound and rush back out of the house. He knew saying anything to Adina would be too risky because he was still fantasizing about her in his mind’s eye. He couldn’t risk Fox figuring him out.

  Sean walked up the front steps of the mansion and once he was at the top of the steps he immediately noticed that the door was cracked open.

  “Nah . . . Fox wouldn’t leave his shit open,” Sean whispered, instinctively grabbing his gun from his waistband. He pushed the door slowly with sweat forming on his hairline. “Fox? Ms. Adina?” Sean called out as he moved slowly and cautiously into the house.

  “Yo, Fox . . . it’s me, Sean. I forgot to give you the wine,” Sean called out, his voice rising and falling with nervousness. Suddenly that eerie feeling from earlier became more like an ominous foreboding that shrouded Sean like a black veil. His stomach began doing flips, which made him grip his gun even tighter. The silence of the scene took him back to the day he’d found his mother slaughtered.

  “Yo, Fox, man! Answer me if you’re here!” Sean yelled, more frantic this time.

  Sean walked slowly through Fox’s grand foyer until he came to the study. He could see someone sitting behind Fox’s huge desk in the high-backed leather office chair. Sean’s shoulders slumped with relief when he saw Fox sitting at his desk although Fox was slightly turned away from Sean’s full vision.

  “Aye, Fox, man, I came back because . . .” Sean was saying as he stepped closer to where Fox sat.

  “Oh shit! No! No!” Sean barked throwing his hands up, sending the boxed wine set went crashing to the floor. “Nah! Nah, man!”

  Sean pushed the office chair all the way around so he could get a full view of what he hoped was all a bad dream.

  “Fox, man! Nah! You can’t go! Fox!” Sean screamed, shaking the chair as he stared at the two perfect bullet holes in his mentor’s head. Fox’s eyes were opened like he’d seen the shots coming and like he’d taken them like a man.

  “Fox! Fox!!” Sean screamed, falling to his knees. He sobbed for a few minutes, but then, as if a bolt of lightning hit him, Sean jerked around and scanned the room. It had suddenly struck him that he didn’t see Adina or hear her screaming for Fox. Sean scrambled up off the floor, gun in hand; he ran out of the study and bolted toward the kitchen.

  “Adina? Adina!” Sean shouted as he busted through the kitchen door.

  “Oh shit! Adina!” he huffed as he found her slumped on the floor, her hand over her chest, blood covering and seeping through her fingers.

  “Hel . . . hel . . . help mmm . . . me,” Adina gasped, blood bubbling from her mouth, too.

  “I’m going to help you! I won’t let you die!” Sean called out as he grabbed her up into his arms. “I promise,” Sean said with feeling as he rushed toward the front door with Adina in his arms.

  Chapter Five

  Sean sat vigil at the hospital while the doctors worked to save Adina’s life. He had slept in a small chair in the waiting room until his legs and neck were cramped and painful. Each time he closed his eyes, Sean envisioned the gunshot wounds in Fox’s head and the shocked look on his face. Sean surmised that whoever shot Fox had definitely caught him slipping with his guard down, but when Fox saw it coming he had taken death like a man. The first person to pop into Sean’s mind was that white Jew Meyer. Sean promised himself he would make sure he found out where Meyer laid his head so he could pay him a visit. It was the least Sean could do to repay Fox for the years he’d taken care of him.

  “What? What?” Sean huffed defensively jumping up and touching his gun when the doctor tapped him on the shoulder and snapped him out of his sleep. The doctor stepped back and put his hands up in surrender.

 
; “I’m sorry if I startled you. I’m here to speak to you about your friend . . . um . . . the young lady you brought in,” the doctor explained, his voice quivering a bit.

  “Yeah, yeah. Sorry, you just caught me off guard,” Sean said, easing the tension in his body while he stretched. He swiped his hands over his face in an attempt to settle his nerves.

  “It looks like she’s going to pull through. She took a pretty bad hit in the chest, but she was wearing a solid platinum pendant that kind of deflected the full impact of the bullet,” the doctor told Sean. “She’s out of it now, but we are going to take her off of the meds that had induced the coma so we could treat her at the time. When she wakes up, she’ll be looking for someone to be here. You can go in now . . . just hold her hand and be there. We find it helps with the healing in these types of touch-and-go situations,” the doctor went on.

  When Sean walked into Adina’s hospital room his legs went slack and he almost hit the floor. “Goddamn,” he gasped, shaking his head. He had never seen so many tubes and machines attached to a person in his life. He walked slowly over to her bedside, his jaw tense and anger welling up inside of him for the people responsible. Sean did just what the doctor said, he reached out and grabbed Adina’s hand, being careful not to move the intravenous line stuck in the top of it, and held it as tightly as he could.

  “You gotta pull through, Adina. You’re the only connection I have left to Fox. He was all I had out here. He was the only person who could show me how to survive. I need you. You have to pull through this,” Sean said aloud hoping Adina could hear him. He put his head down on the side of the bed and kept a grasp on her hand. After a few minutes Sean felt Adina’s hand move slightly.

  “Adina?” He raised his head slowly, his eyes wide with excitement. His shoulders slumped when he saw that her eyes were closed and she was still out of it. He went to put his head back down but before he could, Adina squeezed his hand with much more force than the first time.

  “Yes! I’m here, Adina! I’m here!” Sean exclaimed, excitement welling up inside of him. Although her eyes were still shut, Sean knew she was still with him. He promised that he would wait there as long as he needed to until she got better. He didn’t know it yet, but he needed her as much as she needed him.

  After two and a half weeks of being at the hospital twenty-four-seven, Sean began going home at night and returning to the hospital during the days to sit with Adina and help her.

  “I’m going home today so just give me the release forms!” Adina shouted as Sean walked into her room from one of his trips home.

  “But . . . but . . .” one of the doctors was saying. A group of doctors stood around dumbfounded by Adina’s ranting and raving when not even three weeks ago she had barely been clinging to life.

  “But shit! I’m out of here! I feel better and I’m not sticking around here for all these people to keep coming and asking me questions, poking at me and shit! I need to bury my man with a proper burial and that’s it!” Adina screamed, disregarding the blood starting to seep into bandages that still dressed her healing wounds.

  “C’mon, ’Dina, calm down, they are trying to help you,” Sean stepped closer to the bed and tried to comfort her.

  Adina shot him a blazing look. “Don’t you start no shit, boy!” she gritted, a nerve at her temple twitching. Sean and the doctors were no match for Adina’s fiery attitude. “Don’t get like them and I won’t have to serve your ass too!

  “Look! Either y’all give me the fucking release papers or I walk out without them . . . Choose, but do it now because a bitch is ready to go!” Adina boomed, coughing afterward which was a clear sign that she wasn’t really ready to go home.

  One of the nurses finally relented and slid a stack of papers toward Adina. Adina snatched the stack and rolled her eyes. “About fucking time!”

  Within seconds she was signing her discharge papers and signing herself out of the hospital. Sean just stood by, his hand shoved into his pockets, waiting to take Adina wherever she wanted to go.

  “Did you bring the stuff I told you to bring?” Adina asked him.

  “Yeah, a few days ago, but I didn’t know this is what you wanted it for or else I wouldn’t have,” Sean said snidely. He walked over to the small hospital closet and pulled out a navy blue silk pants suit Adina had told him to get from her house, along with a short white mink jacket and a pair of beautiful black patent leather Giuseppe Zanotti pumps.

  “What about my makeup bag and my curling iron?”

  “Yep, right here,” Sean replied shoving the Louis Vuitton makeup holder toward her.

  “I’ll be right out,” Adina said, nodding her head toward the door. Sean looked at the door, then back at her.

  “Oh . . . oh you want me to leave while you get dressed?” he said, his face turning red.

  Adina smiled slyly. “What you think you my new man or something?” she said jokingly. “Of course I want you to leave so I can make myself look decent. I can’t leave here looking like I look now.”

  Sean stepped out of the room shaking his head. Adina was a handful and then some.

  When Adina walked out of the hospital room Sean’s mouth dropped open. Dayum this woman is bad! Sean thought.

  He had become so accustomed to seeing Adina a sickly mess in her hospital gown since the shooting that he couldn’t believe his eyes at that moment. Adina was seemingly glowing, her skin looking angelic against the white mink. Although she had bandages on under her clothes, Adina glided in her silk suit and heels like a celebrity on the red carpet. She had pulled her thick hair into a neat, classy bun at the back of her head and applied her make up with the perfection of a professional. Flawless. Bossy. Gorgeous, were just a few of the words that popped into Sean’s head as he watched her.

  “Let’s go, boy. We have an important stop to make before we make the funeral arrangements for Fox,” Adina said, her tone all business.

  “Anywhere you need to go,” Sean acquiesced falling into step at her side. “It’s not where I need to go . . . it’s where we need to go. We both need to know that we can always eat, so business first,” Adina said as she and Sean exited the hospital like they were a couple. Sean wasn’t sure what she meant and where they were going, but without Fox to guide him now, Adina’s lead was the only one he had to follow.

  When Adina directed Sean to drive to the airport he finally broke his silence.

  “I hate to ask a million questions, ’Dina . . . but what’s up with the airport? We flying somewhere?” he finally questioned after driving for what seemed like forever to the airport farthest from their town.

  “Yup, we are, baby boy. I didn’t want you running your mouth or bragging to nobody so I arranged it all from my hospital bed. We going to meet a very important man to make some very import moves. It’s time for you to take the helm, this is what Fox would’ve wanted,” Adina replied like his mother, but touching Sean’s knee like his lover. Sean seemed to contemplate what she was saying for a few minutes.

  “So tell me what’s up before we go. I mean, what is this meeting all about?” Sean inquired further, very aware of Adina’s outwardly sexual pass at him.

  “Listen, baby, you’re going to meet God right now. Not in the literal sense, but almost. God was Fox’s connect before Fox let the white Jew snakes sweeten a deal and steer him to them . . . a move I always told Fox would come back and bite him in the ass and it did,” Adina explained, looking at Sean seriously.

  “God? Who calls themselves God?” Sean asked, his eyebrows dipping low on his face.

  “God . . . mmm, mmm, mmm, what can I say about that man. You’ll have to see for yourself. He calls himself God and he lives up to the name every day. I used to be his sweetie, but me, I was too jealous for the way God lived. He had too many of us beauties and I’m the type of bitch that needed to be number one. I never told Fox how it was between me and God . . . didn’t want to muddy the business waters . . . you know? Nah, never told Fox that I was so in love with Go
d that I was crushed when I finally had to leave him. Fox believed it was me and him against the world, baby boy. Only lie I ever told Fox . . . yeah . . . told Fox God was my godfather when I introduced them. Didn’t feel bad about it neither because Fox would’ve never got where he was without that little white lie. God was good about it, too . . . He played along. He is a businessman over everything else,” Adina recalled dreamily. The lie she told Fox didn’t sit right with Sean, but he hid his feelings about it right then.

  “So, if Fox wasn’t doing business with God anymore why we going to meet him?” Sean asked the next logical question. Adina shot him a look like he was asking the dumbest question on the planet.

  “Look, Sean . . . in everything there is succession. With kings when they die their first born sons take the throne, with the mafia the one who proves himself worthy takes the title as boss, in the streets when the head gets cut down we replace it. Fox is gone, somebody has to take over. I know this is what he wanted for you and I’m not letting you get eaten up by the Jews like he did. You need somebody like God to get you on your feet, so just trust an old lady and follow my lead,” Adina relayed, cracking a beautiful, comforting smile. Sean stared out of his front windshield thinking about and absorbing what she had said. Me taking over? Walking in Fox’s shoes? Hell yeah I can! he told himself.

  “So you ready to go meet God?” Adina asked, looking at her watch and letting out a long sigh afterward.

  “As ready as I’m going to get,” Sean replied. With that, they both exited the car and headed toward the terminal for their flight.

  Adina and Sean landed in Toronto, Canada with no problems. They had ridden in first class and had been waited on hand and foot. As Sean understood it, Adina had simply placed a call to the man she called God and everything had been arranged within days.