by Coffee
He wasn’t fooled into thinking this would be an easy feat. G’Corey even suspected it would be a long shot but he was a gambling man.
Finally making it onto the freeway, he thought back to the day he knew he’d come face to face with this moment.
A week ago…
“Wake up! I said wake up!” Mama Dee stood over her son as he lay sleep on her living room sofa.
G’Corey groaned as he came into a state of consciousness, still laying with his back toward her. “What, Mama? What you want?”
She was irritated and if he would have rolled over and opened his eyes, he would have been able to see the frustration on her face.
“What I want is the damn truth. Now wake your ass up.”
G’Corey blew out hard before jerking the covers from off of him, swinging his feet to the floor and sitting up to face her. “Damn! What you waking me up for?”
She raised the back of her hand, stopping it at her neck line. “Boy, I outta slap you for taking that tone with me.”
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he readjusted his attitude. “What’s up, Ma?”
“Are you ready to tell me the truth about you and Minnie?” she asked, holding the morning paper in her hands as she stared down at him.
“Ma, what are you talking about? I’ve told you the truth. Me and Min—”
“Bullshit! No you haven’t.”
“Ma, I didn’t come over here for this. I told you that me and Minnie are having some problems that we’re working out and once she says I can come back home, I will happily leave yours.”
“When was the last time y’all talked about making things right for the baby’s sake, if nothing else?”
“I’m giving her space but we talked a couple of days ago. Why you with all these questions?”
Her mouth curled into a tight knot, giving the appearance she had no lips. “When did you begin feeling like you had to lie to me? Your mother!” She raised her voice.
G’Corey stood to his feet and blared, “I’m not lying about jack!”
Her eyes bucked with surprise, seeing her son chest up to her. She dropped the paper and began slapping him. “Who is you talkin’ to? I will take you the fuck out!”
“A’ight. A’ight. A’ight. Damn!” He carefully blocked her hits while trying to pin her arms to her side. “Stop hitting me and tell me where all this coming from?”
She pulled away angrily, bending down to the floor and picking up the Lagniappe section she pulled from the Sunday’s newspaper. She shoved it in his face. “Y’all reconciling things, huh? If that be so, tell me how is she getting married next week? When did y’all get a divorce? What’s going on with my grandbaby? When were you going to tell—”
Mama Dee was hollering and carrying on but G’Corey couldn’t register a word of it when he saw in black and white that Yuriah LeBlanc and Minyoka Mitchell were planning to marry.
G’Corey fell back down onto the sofa with his head hanging low, looking down at the paper. A ball of emotions rushed over him but the one most evident was shock.
“What the fuck? When did she divorce me? I never got no papers? This shit is a fake. Gotta be because she’s a Daniels, my wife, with my baby. My baby? What did we have and when did she have it? What the fuck is really going on?” G’Corey thought to himself.
After he read the sordid details of how they planned to wed, his eyes gravitated back up top to their picture. Yuriah caught an elated Minnie inside of his arms with their lips glued together.
That told him much although he wrestled not to believe it.
He wasn’t oblivious to the hurt he caused her, but there was no pain on the planet that should have prevented her from telling him about the birth of their baby and her desires for a divorce.
She moved on and that reality seared his heart like the scorch of a branding iron.
He was suspended in a state of stupor until Mama Dee slapped him on the back of the head, forcing him to the here and now. “Answer me.”
He threw his hand up to brick wall her as he rose to his feet. “Not now.”
G’Corey folded the paper, placing it under his arm as he slid on his tennis.
“Where are you going?” she questioned.
He didn’t answer. He just grabbed his keys, phone and wallet before heading out of the door.
Mama Dee shook her head as she followed him out of the house with her hands on her hips. Judging the look in his eyes, she could tell he was up to something.
G’Corey tossed the paper onto the seat, pulled out and headed to Black’s. He wasn’t certain what he was going to do but he was sure he needed a burner for whatever plan he’d come up with.
G’Corey was finding it harder to focus on the road. He was nodding off, going in and out of consciousness.
Virtually slumping over the steering wheel and barely lucid, he still managed to push sixty mph while weaving through traffic. That was until his head completely fell slack and his foot rested heavier on the acceleration, propelling his speed even more until sudden impact brought him to an eerie stop.
Chapter 7
The EMT’s hurried Yuriah through the doors of Mercy Hospital, briefing the attending physicians on his status as they jogged alongside the gurney.
“We have a GSW victim, appears to be in his late twenties early thirties. The insertion of the chest tube on the right side revealed massive hemothorax…”
The medical team took him to the back and began fulfilling the reasons they became doctors, to save a life.
Minnie and her parents arrived minutes after the ambulance had. Mrs. Mitchell let them out at the ER’s entrance as she looked for parking.
Minnie hiked her dress up and kicked her shoes, leaving them where she took them off.
Once inside of the facility, an air of uncertainty hovered around Minnie, suffocating her.
The sight and sound of the hospital overwhelmed her, bringing her grim reality to the forefront. She slowed down to a crawl.
“Baby girl, you alright?” Her father detected change in her stride as he held her by the arm.
“My husband’s been shot,” she mumbled before her eyes rolled to the back of her head, collapsing afterwards.
“Help!” He called for assistance as he laid her flat on her back. “Someone?” Mr. Mitchell caught the attention of a passing medical staff member.
She kneeled down beside her, taking her pulse. “What happened?”
“One minute, she was walking and then the next, she blacked out.”
“What’s her name?”
“Minnie.”
In a calm voice, she began speaking to her. “Minnie, do you hear me?” She tapped her on the shoulder lightly a few times. “Minnie, can you hear me?”
A few seconds elapsed before she opened her eyes. When she came to, she tried sitting up but the nurse removed her jacket and folded it under Minnie’s head, encouraging her to lay back down.
Minnie tried resisting but between the nurse and her father’s pinning her by the shoulders, she couldn’t budge an inch.
“I have to check on my husband.” She cried in a pleading manner.
“You just fainted. I need you to lay her for a little while but I’ll check on him. What’s your husband’s name?”
“Yuriah. Yuriah Leblanc.”
“Don’t move. I’ll get a follow-up, okay?” She looked to her father. “Make sure she doesn’t get up.”
He bobbed his head and coaxed his daughter into calming herself.
Ten minutes later, she returned and assisted Minnie to her feet and walked her into the waiting room area where Kamal and a few other members from the wedding party waited.
“I checked on your husband. There isn’t anything to report other than he is alive. Our doctors are doing everything to stabilize him here, but he will need to be transported by helicopter to Charity for his major surgery.”
Minnie panicked. “Wh—why can’t he be treated here?”
She reassuringly grabbed her ar
m. “We’re not a trauma facility, but God willing, we will do everything in our power to sustain life and get him over to one that is.”
Minnie began to shake as her anxieties kicked into high gear. She heard but then again she didn’t hear what was being explained. All she knew was she was in a predicament that could turn the white dress she was wearing into a black one.
***
Twenty minutes later, Elias arrived at Children’s. He didn’t get the chance to tell Samiyah he was coming but given the situation, he assumed she would know he would.
His thoughts were so jumbled with the unfolds of his day he couldn’t get his mind right. All he knew for sure was that he’d do whatever it took to get his peachy baby straight and he’d deal with her actually being his when it was all said and done.
He parked his truck in one of the vacant spots in front of the hospital and got out of his vehicle in a hurry. He was about to walk into the entrance when he saw one of two guards drop their keys seconds before bending over to retrieve them. It then occurred to him that he didn’t lock his doors.
Elias patted his pockets for his keys but they weren’t on him. He made a gruff sound and turned back around to retrieve them from out of the ignition where he absentmindedly left them.
Fifteen steps into the brisk jog back to his Escalade, Eli stumbled forward in a tumbling manner.
“Aaaahhh!” A groan escaped Elias’ lips as he barely caught himself from falling to the ground. He then grabbed the back of his pounding head as he spun around and locked eyes with Gerran, who was now charging at him.
He considered the fact that Gerran would be on one but he didn’t think he’d pull a hoe move and sneak him from behind.
Eli felt ambushed and if talking man to man was ever on Gerran’s to do list, he ruled out those chances because now it was time to lock horns.
Gerran got up on him and threw a clobber type punch. Had it connected across Eli’s face as he intended, it would have damn near knocked his head off of his shoulders. But Eli swiftly ducked the throw as if he was going underneath a clothesline and countered with a direct jab to Gerran’s throat. That stopped him in his tracks.
“Huah! Huah!” Gerran choked for air as he clutched his neck and dropped down to one knee.
Amped up and pissed off, Elias was seconds away from laying a hard right across his jaw but security ran up on him, suspending his cocked arm in the air.
Tussling to get Eli to back down while in the midst of his aggression proved to be a bad idea for the guard. In full beast mode, Elias elbowed him in the mouth to get him to unhand him.
“Let me the fuck go!” Eli barked.
Security had been at the door to clearly see he was only defending himself and there was no need to treat him like he agitated the fight to start.
The officer massaged his chin slightly before making a stronger effort to contain his wild movement.
With Gerran neutralized and unable to attack, Ronnie rushed over to his co-worker to help assist in restraining an uncooperative Elias.
“This some bullshit! What the hell you cuffing me for?” Elias was furious.
“Public fighting, sir.” One of the men responded.
“You saw that man run up on me. So what the fuck?” Elias tried stating his case.
“I did and I’ll let the police know what I saw but I’m still gonna have to hold you ‘til they arrive.”
“What? You gotta be shittin’ me.” Elias couldn’t believe what was happening.
“I’m sorry, man. I really am. But this is protocol and it’s my job.” Ronnie leveled with him.
Once they immobilized Eli, the other guard headed over to Gerran, who was now back on his feet. He had his second wind.
“Hands behind your back, sir. Let’s just do this the easy way.” Security walked over cautiously toward him, showing his silver bracelets.
Gerran’s hands were balled into knots. His chest heaved up and down as his nostrils inhaled air and then exhaled fire. He stared down Elias, who was equally upset with his ass too.
Eli looked over at Gerran, pathetically, shaking his head. He wasn’t the only one jacked up over Samiyah’s baby daddy shocker. Eli still couldn’t come to terms with it and had Gerran been man enough to talk to him like one, he would have known there was malice against him when the slip up happened.
A third guard came up from behind Gerran and cuffed him before he had the opportunity to follow his predator’s instinct and rumble with a vulnerable Eli, who was disadvantaged by his chained limitations.
Gerran grimaced and made agitated sounds as he was surprised by the metal confinements being placed around his wrists, but he said nothing as he was escorted inside of the facility.
Once Gerran was secured in a separate room, Ronnie walked Eli into another room where he too would be detained until the strong arm of the law came. As the young guard was leaving out, Elias called out for him.
“Say, bruh, can you at least get my keys up out my shit and leave them at the desk for Samiyah Babineaux to pick up or something?”
Ronnie allowed his eyes to drop to the floor as if he had to ponder doing the decent thing. “Alright,” he bobbed his head. “What’s your vehicle’s description and location?” Elias gave him the year, make and model and directed him to where he parked. “I’m going to need to verify the registration against your license before leaving them for the young lady.” Ronnie looked at the disgusted look Elias shot him and threw his hands up as if to say, It’s protocol.
“Whatever. Do what you gotta do, dawg.” Elias wolfed his frustrations.
Ronnie walked out of the room, locking the door behind him. When Eli heard the click of the shut, he slouched down in his seat. Hands cuffed behind his back, he shook his head and complained out loud. “Can this day get any more fucked up than it already is?”
Chapter 8
Several hours later, Yuriah was brought into Charity Hospital’s trauma unit where he was rushed into surgery.
News of G’Corey’s fatal attempt on his life traveled as quickly as an amber alert, so everyone within his family unit showed up in droves.
The waiting room was filled with talks of optimism from some and retaliation from others.
More of his peoples trickled in as time elapsed, one of them was on fire and in desperate need of answers.
Keyz ran into the ER and hustled his way to the nurse’s desk, oblivious to the recognizable faces surrounding him. He had a one-tracked mind, which was to check on his brother.
Once he stood before the woman who greeted him plainly, he placed his hands on the partition to sturdy himself because he was moments away from losing his shit.
“Yo, I’m looking for Kamal Jones,” Keyz said on short breath.
She looked up at him and then to her scene and began punching the keys on the keyboard. Only seconds went by but already she was taking too long.
“We don’t have a Kamal Jones in our—”
“Look again!” He impatiently cut her off.
“Sir, I checked and we—”
She was stopped short in her tracks. This time by the interruption of another man.
“Keyz,” Kamal called from behind him.
The sound of his voice brought a sense a relief to Keyz instantly. He then rushed up on his half-brother, extending his hand to him. They connected in a dap and pulled each other into a G-hug.
“You good, boy? I thought you got shot.” Keyz was automatically breathing easier to see that it wasn’t so.
Moments later, they broke their embrace. “Shot at but this blood on me ain’t mine, it’s Yuriah’s.
Keyz shook his head. “Mannn, my fuckin’ heart dropped to my nuts when Shaunie told me what happened. I was thinking it was you who got stretched out and that shit blew the fuck outta me. But shit, knowing it’s Yuriah who caught one don’t make it no fuckin’ better. How is he?”
“I know as much as you. But the fact that they ain’t come over here talkin’ ‘bout speakin’ to next of
kin is good news right about nah. They’re silence is our hope.”
“So, what’s up with the pussy mu’fucka that clapped at y’all?” Keyz spoke on low tone.
“Munch got in the wind after him but he got ghost.”
“That’s an easy fix, ya heard me. Give me his name and whatever else you know. You can keep watch over the big homie and I’ll get a team of hittas together ASAP and light that boy up, dumping his body on Almonaster Rd., somewhere.” Keyz barely moved his lips as he goaled to keep his volume loud enough for Kamal’s ears only.
“That won’t be necessary. It don’t take high numbers to get at a low level clown, so less is best.”
“A’ight,” his reply sounded more sarcastic than it did convincing.
Keyz knew his brother was a fool with it and he didn’t need him stepping in but that didn’t stop him from wanting to handle his lightweight.
Aside from his last name, Kamal was the only connection to their father and he’d be damn if he let somebody get a second chance at taking what was his from him.
Kamal saw the unsettle in his eyes and grabbed him by the nape of his neck firmly, locking eyes with him. “Say, bruh, me and Munch got this, ya heard me. Trust me.”
Keyz never doubted him for a second. It’s just the ink on his right fist that read: I Am My Brother’s Keeper meant there wasn’t a beef Kamal would have to face alone.
“A’ight. Fa’sho,” Keyz pounded him off, sounding believable this time.
Keyz then looked around at all the concerned faces that stood and sat around in the waiting area, not seeing two in particular. “Where Munch and BG at?”
Kamal ran a hand down his face. “Shenae didn’t tell ya girl what all happened?”
“I didn’t give Shaunie a chance. She was all hysterical when she called letting me know to get c’here, ASAP. She told me you were involved in a shooting and I hung up. I didn’t need to hear shit else. I was on the way.”
“Well, Munch got yoked up by them fuckin’ people but Shenae went down there on big dawg status, ya heard me. They got him on gun charges but they can’t hold him. So, they gon’ lay up there and give him his day in court. Once his bond set, his girl gon’ pay that shit and he’ll be out that bitch. But you know it’s the fuckin’ weekend so he gotta sit ‘til Monday.”