“Good, now I can finish watching The Boys put it on them rusty-butt Redskins,” Marvin said, louder than he should have.
Chandelle cocked her head to the side, smirked her displeasure, and began to fume over the way her husband had blown her off for a stupid football game. “So, you really are gonna let me go out into the cold while you sit on your behind watching those scrubs lose another game?”
“Chandelle, don’t start,” Marvin barked, dismissing her.
“Don’t start? That doesn’t sound like a man who cherishes his wife’s safe being.”
“Hey, didn’t you say you were going? Who am I to stop you?” Marvin argued. “Wait ’til halftime, and then I’ll go. Otherwise, pick me up some pork skins and I’ll see you when you get back.”
Yes, something had definitely changed. There was a time, not so long ago, when Marvin wouldn’t have thought of sending his wife out into the elements. Chandelle didn’t understand how it happened or when exactly, but she felt compelled to get at the root of it without wasting another minute. “Marvin, I want to talk,” she announced, while standing directly in front of the television. “So you need to turn that off.”
“Move, Chandelle,” he fussed, trying to shoo her away. “Move, girl, quit playing now.”
Defiantly, she refused to relinquish her position. Instead, she crossed her arms and flashed Marvin a hardened stare. “I’m not moving, so you can either watch the TV through me or you can talk to me. It’s up to you. You can either misssss…!” she screamed when he leaped off the sofa, gently scooped her up, and moved her from blocking his view of the tube. “Oh, it’s like that now, huh?” Chandelle ranted. “You just gon’ resort to putting your hands on me. Uh-huh, that’s the way it always starts with playful nonaggressive manhandling, but before long the pushing, shoving, and slapping starts! Is that what you want to do, Marvin? You want to beat on me?” Although Chandelle wasn’t serious about Marvin hurting her, she was willing to say just about anything to get a rise out of him. It had been a while since he orchestrated one in the sack.
Marvin frowned at her, vehemently objecting to her unwarranted outburst. “Whutever, Chandelle. If that’s what you call me putting my hands on you, you’re slippin’.” When her bothered expression didn’t change in the least, Marvin marched past her. He snatched up a thin jacket off the wooden coat rack near the door. He wrestled it on quickly and felt his pants pocket for the car keys. “Okay, since you want to put on a show. I’ma go watch the rest of the game at Duper’s where ain’t nobody gonna be silly enough to jump up in front of the TV.”
“Ohhh, so now I’m silly!” she sassed. “So, how long have you had that opinion of me? You didn’t used to think I was so silly when you begged me to marry you. Chandelle, I love you, I need you,” she mocked. “Now look at you. All I wanted to do was talk, but you’d rather send me out into the cold so you can watch some stupid team that ain’t worth a bent nickel anyway.”
“Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion,” Marvin said casually, as he searched around the den for his keys. When Chandelle spotted them first, she dashed over to the end table and grabbed them. “Cool, give ’em to me and I’ll head back after the game.”
“Ain’t giving you nothing until you tell me what’s wrong with you. Lately you been hanging out with the boys, and that’s not like you, Marvin. We hardly say two words to each other when you do come home, and that’s not like us.”
“Chandelle, we can talk about this when I get back from the bar. Stop playing and give me the keys,” he demanded, getting more annoyed by his overdramatic wife.
“Uh-uh, not until you tell me what’s so important out there that you can’t seem to stay away from it. What’s at the club that you don’t have here? Drink, we got that. Music?” Chandelle asked, turning up the stereo system loud enough to upset the neighbors. “What? Sounds like music to me. Oh, can it be sex you’re out there hunting for? Nah, I know it can’t be that, because you don’t even want the good stuff going to waste up in here.” Chandelle was exasperated. She’d used everything she could to make Marvin argue with her, but still he refused. He simply stood there with a bothered look on his face that made her want to fight even more.
“Are you through now?” he asked finally. “Can I go or are you not finished with the theatrics?”
“Why not, it’s obvious that you don’t care about us anymore. I don’t know why we’re moving into the house on Friday. What we have here isn’t much of a home; three thousand square feet won’t change that,” Chandelle concluded loudly.
“Now you’re talking,” said Marvin excitedly. “I’m still not sold on buying that big of a house to begin with.”
“Negro, please! The way you were running behind that real-estate agent, you’d have said yes to every house she showed us if I wasn’t there to stop you.”
“Well, she was a hard worker and I appreciated that,” he answered. “It’s hard dealing with people who don’t know what they want. I ought to know. Down at Appliance World, I spend most of my time breaking down my extensive product knowledge, per the salesman handbook, and explaining the differences between the benefits only to have the customers either go with the cheapest appliance or the one that matches what they already got at home. I’m just saying Kimberly’s a hard worker is all.”
“Yeah, I see she did a number on you. Since when did you start calling her Kimberly, Marvin? Have you been talking to her when I’m not around? Y’all got a little thing going on?” Chandelle interrogated.
“Now I know I need to bounce. Give me the keys, Chandelle,” he ordered, sticking out his hand to receive them. “Chandelle, quit stalling and give them to me!”
Instead of complying, she grabbed the waistband of her sweatpants and dropped the keys down inside. “How bad do you want them,” she goaded, “bad enough to take them from me?”
As soon as she smarted off, Marvin lunged toward her. Chandelle shrieked at the top of her lungs, laughing as she skirted around the small room to avoid capture. Marvin chased and Chandelle cackled wildly until he caught up to her. Unfortunately, Marvin stumbled over the sofa ottoman and came crashing down on the coat rack, knocking her against his beloved flat screen. She tried to brace herself but couldn’t. Chandelle and the television slammed hard against the floor. Both she and Marvin watched as a big puff of smoke rose from the expensive television.
“It’s ruined!” he shouted. “Twenty-five hundred dollars down the drain because you wanted some attention! I’m tired of you acting up when you don’t get your way. Look at what you made me do!” Marvin was hot. Admittedly, he hadn’t been as thoughtful as when they initially married, and he did not fully understand why. He still loved Chandelle more than his actions conveyed. He wondered sometimes if she should have married one of the ball players she’d dated before meeting him. Maybe then Chandelle would be happy now. And as a result, maybe so would Marvin. After brooding over the television, smashed beyond repair, he went over to check on Chandelle when it appeared she was actually injured. “You okay, baby?” he asked, sincerely concerned.
“No, I’m not okay, and when are you gonna check on that stupid thing before coming to see about me!” she replied, more salty than hurt. “Maybe now we can talk like I wanted to in the beginning.”
Before Marvin had the time to process Chandelle’s complaints, there were three hard knocks at the door. When no one answered fast enough, they beat on it again.
“What!” Marvin yelled, as he opened the door to find two police officers, one black and the other as white as a snowy day. Neither appeared too happy about being shouted at. “Well, what y’all want?” Marvin asked rudely. “Ain’t nobody selling drugs here, so you might want to go and harass somebody else.”
They took one look inside the apartment, discovering a knocked-over television set, a hole in the wall caused when Marvin went flying into the coat rack that stood next to it, and Chandelle limping over to rest on the sofa. Both cops stepped inside of the apartment then and backed
Marvin against the wall. “Miss, we’re answering a public disturbance call. One of your neighbors reported loud screaming and fighting,” the taller white officer stated.
The black cop had positioned himself between Marvin and the very attractive woman who was adequately filling out those sweatpants in a way that got him extremely interested. “Sistah,” the black one called out to get her attention. “This your husband?”
Chandelle winced while rubbing her hip. “Yeah, we’re married,” she said softly.
“That don’t give him the right to get physical with you, though,” he told her in a comforting voice that Marvin found offensive.
“Say, man! What do you think you’re doing?” Marvin heaved, objecting to the officer using the situation to flirt with his wife.
“Shut up!” the black officer asserted. “I bet that’s one of your problems, you don’t want to listen.” Again, he eyed Chandelle for her approval.
“Man, this ain’t even cool,” Marvin barked. “Y’all just can’t run up in here like this and talk to me like I don’t have any rights.”
“And you can’t go slapping your wife around anytime you feel like it,” the white cop replied.
“Sistah, did he hit you?” the black officer asked Chandelle.
“No, he didn’t,” she answered. “It wasn’t even like that. Besides, it was partially my fault.”
“Yeah, that’s what all battered women say,” the black officer contended. “And I guess that flat screen just tossed itself on the ground ’cause it got tired of working?” His countenance had quickly undergone a sudden shift when Chandelle seemed to be protecting Marvin.
“Look, officers, this is a misunderstanding,” Marvin tried to explain before the black cop shut him up by placing his hand on the holstered department-issue revolver.
“No, I understand real good how this sorta thing goes,” he said. “Miss, you say he didn’t hit you, but it’s obvious you’re shaken up and have been manhandled. How do you expect us to believe he didn’t put his hands on you?”
“Well, yeah, he did, but it wasn’t…” Chandelle uttered before she realized those were the magic words the cops were waiting on. “Hey, hold on,” she hissed, when they charged Marvin with handcuffs dangling from their mitts.
“It’s too late for that, ma’am,” argued the pale one as his partner took great pleasure in doing the honors.
“Homeboy, you picked the wrong day to jump on your girl, and as fine as she is, you deserve to go down,” the other whispered to Marvin, while tightening the cuffs behind his back. “You have the right to remain silent…”
“Ahhh, man. Y’all taking me to jail?” Marvin asked, as he dug his heels into the carpet. “This ain’t right. Chandelle, please tell them I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“She already told us all we needed hear to lock you up for spousal abuse.” That was the white dude backing up his partner. “Anything you or your wife says can be used in a court of law,” he continued sarcastically, as he evil-eyed Chandelle like a jerk who had just been rejected at a nightclub. “That means you oughtta shut up and ole girl should have kept her trap closed too.” He shoved Marvin in the small of the back with his nightstick to prod him along when he saw that there might be a struggle in the making.
“Man, you ain’t got to be pushing that thing in my back,” Marvin snapped, as he exited the small apartment. “Y’all know this ain’t right!”
Chandelle was mortified. It was all happening too fast for her to grasp. One minute they were horse playing, and the next he was in the midst of being hauled off. “I told y’all he wasn’t trying to hurt me. I told you that. Hey! Where are you taking him?” She chased down the stairs behind them, barefoot and beside herself. “Wait. Marvin, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“Go back in the house, Chandelle, you’ve said enough already,” he answered, as they shoved him into the back of the police squad car.
She backed up onto the curb and watched as they drove away, wondering how something so innocent turned out to be so bad.
10
Jailhouse Blues
When the patrol car glided into the underground garage downtown, all Marvin could think of was how improbable the chances were that such a simple misunderstanding turned out so terribly wrong. One minute he was watching a football game in the comfort of his quaint apartment, without Dior lurking about to put more of a strain on his morality. Then, as if someone was playing a cruel joke at his expense, his coveted flat-screen television was sizzling on the floor and two determined cops appeared out of nowhere threatening to beat him for something he hadn’t done. Unlike most of the inmates he was destined to cross paths with during his stint in the Dallas County lockup, it wasn’t he who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, that dubious honor belonged to the men who’d plucked him like a low-hanging fruit from the confines of his own backyard. There had to be someone who’d listen to Marvin explain his misfortune, he reasoned, someone in charge, someone who cared that he was actually an innocent man caught in a net of lies. He was innocent. Innocent.
The black officer, the angrier of the two, who thoroughly enjoyed roughing him up while Chandelle looked on, sneered at Marvin from the front seat of the police cruiser before his white partner opened the back door to usher him out, with steel cuffs tightly binding his wrists. “I hope the ride over was to your liking, Mr. Hutchins,” the angry officer said, feigning a momentary bout of sincerity. “Because there will be a lot of fellas in there who’d just love to ride a big, strong, good-looking buck like you.”
Marvin hadn’t allowed himself to contemplate what potentially inhumane and most assuredly dangerous tribulations awaited his arrival. He had been hyperfocused on the unfortunate circumstances that led him to that point. Now, he would be forced to shift his attention forward while shelving his tragic afternoon in the recesses of his mind.
“Yeah, he’ll be real popular when he hits the pit and the lights go out,” seconded the white cop. “Pretty boys make great slow dancers inside.”
“Whatever,” Marvin replied, adding an extra measure of swagger to his long stride. Having no idea what to expect, he was more nervous than he dared admit. Cops and criminals were a lot alike in one regard, each of them sensed fear like a mad dog. “Ain’t no man gonna turn me anyway I don’t wanna be turned, including neither one of y’all.”
“Did you hear that, Ted?” the black officer growled, as he shoved his baton in the center of Marvin’s back for smarting off. “We’ll find out how hard you are when the night gets cold and mean. Better get your dancing shoes laced up nice and tight, twinkle toes.”
“If you didn’t have that badge and gun, I’d beat you right out of your shoes,” Marvin would have said, but he’d never been mistaken for stupid. There was no sense in making a bad situation ridiculous, so he wisely kept his comments to himself.
“What? Did I hear you say something, twinkle toes?” The officer glared up at Marvin, just as he did earlier when showing off for Chandelle. There was no doubt that the harsh officer wished Marvin had given him cause to use his discretion and his fists.
“No,” Marvin answered quickly, “I’m done.”
“You’re doggone right about that. Come on, step through the door and into my world,” he said with a sinister chuckle.
Upon entering the long corridor where the drafty parking garage met with the justice department intake area, Marvin felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The walls were fashioned with a sound brick construction, six by twelve-inch blocks, covered with several coats of white latex paint. Other than police personnel passing along the hall, it could have been a pathway to any office building in the city, but Marvin wasn’t so lucky. The ugly looks he received from uniformed passersby reminded him of that.
As the hallway opened into a larger area, Marvin listened to voices coming from every direction at once. He tried to lean in closer in order to get a handle on things when ordered to state his name to a hefty, flat-fo
oted police veteran who appeared to have little love for his job and less regard for the spare tire that collected around his waist. “Louder!” the dumpy man shouted. “If you hadn’t noticed, this is a ‘no whisper’ zone. State your name, last first, first next, and middle last.”
“Hutchins. Marvin. Bernard,” answered Marvin, with sharp, concise woofs. His words came out louder than he predicted, but no one seemed bothered in the least. If those jailhouse walls could talk, he’d have understood why his spirited barks didn’t draw a single wrinkled brow. He had been delivered to a bad place, one with bad people who did bad things. When slapped with harsh reality that he was going to be booked and processed like one of those bad men, a common criminal, Marvin felt hollow inside. His parents would have died of utter shame if they hadn’t passed on already. It was the first time in his life that he was relieved about it.
The policemen who arrested Marvin stood guard until he had been fingerprinted. Another man, a county detention officer dressed in a royal blue uniform, approached him from a glassed-in office while holding a black slate with tiny white lettering aligned in three different rows. When that fellow hung the slated sign around Marvin’s neck, he felt like a rabid dog that nobody wanted and would rather have locked away instead of roaming the streets. Marvin glared at the first county officer he’d encountered, the shouter who also served as the mug shot photographer instructing him to hold the slate straight and turn from side to side between poses.
“We’ll be seeing you,” the black cop heckled, as two other detention goons entered through a steel door to take Marvin away.
You’d better hope I don’t see you first, Marvin thought to himself, while looking back over his shoulder to exhibit the sentiment in his heart with a menacing jeer. If I catch you off the clock and in yourcivvies, it’s on. The police officer’s confused expression almost put a rewarding grin on Marvin’s lips, almost, until the steel door slammed behind him. On the inside now, there wasn’t one thing to smile about.
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