Life

by Sullivan, Leo

  “Are you on your period?”

  “No, but you hurt me.” She looked back at me and tried to smile. She looked like a sad clown with her mascara all ruined from the tears she shed. I wiped at the dribble of saliva that had started to form at the corners of my mouth. The dope had me drooling.

  “With Trina gone, I’ma be your number one,” she said like she was asking for confirmation if she had passed the dick test.

  “Number one what?” I asked incredulously.

  “Lady,” she replied as she wiped her swollen clitoris with a towel, I noticed the blood in it. She made a face at me.

  “What about your girl Evette?” I asked, catching her off guard.

  “W-W-What about Evette?” she stuttered. And now as I looked at Tomica with her fake-ass smile and mascara running, I realized that she just took all the humiliation and for what? I thought about what Trina said before she left. Evette went to Baltimore and was missing. I know that Tomica would never turn on her girl unless, something bad happened. But what? The dope was telling me this bitch setting you up! So I did my part, I smiled and acted like I was going along with her ploy. I knew that the first chance I got, I was going to have to kill her.

  The phone rang, Tomica flinched, startled.

  “Yeah.”

  “We got trouble.” It was Major on the other line.

  “What?” I asked with concern. The whole time, Tomica watched me suspiciously.

  “Blazack is at the front gate wanting to get in.”

  I hobbled over to the console with all the television security screens and sure as shit, there was Blazack at the front gate parked in his Hummer. The ominous fog of the night seemed to cast him in a mysterious gloom.

  “L? L? L! You still there man?” Major asked from the other end of the phone. I could hear the fear in his voice.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m here. Let him in the inside the house and get the fuck out the way!” I said and hung up the phone. I had Tomica help me get dressed. Even though the dope helped a lot, I was still only about 35 percent of myself in terms of strength.

  “What’s going on?” Tomica asked.

  “Bitch you gon’ help me make it down the stairs.” I reached out and grabbed her by the hair, leading her toward the steps. The packet of Boy was on the vanity next to the bed. I poured a mountain in my hand, snorted it and rode the rapturous wings of a black stallion named “H.”

  Naked and crying Tomica helped me down the stairs. I was sure this was not what she was expecting, not part of her devious plan.

  At the bottom of the stairs Major stood looking at us in awe with his mouth forming an O. My face was covered with powder, a gun dangled from my right arm and the other arm slung over Tomica’s shoulder. Major had a shotgun at his side, it looked as old as the mansion.

  The doorbell chimed. I shoved Tomica away and braced myself against the brass stair rail.

  “Open the door!” I barked at Major waving the gun.

  “L, man, you ain’t in no condition to be –”

  “Open the fucking door!” I yelled again only to lose my balance but regained it.

  Major opened the door. Blazack stood there formidable as usual. He looked weary and haggard, he took one look at me holding the gun and his eyes bucked wide open like he was seeing a ghost.

  “Welcome to Chateau Gangsta’s Paradise, nig-gaaa!” I drawled high as a muthafucka, dead serious on killing his ass.

  He walked in taking in the scene shaking his head, not believing what he was seeing. He made a face at Tomica, turned and gritted on Major standing in the hall with the shotgun aimed at him. Finally he turned back to me and looked sorrowfully.

  “Wha da fuck you call yourself doing nigga?”

  I cocked the gun and aimed at him. He continued to look at me defiantly right in my eyes.

  “Dirty is dead man. Lil Man is dead, Gucci is lying up in the hospital with two broken legs and internal bleeding.”

  “Bitch ass nigga, you had something to do wit it! Where you been the last few days, huh?” I hollered. I felt my hand anxious to pull the trigger.

  “Been in jail!” Blazack said angrily. “That cracka Spitler had me locked up. Wouldn’t even let me make a phone call. If you don’t believe me, call our bail bondsman Fletcher, I swear to God he be my witness.” Blazack was talking fast. He knew at that moment and time I was dead set on doing him.

  “Let me call the bail bondsman,” Major cut in, possibly saving Blazack’s life. I nodded my head for Major to make the call.

  Sure as shit, Major came into the hall and said that Blazack was just bonded out of jail.

  I sat down on the stairs, cupped my head in my hands as I thought about the cop Spitler, and how he threatened me. Damn, I should have figured it was him and his crooked-ass cop friends doing the killings.

  Blazack walked up to me. “Man, you gotta let me Ax Blazack that cracka.” That was Blazack’s code word for murder. “He’s all yours,” were my final words before I passed out on the stairs.

  8:18 the next morning as planned, Blazack made arrangements to meet Spitler for his weekly payoff. There was no reason for the cop to be concerned. He nor his men would be suspects in the spree of murders. They were the police. They were above the law, or so they thought. Wrong!

  As usual, they met at the Holiday Inn on Tennessee Street off Lake Bradford.

  As soon as the cop entered the room he knew he had walked into a trap. Blazack put a gun up to his head, relieved him of his weapon, and handcuffed him to a chair. Spitler, the racist cop, had too much pride to beg, so he tried to bribe Blazack with money. It didn’t work.

  Blazack began to brutally pistol-whip Spitler to a bloody pulp even knocking one of his eyeballs out the socket. The cop fainted. Blazack threw cold water in his face to wake him back up.

  With a gun pointed to his head Blazack forced him to call the police station and tell all his buddies in the narcotic division that were down with the murders to meet him outside the police station at midnight. After the phone call, Blazack, in a manic frenzy, began to hack away with the ax on the cop’s body. Wack! “This is for my nigga Dirty.” Wack! “Dats for killin’ babies.” Afterward, with Spitler barely alive, Blazack shoved a stick of dynamite up his ass.

  ***** Midnight, the cops arrived as scheduled. They saw Spitler sitting in his car. They all approached in jovial spirits, which was always the case whenever they were going to share some dirty money. As the first cop reached the car and looked inside, he saw the bloody stump of half a body. Desperately, Spitler frantically wiggled his head no but the cop opened the door. The wired dynamite of one hundred pounds of explosives detonated. Ka¬boom!!

  *****

  I lay in bed sipping on Hennessy, snorting my medication with my dick in Tomica’s mouth. I was numb all the way down to my toes. Tomica came up for air. She had dark cycles under her eyes.

  “What time is it baby?” she asked. A secretion of cum dangled from her lower lip.

  “8:25 in the morning. Why the fuck you keep askin’ me that?” I asked, annoyed. She smiled up at me from in between my legs and reached over and dug her long fingernail into the powder and placed it under my nose. Right then I saw it, felt it, knew it. I saw her treachery disguised in her eyes and she tried to mask it with a smile. I blew the dope off her fingers and sighed as I lay back on the pillow with my eyes closed. There isn’t a hustler alive that can honestly say that he did not hear the voice in the recess of his mind, pleading, begging with him to get out the game. Ain’t no longevity in the dope game, Trina’s voice. You’ll end up dead or in prison, Hope’s voice. It’s always the woman that warns us, and almost always we never listen, but we hear.

  Tomica must have thought I had passed out. Now that I felt her trying to ease out of the bed, I played sleep, but I had one eye open. I watched her tiptoe over to the window and began to wave the curtains like she was giving a signal. My heart damn near burst out my chest, when I realized what she was doing, setting me up! I got out of the bed and
stood behind her. Feeling a presence, she turned around startled. On the security screen I saw all the white vans marked FBI and ATF. It must have been over a hundred vehicles, the entire estate was surrounded. Major burst into the room.

  “The police breaking down the front gate, L, we gotta go!”

  Tomica just stood there in the window nude with her arms crossed over her breasts. I picked up the gun as Major grabbed my arm.

  “The bitch set me up!” I said as Major walked up and placed his arms around me. We headed down the stairs.

  In my study behind the bookshelf was a tunnel that lead to the sewer system. As we reached the bottom of the stairs I could hear the police pounding on the door with a battering ram, overhead I heard helicopters along with the frantic banter of shouting, “FBI.”

  We made it into the study just as the front door came crashing in. I stashed the gun in a Bible as Major turned the candle-holder that opened the secret compartment to the door behind the bookshelf. I was barefoot as we escaped into the darkness of the tunnel. I had it all planned, leave the country. I had millions of dollars in escrow in Brazil. All I had to do was step foot on the soil.

  Up ahead I saw a bright light. It beamed on us like the morning sun, and then I heard the sound of guns being cocked. “Freeze! FBI!” *****

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Against all Odds”

  – Hope –

  Nine months after federal agents raided Life Thugstin’s mansion in a long, drawn out operation titled Operation Thug-Sting, federal agents seized more than ten million dollars in assets, cars, jewelry, not including the four million dollars that was discovered hidden in the mansion inside secret compartments in various parts of the floors.

  *****

  The sound of my heels could be heard scrapping across the meticulously buffed marbled floor of the Federal Correctional building. For me, the sound only seemed to heighten the urgency of my arrival, Hope Evans, the Bureau’s Assistant Prosecutor for the United States Southern District of Florida. And still with my title of elitism and all its accolades, I knew that I could never be comfortable with my job. The job of imprisoning Black people with such a high degree. I was sure that America could be charged with the cruel and inhumane act of genocide. That day I walked down the halls, it felt like I was walking down the gallows to hell. However I was determined to do my best to try to change all of this. The same dreams that I had when I was a little girl growing up, I wanted to help my people, help my brother, I still clung to, only now my convictions were stronger, more dedicated and determined.

  That day I was going to do my damnest to help Life Thugstin. I was risking all I had. I came to warn him of the insidious trap that awaited him if he intended to go to trial with his team of high powered lawyers. I overheard his attorneys conspiring with my boss, David Scandels, the head prosecutor and a very ambitious attorney that would stop at nothing in order to win a conviction. To date this was by far the biggest case of his entire twenty-year career, and he had no intentions of losing it.

  The federal government had a 98 percent conviction rate, which means an innocent defendant had about a 2 percent chance of success if he was going to trial. Life Thugstin was facing a lifetime sentence, plus thirty years if he was convicted. My office was prepared to offer him a thirty-year bargain and a ten million dollar fine. I took a deep breath as I waited with my briefcase in hand outside a steel door marked SHU, Segregation Housing Unit.

  In my career as a prosecutor and going inside prisons I quickly noticed a distinctive odor that omitted from the inside of prisons. It smelled like generic Pine Sol and semen, marinating in fear. About a month ago, Life was placed in SHU for the assault on a confidential informant. He assaulted the inmate with a ten-pound weight on the recreation yard. The inmate nearly died. He received over two hundred stitches. The informant’s name was Steven Davis, a.k.a. Stevey D, a small time drug dealer turned informant. He was amongst the 78 inmates that were scheduled to testify against Life Thugstin; in return they would all get significantly reduced sentences. Some would be immediately released if Life were convicted. Only one or two of the people actually knew him and the government was aware of the fact that most of the people testifying were lying, but that is how the system worked with its 98 percent conviction rate.

  Finally the steel door opened and I walked inside the vestibule. I had the jitters; my stomach was in knots. The hum of the air conditioner droned, and in the distance I could hear the staccato of a steel cell door slamming. I was thankful I wore my suit coat.

  “May I help you?” a deep baritone voice asked from a speaker above my head.

  I flashed my ID with its gold star and announced, “Hope Evans, the United States Prosecutor’s office. I’m here to see inmate Life Thugstin. My office made arrangements earlier,” I said with authority. Silence. I waited patiently. In the dim of the booth inside the officer’s station flickered lights illuminated an array of bright colors that looked like the inside of the bridge of the Star Ship.

  Click! “You may go inside. Someone will be there to assist you in a minute,” the voice said from the speaker.

  I walked through the door into another world. A world within a world. A world where 88 percent were of poor impoverished Blacks and Spanish decent. The federal prison institution used to be a predominately white man’s institution in terms of incarceration, until corporate America discovered astronomical profits that could be made of cheap slave labor. Politicians and federal judges had financial investments in the cheap labor. Thus, harsh sentences were given out, as a way to insure their investment. One only had to go check the Wall Street stock market and he would find prisons are amongst the best investments for wealthy white men.

  The cacophony of loud voices hollering and screaming roared in my ears like a million angry Black men chanting, begging to be let free. I thought about my brother, my own flesh and blood, living in one of these dungeons. I thought about how my ancestors were packed on slave ships like sardines in a can. This was no different than a slave ship. Even though I had been here before, it always felt the same, cruel and inhuman.

  Directly in front of me was a line of cells. Men ogled me. It felt like I was at center stage at the Apollo Theater. I heard a voice say, “Hey, Dirty! Hey Dirty! Come to the cell door. Look at dis bitch here’rr! She fine as a muhfa.” Then suddenly a frantic banter of voices echoed, signaling my presence, like a ship being sighted by men marooned on an island.

  “Hey! Psss. Damn, she thick.” Catcalls ensued. I tried my best not to look, not to stare. Directly across from me I detected a jerking motion. I know damn well this negro ain’t doing what I think he’s doing, I thought as a large burly officer approached. He had a grin on his face, the kind men wear when they’re being mischievous.

  I guess he too must have been enjoying himself at the expense of my arrival. After giving me a quick once over, with gaiety he said, “Follow me.” I walked down the long narrow corridors as Black men stared behind caged bars, open mouths with their faces pressed against the steel. With each expression, invitation, flirtation, masturbation, I regretted wearing my high heels and tight-fitting skirt. We approached a door. The officer pointed and I looked inside. Life sat in a chair wearing an orange jump suit and leg irons. His right 1eg was shackled to a steel rod in the wall. All of a sudden, the realization of what I had come to do dawned on me, and for the first time in a long time I was scared to confront a man. Not just any man, but the father to my child. I needed him to know this. I needed him to know that I was going to quit my job and help him. I was here to help him.

  I turned to the CO, “I will interrogate the inmate alone.” His eyes narrowed and looked as if he wanted to say something, but thought better of it.

  As I entered the room, Life looked up at me. His hair was matted. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in weeks and most of all, the expression on his face said that he was not too happy to see me, at all. The room was small. His presence was large, he actually was intimidating me with
his stare. In the room was a dilapidated old desk and a crumbled Coke can that someone used for an ashtray. There were two chairs, the metal folding kind. He sat in one and the other one was a few feet away from him. The man just continued to look up at me with my son’s eyes. Call me sentimental, but I wanted to break down and cry. But I didn’t, I had come to warn him, protect him. I sat down next to him tried to smile at the same time, taking the opportunity to compose my thoughts. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest trying to find its way out. My tongue searched for the words that wouldn’t come out. The moment was awkward, like his stare seemed to pin me to the wall. I was here for my own personal redemption, the female version of Hannibal. I was here to betray my government for the sake of the love for my own people. God help me!

  “Life, I come to help.”

  “Listen, you Uncle Tom-ass bitch.” His voice was low, guttural, like he had been saving up all his agony and pain for me. “If you wanna help me, get a fuckin’ razor and let me slit your fuckin’ throat,” he said and leaned forward and hunked up a large wad of spit and spat in my face. A trickle of saliva dripped from my chin onto my lap. I just stared at him stunned, shocked beyond belief.

  Lord have mercy this can’t be happening to me, I thought. I was here to help him, save him from this racist system that intentionally set out to destroy Black men.