Word of Honor, Book 2

by Tiana Laveen

  He pulled up a chair beside the man and handed him a white Styrofoam cup half filled with water. Aaron winced as he eased a bit forward from his pillow, but quickly threw up his hand when he tried to help him.

  Once again, he wants no help…

  He buried a budding smirk, nodded in understanding, then took his seat. Aaron grasped the cup with both hands. His eyelids lowered as he took a deep swallow of the water, cringed once more, and took another gulp. Opening his eyes, he gingerly placed the container down on the tray before him before pointing to his throat.

  “Feels like it’s crushed… but I know it’s not. The water burns going down.” He sighed with obvious exhaustion as his head hit the pillow once more. “I look like shit, don’t I?” He smirked.

  “Indeed you do.” He grinned, causing Aaron to grin back at him. The man ran his hand over his hospital robe, smoothing out a slight crease in the blue and white textile pattern.

  “I asked that Mia not be called. I left you a letter in your office the morning before this happened to please not call her unless I died. I could feel something was going to happen, I just knew it.” He slowly met Dr. Owens’ gaze. “You didn’t tell her… did you?”

  “No, Aaron, I didn’t tell her,” he stated quietly.

  “Good, that’s real good…” His voice trailed away as he looked back down at his gown and smoothed it out a bit more, though the previous hand ironing had been more than sufficient.

  “You would get an opportunity to see her if you called her to let her know you were here. You’d have a chance to reconnect before you go back to Holman in a few days. You’ll be in protective custody by the way.”

  Aaron arched an eyebrow. “Nah, can’t let her see me like this. Mia is delicate. She’s not weak; don’t get me wrong… she’s just… I just uh…” He shook his head. “I just don’t want ’er to see me like this is all. It wouldn’t do either of us any good.”

  They were quiet for a few moments, minus the musical notes of the hydraulic machines and beeping computers.

  “So uh, you said I’d be in protective custody?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why’s that? Guys like me get into fights all the time. This is nothing new.”

  “Well.” He smoothed his hand over his pants, doing a bit of ironing himself now. “It appears, Aaron, that your assault was merely the beginning of more things to come.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your brethren, as you call them, got the upper hand against the three inmates that had attacked you in the custodial supply closet. Once the three came out, and your body was laid out like some sacrificial lamb on the ground for everyone to see, that sent some of your friends into a bit of an uproar.”

  “Shit,” was all Aaron could say.

  He lowered his head, his expression showing he seemed to already know the rest of the damn story. But, he finished it for him anyway.

  “Your friend, Darryl I believe his name is?”

  “Yes…”

  “Well, after he saw you lying there, he became quite upset and grabbed one of the men that had jumped you and literally threw him several feet in the air. That man hit a wall. His neck broke, and he won’t ever walk again.”

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  Aaron pounded his upper thigh with his fist, his emotional torment clearly sending him somewhere dark and undesirable. But, it was no use. Things had happened… and he believed Aaron needed to know the details.

  “Dr. Owens, I didn’t want him to do it! I swear! He knew what was going to happen to me. How could he have been surprised?”

  “He thought you were dead, Aaron. You weren’t moving, so it seemed you weren’t breathing. When I looked at the footage, he kept screaming, ‘You killed him, you killed my best friend!’ He just…” With a grimace, he slouched a bit in his seat. “He just… lost it, I believe.”

  Aaron picked up his cup of water once more and took a small sip.

  “He figured he didn’t have shit to lose,” Aaron said woefully. “Daryl wasn’t ever getting out this time; he’s on death row. He is appealing it, trying to get it turned over to life, but… he’s not too optimistic about that. Not to mention, he was havin’ a bit trouble with the NSM.”

  He did recall the particulars of Darryl’s case, so he nodded.

  “He was being pushed out, right along with me, alienated…seen as a risk. That was his life. He probably felt like if I wasn’t going to be runnin’ anything anymore, and he was gettin’ shit on, what did he have to lose? Nah.” Aaron shook his head. “He had already made up his mind about what he was goin’ to do. He’d already decided.”

  “Aaron, how did he know that you were basically resigning? You actually told him?”

  Aaron smiled sadly at him then turned away, stared at a wall with his name written on a dry eraser board. Beneath that was written the last time he’d been administered medication.

  “Yeah… I told ’im Dr. Owens. I felt so free after I did it too, you know?” He looked back in his direction. “It felt so good to get that off my chest. He didn’t believe me, thought I was pullin’ his leg. But… he soon realized this wasn’t a joke… No, it’s not funny at all.” Aaron folded his hands over his lap.

  Like an old, crotchety man sitting in a rocking chair on a dry-rotted porch, he drew quiet, reflective, and still. It was remarkable to watch. A veil of peace spread over his black and blue face. Aaron had probably never felt so soporific in all of his life, despite the beating his body and, to some extent, his mind had taken.

  “You know, Doc, I had a dream the other night, and it got me to thinking.”

  “Thinking about what?”

  “About how, you know, even though I only have a few more months left of my sentence, I might have to stay here longer.”

  “Why would that happen? Clarence Gable hasn’t succumbed to his injuries and even though your attorney didn’t manage to shorten your sentence, you still should be released on time.”

  “Well, you see, there is a prison code about men like me, Dr. Owens. It is mostly like, ‘Live By the Sword, Die by the Sword.’ I can make all the plans I want, but it don’t mean any of it will come true. This is the first time I’m scared that something might go wrong. I don’t have my backup anymore. There are people who want me to never see the light of day, to never walk out of here. I got even more now, ’cause word spreads fast.”

  “I don’t quite follow you, Aaron. You said Darryl is your best friend, so why would he tell anyone about you and Mia?”

  “He wouldn’t… Dr. Owens, the three guys in the closet with me—I didn’t see their faces, didn’t know their names. But…. they knew I wasn’t fighting back.”

  “Okay, but isn’t that what they’d want?”

  “Not really. It depends on the motivation I suppose. You see, me cowering down, covering my face, and just sittin’ there was a sign of submission. At first I was flailin’, defending myself as a natural instinct, and then, I told myself to stop. It’s like a wolf pack. If one approaches the alpha wolf for a fight, that means they want to take over the pack. But sometimes, in rare occasions, they just want to feel protected and safe, so they start a fight to make the alpha wolf prove that he still got it, and he ain’t goin’ nowhere. Some of us, Dr. Owens, need proof that we won’t be abandoned or forgotten about. We fear being shipped off to land in a foster care of sorts. So, the only language we speak is dysfunction and the only thing we understand is violence.”

  He nodded in understanding.

  “People like me are wired differently from people like you. We show we care with pain; we show we love with something even more intense. They wanted to know if I’d fight for them. Dr. Owens, Clyde cast just enough doubt on me that panic set in. He’d been workin’ on this not for months, but probably a couple of years. Nobody wanted him, but he had the most experience. It’s like tenure. He hated that, even behind bars, I pulled more weight than him. He got them to do what he wanted ’cause I was in Holman, and he
was out there and I couldn’t stop his lies, the rumors, all the trumped up shit. When a leader goes to prison, the flock gets scared, especially the young guys because they were used to seeing me practically every day. And then, as things broke apart, they began to turn on each other and the division amongst the family started to grow. In these situations, people start to take sides, and the three guys in the closet had taken mine.”

  “I find that hard to believe considering you were barely breathing!” What in the hell was Aaron thinking? Was the concussion even more severe than they’d initially thought? Was he slipping back into his old training and thought processes – that of believing pain would somehow grant him future pleasure?

  “No, you don’t understand… Listen to me.” He sat up a bit straighter. “They felt betrayed by me once they saw I wasn’t fighting back, so, their blows became more and more brutal, to try and make me do it, make me come back into the fold and lead, motivate, and save them from themselves… but I…” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “I just couldn’t.”

  Smiling, he realized just what Aaron meant then. Yes, it was true. The world Aaron came from was so much different than his own, and though he found the details intriguing, the cult mentality of such a unit unnerved him. How many more victims would this organization swallow and destroy?

  “I was telling them I wanted out. They knew this; I heard them screaming for me to ‘Fight back!’ before I blacked out. They really didn’t want me to leave, didn’t want me to die at first. It was all for show… They’re scared of the new leadership, have the same fears I had once I realized someone was muddying the waters with a bunch of bullshit. When you don’t fight back in a situation like that, Dr. Owens, you are telling your brethren, ‘I quit.’ Simple as that. At that point, they knew I left of my own free will. And no one wants to be deserted, Dr. Owens… ’cause one of the worst feelings in the world is to not know where you’re goin’, and to be left by yourself, wandering about in the woods all by your lonesome…”

  Chapter Eight

  SIX WEEKS WAS far too long, yet, courage was something mustered up at times of great fear. How could one really know they were capable until their back was up against a wall? Marcus sat at his desk in the customer service center, his chest growing tighter and tighter with anxiety. His peregrinations through choppy thoughts were accompanied by the music of shuffling his paperwork as he danced around daydreams.

  Those daydreams though were turning into living, guilt-ridden nightmares. It had been a fairly normal day until someone called on the telephone and jogged his tattered memory. Like a flashback tapping on a cold shoulder, the customer announced himself.

  “My name is Aaron Cameroon and I need some help with my order…”

  Yes, his name was Aaron… but it wasn’t Mr. Pike. It was an elderly fellow, an old man who wanted to find out about the delay in his shipment for his soft cushion foot insoles with built in odor-eater technology. Marcus checked the status and credited the man the shipping charges, along with a well-scripted, robotic apology.

  Damn it, UPS lost the package.

  Or perhaps some driver was enjoying the chocolate brown, size 9, triple wide Eskimo slippers for his damn self; who truly knew? But one thing was certain: he could barely get through each week without brainstorming on what the hell he was going to do…

  That evening at the party many weeks ago, Terence, the self-appointed videographer of a rather unfortunate episode, was drinking heavily, right along with most everyone else in the club for the birthday party bash. The bastard had slipped into the men’s bathroom, laid his damn phone on the sink counter and closed his eyes, barely keeping himself afloat. Like the tiny devil that pirouettes on one’s shoulder, Marcus had followed him inside, riding his instincts, but also watching his back. Terrence sluggishly rocked back on his heels and took a long, sloppy piss. It went every damn where, soon forming a small puddle by the drunk’s feet. Marcus thought hard for a moment, trying desperately to talk himself out of the shit he was cooking up, but before he could change his mind, he snatched the phone off the damn counter and headed out the restroom door, certain he wasn’t even noticed.

  After walking several feet away, he disabled the phone tracking app and allowed the boisterous crowd to swallow him up as he turned the damn thing off with a slide of his thumb. He couldn’t have the man figure out someone swiped his shit and decide to have a friend call his number to trigger a custom ring-tone. Should such a situation arise, he could take the chance on no one hearing it over all of the laughing, yelling and music, but why expose himself to such a risk?

  He slipped the shit in his pocket and, with a forced smile, he danced a bit, playing the role, and chatted it up with Go-Go and several others, acting as calm and ‘normal’ as he possibly could. A shower of relief rained down on him when Corey made to leave out the party with a young woman shaped like an hourglass, waving and slapping hands to alert everyone around him that he had pending pussy plans. The man’s face creased with a devilish grin, as if he were going off to the Navy, and this was his last hurrah. Not long after, Go-Go followed suit, letting him know he’d get back home on his own. In one hand he held a blunt and in the other arm, a curvy, tatted up woman who looked like a darker version of Blac Chyna. It was as if the stars had aligned and pardoned him from the pain, gave him a moment to make things right.

  He disappeared into the night, Terence’s phone tucked away in his pocket and a heavy weight on his shoulders at the realization of possible consequences from his actions. The worry reeled through him like an old tape with no end, but he put that shit on mute from time to time.

  Nevertheless, he pushed forward. He drove a couple miles away, pulled over to the side of the road, and decided to handle his business right then and there. When he turned the phone on, the screen saver popped up—a cartoon drawing of a naked, busty, blue alien woman smoking a hookah broke the darkness in his quiet vehicle. The sounds of “Hood Go Crazy” by Tech N9ne played in the background as he scanned the thing, getting his bearings. He touched the photos icon, only to be prompted for a damn passcode.

  Shit!

  He didn’t have time for such a thing, but then a thought hit him, and he smiled. It had been a while, but he prided himself on the notion that he could recall how to get past the password screen on an Android, set up a new one, and go on with his life. He looked down at the phone, logged into Google, and put other pertinent information in the search field. Once he got to the ADM interface, he selected the type of phone he’d snatched, put in a temporary passcode for it, and waited with baited breath…

  “Alright now!” He beamed when it worked like a snake charm. “I better not get too excited. He may have already deleted that shit.”

  There appeared to be a million pictures and videos on the phone, many of which depicted green, spinning marijuana illustrations and jokes, intricate tattoo artwork, liquor and money stacks, and of course, a barrage of naked women from online social sites. After a few minutes of wading through the sophomoric mayhem, he selected a video thumbnail that seemed to show the store he’d been at earlier in the day with Go-Go and Corey. On a sigh, he pushed ‘play’…

  Several minutes later, he was sick to his damn stomach… Was it the liquor? Nah, he’d only drank two beers…

  He drove home, feeling mixed up and torn in half. The devil on his shoulder chuckled and screamed warnings at the same time while the angel urged him to do the right thing.

  Yeah, Go-Go had been right about what had transpired; only, it proved far worse to actually view it in person. Aaron stood there with a hot coffee in one hand and a box of Krispy Kreme donuts and a few other odds and ends in the other. Soon, everything end up splattered all over the goddamn ground…

  The confrontation was rapid fire, brutal and ugly… Clearly, Aaron was not only mad at the man who’d tried to take him down; he was mad at the entire damn world as he swung back and kicked, punched and grabbed the mass of bloodied flesh beneath him.

  A few pa
rked cars appeared in the shot, with people inside of them, but no one got out to assist. No one came to Clarence’s aid; they just kept on screaming, laughing and filming. Perhaps society wasn’t so cruel? Maybe there was a logical explanation for the lack of assistance. For instance, he’d noticed something rather alarming about Aaron, and perhaps the crowd soon noticed it too after the mayhem began. Aaron’s dark suit jacket swung open revealing a 45 jammed in a holster on the side of his hip… but… he didn’t use it. Didn’t that count for anything? Most of the guys in the hood wouldn’t have even fought Clarence. One to the head… dead and dead…

  After that hour in his car, the images he saw continued to haunt him for days, weeks, and more.

  And now here he was at work, one and a half months later, still sitting on the evidence like a reluctant chicken on a cracked egg, knowing damn well what happened to snitches. So much was on the line; he could open his mouth and end up having his head opened up with a bullet, too…

  …But, it wasn’t right. The news story specifically said the store cameras weren’t working that day, Aaron’s side of the story was nonexistent and though many saw what transpired, they didn’t dare step forward and if approached by law enforcement, they lied. On a different note, what he was doing here at work also required him to do the right thing. The old man that called about his missing house shoes was in need. They may have just been some cheap ass, poorly constructed slippers to the average man, but to that elderly gentleman on a fixed income, they meant so much more. The shoes were for his comfort—a chance to relax in his old age, to walk around in peace, feel softness and a sense of delight.

  Yet, Aaron too couldn’t walk around; he could only go wherever someone told his ass to go. He couldn’t ever get comfortable in Holman, for getting too comfortable would cost you your life.

  Life, how brutal it can be.

  It was so cruel that Aaron’s ass was now in deep trouble. It wasn’t just the old man’s call that sent him into an emotional tailspin, the news that morning gave an update on the story. Clarence had died just a few short hours earlier. This meant one thing and one thing only: Aaron may become a permanent prisoner. Didn’t his daughter deserve better, even if he did not? Aaron had been a son of a bitch to so many people, yet, the one time he didn’t commit a crime as described, he received a sentence that treated him as if he had. What type of quality of life could he possibly have in Holman? Not much of one at all…