by Leo Sullivan
“Man, just do it! And hurry up!”
Freddy turned the television to channel seven. A reporter was standing in front of a dark building in the background are clearly visible words arching over the building’s entrance. Freddy’s heart leapt in his chest and he feared the worst as he listened to the reporter’s words.
“- - and from my investigation of the case, it appears that Mrs. Evette Thugstin is innocent of the murder of her husband. No one else has ever been questioned about the case, and while the murder weapon did belong to her, there were fingerprints found on the gun that were not hers. Yet, no attempt was made to match those fingerprints with anyone else, and the fact that size 12, bloody footprints were also discovered leading down the stairs from the murder site in the bedroom was never revealed at her trial.” The camera moved in for a close-up and Geraldo spoke in intimate tones as if to a friend. “This case reeks of foul play and an anonymous source has provided me with irrefutable evidence that there was a major cover-up involving millions of dollars.” The camera then panned back once again showing the ominous façade of the imposing structure behind him. “I will keep you updated as this story develops. This is Geraldo Rivera reporting live from the Institution for the Criminally Insane, for EyeWitness News.”
Freddy stared blankly at the television screen, his body and mind numb. Mykle yelled in the phone that he had forgotten. “I’ll call you back,” he whispered, not hearing his best friend’s complaints.”
Standing in the middle of the living room, his mind churned with confusion, the pieces of the puzzle still refusing to fall into place. He closed his eyes, wearing his fatigue like a coat that was too large. Who could have leaked that information--the one who had murdered the doctor and stolen the documents?
He opened his eyes to find Sasha standing before him, startling him. She took a step back. Guilt ridden, he noticed the rotund swell of her belly.
“Freddy, what’s wrong with us?” she asked painfully. He shuffled his feet, looking down at the floor. She sniffed at his strong musty odor, her bottom lip quivering, large brown eyes pleading. He struggled to meet her gaze, but failed. “What’s going on?” she asked again.
“I don’t… I don’t know, Sasha,” he mumbled, his voice trailing off, shaking his head from side to side.
“That was about your mother on the tel--”
The phone rang and she flinched, the air electrified. Freddy snatched the phone in irritation. “Mike, damn it man! I told you I’d call you ba--”
“Mr. Thugstin.” The voice, one he would never forget in his lifetime, spoke his name in impeccable English.
Freddy reached unconsciously for the gun beside him as kaleidoscopic images flashed through his mind--white man, powerful, perverted, sadistic. To a young black mind, the threat was overwhelming, the ultimate danger!
“So you wish to breach our agreement?” the Senator asked, his voice quiet, yet strangely formidable. Like a cold but calm winter day, with a bone-chilling wind just waiting to erupt.
“I haven’t brea--” Sasha stepped forward sensing his fear.
“Why did you go to the media? If the numbers were insufficient for your needs, you had but to inform me and I could have made adjustments, increased your stipend.” The Senator’s voice hardened with malice. “Now, who else have you told?”
”Told?” Freddy asked hesitantly. “Told about what?”
“About the items you stole from my residence!”
“What items?” he responded, feigning innocence.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Mr. Thugstin. We must stop these childish games. I want those items returned to me, and I want them now!”
Shit, I thought you already had them, Freddy nearly said. But then from somewhere in the pit of his stomach where the simmering fear, came a courage forged of anger and desperation and hardship, and he heard himself say, “No, mister, you listen to me! I’m not scared of your crackah ass, do you hear me?” Sasha took a step back from his rage. “I want my mother out that fuckin’ place and the cops off my ass!”
Silence. Freddy breathed heavily, nearly panting.
“You know, of course, that I could have had this problem eradicated a long time ago.” The tone threatening.
“Oh, you mean have me and my pregnant girlfriend murdered like you di--” He caught himself.
Sasha’s mouth gaped wide as she covered it with a trembling hand and stepped backwards into a credenza, knocking over a framed photo as she fled the room.
“Well, now that is one big problem, ain’ it mistuh Senator? Cuz’ if this niggah come up dead, who’s gonna stop the mail from deliverin’ the evidence on yo’ crackah ass to the Feds?” This ploy came to Freddy on the spur of the moment as a result of what Dr. Utomo had told him before he died.
“Feds!? Feds…” The Senator was completely stunned. “My, my, my Mr. Thugstin, you have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect yourself, haven’t you my boy?” the Senator said bemusedly. “But I can assure you, that will not be necessary. You just hand over everything and tell me who else knows of this, and I will make you very wealthy. You have my word on that, my boy.”
“Fuck you,” Freddy raged. “I ain’t yo’ boy! What you need to be doin’, old man, is gettin’ my ol’ girl outta that place and findin’ out who the hell is leaking information to the press, ‘cuz it sure ain’t comin’ from me! You got what I want, and I want my mother outta that place now!”
“All right Mr. Thugstin, calm down and stay put. I’ll have my people find who’s leaking information to that damned reporter. When I’m elected in November, I’ll make sure you get what you want. By then you should be a proud father. Just be sure to keep our little secret between the two of us, or neither of us will get what we want. Do you understand?”
“November? What am I suppose to do until then?” Freddy asked in frustration.
“Live! Live life to the fullest; live in luxury; go on your shopping sprees; finish that maternity class. Did you like the Rolex?”
“Where is that bitch Marilyn anyway?” Freddy asked.
“She is doing very well in Hollywood. You have been a great boost to her once struggling career.”
“Yeah, I bet” Freddy mumbled disgruntled.
“There will be a substantial bonus in the mail tomorrow morning. Let’s just call it a show of good faith. And for God’s sake, stay out of that window…Mr. Thugstin?”
“Yeah?”
“I want you to know that I had nothing to do with the death of your doctor friend.”
“Yeah? Well, what about my father?”
Click! The line went dead. Slowly he placed the phone back on the hook and then padded down the hall to the bedroom. Sasha was just hanging up the bedroom phone as he entered. She clasped her arms around her belly as if shielding herself from him. Her yes were full of tears.
“That was him,” Freddy said. She was silent as she stepped around him to leave the room. He followed her back to the living room. “I’m trying to get the money from him.”
Sasha exhaled loudly, sniffing at the rank odor of Freddy’s lair. “Freddy, she said, her voice alive with sudden purpose. ‘Let’s run! Let’s run far away to a place where no one can find us. Let them people have their money and riches. In this life, people don’t have to be rich to be happy. I don’t need all this--” she gestured with her hand, “--I can get a job, become a cashier or something, and take care of you and the baby, and go to night-school--” Her words were rapid fire as she tugged on his arm, pleading. “I’m scared…look what they’re doing to us. I love you, but I’m losing you.”
He snatched his arm away in near delirium. “Sasha! I ain’t runnin’ no damn mo’! I’m tired of runnin’…besides; they would only follow us wherever we went. We’re stayin’ right here ‘til you have the baby.”
“No, Freddy, I’m leaving.”
“And go where?” he hollered
She cringed, wondering if he was crazy enough to hit her.
“Fuck it! He cursed, plungin
g down on the couch.
“Who told the reporter about your mother?”
“I dunno.”
“Maybe someone is trying to help you…maybe the doctor, what’s his name?”
“Utomo,” he answered. “But trust me, it ain’t him.”
“Well, who then?”
“Sasha, please! Let me think, damnit!”
Sasha huffed audibly, throwing both hands in the air.
Freddy’s evasive mental muse continued toying with his head. Someone had killed the doctor and stolen the photos and documents, yet the Senator still thought Freddy had them. Why would anyone go to such lengths, he pondered? His eyes fell on the shattered glass face of the photo that Sasha had knocked over earlier. It was a picture of Marilyn as a child singing in a church choir.
But his eyes were caught not by the child but rather by the preacher standing behind her. The face leapt out at him; the face of Billy Dawson in his sermonic youth. The similarity of the preacher and the child was undeniable…Billy Dawson was Marilyn’s father!
Freddy’s young mind told him this was a crucial piece of the puzzle. “Damn!” he cursed as he remembered what the Senator had said about Dawson, “Billy Dawson and I have been doing business for a long time.”
Freddy was upset with himself for not having figured this out long before now. No wonder Marilyn was so secretive, but why would a man prostitute his own daughter? Money, Freddy thought.
Now Freddy wondered what the Senator would do if he found out he no longer had the photos and deeds. Would the jewels be enough to bargain with? He seriously doubted that. And time was running out. One thing for sure, someone was trying to set him up. Who?
The ebb and flow of these disturbing thoughts combined with the stress of little or no rest lulled him into a deep sleep. But before he passed out, he decided that he needed to find Marilyn to get in touch with Billy Dawson. He was the key to this dilemma.
Freddy came awake suddenly in the night, instantly grabbing for his gun. Sasha had moved it. “Wake up, baby,” she cooed. Once again, her tone soothing as the dark quiet night.
“What time is it?” he asked, trying to get his bearings. Sasha’s eyes followed his to the gun on the table.
“Happy Birthday Freddy! How does it feel to be seventeen?”
“Seventeen?” he yawned. What’s today’s date?”
“The thirtieth,” she said.
“My birthday was on the twenty-fifth,” he said, realizing he had forgotten.
“I know baby, but I was mad at you then. I feel terrible about it. And you look so old…”
Freddy spied her luggage stacked by the door. “Are you leaving me? he asked.
“I was… but you looked so sad lying there with that ol’ raggedy gun that I couldn’t do it. You make me so angry, but I love you too much.”
Freddy recalled the time he had nearly run off, leaving her and the baby.
“What are we gonna do?” she asked.
“I guess we’re gonna wait it out,” he said, reaching for his gun.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Four months later the infamous blizzard of 1980 paralyzed Chicago, blanketing it with over four feet of snow in two days, while the temperature dropped to negative digits.
Inside the plush confines of a warm condominium, Sasha nudged Freddy asleep in the bed next to her. “Fred-dee… Fred-dee,” she whined mournfully.
Freddy grunted in unconscious irritation and turned his back to her. She nudged him even harder until finally he came awake. “What!?” His voice gave away his annoyance. “What is it Sasha?”
“Fred-dee, I’m hungry. I have a craving for some strawberry ice cream.” Her voice had that irritating twang that he had grown to despise over the last few months.
“There’s some strawberry jelly in the fridge,” he said. “Put some on your tongue and then stick your head out the window and catch some snowflakes.” She popped him up side the head with her hand. “Ouch!” He cried, scooting to the other side of the bed.
“Freddy, I’m hungry!” she pouted.
“Shit! What time is it?”
“A quarter after six,” she hesitantly answers.
“Quarter after six?” he repeats, throwing the covers over his head. Sasha snatches them back off. “Sasha, please don’t start!”
Freddy fights to control his anger. Sasha is almost nine months along in the pregnancy and the baby is due at any time. She wore a scarf wrapped around her head, looking like a mean version of Aunt Jemima with a bad attitude. Her stomach had grown so large; she’d forgotten what her feet looked like. Freddy had pondered, on more than one occasion, whether she was carrying twins, or even triplets. Lord knew it seemed like she had been pregnant for at least two years.
Wearily, he staggered out of bed. There was a cold draft blowing across the floor and he shivered as it hit his bare feet. Looking out the window at the blanket of snow, he wondered how something so beautiful could be so destructive. The damn snow was everywhere. A lavender sky illuminated a lazy dawn on the horizon. In the distance, he watched a small boy, with his dog, pulling a sled through the snow, playfully enjoying themselves. White folks are crazy, he thought to himself.
The boy took a rolled up newspaper from a box on the sled and tossed it into the vestibule of the condominium. Freddy quickly donned Sasha’s Bugs Bunny slippers and a robe and raced out of the room.
“Don’t forget the cookies,” Sasha hollered at his back. Moments later, he returned with only a newspaper in hand. She looked at him like he was crazy. “Freddy, boy, where’d you get that newspaper?”
He ignored her and plumped down on the bed, spreading the paper out flat. The headline read: “BLIZZARD SHUTS DOWN CITY!” Underneath, an article described the 1980 presidential race as a dead heat, the closest since Kenney had beaten Nixon twenty years before. Too many damn big words, he thought to himself. “Read this to me, will ya,” he asked Sasha in a coaxing voice.
She looked at him with contempt, lips bunched to the side of her face, wincing noticeably as she held her stomach. He pretended not to notice, convinced she was just trying to get her way with him by any means necessary. She began to read the paper, but stopped in mid-sentence, grimacing as she grabbed her belly.
“Sasha, ain’t that much ice cream in the world, so stop playin’ so much, girl.”
Her eyes closed as she bit down on her bottom lip, the paper spilling out of her hands. She groaned in obvious pain.
Freddy inched closer, caressing her belly. Since she had become pregnant, she loved to get her stomach rubbed…but not today.
She winced again, her breathing becoming labored, and then she cut loose with a high pitched scream that frightened him out of his wits.
He leaped from the bed, running around to the other side.
“My stomach --,” she panted. “--it hurts…the baby…”
“Oh shit! He panicked, adrenaline kicking into high gear. “Sasha, what do you want me to do?” He asked in befuddlement.
“Call…ambulance…” Her words trailed off as another scream passed through her contorted lips.
He dialed 911.
“Chicago Police Department, may I help you?” A nasally voice finally answered.
“My girl is gonna have a baby. We need an ambulance bad!”
“Sir, could you please repeat that and try to speak a bit more slowly.”
“I said my girl is about to have a baby --” Sasha’s blood curdling scream distracted his attention as he looked over his shoulder at her. “Listen lady, I need a fuckin’ ambulance. Now!”
“Sir, if you will just calm down--”
“Freddy! Oh, Freddy--” Sasha cried out in pain, tears cascading down her cheeks from her tightly clenched eyes.
“I’m going to need you to calm down and give me the address there, okay sir?” The operator said stoically.
Freddy gave her the address and added impatiently, “She’s almost nine months!”
Sasha screamed again in agony and
he told her, “They’re on their way,” but she didn’t respond.
The operator said it would be at least an hour before the ambulance could get there because of the storm and the snow.
“What the fuck you mean an hour--” he shouted.
“Freddy! Freddy, ayeeee…” Her scream cut to the very core of his soul as he watched her eyes come open then roll back in her head.
Overcome with helplessness and despair, he dropped the phone and pulled back the covers from her legs. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” He exclaimed as he saw blood soaked sheets. He reached instinctively to remove her bloody panties and Sasha grabbed unconsciously at his arm as he pulled them off. Blood flowed copiously from her vagina. He jumped back, snatched up the phone and grasped, “She’s bleeding! Oh, my God, she’s bleeding so bad! What should I do?”
“Sir, you’re going to have to calm down,” the operator said. “How far apart are her contractions?”
“The baby’s coming now!” he shouted into the phone. “Please send me some help. She’s bleeding real bad!” His voice cracked.
“It sounds like she’s hemorrhaging,” the operator said. “You’re going to have to deliver the baby yourself.”
“Deliver the baby?” he repeated incredulously, dropping the phone. He turned to find Sasha staring at him through her pain with pleading eyes that kindled a sudden determination within him. He grabbed her hand and gripped it strongly, saying, “Sasha, girl, we finna deliver this baby ourselves, and you gonna have to push it outta you. Can you do that?”
She nodded weakly as she was suddenly wracked with a wave of convulsions and screamed once more.
“Push!” Freddy urged as he squeezed her hand, and she responded to his flow of energy and held her breath and pushed with all her waning strength. Over the next forty minutes, Freddy was lost in a world of pain and misery as Sasha huffed and strained, her body drenched in perspiration, her hair matted to her forehead, her strength dwindling fast. The bed became saturated with blood and Sasha began to pass in and out of consciousness. “Please, baby, just push once more,” he pleaded.