Lucky for Keisha, Mr. Sagataw was able to poke holes in the witness’s theory, leaving him looking as if nothing he said was credible. The biggest strike against Keisha was the fact that the carjacker’s gun was never found, but Sagataw made it obvious to the jury that his friend could’ve removed the evidence from the crime scene. I left the courtroom right before recess, because I was dodging Mr. Sagataw. He’d already left me a few messages, threatening to drop the case if I didn’t pay him some more money, but I didn’t have any money after paying to get Carrie back.
All I had was a plan and belief that I could pull it off. I left court and met up with Shabazz so I could re-up. With Bam’s help, I was able to clear my old tab with Amir and get some more drugs. I made up a story about what happened to my sister, claiming she was raped and beaten. It was half true. Once I scored the drugs, the weirdest thing happened. As the word spread around in the streets about what happened to Carrie, it somehow gave me more street credibility. I had all the hustlers who had refused to do business with me, coming from nowhere, trying to reach me and do business. I guess everyone believed that I wasn’t a snitch or working with the feds, because of the kidnapping. Some people I didn’t trust, so I had to be extra careful from that point on, about who I did business with.
I decided that Bam could deal with the people I thought were too grimy for me. As Bam’s clientele increased, mine also continued to grow. I was way too paranoid after the Carrie incident, so Bam and I devised a plan and started working side by side again. I would drive him around everywhere he had to go and that way, he would already be with me when I had to make a run. He kept the assault rifle in the trunk of my rental car and I began to carry the gun he gave me all the time. I had no choice. By the third day of the trial, I was able to give the lawyer the five thousand I had promised him. I told him I’d have more in a few more days and I knew I would. We had begun to move a few a kilos every day and we were pushing through half of the drugs that Amir was buying. He told me so out of his own mouth.
Even though Amir had stolen my heart, I was spending so much time with Bam I ended up sleeping with him again one night, when we were celebrating our success. It was the first time we counted a hundred thousand dollars together and after that, we started drinking and I guess we got caught up in the moment.
Wrapping up the trial, the defense called a bunch of character witnesses to speak on Keisha’s behalf. By then, the lawyer was almost completely paid off and I was able to put a little cash away into a bank account. It wasn’t much, but it was more than I was ever able to hold on to.
The first day of jury deliberation was the third time I slept with Bam. He lived alone, so I was spending a lot of time at his house, stashing money and breaking down the drugs. He was in another one of those celebratory moods that night and I was just as happy, but still stressing about what the verdict would be. Bam was sipping on 1738 and he kept begging me to take a shot, so I finally agreed. He thanked me for the tenth time for helping him get back on his feet.
“I couldn’t have done any of this without you, Bam. I owe you my life. Shit, I owe you my sister’s life too,” I said.
“Naw, you don’t owe me shit, Roxy,” he said, waving his hands over the money spread across the kitchen table. “This right here is teamwork.”
“I guess you right,” I agreed.
Bam got this sincere look in his eyes.
“I swear, I didn’t know what the fuck I was gonna do to get back on. That shit was driving me crazy, I swear. And you wanna know something crazy that I never told anybody before?” Bam said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“That night I ran into you at old man Johnny’s house. I told you was I only there to ask for some help, right?”
“Yeah, I remember that conversation.”
“Well, Johnny always been like an uncle to me, which is why I was comfortable asking him. Luckily, I didn’t have to fix my mouth and ask for a handout that night, because you showed up. But if I had asked and Johnny had turned me down, I don’t know if Johnny would still be here right now,” Bam admitted.
Bam’s confession sent chills up my spine. I read between the lines and realized Bam had planned to rob and kill Johnny, if he didn’t give him any assistance that night.
“But you always said that wasn’t your thing. And that you never wanted to make money that way,” I reminded him.
“It’s not and I don’t. But it’s like…when you was really out there on that shit, you probably did a lot of things you never thought you’d do.”
“Very true,” I agreed.
“That’s why I’m so thankful to you. Because of you, I never had to go outside of my character and do some crazy shit. And I never had to ask anybody for nothing,” he explained.
For the first time, I truly understood Bam’s unwavering loyalty to me. I felt like I knew him better as a person. I no longer wondered why he never just shot me in the head and took the dope. I knew murder was easy for him, so it didn’t make much sense until now.
We really bonded that night and after a few drinks, Bam began to think and act like a man. He asked me for some head and said I had some of the best he’d ever experienced. I figured I owed it to him for all he’d done for me, so I gave him what he wanted, right there in the kitchen. He then thanked me by bending me over the table and giving me his thug dick for the road. When it was over, I realized I had some missed calls. Bam was laid out on the sofa in his boxers as I scrolled through my phone.
“Damn, Amir’s calling me. You gonna get me in trouble,” I said.
“My bad,” was all Bam said.
“Whatever. We should probably stop doing that, though. We don’t wanna fuck up a good thing,” I explained.
“I guess you right,” Bam agreed. “You want me to follow you home? That’s a lot of money you leaving here with.”
It became a daily habit to stash money at Bam’s house and take it all home at the end of the night.
“That’s okay, you look so comfortable. I got my gun off safety if something happens,” I assured him.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
I gathered the money and put it in my little knapsack. Bam stood in the door and watched me to the car. He could be such a gentleman and a gangsta at the same time. As I drove home, I called Amir, trying to get a feel for what kind of mood he was in. I was hoping he didn’t wanna have sex, because Bam had just OD’ed me on dick for the night.
“Baby, I’m at your place waiting on you,” Amir said.
“Aw, you’re so sweet. I’m coming, baby,” I replied.
“Where are you now?” he asked.
“I’m just leaving my boy’s house, finishing up the last of our business.”
“Okay, hurry up and get home. I got plans for you,” Amir said.
Amir hadn’t really been to my place all week, so I was sure he would want to have sex if he was there before I even arrived. I decided I would have to suck it up and be a trooper for the man who made it all possible.
“I’m almost home. I ‘ll see you in a minute,” I said.
“Okay.”
As I hung up the phone, I ran into some construction work that had the street blocked off. I had to make a right turn down a narrow one-way street. As I made it to the middle of the block, some idiot turned the wrong way up the street. I kept driving, thinking he’d realize his mistake and back up, but he didn’t. There was no way he was getting by me, because the street was way too narrow.
All of a sudden the car swerved right and stopped, blocking off the entire lane. I stomped the brakes and glanced in my rearview, preparing to put the car in reverse, but there was another car on my ass with two men in hoodies inside. The doors flew open on the car behind me, then a man appeared from the car that was blocking the street ahead of me. The men in hoodies charged at me, pointing guns before I could think to reach for mine. Immediately, I stomped the gas and jumped the curb, fearing for my life. By the time I hit the curb
, the gunshots exploded behind me like a firing squad. I spun out on the grass, trying to get control of the wheels, as hot metal pierced the car doors and shattered the windows. I heard a bullet whistle past my head, right before the next one struck me in the jaw and then my back and arm.
Amazingly, I still had control of the car with my hands on the steering wheel and my foot on the gas, so I drove the car from the grass back onto the street. The gunfire was still erupting, but as I floored the gas, I heard the sounds become more distant. Blood leaked from my face and arm rapidly. My flesh was burning all over and my adrenaline was on one thousand, but as I drove a bit further, I began to get dizzy from losing so much blood.
I could hardly keep my hands on the wheel as blood began to fill up my mouth. I spit the blood on the floor as pain stabbed me in the left side of my back, causing me to swerve dangerously in traffic. I fought as hard as I could to control the car as I loss blood and got weaker. I knew the hospital was close by and I drove with the determination to make it there and live.
All my life, I never cared about dying and now that I was facing death, I had so much to live for. The thought of my son kept me going as I fought with everything in me to make it to the hospital. I loved him more than I even knew until that moment. My cell phone rang, but I couldn’t extend my arm to answer it because of where I got hit.
The burning sensations in my body became unbearable. When I pulled into the emergency entrance of the hospital, my arm wasn’t strong enough to make a complete turn. I veered to the right, until I ran dead smack into the wall of the parking structure. Everything went black.
Chapter 23
I guess someone pulled me from the wreckage and put me on a stretcher. I woke up a day and a half later in the intensive care unit, breathing with the help of an oxygen tube. I had no energy in my body and I was still too drowsy to even speak. The minute I tried to breathe deeply, I felt a stabbing sensation in my lungs. I sat there opening and closing my eyes. I had been shot three times. I had a punctured lung from the bullet in my back and a concussion from the crash.
None of it mattered, because I was alive. I was in deep overlapping pain, but it felt amazing because I was alive. At that moment, I began to believe I might just be the luckiest woman alive to have survived all that I’d been through, from the shooting, the rape, and the overall madness of my life on the streets.
I vowed right there on that hospital bed that I was done with it all. Just as I had to walk away from my life as an addict, I now had to walk away from my life as a dealer. The only logical reason I could think of for me to still be alive was Nike. I decided to make my life about my son from that day on. When the nurse finally came in to check on me, she informed me that I had visitors. They’d taken my cell phone and gotten in touch with my mom and now she was here.
A few minutes later she walked in, followed by Keisha, who was holding Nike. To see them all in the room together was indescribable. It was a happiness I never experienced before. I struggled to pull the oxygen mask off.
“You won?” I mumbled, staring at Keisha in shock.
“We won,” she corrected me.
The sight of Keisha holding Nike in her arms made my heart flutter. I wanted to hold my son so bad, but I knew I couldn’t.
“Somebody needs to call Amir and let him know I’m in the hospital,” I said.
“I have some bad news, Roxanne,” my mom said.
“What? What happened?”
“Your boyfriend was killed yesterday in front of his cell phone shop. It was all over the news yesterday.”
“Oh, my God!” I cried, but my body was too weak to express the emotions that went on inside.
My heart was crushed to hear such devastating news, right after receiving the best news ever when I saw Keisha walk in. I just couldn’t believe he was gone. Keisha and my mom tried to comfort me the best they could, but I didn’t want to a pity party. I just couldn’t shake the reality of it all in that moment.
I found out later that Shabazz was murdered along with Amir, right in front of the store. My guess is that it was some sort of robbery attempt, but police didn’t have many answers. Weeks later, I snuck into the apartment one night and got the rest of the money out, and I never went back for fear of someone trying to harm me again. Whoever went after Amir, it was a good chance they were the same people after me. I’ll always believe Snake was behind it all, and especially, Carrie’s kidnapping. I never told police a thing, though. I knew he and Bam would bump heads again sooner or later, but I wouldn’t be around to see the outcome.
With Amir and Shabazz dead, it left me with over a hundred thousand dollars of his money to start over with. I moved to Cincinnati and opened up my own cell phone shop. I learned a lot about how to run that particular business from Amir. Since then, I’ve opened up a second one. After two years of stability and showing the courts I was drug-free, I got custody of my son.
Carrie got out of rehab and went back to using, so we don’t talk much anymore. Keisha is married now, with a son of her own. I don’t know what’s up with Bam nowadays. I had to distance myself completely from that life and everybody in it to make the changes I’ve made. Nobody in this town would believe all the things I’ve seen, done, and been through, so I try not to speak on it. I keep it all to myself.
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Roxanne: From Addict to Hustler Page 19