Choosing Sides

by Treasure Hernandez

Halleigh didn’t want to go, but she knew she couldn’t do anything if she got arrested with him.

  With his gun still aimed at Malek, the cop called for backup and then inched over to Malek. Once he reached Malek, he grabbed him and spun him around, hurtling Malek onto the ground, causing his head to hit the pavement forcefully. “You’re under arrest,” the police informed him. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to—”

  “Noo, what’s happening?” Halleigh put both of her hands on her mouth as she cried out frantically. In a matter of hours she had gone from one bad nightmare to another.

  Malek hissed at Halleigh, “Go! Get outta here!” With his hands cuffed behind his back, he kept motioning for her to get away from the crime scene by jerking his head, which in turn, made his entire body jerk.

  Which gave the officer grounds to say that Malek was resisting arrest. Suddenly the cop began to bludgeon Malek with his club to settle him down.

  Guilt overcame Halleigh as she ran away, looking over her shoulder to see the cop beat Malek the way her mother had been beaten. She knew she was the cause of all of this. She should have just left Malek out of it. But it was too late. Now he was in far too deep.

  Chapter Six

  “Wait!” Halleigh screamed out as she ran out from the alley she had run down and hid in, but her calls went unheard, the police car driving away with Malek handcuffed in the back seat and damn near unconscious.

  “Malek!” she called out once more at the top of her lungs. She didn’t know if Malek heard her over the sirens or if he just felt her presence, but he slowly turned back and stared at her with haunting eyes. She watched the taillights turn the corner, her heart beating like a drum in her ear. She had no clue what to do. They are probably taking him downtown, she thought fearfully. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

  In spite of the hot bath, her body still ached as a result of being her mother’s tradeoff. And her heart hurt from the thought of Malek being removed from her life by the law. Her mind hurt as she tried to think of a way to deal with the situation.

  The only thing that she could think of doing was contacting Malek’s mother. The fear of telling Mrs. Johnson that her son was in jail was enough to make Halleigh tremble.

  At last, it had slowed raining and settled back into a soft drizzle, so she was relieved she wasn’t out in the downpour as they had been earlier. She was still wearing Malek’s jacket, but she was soaking wet from her head to her bare feet. Totally oblivious to how she looked though, she headed toward Malek’s house.

  When she arrived she could see Mrs. Johnson inside through the living room picture window. Mrs. Johnson’s head was in her hands as she sat on the couch, and a wine glass sat on the table in front of her. Halleigh could tell that she was worried about her son. Filled with trepidation, Halleigh reluctantly marched up to the sidewalk that led to Malek’s house. Her hands felt like they weighed a ton as she reached up and knocked on the door. Halleigh’s breaths became hollow. She wanted to leave the doorstep, just as she had contemplated the night before.

  Without warning, the door opened and Mrs. Johnson saw Halleigh standing there. His mother’s cheeks were ashy from the many tears that had dried up on her face.

  The sight of Halleigh standing in front of her brought fresh tears to Mrs. Johnson’s eyes. “Where is my son?” she asked.

  Halleigh couldn’t speak. The cat had her tongue. She was in shock and was beginning to feel like Mrs. Johnson had been right all along, that she was indeed bad news for Malek.

  “Halleigh, where is my son?” Mrs. Johnson asked, raising her voice a bit.

  “He-he was arrested, Mrs. Johnson,” she finally responded.

  Mrs. Johnson’s heart dropped to her stomach when the words left Halleigh’s mouth. Not my baby, she thought as tears came to her eyes. “Arrested? Oh, Lord.” Mrs. Johnson put her hand over her chest.

  “They took him,” Halleigh cried, staring in the eyes of the woman who had brought her only love into the world.

  “Arrested?” Mrs. Johnson repeated. She looked at Halleigh, who had tears running down her face. Instead of feeling sorry for her, she felt angry. “I knew that you were bad news from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  Mrs. Johnson’s words cut like a knife, but Halleigh had to agree with Malek’s mother’s perception of her.

  Mrs. Johnson began to pace back and forth. “I need to call his father.” She grabbed her cell phone. “No, wait, I need to get my baby,” she mumbled frantically as she grabbed her purse and keys. “I need to get my baby!” she screamed, just imagining what those Flint cops might be doing to her son.

  Halleigh followed Mrs. Johnson to the car. As Mrs. Johnson went to the driver’s side, Halleigh waited at the passenger side with her hand on the doorknob.

  Mrs. Johnson looked at her like she was crazy. “Where do you think you’re going?” .

  “Mrs. Johnson, please . . . I love him,” Halleigh pleaded. “I need to go see about him. Please, Mrs. Johnson. After this, you never have to lay eyes on me again, but please . . . I just need to know that he’s okay.” Halleigh stood there biting down on her bottom lip in anticipation, her eyes begging Mrs. Johnson to just this once put her feeling for her aside.

  “Listen to me, Halleigh. I don’t even know what took place to land my son in jail, but my spirit of discernment tells me that you have everything to do with it. If I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again—you are not good enough for my son. Malek has a future, and I am going to make sure that you’re not a part of it.” She paused then held her hand to her chest, as if overcome by so much emotion. She couldn’t go on. Finally she growled through clenched teeth, “Stay away from him and this house before I hurt you, little girl.” The look in Mrs. Johnson’s eyes showed that her threat was not an idle one.

  All of a sudden, Mrs. Johnson stormed around the car to the passenger side. Halleigh backed away from the car while putting her arms up, not knowing what this crazed woman was going to do to her.

  “And give me back my son’s jacket.” With that, Mrs. Johnson snatched the jacket off Halleigh’s back, pushed past her, and went and climbed into her vehicle. She backed out of the driveway, wheels squealing.

  “Mrs. Johnson, please!” Halleigh begged as she ran after the car and pounded on the hood desperately. All she wanted to do was get to Malek, but Mrs. Johnson ignored her cries and sped away, leaving Halleigh behind.

  “What’s your name?” Officer Cornwell asked, a smug expression on his face. These street thugs coming in here with their diamond necklaces and their fancy cars. Cocky sons of bitches, I hope we lock all of their drug-dealing asses up. He watched Malek remove all of the personal items from his pockets. He tilted his head from left to right, getting a better look at Malek. He looks familiar. He must be a repeat offender.

  Malek didn’t respond to the officer. He’d barely heard a word that he had said. He couldn’t stop thinking about Halleigh. Where is she? I hope she’s all right, he thought. I should’ve never taken her home after the game. But how was I to know? I mean, I knew that her moms was fiended out, but I never thought she would stoop so low as to turn her daughter over as payment to get high. Even though he himself was in a bad position, Malek could only think about helping his Hal. He loved her that much. Her well-being came before his own.

  “Name?” the white officer repeated loudly, pounding the top of the table to get the young kid’s attention.

  Malek looked up at the officer. “Malek Johnson.”

  “Malek Johnson?” It was at that moment that Officer Cornwell realized where he had seen the boy’s face before. Malek Johnson was Flint Central’s starting shooting guard and the biggest thing to hit basketball since LeBron James. What the hell is he doing here? he thought to himself.

  After realizing that Malek wasn’t the average stick-up kid, he figured he could get some money for allowing the reporters to get photographs of Malek while he was locked up. Thi
s will be a helluva story, Cornwell thought greedily to himself. He hurriedly processed him into the system and then handed him off to another officer so he could get busy. He picked up the phone and dialed the number to the local news stations. If Malek hadn’t been well-known before, he was about to be now.

  Chapter Seven

  Mrs. Johnson parked her car in an illegal zone and hopped out as she ran into the police station as fast as she could. As soon as she slammed her door shut, her cell phone rang. “Hello?” she answered in a frantic tone.

  Alex Wilson, Malek’s agent, screamed into the phone, “Denise, what the hell is going on?”

  “Alex, I can’t talk to you right now. I’m busy.”

  “Not busy doing what you’re supposed to be doing. All I asked you to do is make sure Malek graduates and keeps a clean image until the draft. He’s out here knocking over fucking convenience stores?”

  “How do you know what’s going on?” she commented in confusion. “I’m in front of the police station now, but I don’t even know exactly what’s going on yet.”

  “Then obviously you haven’t watched the early-morning news, seven o’clock edition,” Alex told her. “Malek is the golden boy right now. Someone made a phone call and tipped off the news stations. Those vultures are probably on their way down to the station right now.”

  “Oh, no.” Mrs. Johnson put her hand over her forehead. “Is this going to affect his chances of getting into the league?”

  “If those news cameras get to Malek, there will be no league for him. They don’t take too kindly to players coming out of high school with tarnished images. If the press gets the facts, Malek will be finished before he starts.”

  Mrs. Johnson hung up the phone and rushed into the police station. “I need to see my son,” she stated to the white officer, whose badge identified him as Officer Cornwell. She had no idea that he was the officer who had checked Malek in and sold him out to the press.

  “What’s his name, ma’am?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

  “Malek, uh, Malek Johnson,” she whispered, looking around nervously for prying ears.

  “Right this way.” Officer Cornwell led her toward the visitors’ room. He knew that Malek wasn’t supposed to have any visitors, but he figured that the scene would make for some good pictures for the press and a big payday for himself.

  He brought Malek out in handcuffs and sat him in the chair in front of his mother. “You’ve got fifteen minutes, ma’am,” Officer Cornwell told Mrs. Johnson.

  She nodded her head in acknowledgment, and he left the room. “Malek, son, baby,” she cried as she placed his face in her hands and observed his bruises from the beating he had taken from the arresting officer.

  The beating itself had looked more brutal than it actually was, and although right after he was handcuffed and thrown into the back of the squad car Malek felt as if he was about to go unconscious, most of that feeling derived from the fact that he was in shock that everything was going down.

  “You all right?” Mrs. Johnson caressed his bruises and the slight knot on his head. “What happened? Why have they arrested you? What did you do?” The questions poured out of Mrs. Johnson’s mouth one after the other.

  “Yeah, Ma, I’m fine,” he told her, pulling back his face from her hands. He then proceeded to tell her about the prior night’s events that led to his arrest.

  Mrs. Johnson stared at her son for a minute before taking her purse and letting him have one upside the head. “What the hell were you thinking, boy?” Malek flinched, but Mrs. Johnson whacked him one more time with her purse. “Do you know what this is going to do to your father? All of this for some whore who probably would have given it up to them, just like her mother, for a crack rock?”

  Malek ignored his mother’s insults against Halleigh. That was nothing new, and he had learned not to speak on it, not wanting to give his mother even more ammunition to spit. But he was concerned about what she’d said about his father. Malek imagined how his father would feel knowing that the son he had sacrificed so much for and raised to be a good man was now sitting in jail. “Does Dad know?”

  “No, he doesn’t know. I decided to wait and find out what was going on myself. It would break his heart . . .” Mrs. Johnson’s words trailed off and tears trailed down her face.

  “Please don’t tell Dad about this, Ma. Everything is going to be all right. I’ll be out before you know it.”

  “Well, not soon enough. Not before the whole world knows it.”

  Malek thought for a second. “How did you even know I was here?”

  Mrs. Johnson sucked her teeth. “Your little girlfriend came and told me. The one I warned would bring you down.” She looked her son up and down. “And just look at you.”

  “I know I messed up, Ma.” Malek dropped his head in shame. “But it’s not Halleigh’s fault. Where is she anyway?”

  “You don’t need to be asking about her right now. I don’t know where the little fast heifer is, but you are not to see her again. She is the last thing you should be worried about.” Mrs. Johnson’s voice was stern. “You’re about to throw your entire life away on that gold-digger. She only wants you for the money, boy. Can’t you see that?”

  “You don’t even know her,” Malek said, defending his girlfriend. “You never even gave her the chance, Ma. I love her. I know her. She doesn’t care about any of this NBA stuff.” He shook his head from side to side, scratching it in confusion.

  He was right. Halleigh didn’t care about all that NBA stuff, but he did. And for the first time, it was starting to set in that he could have ruined his chances at everything he had worked so hard for all through high school. “I messed up, Ma. What am I gon’ do? I messed up,” he kept repeating. Tears threatened to fall from his eyes. Holding his hands together in his handcuffs, he laced and unlaced his fingers nervously.

  Mrs. Johnson was about to walk over and embrace her son. “Oh, son—”

  The door suddenly clanged open. Right before them were flashes and clicks from ten different news cameras rushing into the room.

  Mrs. Johnson immediately went over to her son and hugged him, turning his back against the camera crews in an attempt to shield him from them. “Malek, this is not good, baby,” she whispered in his ear.

  Malek buried his face down to shield his face from the reporters and their probing lenses.

  “Your agent called me to inform me that if the press got wind of this little mishap, that your chances of getting drafted were over. Now look at what’s happening,” she said, her voice cracking. “Look at what’s happening.”

  Mrs. Johnson couldn’t hold in the river of tears that streamed out of her eyes. Nor could she tolerate the insensitiveness of the media. “And what are y’all looking at?” She screamed at the police officers who stood idly around the room and watched the drama unfold, “Get these reporters out of here!”

  The cameras continued to flash in her son’s face. She tried her best to shield him from them, but he had dug his own grave. She couldn’t save him this time. The paparazzi were onto his scent. They smelled scandal and were as bloodthirsty as sharks.

  Malek buried his chin in his chest, trying to hide his face, but that didn’t stop the reporters from flashing away. Eventually, after Mrs. Johnson’s continuous protesting, the officers got up and escorted Malek back to the bull pen.

  As Officer Cornwell walked next to Malek, he couldn’t have been more pleased with what he had done. He had a five-thousand-dollar check waiting on him from at least three different TV stations, just for giving them the tip. “Well, son, looks like you’re a star.” He chuckled.

  Malek knew that Cornwell was the one who’d sold him out, just by the look on his face and the tone of his voice. He was eating this whole thing up.

  Before he was thrown back into the pen, he decided to call Officer Cornwell on it. “Was it the money? How much did they offer you?”

  “Excuse me, boy,” Officer Cornwell said, not happy with Malek’
s knowing and accusing tone.

  “If it was about the money, I would have given you double what they gave you just to keep your mouth shut.”

  His words rattled Officer Cornwell’s feathers a bit, but he quickly regained his composure. After looking Malek up and down, he said, “Boy, right about now you ain’t even got a quarter in your pocket. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been out trying to commit robbery. Which you know is a felony, right, son?” He let out a wicked chuckle to complement his grin and then walked away.

  Under his breath Malek replied, “But I could have been worth millions.”

  Chapter Eight

  Halleigh had walked for what seemed like hours in the freezing weather before she finally reached the large jailhouse building. She was exhausted, but she knew that she had to get to Malek. She just wanted to see him, to know that he was okay. She pulled her damp T-shirt down below her knees and entered the building.

  “Are you okay, young lady?” an officer asked her as she entered through the Flint precinct’s glass double doors. He couldn’t help but notice her bare feet as his eyes stayed glued on them momentarily.

  Halleigh followed the officer’s eyes down to her own bare feet. She hadn’t even realized she had been walking around barefoot all of this time. The fact that her shoes had come off during her kicking and trying to get away from the assailants quickly reminded her of the ordeal she had gone through. She shuddered at the thoughts. It was at that moment that she wanted to say to the officer, “No, I’m not okay. I’ve been raped,” but she wasn’t there for herself. She was there for Malek, the boy who might have lost everything because he was trying to be there for her.

  Halleigh shook off the selfish thoughts of herself and replied to the officer, “I’m looking for my boyfriend,” she said in an almost inaudible tone. “He was arrested earlier.”

  The officer took his position behind a desk and flicked on his computer. “What’s his name?”