Blackout: Stand Your Ground

by David Weaver

  They all had been so accusatory as if they had been there that night, as if they had seen what went down. They’d call Trayvon all kinds of names and treated him as if he’d deserved to die, like his life had been worthless and Zimmerman’s had been more important. Jawan had made a point to put each Zimmerman supporter in their place, telling them exactly how he felt about them.

  As he watched the Zimmerman supporter approach the front of the store, he saw everyone that had donated a dollar to his defense fund, everyone that had called Trayvon a thug, and everyone that said that Trayvon deserved to die that night.

  The cell phone the man held to his ear flew in the air as the bullet that left Jawan’s gun hit him in the back. He didn’t know what was going on. He grabbed at the pain and turned to see an angry Jawan staring at him like a raging bull. Before he hit the ground another bullet penetrated his chest.

  “Nooooo!” Meesie yelled. She shook her head over and over again, beyond shocked. In less than an hour she witnessed her future husband commit two murders and rob a damn store. They had to get out of Sanford, and get out of there now. There was no more time to waste. She ran to where Jawan stood with his gun still pointed at the man and grabbed his arm, pulling him around the back of the store. She was so glad that she hadn’t let him leave that house alone. The thought of him having to go through all of this without her caused a lump to form in her throat.

  “I’m sorry baby, but I couldn’t let him get away! Just like Zimmerman just couldn’t let Trayvon get away. I couldn’t let him get away. I stood my ground! Shot him in the back just like they shot my daddy in the back!” Jawan explained, as he flopped down in the passenger seat.

  Meesie blinked her eyes attempting to wake up from the dream she just knew she was in. This just can’t be happening right now. Upon hearing the sirens in the distance, she knew that it was her reality. She snatched open the driver’s side door, got inside, and hurriedly cranked up the car.

  “We can’t go to no Miami. I don’t know where were gonna go, but they’re gonna be looking for us all over Florida,” Meesie said.

  She slammed down on the gas and got out of the parking lot as quickly as possible. Her hand went to her stomach as she thought about her and Jawan’s unborn child. Her heart became heavy as she wondered what kind of life their child would have—what kind of life they would have now.

  “You know I only did what I had to do right?” Jawan looked at the worried expression on Meesie’s face. He interlocked his fingers with hers and brought her hand up to his lips to kiss it. He loved Meesie. She meant the world to him, but he knew the best thing for the both of them was to let her go.

  “Yea, I know baby. It’s cool. I know you’re going through a lot right now.” Meesie let out a nervous chuckle.

  “Pull over.”

  “No, I don’t think we should stop right now. We do need to dump—”

  “I said pull over!” Jawan yelled.

  Meesie jumped hearing Jawan yell her at. She glanced over at him, and then pulled the car over to the side of the road. Jawan jumped out of the car and ran around pulling Meesie’s door opened.

  “Get out and go home!”

  “What? What the hell you mean get out and go home?” Meesie looked up at Jawan confused.

  She didn’t understand how he could ask her to go home after all that had just happened. She might not have participated in the crimes that he committed, but she was just as responsible. Furthermore, she didn’t want to leave him, she wanted to stick by Jawan’s side and ride this thing through with him. “I’m not going anywhere Jawan! You acting crazy right now! Get back in the car and let’s get out of here!”

  “I love you Meesie and I don’t want anything to happen to you or our child. I just need you to let me figure all this out on my own,” Jawan somberly expressed.

  He was truly hurting, not because he had killed two people and robbed a store, but because he was so sick of the world he lived in. It was tough being a black man in America and unless you were a black man, you wouldn’t understand. Everyday that he stepped foot out of his home, he was automatically judged because of the color of his skin. Educated or uneducated he was deemed to be a thug just at the sight of him.

  “I love you too Jawan and I’m not leaving you. Can you just get in the car so that we can leave?”

  Jawan let out a huge sigh, “Slide over.”

  Meesie smiled and jumped over to the other side. She looked out the back window and her smiled turned into a frown. She could see the police pulling into the parking lot of the store and knew that shit was about to get real.

  ***

  “O.K. I have a plan baby.” Jawan said as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket along with his wallet. He handed the cell phone to Meesie so that he could concentrate on commanding the wheel. It would be silly of him to endanger his family’s future by catching a moving traffic violation.

  “Get the number for Greyhound and call them for me,” he said without hesitation.

  “Greyhound? Hell no Jawan! We’re not going to board no bus! That’s like suicide! We’ll be boxed in and-”

  “I said call Greyhound Meesie!” He had to raise his voice upon repeating his instructions.

  Meesie handed Jawan the cell phone and sat back in her seat as she let her man run the show. She didn’t know why he would place them on a stupid Greyhound bus, but it seemed like Jawan was seeing tunnel vision, and thought that all of his decisions were the correct ones to make.

  “Hello. I would like to purchase two tickets right now for Meesie Hall and Jawan Louis to go to Atlanta GA… Yes I’ll reserve it with a credit card now… Yes, that amount is fine.”

  As soon as he got off of the phone with the Greyhound, he made an illegal U-turn in the middle of the street and took off in the opposite direction.

  “Jawan, please tell me what’s going on! That’s all I’m asking of you right now. I have your back through anything, but I just want to know what my anything consists of sometimes.”

  Jawan took a deep breath and focused on the road ahead of him. His emotions seemed to morph with each passing moment. They seemed to morph from pride because of his pregnant fiancé, to confusion because of the Zimmerman verdict, to downright sadness due to the state of the American justice system.

  “I gave them our real names and told them we were buying tickets headed to Atlanta, GA so that I could throw them off. Knowing the police department, they’re going to think they have all the sense in the world and think they’re going to try to outsmart me. They’re going to lock down the interstate going to Georgia, as well as the interstate going into Miami and surrounding cities; but I got news for them motherfuckers!

  We’re going to stay right here in motherfucking Sanford!” Jawan screamed as he turned down a vacant side street. “We ain’t going no got damn where. I will feel like less than a man if I let another man run me out of my home. I’m bouta stand my got damn ground!”

  Meesie’s forehead frowned up as she stared at him. “Nobody is running us out of our home Jawan! We ran ourselves out! We went outside and picked our own adventure, and this is where we are right now!”

  “This fight is artificial. It’s not even our business Jawan! I understand how you feel bout black people being treated unfairly in America, but do you honestly think that what you’re doing is going to help how white people see us? What you’re doing right now is only setting us back ten years! This is all bad. I don’t-”

  “Argghhh! One minute you got my back and in the next you saying something different. Are you with me or not Meesie?” Jawan asked violently as he ran through an intersection and ignored the stop sign.

  Meesie’s heart was beating at a rapid pace as she considered all of the consequences that would come about from their actions. She thought about how she would never be able to raise her child, and how she would never be able to be a wife; all because she was certain that the state of Florida was going to seek the death penalty for the actions that they had partake
n in.

  She lay back against the headrest and closed her eyes as tight as possible. She had a headache and felt like if she held them closed long enough, that it would go away.

  “O.K. then. Jawan, where are we going to stay at if we’re planning on staying in Sanford?”

  Jawan made a right turn, and then another left turn, and drove a little slower than he had been driving since he saw children playing in the road. “We’re going to stay at my uncle’s house. We can park this car in his garage, and nobody will ever know where the hell we disappeared to.”

  Meesie shook her head vigorously. “Oh hell nawl! Why would we stay with your uncle? For one, I told you I never trusted him; and for two, you know the cops will turn his house upside down looking for you if they are able to identify who you are. I think we should stay at Nay-Nay’s.”

  Jawan almost hit a fire hydrant when he heard that name. “Why the hell would we stay with your bff? Your best fake friend! That’s an absolute no-no! I don’t trust that bitch!”

  Suddenly, Jawan slammed on the brakes in the middle of the road; scaring the hell out of Meesie. There were no cars behind them, to her relief; but she was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. “Jawan, what the-”

  “You gonna have to take the wheel Meesie. I’m not going to go any further.”

  “What the fuck! Jawan, what’s wrong with you?”

  Jawan put the car into park and laid his body against the driver’s side door. He glanced at her one more time before his eyes closed and he collapsed.

  “Damn Jawan, you didn’t take your seizure medicine? Oh my God, Jawan!”

  On the verge of perpetual panic, Meesie jumped out of the car and went around to the driver’s side door. She opened it and caught Jawan’s body as it fell from the removed support. “Jawan baby! Jawan!”

  From experience, she knew that it could be minutes, or even an hour before he recovered from having a seizure. At that moment she realized that she could do anything in the world. Anything from running away and getting herself out of the trouble he had put her in, to staying there like a fool as she waited to discover what more trouble he could figure out how to orchestrate.

  After thinking about it for a few seconds, she knew that for her soul mate she would always choose to play a fool if that’s what it came down to. Using all of her strength, she tried her best to move his body out of the vehicle and into the passenger’s side seat.

  A green Silverado stopped alongside her as she tried to move Jawan’s heavy body into the passenger’s seat. She knew that they were in serious trouble, but she seriously doubted that everyone in Sanford, Florida knew what they looked like after only a few hours. It just wasn’t possible.

  “Hey ma’am, do you need some help?” The white man in the Silverado asked as he put his truck in park and got out.

  Eager to have some assistance, Meesie quickly nodded her head at the white man. According to her reasoning, the sooner she could get Jawan into the passenger side seat, the sooner she could go to her best friend Nay-Nay’s house and park in her garage. Jawan didn’t want that, but she knew that she could trust Nay-Nay when nobody else was able to.

  “O.K., what happened here ma’am? Looks like I’m going to have to call 911 and get an ambulance here.”

  Meesie almost pissed on her self at the mention of 911. “Oh, no sir; that’s not even necessary. I’m on my way to the hospital as we speak. I-”

  The white man scratched his head as he stared at the situation. “Not with that dead body on the driver’s side! I don’t see how in the hell you could be headed some where with a dead man driving!”

  “He’s not dead! He was driving and because nauseous. I believe he had a seizure, and I’m going to take my husband to get help. Could you please help me!?”

  The man exhaled and shook his head. He didn’t want to help her, but he decided he might as well help the poor lady since she was in the middle of the damn road trying to hoist an unconscious man. It was better he help her before she hurt him further.

  Effortlessly, the man picked up Jawan’s unconscious body and sat him into the passenger’s side seat. After Jawan was situated, he turned his back away from him so that he could have a conversation with Meesie about hurrying on down to the hospital. But when he turned around, he felt his heart flutter.

  “Well I’ll be damn! Aren’t you the girl they’re looking for on the news, for killing that police officer?”

  “What? Hell nawl! I’m not-”

  “The hell you’re not! Put your hands in the air damnit! I’m making a citizen’s arrest. Now by law you can’t go anywhere until the police get here! I’m calling them right now!” He said as he pulled his belt off.

  “What the fuck are you doing with that belt?” She asked, with a frown on her face.

  The man looked at her like she was the dumbest person on the planet. “I’m going to tie your hands up until the law officers get here. You can’t resist a citizen’s arrest! By law you have to let me arrest you. Now give me your wrists Miss Lady.”

  Meesie had never thought to break the law or go against any rules before, so going with her initial instinct; she took two steps towards the man so that he could arrest her. But during the time it took for him to remove his belt from his pants and grab her wrists; her entire existence flashed before her eyes at once.

  Jawan had sacrificed his freedom in order to keep her free, and here she was about to freely sacrifice their freedom in order to give their lives away. Thinking quick, she used the only weapon she had.

  With all of the force in her body, she swung her foot and kicked the man in his family jewels. As soon as he crouched over in pain, she jumped inside the car and tried to grab the gun out of Jawan’s possession. She searched him frantically, moving his shirt around and even checking his left pocket; but by the time she made it to his right pocket the man had grabbed her and was pulling her out of the car.

  “Noooo! Noooo! Jawan hellllpppp!” She screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Jawan was unconscious and didn’t hear her make a sound whatsoever. She gripped her hands around the steering wheel as she held on in an attempt to save her life. She didn’t want to give her life up, and she was sorry that she had even considered it.

  The man pried her hands off of the steering wheel and pulled her to the ground. When she was on the ground, the man turned into a savage animal. He took his left fist and ran it into her face as if it were a designated punching bag. Some of her blood splattered against the car window, against the driver’s side seat, against his clothes, and the rest of it leaked down her face.

  His fist was swollen, but he didn’t care. He took the same fist, swung it again and crushed her nose flat. Her head bounced back against the concrete and she let out a scream so deep that it brung Jawan out of his unconsciousness. He was slightly in a daze and trying to focus, but when he finally was able to comprehend what he was seeing; he nearly passed out again.

  “Yea! I got every right to beat your ass you nigger bitch! Anytime you try to elude the police, I have the right to use violent force! I know you’re going to say well you’re not a police officer, but I told your ass I was making a citizen’s arrest!” The white man took his belt, folded it; swung it, and knocked the wind out of Meesie’s body.

  Boom!

  Jawan pulled the trigger and the bullet went through the man’s torso like it was a basketball hoop. He got out and walked around to the other side of the car where his fiancé was laying bleeding.

  He put the gun to the man’s head and created a fireworks display. He pulled the trigger until the cartridge was empty; and when he was out of ammo, he pulled out an all-purpose keychain that had a hunting knife on it. Without even thinking twice about it, he took it and dug it inside of the white man’s gut.

  ****

  Jawan left the man lying in the middle of the street choking on his own blood. He’d put Meesie in the car and drove to the nearest Walgreens for a first aid kit. She was hurt badly and it was
all his fault. If he’d never gone out on this rampage none of this would have ever happened.