Today was the big day, and she was filling in for Diane Roseborough. She was super excited and everyone who knew her was just as happy to see her career continue to advance. She was surprised to see just how grueling and tedious the process of putting together the major stories of the day was. Things changed in the blink of an eye in the news world, and you could have the whole line up set and ready to go barring any major breaking news, but then breaking news sends everything into a tailspin. She got a chance to get to know Reggie, her co-anchor, whom she’d be working side by side with if she was a awarded the position.
Whether she got the job or not, Michelle was happy. Just being in this position, she knew that it was inevitable that she would get to where she really wanted to be in her career. She tried to look at things as optimistically as possible after her fouled up meeting with the powers that be. Her life was filled with all the things she needed for peace of mind and clarity, and she knew Jay played a major factor in all of it. If that tiger could change his stripes for good, she could truly see a future with him. She eagerly anticipated being away with him in the Bahamas for a week; so much so that she found herself day dreaming at her desk as if she didn’t have anything else to do. She was interrupted by a man in uniform with a name tag standing at her cubicle carrying a bouquet of flowers.
“Michelle Mitchell?”
“Yes,” she said, eyes widened in surprise.
“These are for you,” the man said, handing her a dozen white roses with a card attached.
“Oh my God,” she purred, accepting the flowers but going immediately to the beautiful card attached. She slid it out and opened it knowing in her heart who it was from.
They say chances make champions. Just wanted to thank you for taking a chance on me
LOVE JAY
__________
After hearing that Mercedes Jay was parading around the city with a local celebrity as his girlfriend, Bones was at the end of his rope with Jay. He thought shit was sweet enough that he could still go on with life as if it wasn’t a real war in the street taking place. Feeling like their young soldiers were incapable of handling the task of smoking out Mercedes Jay, Skip and Bones took matters into their own hands by barging into the westside location of Damn Good Music with guns drawn. A lone female customer immediately backed up and reached for the sky, assuming it was a stick up. They approached the checkout counter with guns on display but not aimed directly at anyone.
“Where he at?” Bones yelled at the store manager who was terrified and confused. He held his hands in the air, also waiting for them to ask for money, but they never did.
“I – I don’t … Who?”
His female sales assistant came from the back carrying a CD the customer had requested. When she cleared the threshold, the customer was breaking for the door and the manager was being held up.
She screamed.
“Bitch shut the fuck up!” Skip yelled as she took off running back to the stock room.
He chased her down gripping a Tech Nine. She ran until she was trapped in a dead end corner of the room. Skip quickly caught up and smacked the shit out of her, then grabbed her by her weave.
“Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me.” She begged for mercy as she was being dragged and forced to walk hunched over with her hair entangled in Skip’s fist.
“Where the fuck is Jay at?” Skip asked.
“I don’t know, he don’t be here like that. I swear!”
When Skip arrived back at the front of the store, Bones was mopping the floor with the manger’s blood, pistol-whipping him with vicious precision.
“You trying to protect that bitch? Huh?”
“No! I don’t know where he is. I swear to God!”
Bones whacked him across the head again until the man went unconscious and fell limp on the floor. Skip slung the girl to floor right next to the manager.
“Please don’t! We don’t know nothing,” the girl continued to beg.
Bones grabbed her by the throat and punched the pistol into her cheekbone. “Bitch this muthafucka is closed for business, you understand me? Don’t let me catch you in this muthafucka again, or I’ma leave you right here.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll never come back. Never ever,” the girl promised.
Skip backed up into the middle of the floor and began spraying bullets in every direction, destroying the entire inventory until he was completely out of bullets. When done, they fled the store, leaving an unconscious manager and a petrified sales clerk to relay what happened to Jay.
__________
Jay was at the Van Dyke location of Damn Good Music when he received the call about what had just happened at the other store. The worst part of it all was that the customer who was in the store had ran outside and called the police once she was out of harm’s way. Now his business would more than likely become the target of an investigation. Bones had really hit Jay where it hurt, without laying a hand on him. Although no one was dead, police still turned the store into a crime scene with more than a dozen officers in and outside the store, and they all wanted the answer to the same question. Where was the store owner?
Jay knew that talking to the police about what happened was an impossibility because he had no reasonable explanation that would suffice. Meantime, he knew he needed to get everything cleaned out of the eastside location that didn’t belong, in case police showed up there.
He had Gunner remove some digital scales, guns and ammo while he while continued to try to reach Dan Marsh, hoping he could give him a clue as to how to handle the police. The store manager was hurt pretty badly, and while he went into surgery at the hospital, the sales clerk, Tiffany, continued to try to contact Jay, looking for answers and some clue as to what to tell the police. He felt bad for her, but he stopped answering her calls after he found out what had happened. Until he talked to his lawyer, Jay wouldn’t say anything to anyone about any of it.
Jay drove through the city with his mind racing a million miles a minute, trying to grasp the full scope of what had happened. This could ruin everything. Everything.
Chapter 24
As the stories of the day came rolling in, it was all the good, bad and ugly that Michelle was used to seeing. A young woman mauled by a stray pit bull, a local musician pays for a struggling mom to move into a new home after mold was found in her basement. There would be a meeting in about an hour to finalize what stories would make the cut and in what order.
Reggie, her co-anchor, appeared at her cubicle taking her attention away from the phone call she was on. She held up one finger as she ended the call.
“What’s up, Reggie?”
“Uh… I just got a call about a really crazy incident that took place in a record store on Livernois, but my plate is so full at the moment, I can’t even begin to investigate. So, I was wondering if you wanted to—”
“What’s the name of the record store?” Michelle asked, cutting him off. She knew Jay had a store location in that area and she prayed it had nothing to do with him.
“Damn Good Music, I think was the name. Something about some guys shooting up the store. I have some notes at my desk if you wanna take a look.”
“Yes please,” Michelle said as panic tried to take over her thought process. The first thing she did was grab the phone to call Jay, but as she dialed the number, Reggie appeared again with the notes. She hung up the phone.
“That’s all I have on it, but there’s a number for the store on the back.”
“Okay. Thanks Reggie.”
Michelle held the dial tone button on her desk phone waiting for Reggie to walk away. As soon as he was gone, she dialed the number and her hands were visibly shaking as all the worst possibilities began to surface. Michelle couldn’t believe she had fallen for Jay’s lies and bullshit again. As the phone rang, she didn’t know if she was more worried or upset. He didn’t answer and she banged the phone down on the receiver. Seconds later, she picked up and called him again. No answer. She was be
coming angry until she realized she was calling him from the job phone, and he wouldn’t recognize the number. She reached in her purse, retrieved her cell phone, and dialed his number again. Jay still would not answer and she began to fear the worse. If something was wrong with him, she would not be able to function on the job. She just needed to know that he was okay, and she could be upset later.
She finally looked at the notes Reggie had set on her desk and quickly realized Jay’s name was nowhere in the incident report, but it sounded as if the vicious attack was aimed directly at him. She took a deep breath as tears began to well up in her eyes. How could she be so stupid as to trust this man with her heart?
__________
Jay had finally come to the realization that he needed to let Michelle go. She didn’t deserve this life, and he wasn’t about to continue trying to lie his way into her good graces. As long as he had this beef simmering in the streets, she would always be in danger with him. When she called, he didn’t answer the phone because he felt in his heart that she already knew what had happened, and she would want answers just like everyone else; answers he simply didn’t have. He was tired of the lying and tired of trying to make something work that just simply wasn’t meant to be.
When he finally got in touch with his lawyer, Dan assured him that going in and talking to the police was the only way to keep them from further harassing him. He assured Jay that he wouldn’t have to incriminate himself or offer any information about the incident, but just showing up and pretending that he was willing to cooperate would suit him a lot better than running and hiding out.
That afternoon, about five hours after the incident took place, Jay got lawyered up and went in to the precinct to talk with the investigating officers. The meeting was a short one because Jay basically said he didn’t know why anyone would be looking for him and that he believed the situation was a case of mistaken identity. He told police he’d be getting security cameras installed in the store in the very near future. Dan wouldn’t allow any incriminating questions to be answered, and before long, they were out of the precinct and going their separate ways.
As they walked to their cars in the parking lot, Dan hit the alarm on his Cadillac and said, “Jay, I want you to be safe out here. I feel in my heart you’re a good guy, but maybe it’s time to really think about your future.”
If only Dan knew how hard he was trying to do exactly that.
“Thanks, Dan. I understand where you coming from.” Jay returned.
__________
Michelle sat behind the anchor desk trying her best to hold it together. What was supposed to be a shining moment in her career felt like a bad dream that she couldn’t wait to wake up from. Not only was Jay not the person he had claimed to be from the beginning, it seemed as if he was willing to endanger the lives of everyone around him for his own personal benefit. He wasn’t even man enough to pick up the phone and offer a bullshit explanation about the events that had taken place. Everything she had learned about the incident, she had to learn from doing her job as a reporter. Minutes away from going live on the evening news, she was still blinking away tears, as she could not fathom what this would have done to her career if it was found out that she was involved with a man like Jay.
As the countdown to go live began, she tried her best to regroup and focus on the task at hand, knowing she had so many people rooting for her. The evening news always started with the most dramatic and high profile stories of the day. There was a high profile case of a man charged with a triple homicide, who was finally getting his first day in court. They started with live shots of the man who appeared in court in shackles looking wild and scraggly as he was ushered before the judge. Next was an interview with the woman who was mauled by a pit bull. She was in the hospital recovering from surgery but agreed to an interview.
As Michelle focused on the teleprompter, she saw the story she dreaded pop up on the screen. It would take everything in her to keep her composure and push through it. She really wanted to just climb under the anchor desk and hide, but she continued to remind herself that this was her dirty little secret and no one would ever know but her. She cleared her throat and focused as Reggie pitched over to her.
“This next story is very bizarre. Police say two men stormed into a record store on Livernois with guns drawn and demanded to know the owner’s whereabouts. They assaulted a manager and a sales clerk, hoping to get answers, and when they weren’t given any valuable information, they proceeded to shoot up the entire store. Police say the assailants fired at least thirty rounds in the store before fleeing the scene. The storeowner is believed to be cooperating at this point, but police say the twenty-nine year old owner believes the thugs have mistaken him for someone else. The men were described as two black males in their late twenties and witnesses say they drove off in a black dodge Ram truck.”
As Michelle continued to read from the teleprompter, footage of the actual store location from the outside was run. “If you have any information on the suspects, police are asking you to call the twenty-four hour tip hotline immediately.”
Michelle managed to wrap up the story like the true professional she was, but the reality of what was going on in her world continued to haunt her thoughts. She zoned out into a blank stare as Reggie went to a commercial.
He could see that something was obviously wrong. “Michelle, is everything okay?” Reggie asked.
She snapped out of her trance. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You’re doing fine, just relax,” he assured her, thinking maybe she was a little nervous.
__________
How ironic it was for Jay as he sat at Niecey Girl’s house staring at the pain in Michelle’s eyes as she reported on his real life that he had been trying to conceal from her as much as he could. Today was such a special day for her, and he had managed to ruin it with circumstances beyond his own control.
Gunner sat on the couch smoking a blunt, knowing what was running through Jay’s mind.
“Gotta let her go, dog. Shit too real out here,” Gunner said.
“Right now, I wish I never met her. I don’t even gotta worry about it no more though. After this, she wouldn’t ever fuck with me again anyway,” Jay said as he stood and began to pace the room.”
“Jay, you gotta handle this shit. It’s been going on for too long,” Niecey Girl said.
He already had Ray Ray and the squad out on the street searching high and low for Skip and Bones, but just like Jay wasn’t so easy to catch, neither were they.
“Niecey, shut the fuck up. Don’t you think I know that?” Jay snapped.
Jay never talked to his favorite cousin in this manner, and she knew at that moment that his level of anger was too far to control his temper, so she simply didn’t add fuel to the fire by responding.
“On some real shit, though. Everything gotta go on the back burner until this shit is over,” Gunner said.
“Hell yeah, everything gotta go on the back burner. Fuck them record stores, fuck that dope, fuck everything until this shit is taken care of,” Jay said still pacing. “Shit, ain’t nobody gonna work for me in the stores anyway after this. Muthafuckas gone be scared for they lives.”
“We need more people on the streets,” Gunner suggested.
Jay just wanted to break something. His anger had taken over, and the rational thought process wasn’t working at the moment so he stopped speaking.
Just paced.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
“You know what? I want you to get the word on the streets. I got a fifty thousand dollar tag on both of them nigga’s heads. If they ain’t dead in a week, it’s going up to seventy-five.”
Jay realized all the money in the world was no good if you were laying in a casket. He was willing to go broke. If that’s what it took to win this war, so be it.
Chapter 25
Three weeks later
Jay had to temporarily close every location of Damn Good Music. J
ust like he figured, after the incident at the westside location, everyone knew that working for Jay could be a life threatening position. When all the drugs were sold, he didn’t re-up, and he didn’t introduce Gunner to the plug. He didn’t do anything. He continued to up the contract on Bones and Skip, which only sent them deeper into hiding.
Somehow, Ray Ray found out about the rock house Bones had opened recently. Even though he had no real proof the house belonged to Bones, he still went ahead and killed everybody inside. Now neither side could make money on the streets or move around comfortably without looking over their shoulders everywhere they went. Jay knew as long as his crew wasn’t out hustling, they would be on point at all times, which meant they would make it home at night. Michelle stopped calling him after the first time he ignored her calls. He never reached out to her, knowing she probably wouldn’t have anything else to say to him. Out of everything he had lost in this war, losing Michelle is what hurt the most, because unlike J-Rock or Lines, she was still here. Still on his television every day, moving on with her life. A life he felt deep down he was supposed to be sharing with her.
__________
Michelle decided that she would attend the farewell party for Diane instead of sitting at home alone again moping over the past. In the past few weeks, she had slowly been able to come to grips with the demise of her love affair, and was progressing into the belief that there was someone out there for her. Someone that fit into her lifestyle and had an honest heart. Meanwhile, she turned to the things she knew best to keep herself balanced. She went the gym every chance she got, and she stayed busy with work. After having the feeling she was being followed a second time, Michelle went forward with getting a gun permit, and she had just started going to the shooting range once a week. She found it to be therapeutic with all she had going on in her life.
The farewell party was held at the Marriott Hotel in St. Clair Shores, not far from where Jay lived. On the way there, she was tempted to drive to his house, ring the doorbell, and slap the shit out him if he answered the door. She decided against it and went to the party to say her goodbyes and have a good time. She was thoroughly enjoying the night until Kurt, the general manager pulled her to the side and informed her that the station had decided to go with Andrea Nelson as the new co-anchor with Reginald Hollow. The news really put a damper on her evening.
The War Report Page 15