B-Careful

by Shannon Holmes

  “Maybe I am. But the fact of the matter is this, you can believe what you want to believe. I ain’t got nuttin’ to say. Case closed,” Netta said.

  To her last dying breath, Netta was sticking to the code of the streets. She was playing the game the way she was taught that it should be played. See no evil, speak no evil, and hear no evil. If she was a civilian and Black had committed this atrocity to her, then that would have been different. Netta wouldn’t be held responsible to uphold the code of the streets. But as it stood now, that was not the case.

  She thought, that’s what was wrong with the game now. There were too many so- called hustlers, drug dealers, thugs and killers that were turning into snitches. They were too weak to deal with their own street situation so they turned to the law to take out their opposition. They get charged in a criminal case, so they turned confidential informant to save their own skin or to get less time. They committed the crime, but all of a sudden they don’t want to do the time.

  Snitching to Netta was a choice. A choice she wouldn’t make. That stigma would never be attached to her name, not if she could help it.

  Netta had never cooperated with the police before and she wouldn’t do so now.

  “So that’s your story and you sticking to it, huh?” Officer Hastings inquired, as if he were giving her one last chance to come clean.

  “That’s what I’m sayin’,” she declared adamantly.

  “Well, hypothetically speaking, let’s say this guy, who you say you don’t know, comes after you again. And you do know that that’s a real possibility, right? Especially since you refuse to ID the perp. He is still out there and free as a bird. We know you and Dashaun Williams, aka Black, were in that room having sex when things, for whatever reason, turned ugly. You made him pretty angry at you. He did a number on you as a result of that. He damn near killed you. Only by luck, fate, chance or whatever you wanna call it, are you still breathing. This guy is the real deal, a killer without a conscious. He has no problem killing people. He’s done it before. So just know, if he ever lay eyes on you again, your luck just may run out. Ms. Jackson, be smart, we’re begging you to point this guy out. And I promise you we’ll take care of the rest. We’ll see that this guy is put back away for a very long time.”

  Netta stood silent. Instead of speaking she let her defiant stare do all the talking. She was seemingly unfazed by his big bad boogieman story.

  “I wish I could help you officer, but I can’t,” she said coolly. “As I said before, I don’t know who did it. I don’t know what he looks like. And for the record, I don’t know no Dashaun Williams, Black, or whatever his name is.”

  “Oh you know!” Officer Hastings interjected. “You know more than what you’re willing to say. We know that at one time you guys were romantically involved. Right before he did that stretch in the pen.”

  Tempers were beginning to flair quickly, so his partner intervened.

  “Listen, honey, take my card just in case you have a change of heart or you begin to remember faces again. It could be tomorrow, next week or next month.... Just gimme a call,” he said, laying his business card on her night table.

  “Mr., please take that card off my dresser. I ain’t goin’ to be needin’ that,” she assured him. “I don’t play those games.”

  “You sure?” the police officer asked unbelievably.

  “Trust me. I’m as sure as I’ll ever be,” she explained.

  Suddenly there was a knock on the door. The policemen took that as their cue to exit the room. They were frustrated that they hadn’t gotten anywhere with the victim.

  “I hope this decision that you’ve made doesn’t come back to haunt you, young lady. Your life could be in grave danger,” Police Officer Campbell said as he removed his business card from the table.

  Another knock on the door only served to hasten the police officers’ exit.

  “Sorry for disturbing you,” Officer Campbell commented, replacing his business card back in his wallet. “Enjoy the rest of your day. Get well soon.”

  At the door, Tone contemplated for a few seconds, thinking maybe it wasn’t a good idea to visit Netta now. Maybe he should come back later. He didn’t like the police. He didn’t want to make himself a target of any investigation that they might already have underway. He didn’t want to jump from the frying pan into the fire.

  Tone had been at the door for a few minutes, he practically overheard their entire conversation. He was proud how Netta had stood up to the police and didn’t snitch. Personally, he knew more than a few dudes who would have told if placed in the same situation, if their life was on the line and they felt like they weren’t going to make it. He couldn’t heap enough praise on her for holding her tongue.

  “Yes, come in,” Netta answered, anxious to end this conversation.

  As the cops marched out the room, pissed off after dealing with a hostile witness, they literally ran into Tone as he entered the room.

  “Pardon me,” Tone said as he sidestepped the duo.

  The police officers nodded their heads, curiously eyeing Tone as he walked past.

  “I’m not even suppose to be up here. They was sayin’ you still couldn’t have no visitors, but I snuck up here anyway. Good to see you pulled through. I don’t mean to scare you, but shit wasn’t lookin’ too good for a minute,” Tone said, handing her a bouquet of flowers. “I ain’t tryin’ to be all up in ya bizness, but what was that all about?”

  “The cops came to pay me a visit. They wanted to talk about my lil incident,” Netta explained.

  Looking at the beautiful flowers, Netta had suddenly become self-conscious. She became aware how off her game she was. How messy her physical appearance must be with most of her weave snatched out of her head. With her broken nails and her face all battered and bruised.

  Tone noticed the sudden change in her facial expression. Somehow he sensed how insecure Netta must feel. He told her a few words of encouragement.

  “Yo, you good Ma. Don’t even sweat it. I know you seen way better days,” he proclaimed.

  His vote of confidence went a long way with Netta as she relaxed around him, feeling good enough to drop her guard. The comment made her smile. Tone could have been anywhere in Baltimore at the moment, doing god knows what, but he thought enough about her to come be at her bedside.

  “Excuse my hair, face and nails. I know I must look a mess, but under the circumstances it is what it is,” she admitted.

  “Shit happens,” he added. “It’s just not ya fault.”

  There was an awkward pause between them as Netta took time to deeply inhale the perfume scented roses. She was showing her appreciation for everything since God had given her a new lease on life.

  She continued, “Could you do me a favor?”

  “Yeah, what is it?” Tone wondered.

  “Could you go downstairs and buy me a scarf for my head. At least until I can do somethin’ wit’ my hair,” she asked.

  “I got you,” Tone told her. “Yo, I’ll be right back.”

  Quickly, Tone returned with a decent headscarf from the gift shop. He handed it over to Netta and she immediately pulled her hair back and put the scarf on her head. Finally, she felt halfway decent.

  “Anything else I could get you?” he asked before taking a seat in a lounge chair next to the bed.

  “No, I’m good,” she said.

  “Some food or something to drink?” he declared.

  “Not right now, maybe later,” she confessed. “I know you probably wonderin’ what happened to me that night you found me.”

  “Nah,” Tone lied. “You don’t owe me no explanations.”

  Secretly, Tone was dying to know what happened. However, he didn’t want to ask. He thought it might be a sensitive subject and he didn’t want to run the risk of rubbing her wrong.

  “I feel like I do,” she told him. “Shit, if it wasn’t for you I might not be alive today.”

  Netta was distrusting of people by nature, but she foun
d herself trusting Tone despite all her apprehensions she had about strangers.

  Tone wasn’t a complete stranger, she reasoned. He saved my life. Netta didn’t know where to begin, but she decided to put all her cards on the table. Tone was too deeply involved as it was to leave anything out.

  “Hope you got time, it’s a long story.” Netta began giving him a firsthand account of how she first met Black.

  “So the dude that put me in this fucked up situation, I know him. He’s my ex.....”

  Recounting the story, Netta began to zone out as she relived one of the most prosperous times of her life, when she really had it going on and money wasn’t a thing. When she was the undisputed queen of the streets of Baltimore and Black’s girl. She spoke of the lavish gifts, like the Mercedes Benz coupe Black bought her for Christmas that she crashed. They had the his and hers matching chinchilla fur coats. Netta could envision it all now, her eyes lighting up every time Black surprised her with an expensive gift. He used to worship the ground she walked on. But that all changed when Black went to jail, and Netta committed the treacherous act.

  Netta didn’t care if the information she gave up painted her in a negative light, or if she portrayed herself as a gold digger or not. She was going to keep it real with Tone, even if it killed her.

  As he listened intently, Tone had this underlying feeling that there was more to the story. What she was telling him really wasn’t adding up. There was a disconnection there. He kept waiting for her to get to the good part. It was hard for him to take this loving image that Netta painted of Black from the animal who had beat her so brutally. Tone knew that something caused him to flip. Normal dudes just don’t flip out for no apparent reason. He knew Netta had to have done something to him. She just hadn’t gotten around to telling him about that yet. Something had to have been done to arouse anger like that in a man, to drive him to such great lengths to make him want to kill you.

  She continued, telling him about their engagement. How Black really loved her and how she never loved him. How she was playing him. Black had been another notch on her belt, the final step in her quest for the good life.

  Her careful words and vivid depictions evoked memories of exactly what it was like to be a hustler’s wife. She also told him how Black’s murder charge derailed their life together, eventually sending him to prison, and set the stage for her to steal his money.

  “... I know what I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have took that man’s money. So when he got out of jail, he came looking for me. When he found me, he told me to get into his car with him. How could I refuse? Maybe if I had, who’s to say that he wouldn’t have killed me right there on the spot,” Netta sobbed.

  Netta was on a guilt trip. She had to accept the blame. She knew what she had done. She had brought Black’s wrath on herself. Next time, she promised she would be strong enough to give as good as she got. All she could do now was take it as a lesson learned.

  Netta wasn’t the type to sit next to someone she barely knew and pour her heart out. Her doing so was indicative of how much she was feeling Tone. She wasn’t begging for sympathy or asking to be saved. She didn’t want to drag him into this mess. Especially when there was still a remote possibility of Black launching another attack against her.

  Every so often Netta looked in Tone’s direction for any sort of indication he wasn’t following the story, or he wasn’t feeling what she was saying. There was none. Tone sat in the chair absorbing every word she said, expressionless. He could hear the pain in her voice as she drowned in her own sorrows. Regrettably, she had been too stupid to think about the consequences.

  Suddenly it all made sense. So that’s why Black went on a rampage against her. Over the years, he had built up a great deal of animosity toward her. Black must have become obsessed with her. He sat in prison, plotting, planning and scheming on ways to get revenge. Finally, when his day came, when he was a free man, he retaliated.

  Although Tone understood why he did what he did, he still couldn’t justify Black’s actions. That kind of struck him as odd. He couldn’t justify him violating a female the way he had. But dudes moved differently, this he knew. A broken heart or a sign of disloyalty could turn the nicest guy cold hearted.

  Tone refused to acknowledge that he had heard of Black a time or two. His name still rang bells in the streets of East Baltimore. Depending on who he talked to about the guy, he was a tyrant, a good dude, or a plain bad guy. On the streets, versions of him differed just like opinions on him varied.

  It was obvious that Black was a man who commanded respect and instilled fear. It was probably never about the money with him, it was the principle. Netta had bitten the hand that fed her and she paid dearly for it.

  “Tone, I ain’t gone sit here and try to portray myself as a saint, yo. Nah, I’m far from that. I was just tryin’ to get mine, just like you down here tryin’ to get yours. We just go about it differently.”

  Netta and the street hustlers of the world needed no introduction, that’s why her and Tone clicked from the moment he met her on that West Baltimore block. The two were kindred spirits, more or less. Their faces may not have been familiar to one another, but they were cut from the same cloth, and that cloth was called the struggle.

  At this point the story became easier to digest. The more she told him the more he needed to know.

  Netta was just getting started. She told him everything, from her upbringing in Murphy Homes, to her dope fiend mother dying of AIDS, to her joining the infamous Pussy Pound. She spared no details. At the moment her life was an open book, and she let Tone thumb through the pages.

  In those vulnerable moments there was an instant and deep connection between the two. Without thinking, Tone reached over and grabbed her hand, something he probably would never have done if she were some other chick. He felt a spark in that physical contact, like the first time he lusted after her on Monroe and Fayette Street. Those same feelings were suddenly rekindled.

  Tone began to sympathize with Netta. He didn’t look at the larceny in her heart or the malice in her past actions. He simply understood. He placed himself in her shoes and asked himself what would he have done.

  Slowly, in the crucial moments of conversation, she had won him over. He was beginning to understand who she was and what made her tick. Because of the emotional attachment he was beginning to feel, Tone was able to separate her act of thievery from the young lady he was just beginning to know.

  Tone thought Netta’s life story was amongst the realest he had ever heard. He loved that survival trait that was embedded deep within her. Her circumstances had forced her to the streets and her hunger for a better life had formed her into a hustler. To him, her mentality was both fascinating and diabolical at the same time. Through the course of their conversation, he could see Netta’s worth. She brought more to the table than just pussy. In his book she was a hustler, not a hoe. Someone he wouldn’t mind having on his team. He could picture Netta by his side as his girl.

  From Netta’s perspective, it felt good to get that off her chest. She felt like a burden had been lifted. She needed to vent to someone and Tone was gracious enough to lend an ear and he was so easy to talk to. For her it was like having a conversation with an old friend.

  Once she clarified her position on Black, and the more Tone heard Netta speak, the more he began to dig her. It was in those moments that Tone saw her in a new light. He accepted her shortcomings and told Netta she was capable of more.

  “You know you ain’t gotta live like this no more. Not if you don’t want to. I’m here. What happened between you and Black is history. And ya history doesn’t have to be your destiny,” he confided in her.

  Silently, Netta agreed with Tone. The winds of change were beginning to blow. She knew she had to make a change in her life before it was too late. God hadn’t given her a second chance for her to revert back to that same lifestyle, to do the same things that put her in this predicament.

  Something had to give
and it was beginning to. “Yo, lemme ask you a question,” Tone interrupted.

  “Yeah, go right ahead,” she replied.

  “You think Black was gonna let you live that night?” Tone wondered. “I mean, homeboy was goin’ hard.”

  “That’s a good question,” Netta answered. “I never really thought about that, even though I came close to dyin’.”

  Although Tone never said it out loud, because he didn’t want to scare Netta, he knew that there would probably be more drama involving Black. This dude would be a problem somewhere along the line. However, at this point, he wasn’t his problem.

  Tone peppered Netta with questions here and there. He didn’t want to seem too intrusive, so most of the time he let her dictate the course of the conversation. He realized Netta had been hurt and humiliated enough. She didn’t need him to keep interrogating her. But if there was a chance of them having a meaningful relationship, he needed to know everything.

  Netta whole-heartedly answered every question honestly. Her explanations were so clear and concise it made it easy for them to be accepted and understood.

  “Black’s different. It’s not a game wit’ him, yo,” Netta emphasized. “And here I was playin’ wit’ a nigga that ain’t playin’.”

  All this talk about Black was depressing. Netta had mentioned Black’s name so much that Tone had grown to resent him. His facial expression began to sour every time he heard it. He tried changing the subject whenever he came up. Yet all avenues of their conversation led right back to Black.

  Tone thought Black might need time to forgive and forget. While Netta might need time to grow, heal and evolve. But whatever the case may be, Tone was feeling real confident. Fresh off of his execution of Sykes, he felt unburdened by Black’s fearsome reputation. Black was just another dragon to be slayed, if need be.

  “Yo, I’m sick of hearin’ about homeboy, let’s kill that noise,” he interrupted her. “You hungry, you want somethin’ to eat?”