Even Sinners Still Have Souls

by Joy, E. n.

  “Yup,” he simply replied. “You have to get ready because they’re going to feed you breakfast right now,” the old Piasa continued.

  Kemo got up, jumped down off his bed, slipped on his sandals, then washed his face and brushed his teeth. After that, he pressed a button located next to the entrance of the pod to let the guards know that he was ready to step out. When the door popped open, Kemo walked up to the door that he had entered through when he had first arrived. When he was a few feet from the door, it made a loud clicking sound, and then slowly began to open. Kemo stepped through it and was told by the control tech to go eat breakfast on the Eastside unit.

  After eating his mediocre county breakfast, Kemo was forced to endure the same routine he had endured on his way to the county jail, but in reverse.

  At court, the judge didn’t even look at any of the inmates in his court, including Kemo. With his head buried in a file, the judge sentenced Kemo three years misdemeanor probation for his crime and his release papers from jail.

  When they arrived once again at the county jail, Kemo and a few others were rerouted. Instead of being placed in the dress-in room, they were placed in the room that every single inmate wished they were in; the dress-out room.

  Due to the long release process, Kemo stepped out of the front doors of the jail later that evening. Jasmine and Rain were both waiting for him outside in their car.

  When Kemo made it home from jail that night, he quickly went to shower, ate some real food, laid out on the living room couch, and proceeded to watch some television. He looked at the television, but his thoughts were not on what was on the screen. Now that he was home, thoughts of his kind, elderly, murdered neighbors refused to leave his mind.

  “Baby, throw out the garbage. Trash pick-up is tomorrow,” said Jasmine, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Alright,” replied Kemo with a grunt as he got up from the couch.

  When Kemo stepped outside with a large plastic garbage bag in hand, he noticed that his neighbors from across the street were also doing the same thing, except for one major difference; the entire family of the house was outside looking out for their father. They had turned on the porch light and they looked in all directions as the visibly frightened father placed the garbage cans outside for the garbage men to pick up.

  Kemo only stared at his neighbors as he watched them accomplish what was supposed to be the simple task of just putting out the garbage. Forget that, thought Kemo. He refused to let himself and his family live in fear. He made his mind up right then and there. He was going to replace the shotgun, which was for home protection only, for a pistol that he planned on carrying with him at all times…even to take out the garbage.

  What Kemo was now planning on doing was what he considered to be a temporary solution to a temporary problem. As soon as he could afford to move his family out of the death plagued gutter that they were forced to call home, he would quit the use of all weapons. For now, though, it felt like his only option.

  Kemo took a deep breath, shook his head, and proceeded to complete his task. When Kemo stepped back inside his tiny apartment, he walked up to Jasmine and told her what he planned on doing to keep them safe.

  “What if you get caught again?” asked Jasmine.

  “It’s only a misdemeanor. They won’t give me any real jail time,” answered Kemo. “You should see how scared the people across the street look,” continued Kemo.

  “Fo’ real?” asked Jasmine.

  “Yeah, and I ain’t living like that, baby. I’ll kill anybody who tries to hurt you or Rain. Don’t you think things might have been different for Don Ramon and Julia if they’d had some protection?”

  “Yeah...maybe,” responded Jasmine.

  “Maybe? How about a yes?” said Kemo in a loud tone of voice.

  Jasmine thought for a moment, making sense of what Kemo had just said. “When do you want to get it?”

  “Tomorrow after work, okay?”

  “Okay,” replied Jasmine, with still just a tad of uncertainty in her voice.

  The following morning, as Kemo drove to work in his early 90’s Cadillac he’d purchased used, he paid really close attention to his surroundings. His city was like any average urban American city. There were drug dealers, drug users, homeless people, pimps, prostitutes, gang members, stray dogs and cats, graffiti, dumped garbage, liquor stores, and smoke shops everywhere he looked. Oh, yeah and churches too.

  As he stopped at a red light, he noticed a shrine on the sidewalk that was dedicated to someone that had been killed. Several empty bottles of liquor stood on the spot where the victim took his last breath. Kemo only stared at it and pictured in his mind his own shrine. He pictured his family’s reaction to the news of his early demise. He tried to conjure up the emotions he might feel if anyone in his own family was to be murdered. He couldn’t completely form the feeling, but he knew he would lose his entire sanity.

  Kemo thought about his own parents and how they had died at the hands of a man who had pointed his gun at them as they drove down the freeway. Kemo’s parents were on a Friday night movie date. Kemo was being baby sat by his father’s mother the night of his parents’ death.

  It had all started over a fender bender that had occurred at the parking lot of the theatre that they were leaving from. Kemo’s father’s car had been hit hard by a car that was pulling out of a parking space. The driver that caused the fender bender tried to drive away at a high speed, but Kemo’s father gave chase.

  He caught up to the reckless driver as they were entering the freeway. Kemo’s mother was trying to write down the license plate number as they both raced down the freeway at over 90 mph. The fleeing car had merged onto the fast lane as it desperately tried to get away. Kemo’s father got as close as possible so his wife could see the plate clearly. Before she was done writing the last digits of the plate, the car abruptly swerved to the right and the driver positioned his car next to Kemo’s father’s car. The man in the car put his window down and extended his arm out. In his hand he clutched a 45 caliber pistol.

  Kemo’s father hit the brakes on his car as soon as he had spotted the gun sticking out of the window. Kemo’s father had forgotten about a car that he had passed up just before merging to the fast lane, as he tried approaching the back of the fleeing car. When Kemo’s father had braked suddenly, the car behind him was not far enough to miss hitting him. On impact, Kemo’s parents’ car fishtailed for a second, skidded sideways, and then flipped over several times, ejecting the bodies of both of Kemo’s parents on to the freeway’s pavement.

  In the midst of the rush that the chase had caused, they both had forgotten to put on their seat belts. Kemo’s father died on impact when his head was crushed by the combined force of the speed at which his body was traveling, and by the concrete divider’s hard surface. Kemo’s mother, on the other hand, had only suffered severe scrapes, which would have eventually healed, if it had not been for the cars that inadvertently drove over her body, crushing her chest cavity, which in turn, pressed her heart down until it split open.

  Kemo was only three years old when his parents died. He had few memories of them; only what his grandmother told him about them. But he did remember them attending church. But what good had that done them? And since Kemo was never able to come up with an answer, he never willingly stepped foot in a church for a long time.

  His father’s mother raised him throughout the remaining years until he was eleven years old. That’s when she died. Kemo took her death hard. He turned bitter and began misbehaving at school. He was soon forced to live with his mother’s sister, whose family wasn’t thrilled about having him move in.

  Throughout the years, Kemo had to take leftovers of every kind during his time with his new family. He soon rebelled and got into all sorts of trouble. He experimented with, and sold, all types of drugs, got into fights, stole from anyone he could, and landed in Juvenile Hall many times.

  He met Jasmine when he was eighteen years old through som
e mutual friends. Jasmine, at the time, was highly addicted to speed. He began selling it to her, and soon he got sexually involved with her.

  Jasmine had a reputation around their side of the city. She was known as someone who was very easy to have sex with if the prospect was able to provide drugs or alcohol, or sometimes for nothing. Kemo didn’t care. As far as he knew, she was just another girl he was having casual sex with. Kemo knew that she was involved with several other men of all ages, but he didn’t care. As long as he was using a condom, he had nothing to worry about, so he thought.

  Kemo would invite friends over to party at his apartment at times. They would sometimes bring Jasmine and her friends along with them to the parties. Kemo and Jasmine would drink heavily, start arguing, get mad, and then have crazy hot make up sex afterwards.

  But during one of those parties, the arguing led to a different path. As a high and drunk Jasmine entered Kemo’s apartment one night, she gave everyone some dap. When it came time to greet Kemo, he extended his hand to her. She laughed at him and pushed his forehead with the tips of her fingers, causing him to spill some of his drink on his white t shirt. The guys who were around Kemo jokingly played with him about letting her get away with that. Kemo felt disrespected and humiliated. When Jasmine passed by him again laughing loudly, Kemo, drunk himself, was somehow unable to control the anger, which caused him to stand up and slap Jasmine hard across her face. Jasmine instantly dropped to the floor. Several people pulled Kemo back, as others lifted Jasmine off the floor.

  He never thought in his life that he would ever hit a woman, but Kemo felt in his mind, that to him, Jasmine didn’t qualify as a real woman. To him, Jasmine was the most disrespectful young lady that he had ever encountered. She had absolutely no kind of pride about being a beautiful young woman. But thanks to her beauty, Kemo’s good looks and his persuasive game (not to mention Kemo promising and delivering on his promise to never put his hands on a woman again), they made up some days later and were soon at it again. It was back and forth like that with Kemo and Jasmine for a long time, but their relationship as they knew it would soon come to a shocking halt.

  During a drunken filled night, the turbulent couple was engaged in one of their make-up sessions. Kemo, high and drunk, was unable to feel the condom break.

  One month later, Jasmine gave Kemo the bad news at his apartment.

  “I think I’m pregnant,” said a low toned Jasmine with her pinky finger to her mouth.

  “What do you mean you think you’re pregnant?” asked Kemo.

  “I’m late, Kemo.”

  “Do you know whose it is?” asked Kemo with a sincere look of curiosity on his face.

  “It’s yours you dummy.”

  “How do you know?” asked Kemo as he quickly bent his face in surprise.

  “Because you were the only one I’ve been with in a long time.”

  “Don’t give me that, Jasmine,” said Kemo with an angry look on his face.

  “I always try to wait a little while before I do it with someone else, so I could know who the dad is in case I get pregnant.”

  Wow, that’s slutty, thought Kemo. “Why don’t you just get on the pill?”

  “Those things make me break out.”

  Kemo could only bow his head as he thought about how stupid and ignorant she sounded right now. But he was also highly disappointed in himself for not being more careful.

  “You need to go to the doctor and see what they tell you.”

  Later that week, Jasmine was at the doctor, and the doctor only confirmed the bad news. Jasmine called Kemo and informed him of what the doctor had said. “I’m not gonna keep it,” Jasmine told Kemo over the phone in tears, because in fact, she did want to keep it.

  “Alright,” Kemo told her, not putting up a fight. When they both hung up the phone, Kemo laid down on his bed and thought about something his grandma had once told him as a kid.

  They had both been watching a Spanish movie together about a young pregnant girl who wanted to abort her child. Kemo’s grandmother was a devoted catholic, but what she said about abortion to him had nothing to do with her religion. “Your mother and your father wanted to abort you, Kemo. Did you know that?” Kemo only shook his head. “But I told them that abortion was the most cowardly act that any human being could ever commit because it is the murder of the most innocent of all life. What makes it even more cowardly is the selfish act of pleasure that had put them in that situation. Do you know what act I’m speaking of, Kemo?” Again young Kemo only nodded. “Kemo, if you ever, ever get a young lady pregnant, promise me you will take care of that child no matter what.”

  Kemo had stared at his apartment’s ceiling. Eventually he picked up the phone and dialed Jasmine’s phone number.

  “Hello,” said Jasmine in a groggy voice.

  “We’re gonna keep it, okay? So if it’s okay with you, I want to have the baby with you,” Kemo told her.

  Jasmine smiled as tears began streaming down her cheek. “I do want to have it, thank you, Kemo.”

  “Look though, let’s keep it real. You haven’t exactly been a nun out here in these streets. I think I have a right to be suspicious of who the father of that baby is. So if it’s cool with you, I wanna keep what we’re gonna do together a secret until the baby is born, and then we could take a DNA test, okay?”

  Jasmine thought about it for a few seconds, then came to the conclusion that Kemo had a valid point and she wouldn’t hold it against him. “Okay,” replied Jasmine.

  Kemo and Jasmine created a total social black out of their lives throughout the nine months of her pregnancy. No friends or family members were allowed to see them together. They spent nearly everyday together though. Kemo got a legitimate job as an airport ramp agent. He fed her anything she craved. He bought her new born baby items from the stores whenever they went shopping in cities far from their own. They watched several movies together late at night, then made passionate, gentle, natural love afterwards.

  Kemo and Jasmine were unknowingly growing to love one another. They were getting accustomed to seeing each other on a daily bases. But Kemo knew deep within him that it could never work out. He just couldn’t find the respect to give to Jasmine that a loving boyfriend or husband should have for their mate.

  He could never respect someone who never respected themselves to begin with. At one point, a friend of his had asked him, “Ay, Kemo, you still be messing with that dirty broad named Jasmine?”

  Kemo stood there with his friend quietly for a split second, then chose to ignore the question, and changed the subject.

  The baby’s birth took place during a winter storm. It was raining heavily outside as Kemo watched a movie late at night in bed at his place. Jasmine was sleeping beside him. During a quiet scene in the film, Kemo heard what sounded like a muffled pop come from Jasmine. Jasmine instantly opened her eyes.

  “Aw, girl, did you just fart?” asked Kemo.

  “No, I think it’s time,” answered Jasmine.

  “Time for what?” asked Kemo.

  “My water broke you dummy; the baby’s coming.”

  “What? How do you know?” asked Kemo.

  That’s when Jasmine pulled back the covers on the bed to expose the wet stain in his king size bed. Kemo prepared to leave to the hospital with all the stuff that the Lamaze class instructor had told them to bring along with them when it was time for the birth. Jasmine called her family to let them know that it was time. Kemo had never before met any member of her family. It would be their first encounter.

  “Have you gotten any sleep?” Jasmine asked Kemo as they got into the car.

  “No. Why?”

  “This might take a while, and you might get sleepy at the hospital. I don’t think they have any beds for guest.”

  “I won’t get sleepy,” Kemo assured Jasmine. But on the way to the hospital, Kemo yawned several times.

  When they arrived at the hospital, Jasmine amazed Kemo by not asking for any kind of drugs to nu
mb the pain of the labor pains and the birth. He had asked her to have the birth naturally if she could, so there wouldn’t be any fear of side effects from any drugs they administered to her. She told him she would, but Kemo knew that some women said that same thing before all the pain started. But then when they felt the pains, they changed their mind and took all the dope the hospital had to offer. But Jasmine kept her word.

  When Jasmine’s family arrived, they immediately surrounded her by the bed to comfort her, and completely ignored Kemo’s presence. Kemo backed away from the bed to let them have their family moment. He stood next to a large window and looked outside at the dark, gray, wet night. He then began feeling the first touch of fatigue as his eyes slowly tried to close themselves shut.

  “Are you Kemo?” asked an older man in Spanish, in a slurred voice, who also reeked of alcohol.

  “Yeah,” answered Kemo.

  “I’m Jasmine’s father,” he said and extended his hand. Kemo smiled and shook the hand of his baby mama’s dad. In a drunken loud tone of voice, Jasmine’s dad turned around, looked at his family, and announced, “Hey everyone, this is Kemo, Jasmine’s boyfriend.”

  Jasmine’s two brothers and three sisters only smiled at him, while her four and a half feet tall mother forced a smile and simply said, “Hello.”

  Kemo figured that the reason why they might not like him too much was because Jasmine had told them about him doubting that the baby was his. Jasmine, of course, had probably left out the reason why Kemo thought that way.

  They waited around for hours for the actual birth to begin. The doctor would come in and out of their room to inspect Jasmine to see if she was fully dilated. Jasmine’s dad, after talking with Kemo for a while, had knocked out cold in a chair in the delivery room. It was probably from all that alcohol in his body.

  Kemo was now to the point where he was nodding off like a heroin addict. He didn’t want to miss anything important, so he tried desperately to keep awake. But a couple hours later, he couldn’t take it anymore and decided to lie down next to Jasmine’s bed on the cold hospital floor.