Never Again, No More 3

by Untamed

  Everything was looking up for me. I had a new dope boy clique, three bad bitches doing whatever the fuck I wanted and needed, and my paper was stacking up real nice. Now I was meeting with my attorney to see what the deal was with my plea bargain. Yep, I was pulling a bitch-ass move by being a snitch, but this wasn’t no five-to-ten, out-in-three-for-good-behavior type of bullshit I was doing. This shit was life plus more, so you can call me a snitch if you want. I called this shit survival.

  “Vernon.” My attorney greeted me as I sat down at the table in front of him.

  I grabbed his hand and shook it. “’Sup, Stein,” I said as the guard shut the door. “What’s good?”

  “Nothing much. Have you been taking care of yourself?” he asked.

  “As best I can for a locked-up nigga. So, tell me, is that gonna change?” I asked him, trying to move this conversation to the point.

  He sat back and inhaled nervously. “We had a minor setback—”

  I sat forward, shaking my head. “I don’t wanna hear no bullshit, Stein. This deal was as solid as pure gold. Platinum, in fact. Ain’t that what you told me?”

  He loosened his tie. “Yes, and I believe it still is—”

  I put my hands up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What the fuck you mean you believe it still is? What the fuck happened, Stein? You said this shit was 99.99% guaranteed.”

  “Vernon, if you just let me explain—”

  “Explain what!”

  “Judge Watson denied it. He wasn’t convinced that you had enough information on the person to force a trial or conviction,” Stein stated. “That doesn’t mean that we can’t try again. You just have to give up more information.”

  With a sinister laugh, I looked at him like he was a fool. “Are you shittin’ me? I’m already dodging the grid for this bullshit I was already tryna do. Ain’t no fuckin’ way I can give you any more information. Besides, I’m positive Tot is laying low now that I got busted. Shit.” I hit the table, creating a loud thud.

  “Vernon, I’m trying everything possible to make this happen for you.”

  “So, what about my appeal?”

  “Those things take time—”

  Anger coursed through my veins, and I jumped up and grabbed him by his collar. “I don’t want to hear about time and shit. Get that appeal done like yesterday and get me outta here.”

  “Oh . . . oh, okay,” Stein said nervously as I let him go. He gathered his things. “I’m going to call Sonja on Monday with an update.”

  “Bet,” I said angrily, and I sat back down.

  Once he left, the CO came to get me and walk me back to my cell. How dare that fuckin’ judge deny me? Did he know who the fuck I was? As soon as I got out, I swore I was putting a hit out on that fuckin’ peckerwood. My blood was fuckin’ boiling. This was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, and now it was the worst. The only thing that could truly calm me down was gettin’ my dick rocked. That would relieve some pressure. But Lisa didn’t work weekends and Flava wasn’t coming up this weekend, so I was gon’ be a pissed off all weekend.

  When I got back to my cell, I nearly lost my fuckin’ lunch. Back in the corner, where the guard couldn’t see behind the bunks, Wolf was letting Cock Diesel suck his dick.

  “What the fuck?” I hollered as they scrambled up. “Come on, man. Not you too, Wolf?”

  “I’m sorry, Pooch, man. I was on a dry spell. I just needed to relieve some pressure. I swear the whole time I was picturing Adrienne doing it,” he said nervously.

  Cock Diesel just laughed. “Pooch, you need to chill, dude. We all gotta ass of time to serve, and I look at the shit like this—a hole ain’t nothing but a hole as long as my dick gettin’ serviced. Wolf needed a favor. I serviced it.”

  I shook my head as I peeped Wolf’s seeds on the floor. “Y’all is a bunch of gay muthafuckas around here. Fuck that,” I said, turning to the bars. “Do y’all. I gotta get up outta here. Guard.”

  “Pooch, don’t say nothing,” Wolf pleaded.

  “I ain’t ruining the rep of my clique. Just stay away from me right now. Guard,” I yelled, and this woman walked up. “Who are you?”

  “A CO, fool,” she said.

  “I see that,” I said smartly. “You big ugly bitch,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m here to help on the weekends. What do you want, inmate?”

  “To go to the yard.”

  “Okay, but you shoulda let your CO take you when you came back. I’ll be nice this time,” she fussed as I backed up. Suddenly, I had an idea, and I reached up to feel if my package was still in place. It was there.

  Once she let me out to escort me to the yard, I turned to her. “You ever fuck with any of the inmates?”

  “Hell no. Besides, I like pussy.”

  “So, you ain’t never had no dick?”

  “Yes. Shut up. Why am I talking to you?” she said, shaking her head.

  Okay, it was time out for playing with this bitch. “Look, I got five hundred bones. You can have it if you let me fall in that kitty right now.” Yes, I was desperate. I was all set to give that grip to Stein, but after I got his news, he wasn’t gettin’ shit.

  She laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  I patted my chest. “Check it.”

  She paused, then she reached up and saw the funds. The next thing I knew, we were headed to the stock room. “I can suck it. My girlfriend will know if I’ve been with a nigga. You clean, right?”

  “Shit yeah,” I said, thinking to myself, Hell, I’m sacrificing too, ’cause you uglier than a summa bitch.

  She pulled down my pants and eased that shit in her mouth. I grabbed the back of her head, and my eyes rolled back as I pretended that this was Trinity. My mind floated back to my last birthday with Trinity. Gawd damn. I think I shot off so much I walked around with the limp dick for at least three days. That girl knew she could put a hurtin’ on me. I missed her ass something awful. She knew just what to do to make me feel—

  “Damn, inmate. You taste real good and sweet,” the CO said, breaking into my thoughts.

  “Fuck. Shut up and keep working it. You fucking up my concentration,” I said angrily, squeezing my eyes tighter. The last thing I needed was to hear her loud, manly voice talking while I was trying to get my dick rocked.

  She got quiet again, and I put my thoughts back on Trinity. Within seconds, my nuts drew up, and I knew it was ’bout time to explode. Big Bull tried to move back, but I gripped her head in place. For five hundred bones, she was gon’ drink all of this to the last drop.

  “Ahhh, Trinityyyyy,” I hollered as I forced all my nut down the back of her throat.

  She jumped up, coughing. “Muthafucker, you damn near choked me. Oh my God, and you made me swallow it. Where’s my fucking money?”

  I zipped up my pants, laughing. “Right here.” I threw it at her.

  She counted it. “Who the fuck is Trinity? My name is Danielle.”

  “Don’t worry about who Trinity is. And to me,” I said, looking at her nametag, “you are just CO Brown.”

  “Whatever. You ready to go to the yard?”

  “Yep. Thanks for the service.”

  “Let me know if you need that service again, especially for that kind of grip,” she said as she let me outside and walked off.

  Hell no, I thought as I cringed at what I’d done. I couldn’t believe I was so hard up that I let Big Bull put any part of her body on me. But I was so pissed about my news that I needed a release or else I’d probably murder somebody up in there. Damn. I had to hurry up and spring this camp. I was used to fucking dime pieces and now, I was reduced to women who looked like men. Damn. It made me wonder how long it would be before I had my jimmy shoved down Cock Diesel’s throat like Wolf and his cellmate. Hell no. Never. Big Bull and a dime piece did at least share the fact that they were women and had pussies.

  Despite everything, I was still stressed. I couldn’t believe
that fucking Judge Watson didn’t take my plea bargain. These fuckers were serious about making me rot in this bitch, but it wasn’t going down like that. Something had to be done, but what? I kept pacing and thinking to myself about what I could do when it hit me. I had to stack this paper up quicker. I had to get Stein to extend Watson an olive branch and give Watson some paper. Like I said, there wasn’t shit a muthafucka wouldn’t do for money.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Aldris

  It was times like this that I wished my old man was still alive to talk to. I loved Lucinda with all my heart and soul, but she was on my nerves in a major way. Every time something went wrong or not the way she wanted it to go, she was always at a category 10. There was no in between with her. She didn’t know how to let some shit go. Either the world was right with her, or she was against the whole world. Arguments with her weren’t riffs or discussions; they were battles and wars bound to leave scars and wounds. That’s how she rolled.

  She’d laid into me so hard about missing her court hearing until I wished I would’ve just called Jennifer to come home and left. Admittedly, I was wrong in how I handled the situation. I’d promised her that I’d be there for her, and I didn’t even bother to notify her that I wasn’t coming. That was fucked up on my part; however, I didn’t think that was the issue. I believed that even if I had called her and told her I wanted to stay with Jessica, even though Jennifer was there, she would’ve still been at a category 10. I knew it was hard for her to deal with the fact that Jessica and Jennifer were now a part of our lives, but at the same time, I owed it to my daughter to be there for her just as much as Lucinda expected me to be there for Nadia and her.

  Nowadays, it was like walking on pins and needles around her, especially since our wedding date had to be pushed back until September so that we wouldn’t overextend ourselves financially. I wanted to ask my mom for more help, but Lucinda didn’t want to hear of it. My mother had already ponied up five grand toward the expenses, and Lucinda didn’t want to overburden her. Those were the things about her that I loved. But since the wedding was pushed back and we were doing this on our own, she had the shittiest attitude. I got blamed about the car note she now had, and if I spent what she considered to be too frivolously, she was at—say it with me—category 10. Sometimes I just wanted to hit the mute button on that woman’s mouth, I swear.

  Today, I’d taken a personal day to stay home and relax. We’d implemented a new computer system at work, and I had been working twelve- and thirteen-hour days for the past two weeks, trying to make sure everything was running correctly and helping to work out the kinks, so I was tired as hell. Now that everything was running smoothly, I decided to take a day for myself. Nadia was in school and Lucinda was in class, so that was an added bonus. I was category free for a while.

  I’d been lounging around, eating a big bowl of Cap’n Crunch and watching rap videos and ESPN when my cell phone rang.

  “Talk to me,” I answered.

  “I know you’re not at work answering your cell phone all ghettofied like that.” Jennifer laughed.

  I laughed. “Nope. Personal day. I needed it.”

  “Yeah, you did. You’ve been burning the midnight oil.”

  “Exactly. So, what it do, Jenn?”

  “Lay off the rap videos,” she joked as I wondered how she knew I’d been watching them. “Anyway, I was on lunch, and I was gonna roll over to your job and drop off those DVDs of Jessica that I’d promised to give you.”

  Excitement took over. I finally got to see all my baby girl’s firsts. “Just swing by here and drop them off.”

  She paused. “Is Lucinda there?”

  “No. Look, don’t worry about it. She’ll be cool. You’re just bringing me some home videos.”

  “You know she hasn’t been a fan of mine since she caught us in that hug at your house, so I don’t want no mess out of your fiancée,” Jennifer said matter-of-factly.

  “It’s cool. Don’t even trip. Besides, that was an isolated situation,” I said to defend Lucinda.

  “Okay. Yeah, right,” she said condescendingly. “I’m on my way.”

  * * *

  Once she arrived, she walked in and handed me a small bag full of DVDs. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you so much.” I grabbed the bag. “I know you went out of your way, and you didn’t have to use up your lunch to bring this, but I appreciate it.”

  “It’s no big deal. I have my brown bag lunch. I have to watch this physique.”

  “Well, do you want to sit down and eat? Since I did ask you to drive all the way over here to drop this off, it’s the least I could do. Besides, you can watch the DVDs with me.”

  “I don’t know about that. I don’t want your fiancée to go ham on you,” she said, chuckling.

  “Girl, please. It’s not even like that. Come on in. Cop a squat and have a drink.”

  She walked in and sat in the LaZBoy. She wanted a bottled water, so I retrieved it for her. Then I put in the first DVD as she removed her sandwich and fruit from her bag to eat.

  “This is the DVD of her birth,” she said between bites.

  I looked over at her. “I have a question. Why do you keep saying Lucinda is going to go ‘ham’ on me and shit as if I’m some kind of pussy?”

  She drank a swig of her water, recapping it as she laughed. “Well, Aldris, if the shoe fits.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked, a little irritated.

  She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Don’t be getting all sensitive. You know it’s the truth, Aldris. You black men kill me—”

  I put down my bowl of cereal. “Okay, here we go playing the race card again. Does it always have to come down to that?” I said, shaking my head. I got so tired of people judging us because Lucinda was Latina and I was black. Damn already.

  She wiped her hands and shook her head. “No, I’m not knocking interracial dating. But keep it real. If a black woman was bitching and moaning as much as Lucinda does, you wouldn’t even put up with it. However, here she comes—long hair don’t care, light and bright so she gots to be right—and you won’t even open your mouth. You all put up with shit you would never put up with from a woman in your own race just to keep your ‘exotic’ dime pieces on your arm. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Bullshit.” I shrugged her off. “I just deal with it because she’s my fiancée. It’s a give and take relationship.”

  She pointed at me. “You’re a punk. You’re scared she’s gonna cut off the pussy supply, so you hold back from checking that ass.” She laughed.

  “You’re stupid.” I shook my head, remembering Jennifer’s off-color comedy. It definitely wasn’t for everyone. “You ain’t changed a bit with your shit-talking ass.”

  “I call it like I see it. You know that.” She drank a swig of her water. “Look, on the real, this whole situation with you, me, Jessica, and Lucinda is new. We all have to adjust, and she just can’t be on ready-set-go all the time. But she’s never gonna know when enough is enough if you keep pacifying her ass. You’re gonna have to man up.”

  In a way Jennifer was out of line, but I couldn’t really argue with her. She may have been joking and fucking with me, but there was also a lot of truth in what she’d said, so I couldn’t be mad at that.

  Coming out of my thoughts, I glanced up to see Jennifer coming toward the sofa where I was seated. “I had to rush to the hospital because Jessica was coming so fast,” she said, pointing to the screen. “It was very quick—painful but quick,” she said as I watched the delivery on the screen.

  I was in awe. It was as if I were transported back in time. Even though I wasn’t there, this moment was very real for me, and I almost got choked up.

  “Damn.” I cleared my throat. “This is amazing.”

  Jennifer turned to look at me. “You all right, beetle bug?” she asked.

  My solemn emotions were replaced with laughter. “Hell no. I haven’t heard that nickname in ages. Do y
ou remember that car?”

  “Do I? OMG. You thought you were the shit with that beat-up jalopy. Nobody could tell you that bug wasn’t the shit.”

  “It was the shit. Man, please. You know you liked it.”

  “No, I liked when you got rid of it.”

  “I wish I still had that old thing too. I’d hook that shit up.” My eyes darted away from her as I reminisced on the true value of the old, dusty car.

  She smiled, patting my knee. “It still hurts, doesn’t it?”

  Exhaling, I admitted, “Yeah. That car reminded me of my old man. It was his first car. Shit, I miss both of them.”

  Giving my knee a squeeze, she said sympathetically, “It’s like that sometimes. You’ll always miss him, Aldris, but just know he’s in a better place.”

  Nodding, I agreed. “Yeah, he is,” I said as I looked at her. “We’ve known each other a long time, huh?”

  “Yeah, we go back.” She leaned back against the sofa.

  There was a brief moment of silence as the realization consumed me that Jennifer and I had finally turned a corner with communication. That thought made me want to discuss more as we figured out this new way to co-parent and be friends.

  “Can I ask you a question? I’ve wanted to ask this but just never felt comfortable enough to ask it.”

  She gazed over at me knowingly. “Let me guess. You want to know what happened to the child I was pregnant with by my ex-husband.”

  “Yes. You never talked about that child. I assumed he must’ve taken him or her.”

  “No,” she said, tears prickling her eyes. “Actually, I slipped and fell during my seventh month, and the baby was stillborn. He got choked by the umbilical cord.”