Rozalyn (Includes Tamar Preview)

by Shan

  I instructed my mama to pull into the hospital that wasn’t too far from my house. I wasn’t sure what hospital Rozalyn was at, but I figured I would start with the closet one.

  "Do you need me to come in with you?" my moms asked.

  "Nah, just park over there," I said and looked to the back at my sister. I nodded my head for her to come with me. "I’ll send Lana back down to let you know if I need you stay or not."

  Taylana and I got out of the car and made our way through the emergency room bay where there was a room full of people waiting to be seen. Some were sick, some acting more pitiful than they looked, and a few looked like they were just seeking meds. I looked around and didn’t see Latoya or Rozalyn, so I walked over to the registration desk. A young, dark-skinned female with long fingernails, gold hair, and a mouth full of gold teeth was manning the desk.

  "Can I help you?" she asked as she smacked on what seemed like a whole pack of gum. I had to look around and make sure I wasn’t in the hood, but I guess you can find rats all over the city.

  "Yo’, can you check to see if my girl was brought up here? Rozalyn McGuay?" I asked.

  "McGuay?" she asked typing at the computer. "Oh, oh—oh okay. You need to go to Labor and Delivery. That’s on the fifth floor."

  "Yea, alright," I said and grabbed Taylana’s hand. We walked over to the elevator and pressed the up button. "Damn, I’m glad we came to the right one."

  "Who is Rozalyn, Tae?" Taylana asked.

  "Just a lil’ female I fuck with," I answered.

  "What she doing in labor and delivery. I know you ain’t got a baby on the way."

  "I might do. We going to go see," I said and winked my eye at her.

  "Oh, my God! I’m about to be an auntie. Is that why you and Shalea not together no more because you got a baby on the way with somebody else? She came over there the other day talking about she miss you and how you did her wrong."

  "Look, let me tell you something, next time Shalea show up over there don’t open the door for that bitch a’ight."

  We stepped off the elevator into the Labor and Delivery waiting room. I spotted Latoya, Brian, Zavier, and Rozalyn’s pops Korey all sitting around in different areas of the room. Latoya jumped up from her chair and ran to me. She wrapped her arms around me giving me a hug. "Oh my God Tae. I’m so glad you’re here."

  "What’s up? What’s going on?" I asked Latoya as I pulled her off me. She kind of threw me off with that damn hug and shit. I didn’t like her and I damn sure knew she didn’t like me.

  "They took the baby. They said that it was too much bleeding and that if they didn’t get the baby out and stop the bleeding she wouldn’t be able to have anymore kids," Latoya said through tears. "What the fuck is going on, Tae? Did you see who did this shit?"

  "Yea, you ain’t say anything about that to nobody did you?"

  "Hell nah! You know I know better. I’m just having a hard time believing it was him."

  "Yea, I’m having a hard time with that myself, Toy. Where is Roz? Where the baby?"

  "Tae, he is so cute. He has Rozalyn’s eyes and he so tiny. Come on."

  Toya brought me to the Neonatal intensive care unit that was closed off by a thick-glassed wall. She pointed me in the direction where my son was been taken care of. I walked over to the nurse’s station and told them that I was here to see Jr. I could hear Toya as she laughed behind me. I turned to her to see what was so funny.

  "What?" I asked.

  "He’s here to see baby boy McGuay," Toya said with a big ass grin on her face. "They haven’t named him yet and I’m sure yours ain’t the only one named Jr."

  "Oh." I looked at the nurse and saw she thought it was funny too.

  "First time father, huh?" The nurse said as she typed into her computer.

  "Yea." I scratched my head kind of liking they way that shit sounded.

  "Okay, it looks like we are unable to authorize any visitors to go in until we have permission from the mother. The only thing we can allow right now is for you to see him through the window. I will have somebody bring him over." The nursed said.

  "What? What kind of shit is that?" I asked.

  "Usually when the mom’s have their baby they are given a bracelet that matches their baby’s bracelet. Normally, the father is given one as well, but since Ms. McGuay came in alone in such a tragic way she was unable to give you a bracelet and we can’t do so without her consent. It’s hospital procedure as well as a security precaution," she explained. "Now, like I said I can have someone roll him over to the window and as soon as Ms. McGuay is out of surgery she can authorize for us to give you bracelet. Okay?"

  "Yea. Alright."

  I let out a long, deep, sigh and walked over to the window as the nurse picked up the phone. She turned her back towards us, mumbled something on the phone, and then hung up.

  "Just a few minutes," she said and tapped her fingers nervously against the desk.

  We waited and waited for them to bring my son over to the window. The nurse had disappeared from the desk, and every time we tried to get someone’s attention in the NICU they all seemed to turn away quickly and pretend as if they didn’t see us.

  "I wonder what’s taking so damn long." Toya said.

  "I don’t know, but something ain’t right."

  Just as I said that two street clothes wearing cops walked up to us.

  "Tamar Andrews?" said the black the detective quickly flashing his badge.

  "Lana, why don’t you go back out with mama and let her know y'all can leave. I’ll call you okay."

  "But….Tae!" Taylana protested.

  "Lana, do what the fuck I said a’ight?" Lana crossed her hands over her chest and stormed off. Damn I ain’t have to talk to her like that. I’m a definitely have to call her and apologize; I thought to myself.

  "What I can I do for you?" I asked looking at the detectives.

  "I’m Detective Carter and this is my partner Detective Bryant," Carter said and they both quickly flashed their badges again. "We are investigating the rape and batter of Rozalyn McGuay and we wanted to know what information you had about it?"

  "I don’t have any information," I replied.

  "You don’t have any information or you don’t want to give us any information?" Bryant asked.

  "Look, I know you did your homework before you came here so you know I just got out of County today. I ain’t got nothing for you. Alight?" I said angry as a muthafucka’. This shit here was making my blood boil. Rape? Nobody mentioned that shit.

  "So, you have no idea who would want to rape your girlfriend and the mother of your child?" Bryant asked.

  "She ain’t my girl and that ain’t my child."

  Bryant laughed, "Whoa, Whoa. So you telling me you bailed out of jail to see your step child or is it—"

  "It’s not my muthafuckin’ child. I ain’t got no information for you, okay?" I said through gritted teeth. I was fuming mad and could feel my veins as they bulged through my neck.

  "You don’t want to try and help us find out who did this to your girlfriend?" Carter asked.

  I glanced at the both of them and immediately noticed the devilish grins they wore. I shook my head and walked away with Toya right on my tail. She caught up to me and grabbed me by my arm.

  "Wait a minute. They told me that they suspected she’d been rape. I wasn’t sure so I didn’t say anything," Toya said.

  I pulled my arm away from her and walked back out into the waiting room to find Tavon, Keylan, and Brandon all standing around waiting with the same somber looks on their faces as they had earlier when I saw them.

  I didn’t have shit to say to either of them being I ain’t know what the fuck was going on. Shit was just getting weirder and weirder by the minute. My mom and Taylana were sitting in the waiting room as well even though I told them to go home, but I should’ve known if my mom got word that I had a baby up here she wasn’t about to go anywhere.

  After waiting for about an hour and half I walked ou
tside to have me another Newport to calm my damn nerves. The moment I came back up to the waiting room, the sound of footsteps came stampeding towards me.

  "Tae! Tae!" Toya yelled. "It’s something wrong with the baby! Hurry up!"

  She turned around and headed back down the halls to the NICU with me right behind her. Just as we approached the windows of the NICU there was an army of doctors and nurses surrounding the one incubator that held my son. One of the nurses ran to the window and shut the blinds closing off sight for everyone. I punched my hand on the glass damn near shattering every bone in my damn hand.

  "Oh Lord!" Toya yelled out as she walked over to Keylan placing her arms around him.

  My chest tightened and my breathing became irregular. I placed my hands on top of my head and tried to gain control, but it was inevitable. I suffered from asthma as a kid, but grew out of it as a teen.

  This was the first time I really felt something for a baby that I still had some doubt was mine. One minute I claimed him and the next I thought about Andre, Marcus, and even Brandon at times giving me doubt. The way I was feeling right now was that part of me that knew he was mine and wanted to be in there with him as he fought for his life.

  Tavon and my moms walked over to me and tried to help me breathe and calm down, but my chest felt like it was about to cave in. A couple of the hospital’s staff walked out to where we were all standing and their facial expressions told me the news was bad.

  "I’m assuming you all are here for baby boy McGuay," a short balding guy in a white coat said. "I’m Doctor Armeni. I’ve been watching over him since he’s been here and umm—he’s had some difficulties breathing, some problems with his heart, a little fluid built up on his lungs and—ummm unfortunately we were unable to resuscitate him. His heart stopped and we were not able to revive him."

  "Come on—man—damn, y'all can’t do anything for him until his mama get to see him? Please!" I begged.

  "I’m sorry sir," he said before he looked at each of us and then walked away.

  "Fuck!" I yelled.

  "Wait just calm down bruh! You don’t even know if this baby is yours or not. Don’t go getting all hysterical and shit about that lil’ nigga—"

  I reached under my shirt and pulled the 3-57 out and placed it against Tavon’s chin. This was part of the shoebox contents that I had my moms bring to me along with a few dollars until I got myself situated. I had a feeling I was going to need.

  "Let me find out," was all I said to Tavon. He better hope like hell he didn’t have anything to do with this shit. Brother or no brother he ccould get it like the rest of these clowns. Lost my seed over some hating ass bullshit.

  "Yo’, Tae. Chill!" Tavon said.

  "Shut the fuck up! You ain’t got shit to say to me and neither do the rest of you muthafuckas! Y'all stay the fuck away from me!"

  I tried my hardest to keep my mind on my money and not let the dumb shit bother me to where I had to pull a pistol and body a nigga. After I domed them last fools that pulled out on me in the middle of the streets the first day I hollered at Rozalyn, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to put no more bodies under my belt.

  A few muthafuckas tried to kill me since then, my bitch ass brother tried to kill my girl, and then somebody whom I never expected beats the hell out of my girl, raped her, and killed my damn seed.

  Fuck that shit. I was feeling like my boy Plies when he said it’s Murkin Season.

  These boys better watch out.

  ***

  A couple of months later

  "Catch him! Catch him!" I yelled at Keylan. "Get up on the curb if you got to! Don't lose this muthafucka’!"

  "I got this! Just calm down!" Keylan jumped the curb chasing down the dude we were after. After turning the projects into a firework show I still had no clue who else was behind trying to kill me, raping and beating Rozalyn and putting my seed in the ground.

  This wasn’t I wanted to do. I wanted to be about my money and let this shit go, but images of my son's breathless body and sounds of Rozalyn's screams of hearing that her son was dead haunted me. It ignited flames within me that I attempted to put out, but was unable to.

  There was speculation that Shalea was involved. Rozalyn told Latoya that she knew for sure it was Shalea, but I had no proof. Shalea vanished. No one knew where she was or even how to find her. So for now I only had one suspect, someone that sent daggers through my heart, unexplainable treacherous knives through my back, someone who was no longer breathing and could never give me a reason as to why.

  Thump!

  "Damn, you gonna fuck my ride up!" I jumped out of the car, and cocked my shotgun. I ran around to the front of the car. "You De De?"

  "Man, who is you? I don’t want no problems!" He screamed.

  POW!

  "I said is you De De?" I asked again after blowing a hole through his left kneecap.

  "Damn man! Awww shit! What I do to you homey?" De De cried out.

  "Couple months ago, did you help beat and rape a pregnant chick?" I asked.

  His eyes grew big as recognition of his crime came to him. He tried to back away from me. I took the butt of the shotgun and slammed it into his head. Keylan assisted me with picking him up and tossing him in the back of the truck.

  We drove a few blocks around the corner to an abandoned house. We took him inside, tied him to a chair, and doused his body in gasoline.

  "Aaaaghhhhh!" he growled after the gasoline hit his open wounds.

  "Shut the fuck up!" Keylan yelled.

  "I never touched that girl. They came in shooting and clipped me in my shoulder! I never got a chance to!" De De huffed.

  "But you were there. Did you try and help her?"

  "Nah man I was being paid to do a job. The bitch didn't even pay me talking about I just stood around!"

  "What bitch is this?" I asked.

  "Shalea. The hoe did time with my sister! She came to me and said I was supposed to help beat up some chick. They didn't tell me about no rape or about the bitch being pregnant. They did her wrong. I wasn't trying to help with that shit. I never touched her! I swear! Awww shit! My leg is burning!"

  "Fuck your leg, you better be glad you still breathing!" Keylan shouted.

  "Who else was with you? The two other guys?" I questioned.

  "Man I don't know! They were already there when we showed up to the house. Dressed just like I was. I saw no faces not even when we left!"

  "What about names?" Keylan asked.

  "No, nothing. They never said no names. Man can y'all please untie me and get me some help? I told you everything!"

  "You ain't telling me what I need to know," I said almost begging for more info.

  "I promise you. I don’t know their names. All I know is Shalea because she the one that hired me. If I knew I would tell you who else was involved," De De whined. "Please get me—"

  POW! POW! POW!

  De De’s head was literally smoking from the bullets I pumped into him. It didn’t matter to me that he didn’t touch Rozalyn. It was the fact that he was there and didn’t do anything to stop was enough for me to send him to his grave.

  How could he just stand by and watch somebody brutalize a pregnant, helpless, girl and do nothing to stop it? Only a sick, twisted, person would participate in brutally raping someone and then beating them damn near to a pulp. I’ve done things that I’m not too proud of, but shit like that I would never participate in.

  Keylan tossed a lit cigarette onto De De and we watched him burn for a few minutes, and then left the abandoned place moving on to our next victim. I haven’t seen or spoken to Rozalyn since this whole thing went down.

  I attempted to sit by her side as she recovered from the tragedy, but seeing how bad things were I couldn’t bring myself to it. Before allowing the morgue to take my son away, I held onto his lifeless body for hours just imagining what kind of father I would be. Just looking at what I created made me for certain that I would be a better father than mine was to me.

>   If I had to search for Shalea and the other person responsible for the rest of my life then I would. This was not something I was about to let slide under the rug. They were gonna pay and that’s a promise.

  21: Rozalyn

  Before I moved here I didn’t think anything could be worse than being put out of my mama’s home and being forced to relocate to Atlanta to be with a father that I never knew. And on top of that, months later him and his wife put me the fuck out doing me the same way my mama did me. No. No. I never thought that anything could be worse than that until I was raped and beat the hell up all while I was pregnant causing the doctor’s to cut me open, take my son out of me for him to only die hours later.

  I didn’t even get to hold him.

  On top of all that, my damn baby daddy, Tae, won’t even talk to me. He hasn’t called me, didn’t send any condolences for the loss of our son. Yes. Our son. He got them damn results three days after our son died. I know he was surprised as hell when I shot him a text message saying:

  I told you so. I know who I fucked.

  I had the results hand delivered to me at the hospital and was very hurt that he performed a fucking DNA test on a dead baby! If it wasn’t for Starr and Toya in my ear about all the shit he’d been through with bitches trying to plant babies and shit on him then I probably wouldn’t even give a fuck if he talked to me or not.

  I guess you could say that Tae hadn’t completely abandoned me. He put me up in a bad ass Condo near downtown, pays the rent and all the other bills, and keeps a nice bankroll in my pocket. I said that he’s only on a damn guilt trip, but my girls say it’s his way of saying he loves me without verbally expressing it. What the fuck ever!

  If he loved me, he would come hold me at night and tell me that everything was going to be okay. He would have been there for me when I tried to kill myself or when I lost twenty pounds from being depressed and too sick to eat anything.

  So, no, I don’t agree with Toya or Starr when they said it was his way of showing me how much he loved me. My love doesn’t cost a thing and I was willing to give it for free and I damn sure didn’t need him dishing his love by keeping me full of Ben Franklins.