His Last Wife

by Grace Octavia

  Though the talks were quite therapeutic and actually often the highlight of Kerry’s day—not that there was much competition there—there were some odd things she was noticing about her blossoming friendship with Garcia-Bell. Although they often talked about past loves, Garcia-Bell never sexed her lovers. It was never “him” or “he” and always “they” and “them.” This wasn’t a surprise to Kerry. Looking at Garcia-Bell’s muscles and mannish way of taking up space and even hearing her voice, purposefully gruff and decidedly confident, it was pretty obvious to Kerry that she was not only a lesbian, but also a masculine lesbian—in Kerry’s mind she’d identified Garcia-Bell as the “man” in any lesbian relationship she had.

  Kerry really didn’t care, though. She didn’t have a slew of debutantes and sorors waiting to chat her up in her jail cell each night. She just wondered if Garcia-Bell thought she knew, how long she was going to hold out saying what she was, and if she ever intended on coming out to Kerry. Well, maybe she was already out of the closet. With those bright circus-themed tattoos of naked women on her arms, she certainly wasn’t in the closet. Still, Kerry was willing to pretend she didn’t see all of that until Garcia-Bell gave her some indication she wanted to be open about her sex life. But she knew it couldn’t be far off. Because there was also the matter of how long the slumber sessions were lasting. That Garcia-Bell would wait until the very last call for bed before she’d leave Kerry’s side. And she’d be grinning and giggling like a little boy leaving his girlfriend when she did. Things had gotten pretty awkward on some nights when Kerry had to break down and just say, “Go to bed,” in her own gruff voice. They couldn’t continue on like that much longer. Someone would have to say something soon.

  “The crazy part was that she was dead serious. I looked into her eyes and I could see she believed what she was saying,” Kerry said in the middle of retelling her account of what happened on the jail yard that afternoon with Auset. She was lying across the bed and Garcia-Bell was sitting on the edge. “It’s like she’s painting Jamison to be some kind of martyr. She actually called me Betty Shabazz. Can you believe that?” Kerry chuckled.

  “She ain’t too far from what other people be saying. On one of the video blogs on YouTube some guy calling himself ‘the Green Pill’ said Jamison was alive. A lot of people saying that now,” Garcia-Bell revealed.

  Kerry pushed up on her elbows and looked at her as the woman in the cell beside hers walked past, staring into Kerry’s cell.

  “People are saying he’s not dead?” Kerry repeated.

  “Just crazy rumors that people spotted him on One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street. One guy said he had a video of him,” Garcia-Bell added.

  “Was it him?” Kerry asked before she could remind herself that there was no way it could be.

  “No. It was some dude who looked more like Fifty Cent,” Garcia-Bell revealed, referring to the hip-hop star who had muscles like armor and a tough demeanor that Jamison had lost long ago.

  The women laughed.

  “I guess Jamison would like being compared to Fifty Cent,” Kerry said. “Could you imagine if that fool was really alive? If he was hanging out on One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street in Harlem looking like Fifty Cent while I was in here just . . . dying?” Kerry looked off.

  “Don’t get all fucked up about it now. It’s just people talking. You know that. I only watch the shit online because there’s nothing else to do in the computer lab,” Garcia-Bell said. “And whatever Auset was saying was that jail-yard talk. People in here blow things all the way up to make themselves look better. By the time they finish with a story, they can make themselves look like Martin Luther King or somebody.”

  After a long pause, Kerry said softy, “The thing is, she wasn’t talking about herself; she was talking about me.”

  “Let’s go with that, then. We can drop all that stuff about Jamison being in Harlem and just say the government or somebody else killed him because he was trying to help black people or something. Right? Isn’t that what Auset was getting at? What then? What does that have to do with you?”

  “I don’t know.” Kerry thought about it for a second. “I guess it would explain why I can’t seem to get out of this place.” She remembered her conversation with Lebowski. Everything he’d said about no one taking his calls and feeling like he was swimming upstream to be slaughtered. Then there was Jamison before he died and all of his suspicions about the governor. How he’d had Governor Cade locked up and hours later Jamison was dead and Kerry was in jail. “I mean, what if they framed me? They did it and they framed me”

  “You really think so?” Garcia-Bell asked.

  “Hell no!” Kerry laughed suddenly. “That’s crazy. Crazy as hell.” She looked at Garcia-Bell, who was clearly following along with her analysis. “I can’t believe you were falling for it too. I thought you were the one telling me to focus.”

  Garcia-Bell laughed with Kerry, but really she was thinking that with everything she’d been reading about Jamison and Kerry online in the computer lab, what Kerry just said made sense. She’d only lied about one thing—her little Internet research had nothing to do with boredom. It made her feel closer to Kerry. Like maybe she understood her or could connect with her beyond the concrete walls and metal bars that ironically put them together.

  “I’ll tell you just like I told crazy-Auset: I was there—remember! I saw everything that morning. And there wasn’t any white man or government in sight,” Kerry said.

  “Then who was?” Garcia-Bell asked.

  “Coreen. I told you before. And I’ve told everyone else. Coreen was the person on that roof who threw Jamison over. Coreen.”

  The lights in the hallway flickered and quickly there was the sound of the footsteps of inmates returning to their cells before the final call for lights-out on the entire ward.

  Garcia-Bell, of course, stayed in place on the edge of Kerry’s bed, but Kerry poked her head out of the bunk to catch a glimpse of her neighbor spying again.

  “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kerry started. “I’m turning in. Kind of tired.”

  “Tired? From what?”

  “The day. Dealing with Auset and all of this. My brain is fried,” Kerry complained. “I’ll just see you tomorrow.”

  Garcia-Bell looked down at Kerry on the bed like a child about to throw a tantrum.

  “Okay? I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kerry said jovially to hide the good-bye tension. “Okay?”

  The lights flickered again, signaling that all inmates had about five minutes to make it to their cells.

  “Okay,” Garcia-Bell agreed finally, avoiding Kerry’s eyes as she stood to head toward the door. “Tomorrow.” She walked out without turning back to wave at her, something Kerry hadn’t seen her do before.

  When Garcia-Bell was a good ways down the hall, Kerry’s neighbor showed up on her threshold, holding her hands on her hips and grinning.

  “What are you smiling about?” Kerry asked, sitting back up on her elbows.

  “You. Wondering how long you’re going to torture that woman. You know what she wants. And I suspect you ain’t about to give it to her,” the woman said, shaking her head. “You’re like a man stringing a woman along. Or a woman using a man. I swear, I see everything in here. Can’t wait to get out.” She turned back toward her cell and walked out.

  Chapter 7

  “Been a while.”

  The first wife was standing in the corner of the room, leering over at the second wife sitting at a table. The tension was too thick between them. Guards standing by whispered and watched for any signs of contention.

  “Been too long. Too damn long.”

  “I’ve been—”

  “No. Don’t say it. Please don’t say anything about why it’s been as long as it’s been. Let’s just admit what it is and then . . . that’s all.” Kerry had cut Val off and sat back, annoyed and speechless, in her seat.

  And these were two people who were supposed to be on the same team.
They were, after all, sitting in the private visitation room where inmates commonly met with counsel.

  After a while, Val said rather dismissively, “You think I want to be doing this? Doing any of this? But—” She looked around at the walls, with indistinguishable globs of this and stains of that decorating each cinder block.

  Kerry cut Val off again. “Exactly, so you admit it. You don’t care. And that’s all there is to it. We can stop this right now.” She looked like she was about to get up, but she still needed to hear something else from her visitor.

  The point no one would attack was this: Kerry thought Val was slacking at busting her out of jail and saving her ass. But Val thought she was doing the best she could, seeing as how part of her focus actually had to be on saving her own ass.

  So what was all of the abstract talk about, then? Perhaps each woman was still trying to play with her cards held close to her chest, to gather the true position of the one who was once on the opposition. It was a sticky and stinky situation. But neither could walk away. Each had to sit and play. Kerry had her reasons. Val had her reasons.

  “But . . .” Val continued from where Kerry had cut her off “I’m not going to walk away. I’m not going to just let this go.” Val looked sharply at Kerry. “I meant what I said to you. I’m getting you out of here. Look, I know I’ve done some fucked-up shit in the past, but I keep my word—right or wrong. That has never changed about me. And you know it. I owe you. I owe you big-time. And I’m going to pay you back for what you did for me. I’m going to get you out of here.”

  Kerry sat back in her seat, caught off guard. What Val owed her was the only bond the two women shared. When Val was at her weakest, Kerry gave her the words to make herself strong. She’d showed up at the women’s outreach center where Kerry was volunteering. Jamison had just kicked her out and Val realized something no woman who’d been put out ever wanted to admit: She had nowhere to go. Nowhere at all. And no plan. One of her old friends had told her about the Hell Hath No Fury House and when she pulled up out front she found HHNFH etched into a wooden sign hanging over a refurbished Queen Anne, with a huge porch decorated with potted flowers and swings and other beautiful things softer women might like looking at. When Val walked inside, shaking in her sadness and desperation, she assumed Kerry would turn her nose up at her as she always had in the past. Kerry was the first wife who’d earned the stripes, but lost the war. Val was the second wife who’d plotted and planned and eventually became prey. Served her right. Right? Kerry didn’t follow suit with this belief pattern, though. She gave Val tissues for her tears. She gave Val a seat. She listened. She helped Val like she was any other woman in need—just as someone else had once treated Kerry. She said softly to Val, “Now is the time for you to stand up for yourself. Time for you to be a woman.” It was the kind of grace a girl from the poorest part of Memphis hardly knew. She had to pay Kerry back for that.

  “I spoke to Lebowski,” Kerry said, remembering her conversation with the lawyer. “He doesn’t seem hopeful. Feels like he’s giving up on me.” Kerry looked down at her chipped nails and the orange jumpsuit, which was no longer looking foreign on her frame that had once modeled Stella McCartney, Kate Spade, and Donna Karan in socialite circles where jailhouse meetings were the butt of the joke. She looked at Val’s designer shoes and couldn’t guess the brand. Maybe Prada. The suit was Hermès. Too much for visiting someone at a jail. It let Kerry know Val still thought she had something to prove.

  “He says he’s stuck. Says he can’t get anywhere,” Val added, echoing exactly what Lebowski had told Kerry on the phone.

  “You think he’s telling the truth?”

  “I don’t think he’s lying. I’ve been trying to talk to people too. All I get is lip service,” Val revealed. “Remember those news spots I was able to book last month to keep your name in the media? Well, they’ve all dried up. No one will even answer my calls.”

  “I don’t get it. We all know who did this. And she’s getting away with murder.” Kerry’s voice grew louder, where someone else would’ve whispered murder.

  “I used to think that too, Kerry. I used to agree, but there ain’t much evidence against her.”

  “You’re starting to sound like them,” Kerry said.

  “No, I’m starting to sound like someone who’s paying attention.”

  “To what?”

  “The facts, Kerry. The facts.” Val uncrossed her legs and inched her chair closer into the table. “I hate Coreen like the next bitch, and I know how much hell she was giving Jamison before he died. But, come on: There is solid proof that she wasn’t there when he was killed.”

  “I saw her!” Kerry slapped the table with each word.

  “You saw someone. You saw something. But I don’t think it was her. Ever wonder why out of everyone who testified about who they saw on the roof that day, you’re the only one who is certain it was Coreen? Everyone else switches back and forth, saying it was a man or a woman, or you or Coreen, or some people even said it was just a bird up there.”

  “It was her,” Kerry growled.

  “You want it to be her,” Val offered sympathetically. “But it’s like she said, she hated Jamison for what he’d done to her, but killing him wouldn’t do anything but hurt her situation. Maybe you don’t get that thinking, but I understand it. I get it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘like she said’?” Kerry asked.

  Val had to admit to something she hadn’t exactly planned on telling Kerry. She told her about Coreen contacting her for money and threatening to go to the press.

  “So, she’s in Atlanta now? Is the boy here?” There was a little jealousy in Kerry’s voice.

  “I don’t know. I don’t care, so I didn’t ask.”

  “I need to talk to my mother. I need to make sure Tyrian is safe.” Kerry’s voice was weighted with worry then.

  “It’s just about the money. I spoke to her; she’s not trying to do anything stupid,” Val explained.

  “Val, listen. You can’t trust that woman. I saw her myself. She’s crazy. What she did to try to steal Jamison from me . . .” Kerry trailed off.

  “Who hasn’t done some crazy shit to get a man’s attention?” Val asked. “So, she went a little screwball. That doesn’t make her a killer. And I’ve been thinking. What Lebowski needs to get you off is someone else for the DA to put behind bars. If it’s not Coreen, then who else could it be? Who else could’ve hated Jamison enough to do this?”

  “You’d know better than me. You were with him then,” Kerry said halfheartedly, still not convinced they really needed to have this conversation. “And from what I saw from far away, it seems like we could just give out numbers at the mall. Who didn’t hate him? Jamison made a lot of the wrong kinds of enemies before he died.”

  “I mean plausible killers—people who could actually have done it.” Val remembered her ex-boyfriend Keet threatening vicious retaliation against Jamison or Val in an attempt to cover up some of the dirty deeds the crooked cop had done for Governor Cade. As worthy of a candidate for murder as Keet was, like Cade and the rest of his cronies, he had the best alibi in the world the night Jamison had been killed: He was in jail. Also, Keet wasn’t the kind of guy to dress up like a woman to kill a man. He’d want everyone to know his work. Want all of the credit and fame. If he’d done it, the streets would be talking. But, at that point, there’d been no word about Keet.

  As if she’d been reading Val’s mind, Kerry started slowly, “I’ve been hearing stuff in here about the government. People saying Jamison was some kind of martyr. That he was assassinated.”

  Val looked at Kerry like the jail had become an insane asylum. “You mean like Tupac or Biggie Smalls? Or like Malcolm or Martin?” Val asked carefully, like she was evaluating Kerry’s sanity.

  “Don’t do me like that,” Kerry said, picking up on it. “I’m serious. They’re serious.”

  “They who?” Val whispered.

  “The other inmates.”


  Val looked away and pursed her lips like she was trying to stop herself from saying something.

  “I know. I know,” Kerry said. “I was just talking to Garcia-Bell and she’s also heard of—”

  “Garcia-who? Who’s that?” Val asked.

  “She’s my friend. And she said she’s been looking online and that people—a lot of people—do see Jamison as a martyr and some even think he’s alive. Like, alive and living in Harlem,” Kerry blurted out.

  “No, Kerry,” Val said. “No. You don’t make friends in jail. And you don’t listen to anything anyone says online.”

  “I know, but—”

  “There’s no but,” Val cut in. “No but at all. Yes, I’ve heard that crazy talk about the CIA killing Jamison because he had some great ideas for the people of Atlanta. And you know what that is? It’s just what I called it: crazy talk. So what if Jamison was going to start some program with Ras? Who gives a shit? It wasn’t going to change a thing.”

  “But Jamison had a voice and people were listening—”

  “For real, you’re sounding like those crazy folks saying the FBI killed Tupac because he was rapping about serious stuff in his lyrics. Really? You’re smarter than this. It’s that ‘back to Africa’ and hate-on-whitey bullshit that hasn’t gotten black folks anywhere. It’s that shit Ras was talking about. And you saw what it got his ass. Dead.”