by Leo Sullivan
voice,
the only lawyer you’re going to be is a jailhouse lawyer.
The gun flashed in my mind. I sprung up in bed thinking
about Life’s sly ploy to get with me.
I took a quick shower, got dressed, did my hair, placed the gun
and the money in my book bag and drove to his hotel. Today the
Tallahassee heat was sweltering. I wore a pink halter top and white
shorts. I drove with the windows down trying to save gas. Halfway
to the hotel I was hit by the reality of what I was doing. Like a rit-
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ual of mating, boy meets girl, I was allured by this thug. He could
possibly ruin my future, my life, and deep down inside, I knew
that I was attracted to this man and his ravenous lovemaking
skills. He was rough, but sensitive in a way that a woman could
appreciate, and yet he was a damn thug that wore his pants sag-
ging and referred to me as ‘Shouty’. Yet in my mind, I couldn’t
help comparing him to Marcus who came up short in ways that
mattered to a woman at times. Marcus was sweet, that’s what I
told myself. He treated me like a lady.
*****
I knocked on the hotel door. Finally he answered, wearing
only his boxer shorts and his thang pointed right at me. The room
reeked of weed and something that could pass for sex. I stormed
in, a sista with a serious attitude.
“You’re going to get me arrested! Did you see the news? And
that was not cute what you did by leaving that gun in the car!” I
was talking so fast that my tongue had a hard time tr ying to keep
up with my mouth. Life was not paying me the least bit of atten-
tion. He walked over to the rug examining a cer tain spot in the
carpet. I thought I heard him mumble something about that bitch
beat me for my stash but by then, I was in his facing ranting about
how he tried me. Finally, I dug in my pocket. “I don’t need your
money either,” I said with more contempt than I actually felt. I
was just trying to strike a ner ve, you know how we sistas can do
so well. Life completely ignored me. There was no fight in his
eyes. Surprised the hell out of me. He just took the money from
my hand and tossed it on the dresser with his shoulders hunched
as he padded over to the bed and sat down running his fingers
across the waves in his head. “Hope could you please leave now?”
There wasn’t an iota of fight in his voice. I swallowed the dry lump
in my throat that gave birth to my emotions as I heard a fire truck
somewhere in the distance. This wasn’t what I expected, not from
him. I found myself lost for words. For some reason I thought
about the singer, Prince, and the song, “When Doves Cr y.” I won-
dered if thugs cry, too. I reached into my purse retrieving the two
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books that I told myself I was going to give him. Nandi gave them
to me when I was lost and searching for who I was. One of the
books was,
The Destruction of Black Civilization
by Chancellor
Williams and the other one was
Black, Single, Absolute and
Dangerous,
by M.
“I was hoping you would call the station last night,” I said,
looking down at him, my voice resonating into a soft cadence that
moved me closer to him gnawing at his resistance. No response.
His eyes looked away from me, and I swear to God it looked like
that brotha was bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders.
I thought about what Nandi warned me about, being too pas-
sionate. I picked up my dejected emotions and carried them to the
door for the first time realizing that I felt something deep for this
brotha. I would have at least liked a good-bye kiss or a hug because
I knew that I would never be coming back.
“Hope.” He called my name. It sounded sad coming from his
lips. I turned real slow as the light from the open door beamed in
his eyes and he squinted at me. “Thanks for the books Shouty, I’ll
read them. Um, do you know where Trina lives?” His question
caught me off guard. I’ll admit, I was tinged with a little jealousy
too.
“I heard she lives somewhere near campus.” I wanted to ask
him what he wanted with Trina of all people. She was poison. Her
last boyfriend was doing time in the feds. I just shook my head
and walked out of the door as I heard him yell behind me,
“Tomorrow I’ma go to the unemployment office.”
I walked to my car with a feeling of uneasiness. Maybe it was
guilt–there were all kinds of feelings going through my young
mind. I mostly wondered what Trina did to him. She must have
come back to his room. I thought I heard him mumble something
about his stash. He sure did not argue about taking that money
back. It was almost as if he needed it.
What a shame that a brotha
could be so fine and sexy and be our people’s worst enemy
, I thought.
*****
As scheduled I drove to the Tallahassee Children’s Hospital to
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meet with Nandi to work with the children. I became attached to
a special little girl that I really tried to give my attention to. She
was 7 years old and over 90 percent of her body had been severe-
ly burned. Her mother, father and three younger brothers all died
on Christmas Day due to a fire that started from a electric heater
that malfunctioned. The little girl was a mask of gor y pain. She
had no relatives and already experienced over twenty skin grafts,
and was scheduled for dozens more. The first day I met her, she
held my hand while I read her stories. When it was time for me to
leave she would not let my hand go. The next day, I cried for the
world, and for the first time, I questioned my God. Nandi apolo-
gized, but she could not go anywhere near that little girl. The hor-
rible sight of her charred body was hard to grasp, even for the
nurses. Afterward, it made us feel good helping mostly impover-
ished Black children that were abandoned and neglected by their
families.
*****
The days quickly turned to weeks and with it came the reality
that I missed my period, which wasn’t unusual because it had been
late before; however, on the second week, I sent out a search party
lookin’ for it. I went to Walgreen’s and bought one of them little
test kits, you know the ones where you wait for the color to change
to see if you are pregnant. School was in full blast. My roommate
primped for hours in front of the mirror getting dressed to go to
a club called The Moon. It was a hot popular spot where the
young folks hung out on the weekends. A rap group called Poison
Clan and J.T. Money were performing. I watched as Shanana got
dressed hoping that she would hurry up and leave. The anticipa-
tion of taking the pregnancy test was burning me up inside.
Shanana put on a tiny outfit and high heels. For the life of me I
could not understand why some big people tried to wear clothes
>
that they knew were too damn small for them.
“How do I look in this?” Shanana asked, as she paraded in
front of me with one of her stomachs protruding over the other.
She looked like a Black version of Ms. Piggy. However, Shanana
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was blessed with a congenial personality, the kind that could wring
the last smile from your lips on your worst day. I just shrugged my
shoulders, nodding my head as if to say, no comment. Shanana
already knew how I felt about her hoochie mama dress code.
Determined not to have her jovial spirits dampened, animated as
usual she responded, hands on hips, “Big girls need love too,” she
said flippantly, and at the same time, she turned around and toot-
ed her butt up in the air and strutted out of the door. I couldn’t
help but laugh at her antics as she bounced away on a mission. As
soon as she was gone, I tore into the box of the pregnancy test, my
hands trembling badly, my heart racing in my chest. When the
test showed the results, I could not believe it. The damn thing said
I was pregnant.
I was tempted to go to the store and buy another one, or bet-
ter yet, go see a doctor and let him charge me to tell me what I
already knew. I plunged down in my chair thinking this couldn’t
possibly be happening to me. Fucking men! Fucking Marcus! I
was tempted to call his sorr y ass and make him fork over the
money for an abortion. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” I exasperated, banging
my fists on the table. I was finally about to achieve my dream of
entering law school, now my life was r uined. I began to sob
uncontrollably. I thought about all the girls that I went to high
school with that had got knocked up and were shunned in a way
that society does when you’re a failure. I used to feel sorry for them
and in some strange way, it made me feel proud that I made the
right choices and never fell victim to the lures of the streets. When
I went home, all my family and friends often referred to me as
“Hope, the future lawyer.” This reference made me hold my head
dignified. For a woman, especially a young Black woman, there
can be no other personal devastation than an unwanted pregnan-
cy, for it entails the complete solitude of misery and despair that
renders a woman powerless over her own body. The unwanted
burden of a life, God’s bliss to a woman, is often viewed as some
cruel evil curse bestowed upon her.
I had to get a grip on myself. I was a wreck. I got dressed in a
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daze without combing my hair and I meandered down the hall in
a fugue. People stared at me openly, a few called my name, I just
kept walking.
At the pay phone, I called Nandi. She answered on the first
ring.
“I’m pregnant,” I cried into the phone wishing that I would
wake up and this would all be some bad dream.
“And I’m Michael Jackson, hee hee,” Nandi sang playfully.
“Nandi, I’m fucking serious! I took the test and it came back
positive.”
“Lawd have mercy! Hope, girl, are you serious?”
I nodded my head on the phone like she could see me. “If I
used a rabbit, they would have charged me with cruelty to ani-
mals.”
“Who’s baby is it?”
I could not believe Nandi would have the ner ve to ask me such
a dumb question.
“Who in the hell do you think it is? It’s Mar-cus!” I said his
name like it was some virulent disease.
“OK, calm down, calm down. We need to talk, I’m on my –”
“Talk? Talk about what? There’s nothing to talk about! I’m get-
ting rid of this bastard!” I screamed on the phone and suddenly
looked around and all the girls in the dorm were eavesdropping. I
glared at all of them as if I were possessed by demons ready to kick
ass and take names later.
“Stay right there, I’m on my way girl. Please think, don’t
panic. It’s not the end of the world,” Nandi said with her voice
filled with sympathetic overtones that made me want to cry more.
“Have you talked with Marcus yet?” Nandi asked.
“Hell naw!” I cried. “I should cut his little dick off. He did this
to me on purpose.” I was giving the girls in the hall an earful.
“Don’t they all,” Nandi responded frankly.
I ran my fingers through my hair trying to regain some sem-
blance of my composure. I reasoned, “I don’t want to meet you
here, I need to get out and get some air.”
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We agreed to meet at Subway on Buffow Street.
As I hung up the phone, all eyes were on me. The hall was so
quiet you could hear a rat piss on cotton. I walked back to my
room on legs that felt like rubber. It was the longest walk of my
entire life.
*****
We sat at a table inside Subway next to a window with a view
to the streets. Cars passed in the night, occasionally strobbing
flashes of light across Nandi’s face. For some reason I was fam-
ished, and the air conditioner was turned up high enough to turn
me into a human icicle. I ordered a steak sandwich with extra
cheese and a Coke with a bag of chips. Nandi looked at me like I
was crazy. She was a faithful vegetarian. I was too until that day.
It was about a quar ter to ten and I could not believe this lady
had her two bad-ass kids out this late. They ran around the place
recklessly knocking over things in their path, making enough
noise to raise the dead. I had a headache and they were getting on
my last nerve. I could not believe this white woman would not
restrain her kids, but when that little bad boy ran his egg head ass
under my table and knocked my drink in my lap, God forgive me,
I looked under the table and saw the malice in his blue eyes as he
then ran his fire truck over my toes. I snatched his bad ass up from
under that table so fast he bumped his head causing the table to
rattle. He wailed, crying, as if I were torturing him. Actually, I
kind of squeezed his arm too, as I took him over to his mother.
“Your boy was under my table,” I said jaws clinched tightly.
“She’s a girl,” the lady said flatly, taking her child and cooed,
“Mama’s baby got a boo-boo on her head.”
That’s when I noticed the golf ball sized lump on the child’s
forehead that must have come from the table. I walked away not
wanting to believe I had one of them in my stomach. The other
child was somewhat smaller, smarter, the sole witness to what I
had done to his older sister. One look at me and the child took off
running in the opposite direction, reminding me of a scene from
the Little Rascals. I sat back in the booth. Nandi was curled over
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laughing hysterically at me.
“Did … you … did you see the way …” Nandi laughed so
hard she could barely get the words out. “ … that little kid ran
away from you like you was the real Boogey Man.” Nandi held her
sides as s
he lost her breath in giddy laughter. Regardless of my
somber mood I couldn’t help but to smile at her hilarity. Finally
she stopped laughing, however, the corners of her eyes still held a
tinge of humor. She reached over and held my hand in a sympa-
thetic gesture. “You’re going to be OK,” she assured, then leaned
closer and whispered, “An abor tion is out of the question.”
“Shiiiit!” I lisped indignantly, looking at the white lady with
them bad-ass Bebe’s
kids r unning around. It looked like the poor woman lost her
mind and got used to it.
“I ain’t havin’ no damn babies.”
“You have a precious life within your womb. Regardless of the
circumstances, you were placed on this earth to do God’s will. To
give life, not take it.” I couldn’t help it, I began to cry. Nandi had
a way with words, making everything sound spiritual. I turned
away from her, looked at my reflection in the window and saw
facets of my life pass by me.
“At least talk to Marcus. See what the man has to say.” Nandi
pressed on. “The man wants to marry you, he loves you Hope.”
Angrily, I wiped the tears away from my face with the back of my
hand.
“Stop being so mean. What’s done is done, just call the damn
man! See what he has to say.” The moment lulled into a pregnant
pause. Nandi could be so damn persuasive. The girl sounded like
my conscience talking to me at times. I agreed to follow her
advice.
Nandi planted a seed of determination that seemed to germi-
nate in my mind and she knew it as she gave me a triumphant
glare, the kind that a sista gives another sista that is so empower-
ing and caring that you know, no matter what, she is with you one
hundred percent. We hugged. “It’s the woman that does not
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believe she can achieve her goals, thus she fails from the start. As
long as you believe that you can, you give yourself and the baby
positive energy, you’ll be fine. If Marcus wants to play papa make
his ass come to mama,” Nandi said in a conspiratorial tone and
winked her eye at me.
The next day Nandi was scheduled to fly to Atlanta to help
organize a Million Youth March. That night, I drove to Marcus’
