by E. N. Joy
Swallowing hard, the female officer walked over to Unique and kneeled down. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but your sons are dead.”
Ma’am is what the woman had called Unique; not Ms. Gray. No, that would have been far too personal. She had to disconnect herself from Unique at all costs. She was there to do a job, not be a friend, and definitely not for Unique’s support. She was there to lock this drug-trafficking woman up and throw away the key. She was there to use her female advantage to fake a bond with Unique and get her to roll over on the big dawgs. But when Unique threw her cuffed arms around the female officer’s neck and shook with tears ... with pain, somehow, right then and there everything changed.
Before the female officer knew it, she was down on the ground with Unique and her arms had somehow managed to wrap themselves around Unique. Next, one of her hands had the nerve to move itself up and down Unique’s back. And before she could stop them, words came out of her mouth. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here. Everything is going to be all right.”
The female officer signaled for the other officers in the room to leave them alone. “I got this,” she worded to them. She dug for her keys to the handcuffs to remove them from Unique’s wrists.
One of the officers shot her an “Are you sure?” look. She replied with a nod and the officers exited quietly.
“My boys,” Unique moaned over and over. She herself was now cuddled up like a baby on the floor against the officer.
After about twenty minutes of consoling Unique, the female officer was able to get Unique off the floor and back into a chair. Too weak to sit up, Unique’s upper body was sprawled out over the table. Eventually, Officer Givens returned to the room. He walked over to his fellow officer and whispered something in her ear. The brown caramel color flushed from her face.
“Ms. Gray.” Officer Givens’s baritone voice caused Unique to lift her head. “I’m sorry about all of this, I really am. I can only imagine how devastating this must be for you. Still, we need to talk to you about why you are here.”
“I know, I know.” Unique managed to sit up. “Just take me to jail. Charge me with whatever. Lock me up and throw away the key. Throw me away with the key. Don’t worry; I’ve been thrown away before. Charge me with selling drugs, using drugs, being a dope kingpin, whatever you want. I have nothing to live for out there anyway. I have nothing to live for now.”
Officer Givens looked at his female counterpart. He was a tough cop. He’d been on the force for over seventeen years, but his job never got any easier. Immune to pretty much everything to a certain degree, still, the things he had to do sometimes never got any easier.
“I’ll do it,” the female officer told him. Sitting across the table from Unique, she stood up. Hesitating at first, she walked over to Unique and rested her hand on her shoulder.
Just the warm, comforting touch caused Unique to break down all over again, crying out for her boys. Again, the officer assured Unique that everything was going to be all right as she patted Unique’s shoulder.
Was this all part of the officer’s good cop act? Whether it was or wasn’t didn’t matter to Unique at the moment. She needed someone there to tell her that everything was going to be all right, even though she knew that “all right” was a long ways away. Right now, everything was “all wrong.” Things couldn’t have been more wrong as far as Unique was concerned. But they were about to be. Boy, oh boy, were they about to be.
“Ms. Gray, I hate to do this, I really do,” the officer told her, “but you’re being arrested.”
“I don’t care. Arrest me! Arrest me!” Unique demanded. “I don’t care if I die in jail. My boys are dead. My boys are dead. Can’t you see, I might as well be dead too? So do you think I care about some trumped-up drug charges? No! So, here, take me to jail.” Unique stood up and extended her hands to the officer to return the cuffs to her wrists.
The officer took a deep breath, then looked over her shoulder back at Officer Givens. He cast his eyes away from her. He’d allowed her to do a dirty part of his job. Here he was this tough, bad cop, and yet he couldn’t have mumbled out the words to Unique that the female officer was about to.
Turning back around to face Unique, the female officer slowly pulled the cuffs back out. “Turn around.” Before Unique’s hands had been cuffed in front of her, but now, the officer was going to cuff them behind her back.
Slowly, Unique turned around. She stood staring at the little camera up in the corner of the ceiling that she was noticing for the first time. A tear fell from each of her eyes. She closed them when she heard the jingling of the metal bracelets. The coldness from the rings making contact with her wrists caused her to flinch. The sound of the cuffs locking around her wrists sounded more like thunder in a huge storm, making it only seem normal for Unique to feel as if lightning were ripping through her when she heard the officer say, “Unique Emerald Gray, you are under arrest. You are being charged for the death of your sons.”
Chapter Eleven
“Oh my God! I have to get to Unique. I have to get to my baby!” Lorain became frantic as she removed herself from Nicholas’s embrace and darted for the door to exit the hospital lounge.
“Wait a minute.” Nicholas stood and caught up with her before she could leave. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea that you drive in this condition, Lorain. I don’t want you to end up back here in the ER as a patient.”
“I have to go. I have to see about Unique.”
“And I understand that, but you’re a mess right now. Just wait here a little while longer. I’m sure Unique is probably even on her way here to the hospital to see ... to . . .” Not wanting to say the wrong thing, Nicholas just said nothing at all. There’d been many a-time that family members insisted on saying final good-byes to their loved ones after they’d passed in the hospital. Then there were the families who insisted on having their last memories of their loved ones of when they were alive. He didn’t know which Unique would choose, but he knew as a mother, she’d still come up to the hospital to get details.
The thought never even crossed Lorain’s mind that nine times out of ten Unique was probably on her way to the hospital. She wondered if Unique even knew that her sons had passed; that they couldn’t be saved by the doctors and nurses. Lorain thought for a quick second of the emotions her daughter must be going through right now if she, in fact, did know the boys were dead. Lorain, herself, nearly collapsed just thinking about it. How they died she hadn’t even thought to ask. She had to get over the sheer shock of them being dead first.
“Oh, God!” Hunched over as if she had a belly ache, Lorain began to weep.
“See, that’s it. I’m sorry, honey, but I can’t let you leave from here like this.” Nicholas led Lorain back over to the couch and sat her down. “Just calm down and let’s call Unique, okay?”
Lorain nodded.
“Where’s your cell phone?” By the time he asked, Nicholas was already digging in Lorain’s purse for the phone. A few seconds later he pulled it out. “Here it is.”
With a trembling hand, Lorain accepted the phone. She didn’t dial or anything; just looked down at the phone. Shaking her head and sniffing she said, “I ... I don’t even know what to say to her.” She looked up at Nicholas. “What do I say to her, Nick? What do I say?”
Nicholas was at a loss for words. Yes, he’d had to tell many families that their loved ones had passed on to glory. After that, though, there had always been someone else there to comfort them. There had always been someone else there who just knew what to say. He’d never had to be that person, not until now anyway.
Although Nicholas wasn’t a practicing Christian, he knew God was real. He knew of all God’s miracles and power. He’d witnessed them and given God credit for them every day he worked with patients. As far as he was concerned, to some degree, he was more of a believer than some Christians he knew. That was the reason why even though every member of his immediate family was a practicing Christian and member of a
church, he just couldn’t follow suit. He felt his place to worship God was right there at the hospital. That’s where he felt his strongest connection to God and saw Him at work in lives every day; not just Sunday.
He’d seen the reactions on so-called Christians’ faces when he’d told a story of how a person who’d been pronounced dead, no vital signs whatsoever, was brought back to life simply because God breathed on them. He’d seen their faces when he’d told stories of how a person who had been diagnosed with HIV, had been sick from it, eating pills daily just to survive the next day, had come in, and all of a sudden, tested negative for the deadly disease. Cancers not simply gone in remission, but cured ... gone forever; all this simply because God chose to do it.
What really baffled Nicholas were the ones who had prayed at their loved one’s bedside endlessly for days at a time. They’d prayed and fasted, fasted and prayed. Then when God did what they’d been asking Him to do, they couldn’t really believe He’d done it. He could see the question marks on their faces. “Did God really do that?” Sometimes they’d give him as the doctor more honor, glory, praises, hugs, kisses, and flowers than they would the God they claimed to serve.
No. Nicholas could not be a part of that. Lately, though, he had found himself attending church more often than he had in the past. That was mostly because of Lorain though. He’d watched her, and she wasn’t like some of the other Christians he’d encountered. That’s why, oddly enough, he’d been attending New Day versus the church his own family had been members of for years; the church he used to drop in on every now and then. It wasn’t that there weren’t these types of Christians at New Day just like at his family’s church. There were just less of those types. The reason being because New Day was smaller than his family’s church. In addition to that, Nicholas was just learning, after all these years, to close his eyes to man and open his heart to Jesus. But right now, his heart seemed to be aching with pain for the woman he loved so dearly. How could he sit there and tell her what to say to Unique, when he barely knew what to say to her? It was only by the direction of the Holy Spirit that he’d managed thus far.
“Baby, just tell her that you love her.” The words fell out of Nicholas’s mouth like they’d been sitting on his tongue all along. “Tell her that you are here for her. Tell her that God is going to make everything okay.” Nicholas grabbed Lorain by the shoulders tenderly and looked into her eyes. “You do believe that, right? You do believe that God has this?”
Lorain nodded. “I do, Nicholas. I do.” It was at that moment that a wind of strength trickled through Lorain’s body. Until just that moment when Nicholas reminded her, she really had forgotten that God would make this thing okay. That God would take care of Unique as well as herself. “Yes, God is going to make everything okay. That’s exactly what I’m going to tell her.” Lorain’s shoulders lifted. Her head lifted. It was as if she was a transformer about to go into action.
Nicholas smiled. “That’s it. That’s right. That’s my girl ... That’s my strong woman of God.”
Lorain smiled, something she thought she would never do for a long time. “Yes ... a strong woman in the Lord. I’m going to use that strength to get through this. I’m going to use the strength of Christ Jesus to help Unique get through this. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Lorain dialed Unique’s cell phone and hit the button for the call to go through. She looked over at Nicholas while the phone rang.
Nicholas’s smile broadened as he took her hand. He was so thankful that God had showed up and orchestrated his communication with Lorain. He’d kept his eyes off of the situation and on Jesus. Even now his eyes were still on Jesus as Lorain made that call to Unique. His eyes were so much so on Jesus that even though Lorain’s hand rested in his, not once did he notice she was wearing the ring.
Chapter Twelve
Unique lost count a long time ago of how many times she’d been up in the club doing the electric slide, the Detroit Hustle and even the booty call ... sometimes literally doing a booty call. She never thought, though, in her wildest dreams she’d ever be in a situation in which she would be doing the perp walk. Yet, here she was dressed in jailhouse garb, handcuffed, being escorted out of the county jail to a van that would take her to her next destination. The past twelve hours had been unbelievable. Everything was happening so fast—just like in a movie. Only this was real time.
She wanted to cry, but this moment was too surreal for her to cry. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t real. It was all in her head. It was a test from God to see if she could endure. It was a nightmare. It was all of those things, is what Unique hoped. It was anything but real. She could think about the situation any way she wanted to, but it was real all right; as real as it gets. And it was happening in real time as she trailed last in line behind five other women dressed and cuffed just like her.
Unique wanted to ask where she was going and why. Why was she being transported to another location so soon? What was so special about her circumstances where they felt she couldn’t stay at county in general population? She was too stunned about the entire situation though. She couldn’t even put her words together in order to ask the question, but it would soon be answered—just how special her circumstances were.
As all the women in line before her exited the building, Unique followed suit.
“You,” a guard’s voice shot at Unique. “You wait right here.”
As if on cue, another guard walked over carrying some type of vest in his arms. While he prepared to put the vest on Unique, another guard removed the cuffs from her wrists so that she could put her arms through the openings in the vest.
“What’s this? What’s going on?” Unique was visually confused as the jacket was put on her and tightened. “I said what’s going on?” Unique repeated after none of the guards had replied to her first query.
“It’s a bulletproof vest.” The guard who had taken her handcuffs off now locked them tightly back around her wrists.
“Ouch.” Unique wondered if the guard was mad at her for asking a simple question and was trying to punish her by stopping her blood flow with the handcuffs. “Why ... Why are you putting a bulletproof vest on me?” Worry was written on Unique’s face.
The guard laughed. “Do you know how many people would love to get their hands on a mother who leaves her kids locked up in a car in the hot sun to die while she goes in a drug house to get some crack?” He laughed again. “A bulletproof vest; my friend, you need the National Guard.” He looked at Unique and shook his head. “There’s already been a bomb threat made. Why you think we getting you outta here quick fast and in a hurry?” He shook his head at Unique’s ignorance. “Come on, let’s go.”
As if her feet were cemented to the ground, Unique couldn’t move. Even when the guard pulled at her, her feet stayed planted where they stood.
“Did you hear me? I said, let’s go.” This time the guard, along with another guard, snatched her up and practically pulled her out of the building.
As a girl in the projects, Unique had lay across her dirty mattress on the floor many a time just imagining the day she’d walk out of a restaurant or something and see cameras flashing. She’d be donning a gown by one of the world’s top fashion designers. She’d have bodyguards protecting her from the public. Everyone would be trying to get a picture of her to sell to newspapers and magazines. People would be calling out questions to her, and she’d reply with a pearly white grin and perfect teeth. From there she’d be ushered into a waiting limo with a driver who would take her anywhere in the world that she wanted to go.
What she never imagined is that she’d be escorted by prison guards and not bodyguards. That she’d be escorted from one jail to the next, not wearing an expensive designer gown, but instead, prison clothes and a bulletproof vest. She never imagined that all the cameras flashing would be owned by criminal news reporters and not paparazzi. It was late. The sun was going down, so the reporters would miss getting Unique’s story on the five o’c
lock news, but she was sure come eleven o’clock, her face would be plastered on every channel.
Instead of questions like, “Ms. Gray, who are you wearing, what is your next project, and who are you dating?” Unique heard questions like, “Ms. Gray, did you leave your sons in the car in a hundred-degree weather while you went into a crack house to get high off drugs? Ms. Gray, is it true you are dating one of the cities most notorious drug lords? Ms. Gray, is it true you’re a female hustler?”
Unique thought she was going to hyperventilate at the scene taking place around her. She felt as if she were outside of herself. It was as if she were nothing more than a shell already on the van along with the other prisoners, watching herself. A shell just waiting for her body to join her.
She never said a word as she made her way to the van. The people yelling out questions to her were all just blurry faces as Unique fought back tears of fear.
Do not walk in fear. God will work this out, she kept telling herself over and over again. Do not walk in fear.
Well, she was no longer walking in fear. Now positioned on a seat at the front of the van, she was sitting in fear. The ride to wherever it was that Unique was going started off on the smooth I-71 Interstate, but after about forty minutes, it became bumpy. Unique hadn’t even realized they were no longer on the highway. They were now riding through some dirt roads with no signs of community living within miles.
After a few moments, the van pulled up in front of a very tall iron gate. A female guard exited a little booth and approached the driver’s window. A man on the van handed the guard a piece of paper or a card or something; Unique couldn’t quite make it out. The guard read over it, then nodded as she handed it back to the driver. Next, she walked around and opened the van doors. She gazed over the occupants as her lips moved, but no words came out. Unique surmised she was taking count. After doing so, she nodded at the other guard who had ridden along for the entire ride in the van. After the guard exited the van and walked across the front of the van and back over to her post, the gate opened and the van moved through it.
