by E. N. Joy
“My God, what are you doing?”
Doreen heard Willie ask her that question, but answering him was far from her mind as she pounced on the woman who lay in the motel bed next to her husband. Doreen had dived on top of the woman. All of Doreen’s weight landing on her stomach nearly knocked the wind out of the poor girl. Blow after blow Doreen landed on the woman and not once did the woman even attempt to hit Doreen back. She was too busy clinching and crying out, “No! Stop it!” The woman’s pleas fell on deaf ears, though. Her perpetrator was in a zone. Doreen swung wildly. Never having fought a single day in her life, not even with one of her sisters, there was no precision to Doreen’s aimless swings. That didn’t keep her from landing every single blow, though.
As Doreen pummeled the woman, the woman was reaching out to Willie. Doreen could even feel Willie trying to pull her off of the woman, but it was as if he was trying to do the impossible. A wave of strength had come over Doreen that she didn’t even know was in her.
The more that woman tried to get to her husband and the more her husband tried to protect that woman, the madder and stronger Doreen got.
“Baby!” she heard the woman cry out, still reaching for Willie.
This woman was just brazen to be referring to Willie as her baby right in front of his wife, Doreen thought as she swung and punched everywhere, hitting the woman on almost every inch of her upper body. Inch by inch, Willie was finally able to make some lead way and slide Doreen off of the woman, but Doreen still kept kicking, pounding, and throwing blows the entire time.
“My baby!” the woman cried out again, reaching for Willie.
“Doreen, stop it! Stop it right now. You have no idea what you’re doing. Stop it! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you like this. I’ve never meant to hurt you. I’m sorry.”
There he’d said it, and Willie’s apology was like the antidote the raging beast inside of Doreen needed to calm down. Suddenly Doreen had stopped swinging and was no longer like deadweight to Willie as he pulled her off the woman—off the bed. In Willie’s pulling Doreen off the bed, the sheet came off with her, and the woman lay there baring it all in the bed. That’s when Doreen saw it. That’s when Willie saw it.
“My God, Doreen, what have you done?”
Now Doreen was the one who was in shock; who looked like a deer not only caught in headlights, but inches away from the Mack truck to which the headlights were attached.
“What have you done?” Willie repeated again, and again with no reply from his wife. “Doreen? Doreen?”
“Doreen? Doreen Tucker?” When Doreen felt the guard snatching her up off the floor, she realized she was no longer having a flashback, but that someone besides Willie was calling her name.
Doreen looked up at the female guard. “Come on with me,” the guard ordered, pulling Doreen up to her feet. “It’s time for you to have your day in court.”
Chapter Twenty-three
About an hour after the guard had snatched her up, Doreen found herself in a holding room, waiting on her case to be called in court. Surprisingly enough, she wasn’t worried, nervous, afraid, or anything; not about the case itself anyway. What she was worried about, though, was whether Willie had contacted her parents. Would they be sitting in that courtroom watching for their daughter who’d been raised on the church pew—who knew better—to come through the door handcuffed and wearing jailhouse clothes?
She’d tried to make a phone call to Willie when she’d been given the opportunity around the time they first processed her into the jail. There was no answer. They’d given her another attempt a little while after that. Still, there was no answer.
“You sure you don’t want to try someone else?” the guard had asked Doreen. “Ain’t you got nobody else here in West Virginia you can call?”
Doreen simply shook her head and was escorted back to her cell. That was the last time they offered for her to make a phone call. Willie hadn’t even answered the phone, so Doreen’s nerves were on edge, afraid that Willie wouldn’t be out there.
She threw her head back against the wall and exhaled. Her flesh wanted to tell her, “Willie just better be out there. This is all his fault anyway. Not nary none of this would have ever happened had he just kept his pants up.” But Doreen had never been one to blame someone else for her actions. Her spirit man, who had already told her that she couldn’t blame anybody else for the way she acted, was working overtime to beat down the flesh inside her. Too bad that spirit man had not prevailed in room 111. It was one point for her flesh and zero points for her spirit man.
“Tucker, you’re up on deck,” a guard said to Doreen, signaling for her to stand up. Just as Doreen stood, the inmate who had gone out to the courtroom before her was being escorted back into the holding room. She hadn’t come willing, though.
“Twenty-five-thousand-dollar bond? Is that judge done lost his mind?” the woman yelled as the guards tried to keep her limbs under control. The woman was kicking, screaming, and cussing so bad that they eventually had to remove her from the room. All that ruckus had delayed Doreen from going into the courtroom. The judge had ordered a brief recess to go get himself together and bring order back to the court.
“You can sit back down until court is called back to order,” the guard had instructed Doreen.
Doreen didn’t want to sit back down. She wanted to get out there and get this mess over with. Realizing the guard had told her to sit down more so than ask her, Doreen allowed her body to go into a sitting position.
“I can only imagine what that judge is going to hit you with,” the guard said while shaking her head and smiling at Doreen. “That chick,” she nodded to the door the raging woman had been dragged out of, “all she did was rob an old couple at gunpoint.” The guard shook her head even harder. “But what you did . . . ummph, ummph, ummph.”
Okay, now Doreen was worried, nervous, and afraid about her case. Because she wanted so badly for the visions of the incident to stop replaying in her head, she never consciously thought about it. But thanks to the guard, Doreen felt as if she was standing in that motel room all over again.
“My baby!” she could hear Willie’s mistress crying out.
Again, Doreen had thought what nerve of that woman to be calling out to Willie as her baby. That had caused Doreen to subject her with a few more good licks. Doreen wasn’t aiming; she was just swinging and landing. As a matter of fact, her eyes had been closed the entire time she swung. Because if the woman decided to hit her back, she didn’t want to see it coming.
The more the woman cried out about Willie being her baby, the more Doreen swung, and the harder. Even as Willie finally managed to start pulling Doreen off of her, Doreen continued kicking and swinging, landing some powerful blows. Doreen didn’t know she had it in her. She didn’t know she had the devil in her to cause bodily harm to someone else.
“Baby!” the woman had cried out louder than ever. But by now Doreen had ripped the sheet off of the woman who lay buck naked in that bed. She was cradling her belly and began whimpering, “My baby. My baby.”
That’s when Doreen got the shock of her life. She watched this woman lay in a fetal position in a bed surrounded by red. The sheet she was lying on hadn’t originally been red, but the blood pouring out from her womb had been like food color to the icing on some of the pound cakes Doreen had made.
“My God, Doreen, what have you done?” Willie had asked her. She had no idea what she’d done. As a matter of fact, she had no idea she’d done it. Still, at this very moment, as the guard again instructed her to stand, she had no idea of just exactly what she’d done. What had been the result of her horrendous actions?
As the guard escorted her into the courtroom, she was about to find out.
Chapter Twenty-four
Doreen’s eyes were filled with tears by the time she made her way into the courtroom. As the vision of that woman caressing her very visibly and very pregnant belly settled in her head, it got comfortable in h
er heart as well. The anguish the woman displayed now seemed to fill Doreen’s own heart. Doreen remembered holding her belly and echoing the woman’s cries the night she fell down outside of the juke joint. She remembered what it was like to wake up in that hospital only to be holding an empty womb.
Doreen gasped. Was that woman now in the same predicament herself? Was she now, like Doreen had been months ago, holding an empty womb? Had her baby come and gone from this earth without ever having been there in the first place? Is that why that woman had referred to Doreen as a baby killer? Yes, that’s it. That had to be it. That had to be what had triggered the memory of her horrible actions.
“Oh my God,” Doreen gasped.
“God can’t help you now,” the guard chuckled, leading Doreen into the courtroom.
With her eyes cast downward initially, Doreen finally raised her head and the first thing she saw was Willie. He stood as if a queen was entering the room and he was required to stand by law in her presence. Doreen saw where he slightly went to extend his hand to her, as if he wanted to reach out to her, but then he held back, knowing that wouldn’t be permitted. This act forced even more tears down Doreen’s face. Whatever it was she had done, Willie still cared about her. Whatever she had done wasn’t so bad in his eyes that he’d turn his back on her. Whatever she had done wasn’t so bad that he would forsake her in her time of need.
The guard placed Doreen, who was smiling with her eyes for a quick second, next to a man in a suit facing in the direction of the judge. Her back was now to Willie. As she stood facing the judge, Willie’s presence and how he might or might not now feel about her faded into the background. Now she had to see if the real person who mattered still cared. If the real person who mattered would not turn His back on her and forsake her. Not the judge, but God. Would God show her grace and mercy as He had done all the days of her life and get her out of this situation? Even if He didn’t get her out of it, would He get her through it?
God, if you do help me, Doreen prayed, I promise to never let you down again. I promise to pray more, read the Bible more, and even start back singing for you again, Lord. Please, God, just don’t let me spend the rest of my life in jail. Please! I’ll do whatever you want me to do and go wherever you want me to go. You can give me any assignment anywhere on earth, and I’ll do it, Lord. Just please help me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to speak with you before now,” the suit standing next to Doreen said to her. “It’s just that this case got thrown in my lap only an hour ago.” The man nervously fumbled through one of many files.
The young man didn’t look a day older than Doreen herself. He was drenched in sweat, and his hands were shaking as if it were his life at stake.
“Are you . . . are you all right?” Doreen asked him.
“Uh, yeah, uh, sure.” He wiped so much sweat from his forehead with his forearm that it left a huge stain on his suit. He wiped his hand down his cheek, scooping up more sweat. “By the way, I’m Mike England. I’ll be representing you in your case.” He held out the hand he’d just wiped his face with.
Doreen looked at it strangely. He followed her eyes to his wet hand.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” He wiped his other hand down his pant leg, then extended it to her to shake, which she did. He turned his attention back to his paperwork. “You have no criminal history. Is this your first offense?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” Doreen replied.
“Wonderful, just wonderful. Then we have something in common.” Doreen raised an eyebrow at his comment; then he said, “Because this is my first case.” A look of horror covered Doreen’s face. “Oh, don’t worry. Like I told your husband when he hired me, I graduated the top of my class. Although my focus was on civil matters and not criminal,” he shrugged and let out a laugh, “how much different could they be?”
Doreen shook her head. Had God indeed forsaken her? Whatever she was being charged with didn’t matter. This guy next to her couldn’t defend her in a jaywalking trial.
The bailiff announced Doreen’s case, and the judge began to proceed.
“Mrs. Tucker, you are being charged with attempted murder. It is alleged that you knowingly attacked an eight-and-a-half-month pregnant victim. You brutally beat her with the intention of killing her. You used deceit to gain access to the motel room in which the crime was committed in order to execute your attack. It was a well planned and thought out act that, as a result, left the victim hospitalized in serious condition. And even worse, as a result of your criminal actions, Mrs. Tucker, the unborn life in which the victim carried was lost.” The judge leaned in and looked into Doreen’s eyes with nothing but pure hate. “In other words, you are responsible for the death of that baby, Mrs. Tucker.” He leaned back comfortably in his chair. “How does the defendant plead?”
And just like that, in a few sentences, Doreen learned exactly why she was in jail and what she was being charged with.
“Mrs. Tucker, I asked, how do you plead.”
Doreen looked at her attorney for help. She didn’t know what she was supposed to say or do. Yes, she’d attacked the woman, but it hadn’t been all maliciously calculated like the court was trying to make it sound. And she had no idea the woman was even with child. Was it possible she could plead guilty to some of it and not the rest?
“What do I do? What do I say?” she whispered to her attorney.
“Not guilty, of course,” he told her.
“But I did do some—”
“Mrs. Tucker, not guilty,” her attorney said, cutting her off in a raised tone and raised eyebrows . . . dripping with sweat.
By now, both he and Doreen appeared to be the perfect couple. She was dripping in sweat, he was dripping in sweat, and standing in front of a judge was a first for both of them. So even though Doreen managed to get the words, under her counsel’s guidance, “Not guilty,” out of her mouth, she felt nothing but guilt. She felt doomed. Jesus had definitely not been the attorney and the judge in the courtroom in her case. As a matter of fact, how Doreen saw it, He hadn’t shown up in the courtroom at all.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Willie, oh God, Willie?” Doreen cried just as soon as the guard walked her out to the visiting room where Willie was waiting on her. “A hundred thousand dollars? That judge set my bail at a hundred thousand dollars.” Doreen hadn’t even sat down yet when she started going on about the high bail the judge had set. “Can you believe that? I’m never going to get out of here. Oh, God, Willie.” Doreen buried her face in her hands and bawled.
At first Willie just stared at his wife. He didn’t really know what to say. As he watched Doreen weep he searched for some comforting words. “Come on now, Reenie, you know I could never stand to see you cry. Don’t do that now. Everything is going to turn out just fine. I done hired that law firm to take care of you. Everything is going to be all right. You’ll see.”
Wiping her eyes and calming down, Doreen looked up at her husband. His words, although try if he might to make them tender and sincere, weren’t. Willie was just going through the motions, and Doreen knew it. He was just saying what he thought a husband should say. The look in his eyes didn’t match his demeanor. He sat in the chair like the strong, supportive husband, but his eyes were full of hurt. They were full of pain. It wasn’t worry and heartache that he should have felt for his wife. No, he was feeling something else for somebody else. Doreen could discern it.
“Little girl, you’ve got the gift of discernment,” her father would always say to her. “God done blessed you to just get a feeling about people, places, and things. To just be able to tell things by strong feelings.”
That indeed was true. Doreen could sometimes just tell things weren’t right. That’s why she’d popped up out of Bible Study that day and went to the juke joint. That’s how she was able to catch that floozy in Willie’s lap. She had a feeling. That same feeling that sent her to the juke joint was the same feeling she ignored in her gut when she knew she should have w
alked away from that motel room.
“That gift of discernment is special,” her father had continued to say. “Make sure you tune into it real good. It can help keep you out of trouble. It can help keep you away from the wrong people, places, and things.”
If only Doreen had followed her father’s advice. Speaking of her father, Doreen asked Willie, “My daddy and my mama—did you call them? Do they know?”
“Naw, I, uh, figured I’d let you be the one to do that. I mean, I didn’t even know if you wanted them to know. I guess I was figuring you’d just do like some of the folks do back at home when they get out of line and Pops has to call the man on them. They usually just spend a night or a weekend in jail and that is that.” Willie put his head down. “But it ain’t looking like that is gonna be the case.”
Once again, Doreen observed how Willie appeared to be more broken in spirit than she was.
“So do you want me to call your folks?” Willie lifted his head.
“For God’s sake, no!” Doreen was quick to say. “No, don’t do that. There is no way they can find out about this. It would destroy them and possibly ruin their ministry.” Doreen thought for a moment. “. . . and my little sisters . . .” her eyes filled with tears. “My little sisters can never ever know their big sister done gone and got herself thrown in jail.”
Willie pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and slid it to Doreen. He didn’t even look up at her when he did.
Feeling a coldness coming from Willie, Doreen picked up the handkerchief while looking at him in a peculiar way. She wiped her tears away. “I tried to call you while I’ve been in here. I never got an answer.”
