by T. Styles
“Man, I have a lifetime parole. If I get into trouble, I get life in the pen, no questions asked. Sign me up for the R.C.P.”
I pretended to be happy but I had a feeling I was about to make one of the biggest mistakes of my life by to enrolling in the R.C.P. program.
****
That afternoon I called my grandmother Emma and told her I was coming home. She was elated. I could imagine her doing her happy dance. She agreed to meet me at the Greyhound station downtown. Earlier that day, my counselor Mr. Dawson had given me a lengthy booklet with the R.C.P. rules and regulations and it was as thick as my Bible. To my dismay, the program was located on the most violent, gang ridden, and drug infested part of North Baltimore: Belair Road.
I walked out of prison, greeted by sublime blue skies. A brilliant, majestic sun shined hot on my cheeks.
****
Even downtown Baltimore looked different as I got off the bus in bewilderment. The streets were busy, crowed with people. The delicious aroma of fried food seemed to heighten my senses as I looked around for my grandmother’s car. A thick chick walked by, strutting so hard her entire body bounced. She had flaming red hair flowing down her back and a cinnamon completion. She wore some type of spandex blue jeans that hugged every curve on her body, with a pink blouse that exposed the cleavage of her large breasts. She winked at me as she passed. Intoxicated, I inhaled her fragrance and watched her walk by.
In the distance, a car door swung open just as the Greyhound bus pulled off. A girl ran towards me. At first I thought it was some type of mirage, an illusion, as if my mind was playing tricks on me. Could it be real?
“Daddy! Daddy!” My daughter Shamika called my name. My heart soared as my stomach churned, full of love. She was my heart. I hadn’t seen her in nearly four years. Shamika was eleven years old now, and had grown so big. She dove into my arms.
“Daddy, you’re home. You’re home. I missed you so much!” she cried as I whirled her around on the crowded street, bumping into people.
“Yeah, baby, I’m home. I missed you too,” I said, choked up. I wasn’t prepared for this, for her. My little girl was growing up.
“Look at you, Sha, you’ve grown so big and tall. You’re tall as your mama,” I said as I wiped a tear from eye.
She blushed. “Daddy, I’m coming to stay with you. I don’t want to stay with mama and the baby.” She hugged me in a tight embrace and we took off walking.
Her mom, Tanya, was sitting in a black BMW minivan. She smiled at me like the Cheshire cat as she got out the van. The first thing I noticed was that she had gained a considerable amount of weight. She had on the same type of blue jean stretch pants the chick with the flaming red hair wore, but on Tanya, the pants looked different. Tanya was shaped like an egg. The next thing I noticed was the baby in the car seat. Tanya gave me a hug with a sly kiss and tried to slip her tongue in my mouth. I pulled away, playing it off.
“Daddy, we heard about you coming home from prison on the news,” my daughter said giddily. I saw Tanya cut her eyes at her.
“Where is my grandma at?” I asked looking around.
The baby in the backseat began to cry.
“She called and told me she couldn’t make it and asked me to pick you up.” Tanya reached for my hand. “Sha, put the pacifier in her mouth.”
Shamika rolled her eyes at her mother. “Dang, she always crying.”
“Don’t make me knock your ass down in this parking lot. Now put the pacifier in the baby’s mouth,” Tanya threatened. As Shamika reached into the car for the pacifier, Tanya tried again to kiss me. I turned my face away.
“Baby, you coming home to stay with us?” Tanya sing-songed, still holding on to me like we were a couple. I pulled away from her and fought the tide of the river of emotions threatening to drown both of us.
“I have not seen or heard from you an almost four years,” I said with my jaw clenched tight.
“I was going to write you but—”
“Whose baby?” I interrupted.
“Can we talk later on? Please, baby,” she said, barely audible.
Tanya’s right eye twitched. She grabbed my hand and held it tight. The baby stopped crying and my daughter was right back at my side jockeying for her position under my arm.
“Take me to North Avenue and Belair Road,” I said.
“Belair Road?” Tanya screeched. “Them niggas on Belair Road shooting and killing each other. It’s worse than it was when you left the streets. You had a shootout with Mike Brown and them and they still stay there.” She frowned at me.
“I’m in a program there. I have to go to get off parole early. As far as Mike Brown and them, that’s the past.”
“Uh-huh, you should’ve told them no, anyplace but there.”
“It’s too late now,” I responded and looked at the baby in the back seat suckling the pacifier. As I hopped into the passenger’s seat, my daughter cracked on me about my clothes.
“Daddy, you wrong for coming out of prison dressed like that. You been gone too long.” She giggled. I reached into the beak seat to tickle her.
“Oh, you gonna clown me now, huh,” I said as we laughed hysterically. I missed my baby girl so much. The entire time, her mom watched us with a look in her eyes that was hard for me to read.
Half an hour later we pulled up to residential home in a desolated neighborhood right next to a vacant lot loitered with trash. Down from there were several abandoned buildings. A group of people stood in front of one of the buildings as if they were waiting on someone. Suddenly, a young cat, no older than fifteen, took what looked to be a sawed off shogun out his pants. Then one of the dudes rode his bicycle over to our vehicle and peered inside. He signaled to his buddies and pedaled off.
I glanced at the paper again. My heart was racing in my chest and I wanted to be certain I had the right address. It was correct. I expelled a sigh and said a silent prayer as I looked over at the group of dudes watching our vehicle. In the back of my mind, I thought about my lawyer sternly advising me not to join the program, and to not go back into the environment I was a product of.
I kissed my daughter. “Y’all hurry up and get out of here,” I said as I briskly exited the vehicle.
“Ah, nigga, I don’t get a hug and a kiss before you leave?” Tanya yelled. I ignored her and stole a glance at the group of dudes as Tanya drove off. In the front of the yard was a statue of Jesus. I took the steps two at a time, knocked on the door, and waited. I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder.
“Mal! Jamal,” someone yelled my name. I heard footsteps coming behind me as I knocked on the door again.
“Yea, what’s up?” I turned around to face a pack of dudes. The cat with the shotgun in his pants was talking to me. He looked vaguely familiar, like the son of somebody I know.
“I’m Brown’s nephew,” he said and then looked around. ”A lot of shit has changed since you was gone. If you trying to put down around here, it’s gonna be a problem.” He reached for the shotgun in his pants and I felt my right leg tremble.
“I’m a man of God now.”
“What that mean?”
“It means I gave my life to Christ. I know Mike Brown and yeah, we was beefing back in the day, but that’s dead, know what I mean?” I put my hands up to show I didn’t want any trouble. My first day out of prison and I was about to get shot by a trigger-happy teenager trying to make a name for himself.
“Naw, I don’t know what you mean, nigga. My uncle ain’t say you was no man of God.” He frowned at me as he eased closer with his hand in his baggy pants, on top of his shotgun.
Then suddenly the door opened and an old white man asked me, “Who you is?”
“I’m Jamal Shield, but everybody calls me Preacher. I just got out of prison. I’m supposed to report here as part of the reintegration pilot program.” I was talking so fast, the words couldn’t keep up with my tongue.
“You got paper, or any proof?” he asked me. I rushed into the house and sl
ammed the door before the teenager shot me. The old man looked startled.
I gave him the papers I signed when I left the prison. Inside the house, the furniture looked ancient. There was a foul smell of mildew and some type of disinfectant. There was a knock at the door and just then, I heard gunshots. The knocks on the door turned into banging. Then it sounded like someone was kicking on the door and I heard a woman’s voice. The old man looked through the peephole and opened door.
CHAPTER FIVE
LOURDES
I realized something I didn’t know before today—I hate planes. The entire ride from Texas to Baltimore was turbulent and my heart rose and fell every time there was a bump. The only thing that kept me from screaming was how calm everyone else looked.
Even though I was now riding in a rental car with Officer Mary McDonough, on the way to my destination, I didn’t feel any better. I felt nauseous and although the commute was smoother, I was starting to wonder if I was making a mistake. Being taken out of Texas and transported all the way to Baltimore told me that telling authorities what I saw at the school may have been more dangerous than I thought.
As she continued to drive, I thought about the physical they made me take. They took an HIV test and other STD tests, which were required for me to stay in the home I was going to in Baltimore. I was confined to a hotel room for three days while I waited on the results. I had to admit, I was worried. I lived a fast life and wasn’t sure what would come back. Although I used condoms when I had vaginal or anal sex, I slipped up when I gave a blowjob to Coach Grison. When everything came back in the clear, it was the only relief I had at that moment in my life. Despite my lifestyle, I was disease free.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked the officer as she steered the car down the dark Baltimore Street. “You don’t have to do this, so what’s it about?”
“What did I tell you about asking questions you really don’t want to know the answer to?” She didn’t look at me. “Try to get a nap, Lourdes. You’re in for some long days.”
I stared out the window as we passed strange streets I didn’t recognize. “I really want to know.” I cleared my throat. “If you want me to trust you, the least you can do is be honest with me. I feel like I’m out of my league, like…like…”
She sighed. “Five years ago, there was a child murdered at a middle school back home in Texas. She was a beautiful, mousy little girl, with a small voice and large heart. She didn’t fit in much with other girls her age, mostly because she wore huge black rimmed glasses and had a limp.” She stopped at a red light. “But she would smile at everyone she met, even strangers.”
Tears rolled down her face and my heart broke. Now I wished I hadn’t pried and remained silent like she asked. “It’s okay, Officer McDonough, you don’t have to tell me the rest. I’m going to close my eyes and try to get some rest.”
She wiped the tears away from her face. “It’s okay, Lourdes. Besides, I want to tell you. Anyway, I haven’t told this story to anyone, not even my ex-husband, who left me because I couldn’t open up about what I was feeling. He said I didn’t talk to him about the pain I was in and he felt isolated in our marriage. Divorced me because of it and everything.”
I held my head down. What an idiot I was.
“Like I was saying she…she didn’t fit in at school but everybody who knew her loved her. And then one day, she was found dead in the girl’s bathroom at school. Her head was slammed repeatedly against the sink and her brain had hemorrhaged. The authorities said they’d never seen anything so violent at a middle school before.”
My mouth hung open. “Anybody see what happened? Or who did it?”
“The security guard at the school said three people were seen coming in and out of that bathroom. They were the school’s guidance counselor, the nurse and Feather Holliday.”
My body trembled as she recounted the story. Feather was more dangerous than I envisioned and I felt a small sense of responsibility.
“The police investigated it and the two staff members were ready to testify that they both saw Feather taunting and teasing the child when they were inside the bathroom,” she continued. “The employees even had to tell her to stop bothering her on several different occasions because the bullying had gotten so bad.”
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. “The girl was your daughter?”
“She is my daughter, whether she’s with me or not.”
“I’m so sorry, Officer McDonough. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay. Like I said, I need this release.”
“So w-what happened with the case?” I stuttered.
“Morgan Holliday, Feather’s father, tried to pay off the nurse to keep her from testifying but she wouldn’t bite. She told him my daughter was the sweetest little girl she’d ever met, and if she lied for him she would never be able to live with herself.” She sighed. “Morgan got frustrated and said she didn’t have to live with herself. So he killed her.”
My eyes widened. “What about the counselor? Is she okay?”
“She quit her job, changed her story about what she saw and moved into a beautiful home in Miami six months later. It’s not hard to figure out that she took the bribe.” My teeth rattled and she looked over at me. “I guess you know where this is going now.”
“Yes,” I nodded. “You had to get me away because the same could happen to me.”
“Yes, Lourdes.”
I could feel my thighs sweating. “I changed my mind. I want to go home, Officer. I…I don’t want to be involved in any of this. Now that I think about it, the jury probably would never believe me anyway. I mean, look at me.” I raised my arms for effect. “I’m wearing a little mini skirt and I’ve been in jail more times than I care to admit for selling my body. They’ll ruin me in court and if anything, I’d make the case worse.”
She glanced over at me. I could tell she was frustrated. “It’s too late for you to change your mind, Lourdes. We need you. I need you.”
“My mama told me it’s never too late. I…I’ll pretend I don’t know anything. I’ll pretend that I need glasses and can’t see straight. There’s a way for me to get out of this! Please, I don’t want him to do something to me too.”
She shook her head and I could feel the disgust flying off of her body. “If you really want to go back to Texas, I’ll take you home tomorrow. I can’t do it tonight because we’ve traveled so far. Okay?”
“Thank you,” I said softly. “I really am sorry about all of this. I know you went through a lot to bring me here but this isn’t for me.”
“No problem, Lourdes,” she said with an attitude. “You’ll have to stay in the place tonight, and I’ll be back first thing in the morning to take you to the airport. But, when you’re preparing to leave tomorrow, I ask that you do me one favor.”
“Of course, anything!” My smile was so wide, my lips cracked on the sides.
“I ask that you think about your mother and what she would think about all of this. Ask yourself if she would be proud of you for saying you’d do something and changing your mind a little later. Also ask if she’ll be upset that the murdered child’s family will never get the answers they need about what happened to their only child.”
Suddenly my smile faded and I felt dumb. What a low blow. I made a mistake of telling her how much my mama means to me and she used it against me. The worst part about it all is that it worked.
“Now I know you may think that was mean but it’s the truth,” she continued. “Somebody loved that little girl. And whether you testify or not, if you return home, you and I both know that Holliday will kill you. You know why?”
“Why?” I asked in a whisper.
“Because the entire state of Texas knows you left town with an officer, and if that’s the case, you had to tell me something already. They’ll label you a snitch and be done with you forever. Whether you want to believe it or not, Baltimore is the safest place for you.”
I felt stupid, guilty and u
gly because I was breaking a hood code. But I also knew that no matter what, I would always go back home. My mother’s grave was there. My heart was there and so many memories, both good and bad, were there. “Can you pull over at that restaurant?”
“We’re almost there, Lourdes.”
“Please.”
She pulled over in front of a chicken shack and I hopped out of the car. I pushed through the door and headed straight for the bathroom. When I was inside of a stall, I pulled my panties down, squatted and pulled out the baggie of heroin I had stuffed inside of me. I reached in my purse and grabbed a spoon, lighter and syringe. Sitting on the edge of that toilet, I prepared my hit and licked my lips. I needed this relief. When I was done, I inserted the needle into my arm and injected the dope in my vein. Just that quickly, nothing else mattered.
When I was done, I left the bathroom and wobbled outside to the waiting car. The moment I sat down, Officer McDonough gave me an evil look. “You didn’t.”
“After what you told me, I needed to feel better.”
“You’re going to have to find something else to do to get your mind off of drugs, Lourdes.”
“What else can I do?” I asked as my head nodded a little and I rubbed my arms.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure you’ll find out. I know you and you are a good person. The only thing holding you back from being who you can be is drugs.”
When we drove up on Belair Road, in Baltimore City, my heart rocked. This place looked like a crime scene. It was as if we had entered a war zone. Hood soldiers stood outside of the buildings and many had guns on their waists. Even the Officer appeared shocked at the blatant disrespect for the law. It was safe to say that her Texas badge meant nothing there.
Finally, we pulled up to an abandoned-looking neighborhood and she parked in front of a broken down building with a Jesus statue in the yard. “Who am I going to meet here?” I asked.
