Lady Arykah Reigns

by Nikita Lynnette Nichols

  “Where are you taking her?” Adonis asked.

  “The Cook County Correctional Facility on twenty-sixth and California,” the shorter officer answered.

  Adonis needed every bit of strength he had to not break down. Seeing his wife in handcuffs broke his heart. He walked to Monique and kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry, Baby. I’ll be right there to post your bail.”

  Monique remained silent. Tears dripped from her chin onto her tank top as she was led away. Adonis stood in the doorway and watched the officers place Monique in the rear of the cruiser.

  As he did every Saturday morning, Lance opened the front door to retrieve his newspaper from the front porch. His heart stopped momentarily when he saw a Caucasian policeman walking up his driveway. Lance’s body froze. He heard the telephone ringing.

  The officer climbed the five steps. “Does Arykah Miles-Howell reside here?”

  Lance and the officer heard Arykah scream out. She came running from the bedroom with the cordless telephone in her hand. “Lance , Adonis is on the—” Arykah words were cut short when she saw the police officer standing in her living room. She dropped the telephone, and it made a loud sound when it landed on the hardwood floor.

  The officer walked to her as he reached for his handcuffs on his waist. “Arykah Miles-Howell?”

  Arykah placed her face in her hands and cried.

  One hour later, at the Cook County Correctional Facility, Arykah and Monique stood in a line with twelve other female offenders. All of the ladies had their mug shots taken and fingerprints recorded. The next step was to be interviewed by a counselor.

  Monique stood third in line behind Arykah. Up ahead she saw the door to a room open and the lady ahead of Arykah entered in. “Why do we have to see a counselor?”

  Arykah shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  “Everybody has to see the counselor,” a lady standing behind Monique spoke up.

  Monique turned around and looked in the face of a very pregnant lady. “But why?”

  “The counselor asks questions about what we did to get here, and she’ll ask if we’re remorseful. Basically, she picks our brains to see if we’re fit to stand trial or if we should be shipped off to the nuthouse.”

  Arykah looked at her. “How do you know that?”

  “Because this is my third time here. I’m kind of a pro at this.”

  Monique couldn’t believe her ears. What was a pregnant woman doing at the jailhouse? “This is your third time?”

  “Yep. And I’m pretty sure that I won’t make bail this time. I’ll probably have my baby in here.”

  “What makes you think that you won’t make bail?” Arykah asked her.

  Before Arykah knew it, a female guard was at her side. “Hey, Fatso. No talking in line.”

  Arykah had to throw her head all the way back and look up to see the guard’s face. She stood about six foot three, and she towered over every female standing in line. Her aura was very powerful and intimidating. Arykah noticed that she held on tight to her nightstick hoisted on her belt loop.

  The guard addressed the entire line. “That goes for all of you hoes,” she yelled. “Don’t speak unless I tell you to.”

  Her voice was like thunder, and it made Monique shiver.

  “Who is that?” Monique asked out of the side of her mouth when the guard walked away.

  “That’s Jocelyn, the head guard of the women’s section of the facility,” the pregnant lady answered. “She has a big bark and an even bigger bite. She don’t take no crap, and she ain’t got no patience.”

  Arykah silently prayed that God would deliver her out of this situation.

  After standing ten minutes in a line of silence the door opened. Arykah saw the woman who stood in line ahead of her exit with a tear-stained face.

  “It’s your turn, Fatso,” Jocelyn yelled from across the room.

  Arykah’s feet were glued to the ground. She couldn’t move. When Monique saw Jocelyn coming their way, she nudged Arykah’s back. “Here she comes. Go-ahead.”

  Jocelyn took Arykah’s elbow by force and basically threw her into the counselor’s office. “I don’t want any trouble out of you, Fatso.”

  The door slammed behind Arykah.

  “Sit down.”

  Arykah saw a light-skinned woman sitting behind a metal desk. She had pink hair pulled back into a ponytail. A pair of small glasses sat on top of her petite nose. Arykah sat in the chair across from her.

  The woman looked down at a sheet of paper as she spoke. “State your name and date of birth.”

  The room was cold, and the counselor’s voice was even colder. She didn’t bother to look Arykah in the face.

  “Arykah Miles-Howell. November sixteenth, nineteen eighty-five.”

  “What were you arrested for?”

  “Assault.”

  “Against who?”

  Arykah looked at the counselor’s name tag that was clipped to the pocket of her white lab coat. JoAnna Lovejoy.

  “Against Angela Moore,” Arykah answered. She didn’t see any resemblance to Santana Lovejoy. Arykah wondered if there was any relation between the two women.

  “Why did you assault Angela Moore?”

  Because she was trying to screw my husband. Remembering what the pregnant woman said, Arykah knew that she’d better not sound crazy. She didn’t want to be taken to a psychiatric ward. “She said something to me, and I lost my cool. It was wrong, and I regret what I did.”

  “You accept responsibility for your actions?”

  Arykah wished the counselor would look her in the eyes. “Yes.”

  The counselor wrote on the paper in front of her. “Okay, you can go for your physical now.”

  Arykah’s head cocked to the side. “Physical?”

  “Yes. A physical is required before anyone is placed in the holding pen.”

  “What kind of physical?”

  The counselor looked up at Arykah. “It’s basic. A blood sample will be taken. Your mouth will be swabbed. And a doctor will take a look inside your cervix. It’s painless.”

  Arykah became nervous. Even though the room was ice cold, she started to sweat. Visions of the man raping her flashed in her mind. She shook her head from side to side vigorously. “No. I can’t lie on a table and spread my legs.”

  “It’s mandatory.”

  She didn’t even ask why Arykah was uncomfortable with having to undergo a pelvic exam. Arykah concluded that the counselor may have felt that she was just another criminal passing through.

  “I was raped five weeks ago, and I had a miscarriage because of it. I can’t open my legs.”

  On Sunday Lance and Arykah had made love for the first time since she was attacked. He was loving and gentle. Arykah’s assailant was the exact opposite, and based on Jocelyn’s and the counselor’s coldness toward her, Arykah knew the pelvic exam would be just as cold and maybe painful. She started to cry. “They’ll hurt me. I can’t do it.”

  The counselor looked up at Arykah and saw that her entire body shook. She pulled a Kleenex from a box that sat on her desk and gave it to her. That was the first sign of sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear that.” She wrote more information on the sheet of paper. She looked up at Arykah again. “Have you sought professional help?”

  Arykah blew her nose in the Kleenex and nodded her head. “Yes. I went to see Doctor Santana Lovejoy.” She held her breath and waited to see how the counselor would respond.

  She looked at Arykah curiously. “Really?”

  Arykah nodded her head again. “Just last Saturday.”

  “Santana is my wife,” the counselor revealed.

  Arykah gasped. She thought that maybe Santana and JoAnna were sisters or maybe even cousins.

  “Oh,” was all Arykah could say. She prayed that patient and doctor confidentiality held up in marriages too. Lord, please don’t let her know that I ran out on my session with her wife.

  “You’re married?”

  “Yes,”
Arykah answered.

  “For how long?”

  “Almost six months now.”

  “Before marriage, how many sexual partners have you had?”

  Arykah frowned. She didn’t understand why her sexual past needed to be known.

  “Mrs. Howell, a pelvic exam checks for sexually transmitted diseases. I’m trying to help you out, but I need you to answer the question truthfully.”

  Arykah still didn’t understand, but she told the truth. “I was celibate for about three years before I married my husband.”

  The counselor nodded her head. “That’s good.” She wrote more words on the sheet of paper.

  “Okay,” she said. “Based on the fact that you were celibate for years before you got married, I will waive the pelvic exam; however, you must have your blood drawn to check for tuberculosis. That I cannot waive.”

  “Thank you so much,” Arykah exhaled and said.

  With the sheet of paper in her hand, the counselor escorted Arykah to the examining room. Once inside, the counselor whispered to the female doctor and gave her the paper.

  “Good luck to you,” the counselor said to Arykah, then left.

  Arykah’s mouth was swabbed. Three vials of blood were withdrawn from the crease of her left arm, then she was dismissed.

  The smell of the holding pen almost caused Arykah to vomit. The stench of urine mixed with bodies that hadn’t been bathed any time recently penetrated her nostrils. She looked around the pen and saw approximately twenty other women standing against the walls and seated on benches.

  “Welcome home, Fatty,” Jocelyn said to Arykah, then slammed the bars shut.

  To Arykah, the bars coming together sounded like loud cymbals clanging in her ears. All eyes were on her as she stood by the bars.

  “Relax. No one is gonna bite ya,” a woman standing on Arykah’s right said.

  Arykah looked at the woman. The creases across her forehead told Arykah that she was probably in her midsixties. She wore a bright stiff red wig. Her black sheer blouse and extremely short yellow skirt and lace pantyhose caught Arykah’s eye. She assumed the woman had been arrested for streetwalking.

  Arykah looked at a woman in one corner of the cell. Her body was folded in a fetal position. Arykah stood in shock as she watched the woman rock back and forth moaning and crying. She rubbed her hands over her arms as if she was chilled to the bone, but the temperature in the cell was only about sixty-five degrees. Arykah couldn’t help but to stare.

  “She’s a junkie. She needs a fix,” the streetwalker said when she saw that Arykah couldn’t take her eyes away.

  Arykah didn’t respond. She scanned the cell and saw a large woman with a shaved head and hard features. Arykah had a hard time distinguishing if the person was male, female, or both.

  “That’s Roxy. She and I are regulars here. But you may wanna stay out of her way. Roxy is hardcore, and she likes females. If she digs you, she’ll let you know but in a not-so-nice way.”

  Arykah noticed no one sitting on the bench with Roxy. She sat by herself. At the end of Roxy’s bench, Arykah noticed a stainless steel toilet with a small stainless steel sink attached to it. The toilet was exposed, and it was nasty. Urine and smeared feces stained the seat. Arykah saw urine puddled around the base of the toilet. She frowned. Oh my God. She couldn’t believe that she was stuck in a dirty, filthy place. She was in jail.

  “That toilet is for everybody? There’s no privacy?”

  “Yep and nope,” the streetwalker confirmed.

  Arykah frowned. “But it’s nasty. No one cleans it? They really expect for us to use that thing? That’s not right.”

  The streetwalker laughed and so did others who heard Arykah.

  “Stupid broad, this ain’t the Ritz Carlton,” Roxy said. “You’re a criminal, you’re scum. You ain’t got no rights.”

  Arykah was stunned.

  “Uh-oh. You messed up now. You just pissed Roxy off,” the streetwalker said.

  The bars behind Arykah opened, and Jocelyn shoved Monique inside the cell. They grabbed each other and held on for dear life. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Arykah said in Monique’s ear.

  Monique looked all around the cell. The stench hit her nose quickly. “Oh, God, that smell,” she frowned.

  “Shut up,” Arykah scorned. She glanced at Roxy. She was engaging in a conversation with another female. Arykah was glad that Roxy hadn’t heard Monique’s complaint. “You see that big overgrown girl over there?” Arykah nodded her head in Roxy’s direction.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, she doesn’t want to hear your complaints.”

  Monique looked all around the holding pen. She saw a woman wearing a short black skirt. A stream of blood ran down her leg. She saw the nasty stained toilet. Monique frowned. She was disgusted.

  “There’s no place to sit,” Arykah said.

  “Good. I wouldn’t sit anywhere in here anyhow. It stinks really bad.”

  Arykah glanced at Roxy again. She was looking right at her and Monique.

  “I told you to keep your comments to yourself. Angela Moore we can handle, but that big broad over there looks like she can go fifteen rounds with Sugar Ray Leonard and come out a winner.”

  “Adonis and Lance will be here soon,” Monique said.

  Arykah’s body shivered at the thought of coming into contact with any of the women in the cell. “They can’t get here soon enough.”

  As one woman was released from the cell at least two more were thrown in. Four hours after Monique and Arykah were there they were served cold bologna sandwiches on stale bread with a fruit punch juice box. They both rejected the lunch. Neither of them would dare touch the sandwich. But Monique was thirsty. The fruit punch would quench her thirst.

  “You better not drink that,” Arykah advised.

  “Why not?”

  “What if you have to go to the bathroom? You see how nasty that thing is?” Arykah looked for toilet paper and didn’t see any. “And there’s no toilet paper for you to line the seat with.”

  Monique offered her juice box to another woman in the cell.

  The bars opened and Jocelyn shoved a woman inside. Monique couldn’t help but to stare at the slashes and cuts on her face. Her nose was bloody and her lip was busted.

  Arykah nudged Monique and whispered, “Don’t stare.”

  Monique immediately averted her eyes to the floor.

  “I can’t believe this is happening. I am a preacher’s wife, for God’s sake.”

  Monique lay her head on Arykah’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Sis. This is all my fault.”

  “No. Don’t you dare apologize. You’re not at fault for anything.”

  “I shouldn’t have jumped on that chick.”

  “You were gonna get her, or I was gonna get her. Either way, that tail was gonna get got. Ride or die, remember?”

  “Like Thelma and Louise,” Monique said. “We always said that we would drive off the cliff together.”

  “We just may have to go to jail,” was what Monique had said to Arykah when the havoc started at Freedom Temple five and a half months ago.

  Nine hours later, the jail cell bars opened and Monique and Arykah were allowed to run into their husbands’ arms. As soon as the couples exited the correctional facility the ladies were approached by a sheriff. “Arykah Miles-Howell and Monique Cortland?”

  Monique exhaled. “What now?”

  The sheriff gave each of them a tan eight-by-ten-size sealed envelope. “You have been served.”

  Inside the envelopes were restraining orders. Neither of them was permitted to go within 500 feet of Angela Moore.

  “Slow down, Cheeks.”

  Arykah shoved three french fries into her mouth. “I can’t help it. I’m so hungry.”

  “Sliders with cheese are my favorite,” Monique said as she bit into a double cheeseburger.

  On the way to taking Arykah and Lance home, Adonis had almost driven past a White Castle hamburger joint when M
onique ordered him to stop at the restaurant.

  Lance saw how Monique savored her onion rings. “You weren’t given anything to eat at the jail?”

  “We didn’t want that sh—I mean stuff.” Arykah rephrased her response. “We didn’t want that stuff.” Improving her vocabulary was going to be more difficult than she had anticipated.

  Adonis laughed. He knew it was a struggle for Arykah not to curse. “Having a hard time adjusting, First Lady?”

  Arykah swallowed a sip of a strawberry milkshake. She exhaled. “Adonis, trying to stop myself from cussing is like squeezing a square inside of a circle. It’s just not meant to be.”

  Monique dipped a fried onion ring into a small cup of ketchup. “Well, personally, I don’t see a problem with letting one slip from time to time. There are occasions when cussin’ is necessary.” She inserted the onion ring in her mouth.

  Lance was disturbed by Monique’s comment. He had finally gotten Arykah to try to curb her taste for the forbidden language. He didn’t need Monique encouraging her to backslide. He looked at Arykah. “As the first lady of a church, it’s never necessary.”

  “Bishop, let’s just agree to disagree, okay?”

  “No, it’s not okay, Cheeks. Folks are watching and listening to everything you do and say. There are young, impressionable girls at Freedom Temple. What would you do if a woman barged into your office cussing and hollering about an issue that she had?”

  “Depends on the situation she’s in. If the cussing is justified, I’d probably give her a high five.”

  Monique and Adonis hollered out.

  “See? Like I said, sometimes it’s necessary to cuss.”

  Lance glared at Monique.

  Arykah knew how serious it was that she watch her tongue. Being the pastor’s wife made her a role model. She saw the disappointed look on Lance’s face. “I’m taking baby steps, Bishop. I gotta be weaned. Can you please work with me?”

  Lance didn’t want to hear Arykah’s poor excuse for getting her way. “Whatever, Arykah. I’m ready to go. I have an early doomsday meeting with the deacons before service.”