Clay
“These ho-ass police done lost they minds. I swear if they think I’m gonna spend the rest of my life locked behind some bars on that no, sir, yes, sir, piss, eat, sleep, and take a dump when you tell me to bullshit, they wrong as fuck. Hell, naw. I’m tight on all that,” Clay angrily reasoned out loud to himself. As he paced the small cell having just finished his jailhouse lunch tray, he knew his luck had run out. Not new to the game, he knew that no matter what the lawyer had said, his chances of seeing freedom again were slim to none. The high-profile murder suspect was not just some average nigga out in the streets of Detroit with a nickel-and-dime operation; he was known to have a real bag. And unfortunately, Reverend Richards was not just an average, run-of-the-mill citizen. Clay bossed up, knowing he’d done some real Wild-Wild West type of shit that day on the block. The lawyer had informed him the police claimed they had several eyewitnesses they knew were solid and who were beating down the door to testify, so they had to be prepared for the fight of his life. Clay came to grips that it was a no-win situation he’d placed himself in and was not interested in giving the cops, prosecutor, or judge the satisfaction of dragging his good gangsta name through the mud. “I know damn well outta all of them ham motherfuckers out there on the block, the police gonna turn one of them, if not all.”
Clay took off his shirt, tossing it onto the metal bunk. Written on the wall, he saw the words “pray for me.” Immediately, he thought about the conversation he and Mrs. Gale had about God and sinisterly grinned in denial. “Yeah, where in the hell is God or Allah at now when a nigga really need him? Damn some belief in something you can’t see. I’m out here by my lonesome as usual; an army of one. Always was and always will be. When it comes down to it—I got my own back. I ain’t gonna let nobody tell me how to do what I do. I’ma be OG with it all the damn way.”
Kicking off the brown-colored, jail-issued rubber flip-flops, Clay then dropped his pants to the cold concrete floor. He rubbed his bald head and thought about everything he’d been through over the years; his mother’s death, not knowing his father, wishing he had kids, and how he had been a warrior through all his misfortunes. Standing naked, he took a deep breath and got on to it. “Fuck prison and fuck the police! Can’t no bars hold me back!”
* * *
“What the fuck! Shit! Damn! Damn!” The detective with the keys awkwardly fumbled, trying rapidly to unlock the heavy-duty steel bars. “Shit, this ain’t good!”
“How in the hell? Quick, go call for medical help! Hurry up,” the other one screamed out entering the small six-by-eight dimly lit cell. “This shit is messed up! Damn, hurry up, dude; call for a bus!”
In a mere matter of seconds, sheer pandemonium had jumped off. The detectives hated to have to face Clay and let him know that he had won for the time being, but this was a horse of a different color. They knew they had failed to make sure the deputies on duty checked in on Clay. They knew they would now catch the full-blown wrath of having him placed in the outdated cell in the first place. Yet, never in a million years did they think this could take place. Discovering a hood-driven rebellious Clay naked—swinging from the overhead ceiling fire sprinkler—eyes bucked wide open, the lead detective tried his best to cut the suspected killer down. In a desperate attempt to administer CPR, he practically beat on the prisoner’s chest and used every breath in his own body in attempts to have Clay regain consciousness. Tragically, the detective soon found out it was too late. There was nothing he or the next man could do. All the medics, doctors, nurses, and ambulances together could not perform a jailhouse miracle. Clay’s soul had made it all the way to heaven or hell. There was no turning back. Having had torn his jail uniform into rags and tying them together, Clay had made himself a makeshift noose. Determined not to spend the rest of his life caged up like a wild animal on featured display, he decided to save the taxpayers’ money and take himself out of the game for good.
After his lawyer left delivering the grim state of the chances of his freedom, Clay’s mind raced with what to do next. He swiftly realized he’d recently done a lot of wrong things, some for all the right reasons. It was not secret he would have undoubtedly had to have paid his debt to society. Indeed, he was guilty of cold-blooded murder, but he had become the exception to the rule due to the chain of events that’d taken place in the previous weeks. He’d made a true difference on the block and helped rid the world of Reverend Richards’s reign of imposed righteousness. Unfortunately, the extremely seasoned criminal and self-proclaimed loner would never learn he was mere minutes away from beating the murder charge. It was just like Mrs. Gale told him, God shows up and shows out when you least expect him to. All Clay, seemingly born to be a throwaway, had to do was trust and believe in something greater than himself—a higher power.
Lying dead, Clay would never know all of the “supposed eyewitnesses” to his heinous act, who he thought would never ever have his back in a million years—in fact, did. Block Club activists Mr. and Mrs. Jessie, an overly religious Mrs. Gale, and Trinity, a party girl, all were on his team. The two kids that were scared of their own shadows, their father, and a drug-addicted schoolteacher, had, ironically, become an unbreakable stand-up group of a hard soldiers fighting for his freedom as well. There was absolutely no one willing to testify against him. Whether it was their overwhelming “dislike and hate” for the seedy Reverend Richards or their appreciative “loyalty” to Clay Jennings, a ruthless killer, drug dealer, womanizer, and countless many other unsavory titles, the now-deceased young man would never know just what a difference he’d made in each of their lives.
The End
Testify Page 20
