After the Rain

by Vanessa Miller

  “Baby, I heard your heart through your prayer. I know that you’re worried that I’m going to go in there and straight go off on this boy. I can promise you that I will try my best to be patient. But depending on what they have to tell me, I just can’t promise that I’m going to be in a hugging kinda mood.”

  They hung up the phone on that note and Isaac got out of the car. He took a deep breath and then knocked on Donavan’s door.

  Donavan opened the door. “Thanks for coming by tonight, Dad. We really need you on this one.”

  “What’s going on? Is Ikee hurt?” Please, God say no to that question. He needed Ikee to be alright just like he needed to breathe.

  “Ikee’s in the family room. He’s nervous about talking to you, so this needs to be a judgment-free zone, if you want to get the truth out of him.”

  “Okay,” Isaac said. “Let’s just get to it.”

  They went to the family room and as the three of them sat down, Donavan asked his father, “Did you catch the news tonight?”

  “Your Mom and I haven’t had much time for TV.” He eyed Ikee. Ikee’s head was lowered, like he couldn’t face his dad. “We’ve been too busy fasting and praying.”

  “I’m glad y’all were doing that, because to tell you the truth, that’s probably the only reason Ikee is even alive right now.” Donavan and Ikee then took turns telling Isaac everything that had transpired within the last few days.

  When they were done, Isaac didn’t feel like chastising his son. He had made a mountain load of mistakes in his lifetime, so what Ikee did wasn’t important right now. What was important was keeping his son alive. He turned to him and said, “We need to get you out of town. Lou will be looking for you. He’ll need to shut you up so that the cops can’t connect him to that shipment.”

  “What about his boys… shouldn’t he be more worried about them talking?” Ikee asked.

  “They might be too loyal to turn rat. But I hope they do. Our best bet is for the police to get enough evidence to lock Lou up, that way he won’t be able to get to you. At least not on his own.” But Isaac didn’t want to think about the other ways Lou could get to his son.

  As Isaac stood he said, “I need to make a few calls. Have to figure out where to take you.”

  “Wait, Dad,” Donavan said. “I figured you’d want to get him out of town and I think I know of the perfect place.”

  “Speak,” Isaac told him while reclaiming his seat.

  “One of my frat brothers went into the military after college. He’s got some rank and he said he’d be able to get us a room on the base in Kentucky.”

  Smiling Isaac said, “These drug gangs think they’re the toughest thing going, but I haven’t met a one of them that would mess with Uncle Sam.” He slapped his knee. “Let’s do it.”

  Donavan made the call and got the okay. But before they could get on the highway, Ikee threw another monkey wrench in the plans.

  Chapter Twelve

  Isaac had his hand on the door, getting ready to head to the car, when Ikee said. “I can’t leave.”

  “What?” Isaac turned around and gave his son a look that asked, Are you insane?

  Sitting down behind the kitchen counter Ikee said, “Remember how you told me about hell and how so many people went there who weren’t ready to die yet? But once they were there it’s over, no turning back.”

  Isaac nodded.

  “Well, I think I may be the reason that someone is on their way to their death.”

  Isaac was deflated. All he ever wanted was to keep his sons as far away from the crime life as the east is from the west. But now Ikee was telling him that he was deeper in the game than Isaac ever suspected.

  “You killed somebody?” Donavan asked as he sat down next to his brother.

  Ikee quickly shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that. Not after what Dad told me. But I got into an argument with Lou because he said I was the reason that the police swooped down in his territory yesterday. But then I told him that he was wrong; that some crack head named Candy had brought the police down on us.”

  “And then what did Lou do?” Isaac asked

  “I don’t know if he’s done anything yet. But he said that Candy was going to get a one way ticket to hell. The look in his eyes was like he meant every word. I feel like I’m responsible if something happens to her.”

  “Son, if Candy doesn’t get off drugs, the fact is her ticket might come up at any time. We can’t be responsible for that.”

  Ikee shook his head. “I’m not asking you to be responsible for it, Dad. I’m the one who did this. I brought her name up to a psycho, who thinks killing is just as easy as ordering a pizza. And now I’m about to run away and leave her at his mercy. Did I tell you he offered to cut me up into pieces? What if he does that to her?”

  “What do you want us to do, Ikee?” But Isaac already knew the answer.

  “I want to go back to that neighborhood and get Candy. Maybe we can put her in a rehab facility or something. Once we do that, I’ll leave town and go anywhere you tell me to. I promise, Dad.”

  ~~~~

  Candy heard the news and got real scared. Usually after a night of smoking crack, she would get paranoid, thinking that Lou was coming after her because she knew too much and he couldn’t afford for her to stay alive. But as soon as her high passed she stopped tripping. Lou had loved her, they had planned to one day get married and start a family. He wouldn’t kill her just because of what she knew. Not Lou. Candy had convinced herself that Lou was going to come back to her one day—maybe even help her get this monkey off her back.

  But when she saw the news and realized that the police were stumped as to how to connect those drugs to Lou, that’s when she knew that she was a dead woman walking. She quickly threw a few things into a duffle, grabbed her cell phone and hightailed it out of the place where she had been crashing.

  With each step she took, Candy kept getting angrier and angrier at Lou for how he’d ruined her life and then threw her out with the garbage when the drugs he’d filled her with had finally taken away the beauty that had once been her claim to fame. Every man she’d ever come in contact with had wanted her. She always had a date and her modeling career was taking off too.

  Her mother had warned her not to get hooked up with none of the dope dealers in their neighborhood, had told her that they were poison and would ruin her life. But Candy didn’t listen. She thought she could take care of herself and she liked to party, so when she started hanging out with Lou and he introduced her to stuff that was better than the weed she and her friends had been partying with, Candy had fallen hard for the guy.

  Then she moved in with him and became part of his organization. But one day the drugs became too much for her and she started stealing from Lou. He threw her out and left her to trade favors on the street for her drugs. For a while, most of the drug boys were willing to oblige because her looks hadn’t faded completely. But after a year on the street, most of them looked at her like that young boy who’d been with Geeze the other day… like she was disgusting. She would never forgive Lou for that.

  ~~~~~

  Isaac had left Donavan at the house. As he and Ikee were headed toward the west side, he asked, “So, what you’re telling me is that you’re willing to put your life on the line for a woman you don’t even know?”

  “I can’t really explain it, Dad, but there’s this feeling in my gut that’s telling me that I can’t just walk away. I know the girl is a crack head. But don’t they deserve saving too?”

  Isaac didn’t want his son to call him a hypocrite again, but he really wanted to just drive the boy out of town without making this pit stop. If only there was some way that he could take back those words and tell Ikee that he didn’t mean it; he didn’t have to worry about Candy spending eternity in hell. But that wasn’t true. And Isaac knew with everything in him that Ikee would never have peace in his life if they just allowed this woman to die without trying to help her. Even though Isaac ha
d been forgiven by God for all his dirty deeds, he still couldn’t hide from the reality of the lives he’d destroyed.

  Isaac knew first-hand that in the drug game people turned up dead all the time. He commended Ikee for wanting to get help for this girl and wished that he had been able to do the same for his best friend, Keith’s mother. Thinking about what happened to her still brought pain to Isaac’s heart…

  Way back when…

  Isaac and Keith were young soldiers in the game, but they were quick studies so they were moving up fast and making enemies along the way. That was the reason for the conference they were dealing with now amongst a bunch of old-head gangsters who didn’t accept change very well.

  No one smiled as Isaac and Keith glanced around the table. Spoony, Isaac’s mentor was at the head, Brown was on his right. To Spoony’s left was Stevie Johnson, a carrier turned top-dog once another gangster’s organization had been destroyed. Two other cats were at the table. On Brown’s right was another old school hustler named Shinny Watson and next to Stevie was Pete Jones, a guy who came up alongside Isaac. He just wasn’t closing as many deals as Isaac of late, but whose fault was that?

  “Isaac, your take has doubled in the last year, and some of the brothers here think that you are trying to take over,” Spoony told him.

  “Have I ever taken anything from you, Spoony?” Isaac asked. Spoony didn’t answer so Isaac asked another question. “And don’t I still bring all my business to you? So why haven’t you already told these cats to lay off?”

  Brown said, “Look here, sonny—”

  Isaac turned his cold black eyes on Brown and said, “You ain’t my daddy, and I’m not your son. I’m a man, and if I speak to you respectfully, I expect the same in return. Understand?”

  Brown stood up and exploded. “Boy, I will slit your throat. How’s that for respect?”

  Spoony touched Brown’s arm and said, “Brown, man, we came here to discuss this like reasonable men. Sit down, please.”

  Brown flopped back into his seat as he told Spoony, “You just better tell your boy to check his self, before I do it for him.”

  Stevie put his elbows on the table and tried his hand at intimidation. “Isaac, people are concerned.”

  Brown added, “And we’re all a little worried about your family’s safety. People are getting uptight, thinking that you and Keith are earning money that should have been theirs. Anything could happen.”

  Isaac wanted to laugh in Brown’s face. The only family he had left was his usually-wrong Daddy and he would gladly give up the address to Usually-wrong’s house if they wanted to do him a favor and kill that maggot. Thank God and good riddance was how Isaac saw it.

  But Keith was another matter. He stood up and told them, “If you think I’m going to sit here and listen to you threaten my family, you’ve got another thought coming. Bring it on,” Keith said as he strutted to the door and waited on Isaac to join him.

  Isaac slowly rose out of his chair, understanding he had now entered a game of winner take all—loser eat six feet of dirt. He nodded at Spoony and said, “I’ll see you around.”

  Spoony nodded back with a look on his face that said, “I sure hope so.”

  Over the next three months, Isaac and Keith’s cars were bombed. Their homes were riddled with bullets, so they started moving from hotel to hotel. Their runners were gunned down in the street. Isaac and Keith went to war and hit them harder than they were hit. By the end of that three month period, the only ones that were at that round table meeting left alive besides Isaac and Keith were Spoony and Brown. Spoony had arranged a meeting with Isaac and Brown and had them both agree to end the war. Isaac willingly agreed to stay on his side of town and leave Brown to his side. And with that, it was over. But just when Isaac and Keith thought they could breathe easy again, Isaac received a call from Joey, one of his runners. Joey told him that Keith needed to get over to his mother’s apartment ASAP. Isaac got Keith on the phone and told him, “Man, you need to get over to your mom’s place. Something has happened.”

  “I told you I don’t want to be bothered by her drama anymore,” Keith said.

  Keith’s mother was on that stuff and he was tired of dealing with it. “You need to get over there, Keith. One of my runners just called and told me that the ambulance and police are at her place.”

  When they hung up, Isaac sped towards Ms. Doretha’s apartment on the lower south side. He pulled up at the same time Keith did. He watched as Keith jumped out of his car and ran up to one of the police officers. Then Keith turned and watched the paramedics bringing the bed out of the apartment with a body bag on top of it. He ran over to them. The police officer followed, trying to hold him back.

  “Get off me, man. That’s my mama,” Keith yelled as he trod forward.

  The paramedics set the ambulatory bed down and stood in front of it, waving Keith away. “You don’t want to see her now, sir,” One of them told him.

  Isaac ran over to Keith and tried to pull him away also. But Keith jerked away. “I have a right to know if that is my mother.” Keith pointed at the body bag.

  “She’s been cut up, man. Don’t do this to yourself,” the other police officer said.

  Keith grabbed the bag and quickly unzipped it before he could be stopped by anyone. A thin arm fell out, but Keith wasn’t looking at the arm. He was looking into the slashed and bloody face of Doretha Williams. He put his arms around her and became covered in blood because her chest was cut up as well. Keith didn’t notice how bloody he was becoming. He just wanted to hold his mother one last time. “I’m sorry. You hear me?” he asked her. “I’m sorry.”

  Isaac pulled Keith off of his mother so the paramedics could close the bag back up. Keith tried to fall back on the body, but Isaac grabbed him. Tears were streaming down Keith’s face as Isaac hugged him. Isaac’s own mother had been carried out by the paramedics covered in blood. So as they hugged, Isaac and Keith became forever bonded in blood.

  “Come on, man. Let me take you home,” Isaac said.

  “No. I can’t leave her like this, Isaac. She needs me, man.”

  “You’ve got to get out of here. Let these people do their job.” Isaac tried to pull Keith away again, and this time Keith allowed him. He took Keith over to his car and opened the passenger side door for him. “Get in, Keith. I’ll have Valerie come pick up your car.”

  Keith sat in the car numbly as Isaac drove. He then clenched his fist and smashed it against the dashboard. “Brown did this. I know it in my gut.”

  Isaac didn’t say anything, but he had been thinking over the probability of Brown having something to do with Keith’s mother’s death. Ms. Doretha had been prostituting to get her drugs. Anyone could have done this as far as Isaac was concerned.

  “We should have killed him right along with the rest of them.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what,” Isaac said. “Let’s check into it, and if Brown had something to do with this, then his family will finally get to cash in his insurance policy.

  ***

  As it turned out, the killer just about begged the police to come and get him. He’d left his fingerprints all over Doretha’s apartment and body and bragged to numerous friends about the murder. Michael Hopkins was arrested in a coffee shop that was owned by Brown. And it was no wonder that the murderer was arrested at Brown’s coffee shop, since he was one of Brown’s top soldiers.

  Keith and Isaac were watching the news while Valerie fixed steaks for them. The arrest was televised, so after watching Michael Hopkins get carted out of Brown’s coffee shop, Isaac and Keith looked at each other and nodded. That night they went out in search of Brown and whoever might try to get in their way. They found him at Fat Al’s juke joint. It was ten at night so there were only four people in the joint: Fat Al, Brown and two of Brown’s henchmen. Brown was sitting at a back table sucking on a barbecue rib bone. His men were at the bar. Isaac and Keith sat at Brown’s table and trained their guns on him from underneath the table
.

  Isaac told Brown, “You shouldn’t have done it.”

  Brown put his barbecue down and asked, “What are you talking about?”

  “We never tried to move in on your operation. We never bothered anything of yours, but the way you had Keith’s mother cut up…,” Isaac shook his head and then finished with, “…we can’t let that go.”

  Brown turned to Keith. “I didn’t do anything to your mother. Don’t act crazy and get yourself killed in here.”

  “Brave talk for a dead man,” Isaac said.

  Brown laughed in Isaac’s face. “Man, get out of here before you get hurt.”

  “We never forgot how you warned us about our families, Brown,” Keith said.

  “And now we’ve got a warning for you,” Isaac said, and then pulled the trigger and shot Brown in the gut.

  Brown began lifting out of his chair. “You can’t shoot me,” he said.

  But Isaac must not have understood him because he lifted his gun and shot him again, this time in the head. As Brown fell face forward on top of his barbecue, Keith shot two of Brown’s henchmen as they tried to pull out their guns.

  “What’s up, Fat Al,” Isaac asked as he pointed his gun at him.

  Fat Al raised his hands. “I’m not taking sides, Ike-man. I’ve got a family and I just want to get out of here and see them again.”

  “You remember your family when the police ask you about this. Okay?” Isaac said as he and Keith backed out the door.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Back in the day, I know how I would have handled a situation like this,” Isaac told his son. “But I’m not living the life of a destroyer anymore, so I can’t go in with guns blazing. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, you’re not the Ike-man. You’re Pastor Isaac Walker,” Ikee said as if he finally understood the difference between the two.

  “So, I’m going to pull over in this parking lot and I’m going to ask you to pray with me. Because I have seen God do mighty things for me. He has shown me that it is not my might, nor my power but it is my faith that moved mountains.”