Entangled

by Elliott, K

  final_Entangled 8/3/03 1:22 PM Page i

  Entangled

  K. Elliott

  final_Entangled 8/3/03 1:22 PM Page ii This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the Author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, locales is entirely coincidental

  Copyright ©2003 by K. Elliott

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Urban Lifestyle Press P.O. Box 12714

  Charlotte, NC 28220

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2003105695 final_Entangled 8/3/03 1:22 PM Page iii

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to give thanks to God for giving me the ability and determination to write a novel. Secondly I would like to thank my parents Otis and Margaret for bringing me into the world. I would also like to thank Irene Honeycutt for introducing me to poetry and language and encouraging me to write. Also I would like to thank Sharon Fincher for her help and support and all my friends and family for there are far too many to name but you know who you are. The true ones. I would like thank Nicki Smith for your time and input. LaDonna Meredith for assistance with editing and proofing. Special thanks to Hybrid Design for the layout and design. Antoine Scott of hi-rezgraphix for the hot book cover, Carl Weber and Vicki Stringer for advice about the industry I would also like to acknowledge Terri Woods, Shannon Holmes and Sister Souljah, and other writer’s who paved the way in this new genre dubbed Street Life fiction. My researcher Chris DiGiovanni. Shana Wilson for her insight. My wonderful Editors Chandra Sparks Taylor you are truly a gifted woman and it was a real pleasure working with you. Lastly I would like to thank my cousin James Billy Sims (Rico). I don’t use the word genius lightly because I haven’t had the pleasure to know many people that I would consider a genius, but in you I see true brilliance, true artistry, and thanks for helping make my story the best it can be. I am praying for your return home. I dedicate this book to the memory of my Aunt Annie Adams. RIP to my friend John “Duke” Davis.

  CHAPTER 1

  M ONDAY, JUNE 2, 2002. The Greyhound bus moved slowly up I-95. Jamal Stewart sat in the back of the bus in a corner by himself occasionally gazing at a little girl who sat across from him with a woman he believed to be her mother. Jamal had just completed a five-year sentence with the Bureau of Prisons in Coleman, Florida, and the little girl across from him was the first child he had actually seen in a long time. He hadn’t done a lot of things in a long time: He hadn’t seen dogs, he hadn’t chewed bubble gum, he hadn’t driven a car, and he hadn’t been with a woman. He smiled at the little girl who was waving at him.

  Finally the woman stood and shoved the little girl to the front of the bus while looking at Jamal coldly. His attention shifted to the cars on the interstate. The shapes and sizes of cars had changed, everything looked futuristic. He had not seen or heard from his own mother in five years. He tried not to think about her, but ever since he was told of his release date he found himself thinking about her.

  Five years, he kept saying to himself. He wasn’t bitter about his incarceration, in fact, he was glad it had happened. It gave him a chance to just sit back and reflect on his life and learn a great deal about people. He had lost contact with a lot of his so-called friends, some of whom he hadn’t heard from since the U.S. Marshals had picked him up for drug conspiracy, but everything was fine now since he was finally free. He had entered prison at the ripe age of twenty-three, still a boy. He was twenty-eight now and very much a man, a muscular 230 pounds.

  Eight hours later, at the Charlotte, North Carolina terminal, his best friend, Dawg, greeted him as he stepped from the bus. “What’s up, Playboy?” The two men embraced.

  Steven Davis had been Jamal’s friend since childhood. A tall, lanky, light-skinned man; his facial features resembled a Doberman, thus earning him the nickname Dawg.

  They had met during a fight in kindergarten over an Incredible Hulk action figure. Neither had won the fight but mutual respect was gained and they had been best friends ever since. Since Jamal’s mother was on drugs, and he had not heard from his father since he was a child, Dawg was the only person Jamal could count on for money and support during his incarceration.

  “I’m finally here,” Jamal said.

  “How does freedom feel?” Dawg asked.

  “Ain’t no feeling like this, not even getting your first piece of

  ass—nothing can compare to having your freedom back.” “I can’t believe how big you’ve gotten,” Dawg said, looking at

  his friend from head to toe. A very handsome man, Jamal had a

  cocoa complexion, and his hair was in thick black braids. “Yeah, man, I did nothing but pump iron and read books the

  whole time I was down.”

  “Nigga, you read books? You never got me to send you nothing

  except for the Robb Report and Dupont Registry.”

  “Yeah, I needed those magazines to keep me focused on what I

  wanted to accomplish out here.” Jamal had spent countless hours

  looking at the lavish mansions and luxury cars in the magazines.

  One particular house plan, a glass-front mansion, he would stare

  at before he went to bed at night. He would have Dawg forward

  the plan whenever he transferred to a different prison. It was

  customary for the Feds to move an inmate from one place to the

  next, depending on sentence length, and while in transit, Jamal’s

  house plan would usually get misplaced.

  “So what you trying to accomplish?” Dawg asked.

  “I just want to live. I guess I’m going to need to get a job first

  and then go from there.”

  “A job? Come on, man, you haven’t gotten soft, have you?”

  Dawg said, staring at his friend oddly. “I mean, a job is not going

  to give you the lifestyle that you have been used to and you damn sho ain’t going to be able to afford that damn house that you want

  to have built.”

  Jamal thought about the counselors’ warnings, given before his

  release. They had told him that his friends would assume that he

  would be the same person he was before he left. Jamal knew Dawg

  remembered him as a big-time hustler who refused to settle for

  second best. Before he was locked up he had become accustomed

  to everything—luxury cars and apartments, expensive jewelry and

  furs. He knew Dawg was right; he couldn’t afford the mansion

  with a regular job. He couldn’t live the lifestyle he was accustomed

  to—not working for someone. Jamal was the same person he was

  before he left, which was scary. He would do what he had to do to

  get the things he wanted, even if it meant dealing drugs again. They got into Dawg’s white BMW and sped off to the mall. Once

  they arrived, Dawg handed Jamal a wad of cash. Jamal found

  himself looking at some high school girls on occasion, and Dawg

  warned him that they were jailbait. Jamal had to keep reminding

  himself that he was a grown man now, not the twenty-three-yearold who had left so long ago, though every other girl seemed to be

  giving him the eye.

  Dawg caught him up on the latest fashions and trends before

  taking Jamal to a condo, rented in downtown Charlotte. Dawg had

  started renting it a month earlier because he figured Jamal would

&n
bsp; need somewhere to live when he was released.

  “How do you like it?” Dawg asked.

  “Man, I love it,” Jamal said, looking around. The condo was

  simply decorated with basic black leather furniture, fine African

  art, and shiny hardwood floors. It offered a perfect view of the city. “Come here and look,” Dawg said as he motioned Jamal toward

  the living room window. “You can see Ericcson Stadium from

  here,” he said.

  “How much is this thing running you a month?” Jamal asked. “Twenty-two hundred dollars a month.”

  “How in the hell am I gonna afford this?”

  “I know you got some money stashed somewhere,” Dawg said,

  grinning.

  It was true. Jamal did have some money stashed, but it wasn’t a

  lot. After he’d caught the drug case, he had to pay lawyers and

  bondsmen. He’d also left some money with his mother, but since

  he had not seen or heard from her, he assumed she had spent the

  money on crack. His then live-in girlfriend also had some money

  that belonged to him, but she’d run off with it shortly after he got

  sentenced. He was actually down to his last ten thousand dollars.

  He was broke as far as he was concerned. “I ain’t got enough

  money to afford this place.”

  “Well, this means we got to go back to work. You still have your

  connection’s numbers out in California?”

  “Yeah, but I ain’t gonna call him just yet. I’m going to enjoy

  myself a few weeks. You know, get some pussy and get

  reacquainted with the city.”

  “I hear that. Well, this place is all yours. It’s getting late. I gotta

  go scoop this honey I’ve been chilling with. Watch some TV,”

  Dawg said, pointing to a forty-two-inch plasma television. The two

  men hugged.

  *** A few days later, Jamal had finally gotten used to his freedom. He had finally had sex again, and he felt rejuvenated. After passing the driver’s license test, without even studying the driver’s handbook, he decided to retrieve the money he had stashed before going to prison. It was buried underneath a railroad track on the west side of town, where he figured it would be safe. The money was exactly as he’d left it, in PVC pipes, still in thousand-dollar stacks. He decided he would get himself some transportation but nothing too extravagant. He went to a dealership and test-drove a winter-green Ford Expedition with cream leather seats. He absolutely loved it. The salesman frowned when Jamal told him he didn’t have a job—until Jamal produced a wad of cash as a down payment.

  “I believe I can get my sales manager to work something out,” the man said as he dashed into the sales office. Fifteen minutes later he returned with a contract already drawn up. Jamal signed the proper papers, received the keys then drove off the lot.

  *** Dream Nelson’s childhood bedroom led to a huge terrace that provided a splendid view of the neighborhood. Dream sat on the terrace drinking Evian bottled water and skimming through Honey magazine. The sun shone brilliantly, thus making Dream’s beautiful skin a shade darker. She was naturally beautiful, smooth dark skin and perfect white teeth. Her hair was so long, most people thought it was a weave.

  Oak Crest Park was a beautiful integrated neighborhood full of two-story and split-level houses with perfectly manicured lawns. A friendly neighborhood, it was not uncommon to see children with lemonade stands on the street corners. Oak Crest Park primarily consisted of doctors, attorneys, and educators. Dream’s mother was a high school teacher and her father was a principal who was approaching his thirtieth year as an educator. Dream had chosen to follow in her parents’ footsteps by becoming a history teacher.

  After high school, she had initially wanted to be a doctor but decided against it because she didn’t want to be in school for an additional eight years. She simply didn’t have the patience. Besides, she enjoyed her job. It definitely didn’t pay the most money, but she got satisfaction in helping her kids. They loved her because she made learning fun and easy. She was only twenty-four, and she related more with her students than some of the older teachers who often turned up their noses at her when she walked by. Some of them complained that she dressed too provocatively, citing her skirts were too short and her clothing too tight. Someone even suggested to the principal that she didn’t wear underwear, which was a complete lie. She wore thongs, not to turn on teenage boys, but she couldn’t stand the thought of panty lines, besides she was young and sexy, and those hags hated the fact that they didn’t have the body to wear sexy clothes.

  Summers always seemed to come and leave so fast, Dream thought, particularly this summer, though there was nothing spectacular about it. She had spent most of it just hanging at her parents’ house and working. She had gotten a job as a geometry tutor for the Sylvan Learning Center. She’d had to brush up on the subject, since she taught history during the school year, but somehow she would manage to fake it enough to get by. This summer marked the first one she didn’t spend with her boyfriend, DeVon, who was incarcerated for vehicular homicide. Though DeVon and Dream didn’t have much in common, they were deeply in love. She didn’t know why she was attracted to the bad-boy types; it seemed that all the thugs and convicts were immediately drawn to her.

  Keisha Ferguson, her best friend, would tease her by saying she was a thug lover. Dream would taunt Keisha by saying Keisha liked the pretty boys with feminine qualities, the kind who didn’t want to get their hands dirty. It was true. Whenever they went out, all the roughnecks would step to Dream, and the pretty-boymodel-types would be drawn to Keisha. Dream and Keisha had been best friends since high school, and they had attended North Carolina Central University together. Keisha was the one person Dream could trust with secrets.

  Dream had finished reading Honey. She’d begun to snooze when her mother walked out onto the terrace. “Dream, baby, I didn’t know you were still here,” she said with a warm smile. At forty-five, Janice Nelson had the body of a twenty-five-year-old thanks to diet and exercise. Her silky dark brown skin was wrinkle-free.

  Dream was startled after hearing her mother’s voice. “Mama, what time is it?”

  “It’s six o’clock. If I had known you were gonna be here this late, I would have cooked dinner for you.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Mama. I got food at home and I can cook, you know.” Dream smiled.

  “I know you can cook, but ain’t nothing like one of Mama’s home-cooked meals.”

  “Well, maybe you should cook. Daddy says he never gets a home-cooked meal until I come over.”

  “Child, you know your daddy can lie, don’t you?” Janice said, laughing. “Besides, I’m trying to get that man to back away from the table. Your daddy done got kind of chunky.”

  “Mama, don’t talk about Daddy when he’s not here to defend himself.”

  “I’m just saying men, always want you to look your best. Why can’t we require the same thing? See, right now, it’s all good ’cause you’re young, and you don’t need to work to keep yourself looking good. Those young boys you’re dating, they all still have flat stomachs. You just wait until you get in your thirties.”

  “I’ll still look good.”

  “Yeah, thanks to me you got good genes, but I don’t know about that boyfriend of yours. He’s gonna be the reason for some uglyass kids.” Janice laughed.

  “Mama, you need to stop.”

  “When was the last time you visited that hoodlum?”

  “DeVon ain’t a hoodlum. He just made a mistake. In fact, he’s very intelligent. One of these days I’m going to let you read some of the letters he has written.”

  “I don’t have the time to be reading anybody’s jailhouse poetry. I prefer Nikki Giovanni, myself,” Janice said before going back inside the house.

  Dream knew her parents weren’t fond of DeVon, but they had never lik
ed any of her boyfriends. They would prefer she date an executive, or an attorney in some fancy law firm, or at least someone with a college degree. Her parents were like most people in this country, equating a college degree with intelligence. Dream had tried dating those straight-laced academic types, but she could not seem to get into them. Their conversations were boring and their dates were predictable—most of the time it was dinner, a movie, and back to the apartment to listen to some jazz artist of whom she had never heard. Dream preferred hip-hop. She liked the bandana-wearing, diamond earring-sporting thug; the kind who would do eighty miles per hour on the freeway at night; the guys who would be ready to defend her if someone disrespected her. She liked the guys who didn’t necessarily play by the rules but took chances. She didn’t know why she liked that type, she just did.

  *** The visitation room at White Mountain State Prison was filled to its capacity. The visitors were mostly African-American and Hispanics, sprinkled with a few whites. Some of the women wore their best clothing, while others came in jeans with big plates of food for their husbands or boyfriends. The children ran rampant playing, happy to see their fathers.

  Dream wore white skin-tight Capri pants and a red midriff shirt that revealed a hint of her belly. DeVon loved it when she dressed sexy, and she enjoyed trying to please him, but she knew she had to dress tastefully because of the sex-crazed inmates. DeVon had told her about a case where one of the inmates had masturbated in front of a female correctional officer.

  Dream sat at a table in the far right corner of the visitation room, out of the view of the correctional officers. DeVon always suggested she sit there so he could fondle her without the officers noticing. While waiting for DeVon to arrive, she read several chapters of a Terry McMillan paperback to pass the twenty or thirty minutes it usually took DeVon to arrive at the visiting room. The inmates wore green hand-me-down army clothes and black boots. Though the clothes were really gaudy, most of the guys still tried to look their best for visitation.

  DeVon finally came out. He was a tall, pecan tan-colored man with a neatly trimmed goatee. He smelled of Obsession cologne— created by an inmate of course. Dream hugged him as soon as he approached the table. They made small talk and Dream noticed something seemed to be bothering him.