Brothers and Wives

by Cydney Rax

  Within seconds, Scottie is by my side. “You son of a bitch; what you doing talking to my gal?”

  “Scottie Meadows! Don’t start,” I say, flustered. Although I don’t exactly like what the guy said to me, it’s just harmless flirting.

  “Naw, this punk should keep his comments to himself.”

  “Fuck you, man. You’re a punk.”

  Scottie draws back his hand and pops the guy in the forehead.

  “Now who’s a punk?”

  “Scottie,” I scream. “Stop it. Let’s go.”

  I grip the cart and push it until we’re near the front of the store. Scottie stops in his tracks and complains, “We haven’t even bought our groceries.”

  “Who cares? I hate when you embarrass me over silly things. I’m leaving!”

  I lift Brax out of the shopping cart and hold him on my hip.

  Scottie grunts but follows me out of the store and to the parking lot.

  Right then I realize that no matter how your heart swells with love for someone, nobody can be everything you wish he’d be.

  When we reach the Escalade, I find it ironic that the man who pissed off Scottie is parked right next to us.

  When Scottie notices him unlock his car door but continuing to stare at us, he shouts at him, “What the fuck you looking at, man? Get your black ass away from us.”

  The young man gives Scottie a hurt look and openly gapes even as we drive off.

  — 24 —

  SCOTTIE

  Why Am I Going to Jail?

  Two weeks after the grocery store incident, Scottie’s behind the wheel of his car on his way home from an event thrown by Bayou Town Construction. The company just signed off on three contracts worth a combined $900 million and organized a fancy party to celebrate on this balmy Monday evening.

  Scottie’s car speakers pulsate as he jams and spits the rhymes from “Wetter,” the latest song by Twista. He’s feeling a bit amped, a little bit horny, and he can’t wait to get home and rock Dani’s world. It’s ten-thirty in the evening. He’s traveling south on I-59 driving past downtown. He’s looking up at the Houston skyline, mesmerized by the lit buildings that shine their light over the bayou city.

  “There’s Minute Maid Park, the JPMorgan Chase Tower, the Shell Building, the former Enron Building,” he says out loud, admiring the architecture of various Houston skyscrapers, and feeling good that with his current job, he’s helping to erect outstanding structures that add to the city’s landscape. “And that unforgettable Bank of America Center; now that building is the shizzle.”

  Scottie’s singing, scoping out skyscrapers, and doesn’t see the car with the flashing lights. He drives for two full miles before he can hear the wail of the siren.

  He looks in his rearview.

  “Fuck.”

  Scottie decides to exit the freeway then pulls into an empty parking lot located on the edge of downtown. A white vehicle drives up with the words Houston Police in blue lettering.

  Scottie waits for the uniformed policeman to walk up to his Escalade. He quickly rolls down his window and hands over his license and registration papers.

  After running a check, the officer returns and stands next to the Escalade.

  “I’m going to need you to step out of the car. You have two unpaid speeding tickets….”

  “I thought I paid those.”

  The officer ignores Scottie’s protest. “Plus you’ve got a warrant for your arrest. I’m going to have to take you in.” The officer securely places a cuff on Scottie.

  “That hurts.”

  “It’s supposed to.”

  The cuffs feel tight. There’s no space for Scottie to move his hands in any direction.

  Why do I have a warrant?

  Scottie looks around and notices a couple of people walking past and staring at him. His cheeks feel heated. He wants to push the officer down to the ground and run away. He looks around to his left and his right. Is he really about to arrest me in front of these people like that? I could probably outrun him, but if he catches me he’s gonna taser me. Or worse, he may shoot at me and kill me.

  Scottie sighs and thinks about his wife. Dani’s going to be worried. She’ll wonder where I am. I’m going to call her as soon as I can.

  An elderly man walks past the very moment the officer tells Scottie he’s being arrested for a simple assault case filed by the young man whom Scottie hit at Walmart.

  “What? He said something inappropriate to my …”

  “Did you throw a punch?”

  “Man, I barely …” Scottie clenches his teeth and decides to shut his mouth.

  After his rights are read to him, Scottie nods his head then ducks down and slides into the back of the police car.

  I want to run. Where can I hide? Why is this happening to me? Sure, I shouldn’t lose my temper, but still, dude had no business flirting with my wife. That’s my wife. And these funky speeding tickets? They arresting me for that? I was gonna pay them! I hadn’t gotten around to it.

  Scottie knows that law enforcement was getting stricter in Houston lately and had warned citizens they’d be arrested for nonpayment of outstanding tickets. Still, he didn’t think he’d be someone who got caught.

  I shouldn’t even be going to any jail.

  “Hey, man, are you a Christian? You believe in God?”

  “Of course,” the officer replies.

  “Um, you got a wife?”

  “Yeah, happily married for sixteen years.”

  Okay, he responded. He’s human. But will he let me go if I try and talk him out of taking me down?

  “I’ve only been married since Valentine’s Day.”

  “Not long at all.”

  “I love my wife,” Scottie says with conviction. “And our son. His name is Brax.”

  The officer doesn’t respond. Scottie keeps his thoughts to himself for the duration of the trip.

  By the time the car comes to a stop and Scottie is let out, he feels frustrated and worried. He shuffles along, walking with his hands behind his back. His stomach feels like it’s about to explode, and he has a strong urge to pee.

  The ride to the jail was brief, but because they drove through a tunnel, he still doesn’t know exactly where he is. He walks into a room filled with hundreds of mostly African American men, Hispanics, and a few Caucasians. Soon he’s led inside a cage surrounded by a metal fence. Rumbles of voices bounce off the walls filling the room with nervous energy. He notices men, so many men, their ages ranging from late teens to the mid-sixties. He’s so agitated he can’t clearly focus on any one individual.

  His cell phone, wallet, and keys are removed from his slacks and set on top of a wide counter. One guy eases Scottie’s watch from his wrist. Fellow inmates chitchat with one another, sizing up the seasoned prisoners from the neophytes; some are full of excitement and quiz the men they’re chained to and learn if any of their neighbors, old friends, or family members are in jail.

  What’s Dani doing right now? How long will it be before I can get something to eat?

  Scottie waits so long he can’t predict what time it is. When he finally hears his name being called, he stands up and walks in a single file behind other men who’ve been arrested.

  An inmate standing behind him whispers, “If a female officer walks by, stop right where you are, turn around and face the wall until she’s out of sight.”

  What kind of mess is that?

  “A lot of horny motherfuckas in the pen,” the guy continues. “Dick hard as ten bricks, but if they catch you rubbing your meat, that’s your ass.”

  Scottie is led to a room that is noticeably empty except for a single phone with people standing in long lines in front of it so they can call someone collect. Scottie wants to hear from people in the “free world,” but he can’t. Hundreds of other men are waiting.

  He gets frisked again, men feeling on his balls. “You got any tats?” asks a tall, black man in processing.

  Scottie nods. But his
arms are bound, so he can’t show the man.

  “What’s your height? Weight? Eye color?”

  Scottie answers each question in a monotone voice.

  “Do you have diabetes or any medical condition we need to know about?”

  “No, my w–wife does,” he says, his voice breaking.

  “Do you hear any voices and are they telling you to harm yourself?”

  Scottie glares at the man then whispers, “Nope.”

  He’s instructed to stand in front of a digital camera and doesn’t realize his mug shot is being taken. A white man with puffy eyelids takes Scottie’s hand and fingerprints each finger once, both his thumbs, the sides of his hand, and entire hand.

  Processing takes twenty minutes. Then he and a dozen other inmates stream down the hall single file inside another cage.

  “We’ll be here till court jail calls us,” one guy mutters like it doesn’t matter to him one way or the other.

  “I miss my gal,” another says.

  “Amen to that,” Scottie responds.

  Hours later, Scottie and the others are corralled into a holding tank where hundreds of men lean against the wall; sit on the hard, cold floor; and lie on their backs, trying to get some sleep.

  Wonder how long I’ll be here? If I ever get out of here, I’m never going to break the speed limit again. I promise to not lose my temper. Or not even look like I’m about to hit somebody. I’m going to start going to church every Sunday, and I will never shout at Dani again. I just want to hear her voice and tell her I love her and not to worry.

  — 25 —

  DANI

  Waiting on You to Come Home

  I am so pissed at Scottie I want to scream. He told me he was going to some work function, but it’s almost three in the morning. Every time I dial his cell, it goes straight into voice mail. When I call one of his coworkers, he said he saw my husband leave the party around ten. So where is Scottie? I am so tempted to call LaNecia and listen for background noises to see if that’s where Scottie is hiding. He’d better not be. I’d kill him, and her, too.

  The house phone rings with such a piercing sound I jump out of bed and run to catch my landline.

  A recording says it’s a collect call from an inmate in Harris County Jail.

  Oh, Jesus!

  After a few minutes of listening to a recorded message, I finally hear his voice. “Baby, I’m sorry. I got picked up, but I’m okay. Damn, I hate this. You all right?”

  He tells me that the young man he hit copied down his plate number and filed a police report. Even though no bones were broken and there was no bloodshed, he had the right to press charges. The police determined the registered owner of the car and pulled up Scottie’s driver’s license picture. The young man identified Scottie out of a photo lineup. I guess the warrants are so backed up that the only way HPD can catch someone is to pull them over for a routine traffic violation.

  “Scottie, where exactly are you?”

  “Downtown. We’re just sitting around waiting to go to the court jail. I haven’t been able to sleep and I’m hungry. What time is it?”

  “It’s three-thirty. Are you okay? Is anyone messing with you, babe?”

  He assures me that he’s fine. He’s ready to go to sleep and couldn’t do it until he talked to me.

  “Well, babe, there’s someone waiting to use the phone. But if I go get back in line, you probably won’t hear from me for another hour. Just try and get some sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow. I mean later. Fuck!”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you, too. Kiss Brax for me.”

  What we thought would be an overnight jail adventure has turned into something more devastating. Scottie told me the San Jacinto Jail houses over one thousand inmates. The overcrowding results in a backup that won’t allow him to go to court jail until God knows when.

  “I’ve been talking to other dudes who’re on their second and third go-round. They said it may take a week, babe.”

  After I gasped and felt my knees go weak, I had to switch to independent, responsible, clear-thinking mode. First line of business? Contacting my husband’s job and explaining the situation without telling too much. To feel my heart sag with worry over this is something I don’t want anyone to see, especially Brax. Every day he asks, “Where’s Uncle Daddy?”

  “He’s on a trip.”

  “What’s a trip?”

  “It’s like an adventure where you go to a place you’ve never been before.” I meditate on what I tell Brax and think to myself, I’m on an adventure, too, except you can still see me every day. Then I dash over to Brax’s bookcase and pray I’ll find a story that deals with vacations, road trips, anything that can help my child to understand why people sometimes disappear.

  The days are long, but I stay busy at work; my mind’s split between concentrating and doing a good job so I won’t get fired, and wondering how I’ll manage to pay all our bills on my salary alone. The nights seem like double the length of daytime. I miss talking to Scottie, running behind him all throughout the town house, begging him to rub my back, and asking him to run my bathwater. And sex? I lie in bed wrestling to fall asleep. Before long, my fingers begin stroking my twat, rubbing it up and down, and pretending like Scottie’s the one making me feel good.

  And now it’s Saturday. Scottie’s first weekend in the jail. Last night when he called, he told me, “I thought I’d be outta here by now, but since it looks like I don’t know when I’ll get released, come visit me.”

  “Babe, I’m still mad at you for not letting me come downtown before now.”

  “I–I just don’t want you to see me like this, Dani.”

  “I know. But now that it is, let’s deal with it.”

  Summer agrees to go with me to the 701 Jail, a redbrick ten-story building located downtown.

  We enter the overcrowded lobby and fill out a small white sheet of paper that notes Scottie’s SPN (his jail number), our name, and other info. Then we wait in line to go through security.

  When I walk through the metal detector, it starts beeping. “Oh, so even this thing knows Dani Meadows has arrived, huh? Like it’s announcing me.”

  “Remove your jewelry and you’ll be fine,” says an officer leaning against the wall.

  Summer and I ride an elevator to the second floor. Even though fluorescent fixtures fill the room with light, the splashes of ugly green paint make the room feel depressing. Security cameras watch our every move.

  We enter a narrow hallway and sit down on a large slab of gray stone. It’s so dirty it looks like a million nasty people have sat on it. Each side of the room has glass windows that appear to be six inches thick. On the other side of the window are seats where the inmates sit after they’re notified that they have a visitor. A roll of paper towel is sitting on the seat. I assume it’s for the visitors and I tear off a sheet and vigorously clean the window closest to me.

  Soon about fifteen men dressed in orange jumpsuits and orange socks pile out of their secured area, to the little space where they can visit with a loved one. Scottie sees me and lowers his eyes, then sits down. I offer him a smile, but I want to cry. The window between me and Scottie feels so thick. His hair looks wild, and he needs a shave. He looks sad, frustrated. Other people who are visiting are talking loud, conversing with their loved one. Although I feel self-conscious and don’t want people to hear my business, I have no other choice. This place is nothing like the jails usually depicted in the movies.

  I lean in toward the glass and contort my body so that my mouth practically touches a tiny screen.

  “You trying to do a Shawshank Redemption thing yet?” I yell.

  “What?” He presses his ear against his side of the glass wall.

  “You better not drop the soap, buddy.”

  He laughs, which makes me laugh. We only have twenty minutes to talk, so he first tells me he loves me, then gives me a list of things to do.

  “I should be out soon … but in case I’m no
t …”

  I’m listening to what he needs me to do, handle business, be strong.

  “If I’m here a long time, who will you call on to take care of what I normally handle?”

  “I dunno.”

  “You know,” he says and gives me the saddest look I’ve ever seen.

  The next week, I beg Neil to come by my place. I open the door before he can ring my doorbell.

  “How are you making out?” he asks as he walks past me into the foyer.

  “I’m good,” I say in a high, chirpy voice.

  “You look like hell, Dani.”

  “Whatever!” I climb a couple flights of stairs until we reach the living area. I know Neil’s staring at my ass. Is it wrong to want attention from the opposite sex?

  “Have a seat. I barely cooked anything.”

  “I didn’t come over here to eat food.”

  He sits and throws his hand lazily across the back of the sofa and his legs spread wide apart.

  I go stand between his thighs.

  “What you come over here for?”

  “Well, Dani. Have you talked to Scottie at all today?”

  “No, I haven’t. What’s up?”

  “He called this morning and asked me to come see him tonight. We spoke a few minutes. He wasn’t talking about anything. You know how it is.”

  “Ha.” I smirk. “I know, all right.”

  For the longest time, Neil just stares at me so intently I feel he’s trying to read my mind. Earlier I was stressed and went for a swim in the complex’s pool. Right now I have on a white bikini and a knee-length halter top that functions as a swimwear cover-up. It ties up in the back and is the same color as hay. Neil’s eyes follow me from my face down to my knees and exposed legs.

  “What else did he say?”

  “Scottie told me his release date is May fifteenth.”

  “Three more fucking weeks? Oh, hell no!”

  “You know what else he said?”

  “What?”

  “He’s scared you’re going to cheat!”

  Scottie knows me. He and I are accustomed to having sex at least four times a week. For me, making love is like breathing air. I have needs. Scottie has to understand that.