The System Has Failed

by Ms. Michel Moore

  In pain but feeling no remorse for the crimes he’d just committed, including shooting his childhood friend, Yankee turned up the sounds, pumping out some old-school rap as he headed to the Gates to confront his boy Terrell with a proposition that he wasn’t willing to take no for an answer to.

  Chapter Eleven

  Terrell and a semi-coherent, battered, and bruised Joi drove past the guard shack as Mr. Johnson waved them through. She laid her head on his shoulder for comfort. The still-furious Terrell glanced down at his girl, kissing her on the forehead and trying to find a way to break it to her that her big sister Shauntae was back at her house, dead as a motherfucker, lying in a pool of her own blood.

  “Don’t worry. I got you,” he promised the young girl as they pulled up in his driveway. “You can stay with me and my mother as long as you want to.”

  After making their way around the back entrance of the house, the couple went inside, where Li’l T led Joi into his bedroom. Tossing his dirty clothes and a few mix CDs onto the floor, Terrell made space for Joi to lie down and get some much-needed rest whenever she was ready. Knowing that she was ashamed of what had happened to her, Li’l T opted to not throw a gang of questions at her that he already knew the answers to. Instead, he gave her a towel and a washcloth and respectfully shut the door.

  I can’t believe my sister did this to me. Joi felt the lump on the side of her face, as the throbbing pain between her legs intensified thanks to Elon and the crude way he’d violated her. Oh, my God! Having sudden flashes of Elon’s face while he raped her, and still being able to smell the awful mixed stench of weed, beer, and liquor he breathed into her mouth, an overwhelmed Joi bent over in disgust, vomiting on the floor at the foot of Terrell’s bed. And why would Shauntae let him do that to me? Does she hate me that much?

  After rolling his wheelchair into the living room, Li’l T grabbed the house phone off the charger to call Yankee and Wahoo and give them an update on what had gone down. With both of them being from the hood, Terrell knew that one or the other had to know some information on the nigga driving the black truck or the dudes in the Regal who tried to kill him earlier. Holding the pieces of his smashed cell phone in his hands, he hoped he could at least remember their numbers after realizing the screen was shattered.

  * * *

  Elon came up on the Jefferson Avenue exit, doing almost double the speed limit. Flying around the corner at an extreme rate almost caused the huge black truck to flip over on its side and make several other automobiles also crash. Gripping the steering wheel, the deranged Elon regained control of the vehicle just in time to avoid a head-on collision with a carload of teenagers trying to get home before their curfews.

  With the sounds of horns blowing in protest of the way he was driving, Elon acted as if he owned the road, veering the oversized truck up into the entranceway of the Gates. He was just here earlier in the evening, dropping off the box for Terrell. Not having the patience to wait for the guard to question him about this and that before he made the decision whether to allow him entry, as soon as Mr. Johnson approached him with his clipboard in hand, Elon slid his hand over, retrieving his pistol from where he had it stashed, turned the volume up on his radio, and shot the husband and father of five to death.

  After shoving Mr. Johnson’s lifeless body over into the thick line of green bushes that conveniently blocked the view of outsiders into the elite, small, privileged community of Detroit, Elon pushed the button himself, making the black steel gates slide open. Jumping back inside his truck, he then drove through them and got confused, not really knowing where the house was located. Mitts had been the one watching Terrell’s crib, and because the walls of the hospital blocked all cell phone reception, Elon couldn’t get a call through to confirm the address.

  “Fuck it! I’ll look for that pussy’s van. It’s gotta be parked somewhere around here. I’ll find it. Ain’t shit gonna stand in the way of what I got for that crippled son of a bitch!”

  * * *

  The cab driver earned his hundred-dollar tip as he and Simone neared her house in record, law-breaking time. While still trying helplessly to get in touch with Li’l T, Simone got a call from Prayer, which she automatically sent to voicemail. What that bitch want now of all times? she fumed as they hit a major pothole. Less than a half mile later, after placing three or four more unsuccessful calls to Terrell, her cell phone rang again. This time it was Drake.

  “Hello,” she eagerly answered.

  “Hey, Simone! Where’s Terrell at?” Drake wasted no time with the preliminaries. “Is he with you?”

  “Naw, he ain’t, but I keep calling him, and I can’t get through. Oh, my God. Drake, he done messed around and got himself in some real fucked-up shit!” Simone yelled as the cab driver nosily eavesdropped on her conversation from the front seat. “I’m on my way to the crib now. Can you come?”

  “Listen,” Drake replied, “I’m already on my way down there. Some bullshit just jumped off out my way, and some of his so-called running buddies was behind it.”

  “What?” In shock, Simone couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, and don’t tell Terrell, but Stuff got shot. From the looks of things when I left his house, he ain’t gonna make it.”

  “What?” Simone repeated as her cold heart seemed to skip a beat hearing that tragic news. “This entire night is going from bad to fucking worse!”

  “Yeah, I know, but I’m on my way. I’ll see you in a few minutes and fill you in on all the details when I get there. You need to call the police, Simone, because this fool ain’t playing around!”

  “All right then, I’ll call you as soon as I get home and see if Li’l T’s there.”

  Approaching the front of the guard shack, the cab driver slowed down, naturally assuming that someone would come out to give him the okay to pass through and gain access to the upscale community.

  “Why in the hell is this gate wide open and unattended like this?” Simone suspiciously leaned up, staring through the thick plastic partition separating her and the driver. I’m gonna call the management office on Mr. Johnson’s old ass first thing in the morning.

  “What should I do, miss?” the driver inquired, glancing back as he stopped.

  “Just keep going,” she instructed him. She knew full well that without directions he would certainly get lost on the twisted, confusing, dead-end, unmarked blocks the Gates was famous for. “I’ll tell you the rest of way from here.”

  With the cab following the exact path she and Terrell took to their house daily, Simone, anxious to get out and locate her son, had the driver drop her off on the curb. She wished him good luck on finding his way back to the main entrance. Taking notice that all appeared quiet around the general vicinity, meaning there were no signs of Big Ace’s vindictive offspring Elon, Simone wasted no time rushing up on the front porch past her son’s parked van. She stuck her key in the lock. From the first moment she stepped foot inside the doorway, the deeply concerned mother could immediately tell something was drastically wrong.

  “Terrell! Terrell,” Simone screamed out as soon as her foot touched the carpet. “Are you in here? Terrell!”

  “Yeah, Ma,” Li’l T answered, rolling from the rear of the house with yet another box of ammunition to put on the dining room table to accompany the stock pile of artillery he’d taken out of Simone’s locked closet. “I’m right here!”

  “Why in the fuck you ain’t been answering your damn phone? I’ve been calling the dog shit outta your dumb ass!”

  “My cell is broke.”

  “Whatever, boy,” Simone blew off his excuse, running up to the table. “Where did you get all my shit from? And matter of fact, fuck that question. What in the hell you done did getting mixed up with Big Ace’s kids? Oh, my God, we need to call the damn police before some more shit jumps!”

  Still vigilant in loading all the illegal weapons as if his mother hadn’t just mentioned the police, Terrell spoke u
p. “Big Ace? My father’s friend?”

  “Yeah, Negro, what other Big Ace you know?” Simone quickly grabbed one of the guns off the table, realizing that Elon was supposed to be on his way, although she didn’t exactly know when. “They claiming you ran one of his sons and his friend off the road earlier, and then they saying you shot him!”

  “In that old-school Regal?”

  “What the fuck! How I know what kinda car it was? I’m just saying what I heard at the hospital before I caught a cab here.”

  “What was you doing at the hospital in the first place seeing about a motherfucker who was trying to kill me? And do you know who this other dude who hang with them is?”

  “What dude?”

  “He drives a black truck.”

  “Yeah, stupid.” Simone ran over to peek out the living room curtains. “That’s the same bald fucker I saw that tramp daughter of Monique’s with! He got them I GO HARD plates on his shit! That’s Big Ace’s other son, the one ya little girlfriend was so damn cozy with!”

  “What?” Terrell overlooked his mother insulting Joi, forgetting for the time being that she was even sleeping in his room. “Good, well, now I’m about to kill his ho ass, and that’s my word!”

  “What is you saying?” Simone was confused. “How did this shit even jump off? How you even know them? I don’t understand.”

  “It don’t matter if you understand.” Terrell got angrier each time he thought about the pictures sent to his cell phone and the way his girl was violated. “That coward is already fucking dead, and I’m about to show him that I go hard too!”

  “Well . . .” Simone didn’t know what to do next but put one up top herself and get prepared for what was gonna happen after what in the fuck came next. “That crazy idiot Elon said he was gonna be on his way here, so you need to post up, because he acted like he meant business!”

  “So the fuck do I,” Li’l T vowed as he rolled his chair near the couch.

  “I knew you should’ve stayed your ass out in them suburbs, ’cause now you done fucked shit all the way up between me and Big Ace! Now I gotta find me the next meal ticket! Thanks a lot!”

  “That’s all the fuck you damn care about?” Terrell questioned his mother. “His sons tried to kill me, and you worried about the old dude’s bread? You real foul, Ma!”

  Ring. Ring. Ring. The sound of Simone’s cell phone chiming startled her and her enraged son both. She answered, putting it on speaker and not wanting to take her hand off the gun she was clutching, not to mention her finger off the trigger.

  “Hello.”

  “Yeah, is he there?” Drake’s voice filled the silent room.

  “Yeah, he’s here, but you need to hurry up.” Simone had the sound of urgency in her tone. “How far are you?”

  “About a good ten or fifteen minutes away,” Drake estimated. “Did you call the police yet or what?”

  “Not yet.” Simone looked on the table at the guns that were a felony case waiting to happen. “I’m about to.”

  “Well, you didn’t tell him about Stuff, did you? Prayer just called me with the updated news.”

  “Stuff?” Terrell interrupted their conversation, yelling across the room. “What’s wrong with him? Where he at?”

  “Hey, Terrell.” Drake regretted that he’d said anything, now realizing he was on speakerphone. “Sit tight. I’ll be there in a few.”

  “Naw, fuck that! Where’s my nigga Stuff at?”

  “Watch your damn tone, son.” Drake got heated. “I know you going through some shit right about now, but don’t ever bite the hand that feeds you. I’m on your side. Now I said to sit tight and I’ll be there. Ya feel me?”

  “Whatever.” Li’l T rolled over to the other side of the room after hearing the sound of a vehicle pulling in the driveway.

  Rushing to snatch the cordless phone off the couch to finally call the cops before it was too late, Simone was stopped by her son informing her that a cab was shining its light up on the house and the short, dark-skinned driver had gotten out and was headed to the porch.

  Confused, with her gun in her hand down at her side, Simone flung the door open and started a verbal assault on the man. “Yes, what’s wrong? What do you want?”

  “Hello again, miss.” The driver spoke in his deep, rich African tone. “I finally made it out of this puzzle and back to the main road.”

  “Okay and?” Simone sarcastically asked as Terrell attentively watched him from the other room. “Then why in the hell are you back? You got your money!”

  “I know, miss, and I thank you.” The driver remained polite in spite of Simone’s foul mouth and bad disposition. “But when I looked in the rear of my cab, I saw that you had left your purse, and I wanted to return it to you.”

  Dropping her head down in shame for being so rude, Simone stuck out her hand to take her expensive designer handbag out of the honest cab driver’s hand. “Damn, my bad. I’m sorry. Thanks for bringing it back.”

  “Not a problem, miss,” the driver replied, never once returning Simone’s crude tone in his response. “I could tell you were in a hurry. So I’ll let you go, and good luck to you.”

  Walking off the porch and back to his cab, the driver shook his head in pity. The way the seemingly beautiful woman was obviously so tortured and cursed on the inside to behave and speak as she did made him wonder why any of his fellow countrymen came here to the United States and married a black woman instead of their own kind.

  * * *

  “Oh, hell yeah!” Elated that his search was over, Elon smiled as he cut the truck’s headlights off and watched from afar. Thanks to the bright side light of the yellow Checker Cab that was shining on the house a few yards down, Elon was able to make out Terrell’s custom van. He wasn’t sure if he’d driven past this street before, and at this point, he was so confused and twisted around, who knew for certain? “That crippled up nigga can run, but he can’t hide. I don’t know what that fool in the cab want with his ass, but I owe him and his cab big time for that light. I would’ve been driving around this circus for hours trying to find that damn van! Now it’s ticktock on Terrell and that smart-mouth bitch from down at the hospital who just answered the door. Tick motherfucking tock.” Elon opened the truck door. “Ticktock.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Yankee’s gunshot-wounded shoulder was starting to burn even more and stiffen, causing him to lose focus on the road. Even though the bullet was a clean shot, having gone in and out, he still was losing a huge amount of blood and needed some sort of medical attention other than an old T-shirt wrapped around it. I need a fucking drink and a blunt! Always keeping a stash of weed on him, dizzy and exhausted from the chain of horrific events he’d perpetrated at Stuff’s house, Yankee decided that he needed to smoke at least to get his mind right and be able to continue to the Gates.

  Damn! These streets is messed up! Why don’t they hurry up and finish? With all the various ongoing detours and road construction projects in Michigan, Yankee was getting confused as hell. Miles out of his way, finally getting back on track and regaining his bearings, the youth, rapidly losing blood, soon realized he was at least a good four miles away from his exit.

  Dang. Shit, it’s burning like a motherfucker! He grabbed at his shoulder, complaining to himself as the once-clean T-shirt pressed to his open wound was now soaked. Fuck Wahoo! I hope he burn in hell! That soft, pussy-built nigga should’ve just stuck to the goddamn program and manned up, and it would’ve been all gravy. But fuck his dumb crybaby ass and his sorry family, ’cause now I’m about to have it all. Shit, real talk, I should call the State my damn self!

  Yankee couldn’t take the intense throbbing soreness any longer and came up on the next exit he came to in search of some liquor, preferably dark. Searching the unfamiliar neighborhood, he finally found what he was looking for. Seeing the yellow and red neon sign indicating that they sold the sanctified potion Yankee needed, he was relieved. After turning the new BMW into the parking lot of th
e Southwest Detroit Party Store, he removed the T-shirt from his shoulder and tossed it out the car window onto the ground. Reaching over and rifling through the pillowcases of stolen goods in the passenger seat, Yankee took out one of Stuff’s custom button-ups with the initials KIS stitched on the pocket as well as the collar. Although it was hot as hell and Yankee was sweating like a whore in church, enduring the pain, he slipped both arms in the wrinkled long-sleeved shirt, opened the car door, and proceeded into the store. Without any time to waste, lightheaded but still brazen and extremely cocky in attitude, Yankee marched up to the counter, acting as if there weren’t a small group of customers standing in line.

  “Excuse me,” an older lady interjected.

  “Yeah, let me get a fifth of Hennessy, two cherry wraps, and one of those lighters,” Yankee ordered the young girl behind the bulletproof glass as he tried flossing Stuff’s pinky ring he’d stolen. “And five packs of them extra-strength Tylenols!”

  “Yeah, dawg,” added a clean-cut guy, who was dressed like he’d just gotten off work. “You didn’t notice we were here in damn line?”

  “Whatever,” Yankee laughed it off as he tried this time to show off with a small but impressive knot. “Slow y’all roll, Hector, and go eat a taco or some bean burrito bullshit y’all fucks with!” he insulted the man, who was obviously Mexican. “It ain’t that serious and shit, partner!”

  Hoping to get the rude customer out the door as soon as possible before trouble broke out, the young girl hurried, giving Yankee what he needed and sending him on his way. Before he could get out the door, Yankee, eager to feel the liquor take over, cracked the seal open on the bottle, turned it up, and took a deep, long gulp straight to the head. Realizing that blood was starting to slowly seep through the threads of the shirt, he quickly made his way back to the BMW, which he was now officially calling his own, ripped open three of the five packs of Tylenol, and swallowed them all, taking another swig of Hennessy to wash them down.

  Closing his eyes as the burning in his shoulder started to intensify, Yankee, totally off his game, didn’t notice a dark Hummer parked across the street and watching his every move since he’d exited the freeway. As he used his teeth to tear open the clear plastic bag with his weed inside, the petty thief turned murderer felt his entire arm tingling and going completely numb. After rolling his blunt up, he lit it, taking several long, hard pulls before starting the engine, turning up the sounds, and taking off back en route to the Gates.