Crazy In Love

by Yoshe

Shamari looked up from staring at his sleeping son. “I spoke to you a day or two after that happened. Why you never told me that?”

  Brandi held her head down. “I didn’t want you to worry, Shaki. You have enough things to worry about.”

  Shamari shook his head. “She put a gun to your head? Man, you lucky I wasn’t home at the time. I woulda killed the bitch myself! Ma’, you should have told me that.”

  Brandi shushed Shamari and looked around nervously. “Be respectful!” she sighed. “Well, it’s all over now and we could move on with our lives. I’m glad it’s over.”

  “Are you and Sean still cool? Or are you gonna fall back from him for good now?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Shamari, I don’t know,” Brandi replied.

  The baby began to move around and was about to wake up. Brandi gave him one of the three bottles she was authorized to have on the visit. Shamari put the bottle in the baby’s mouth and he drifted back to sleep.

  As Shamari fed him, he continued to rub the baby’s head and kiss his chubby fingers.

  “He smells like baby lotion,” Shamari said. “Ma’, you know what I miss?”

  Brandi looked at her son and grandson. It was a beautiful sight; with the exception of Shamari in his state greens and the state correction officers operating the visit floor.

  “What do you miss, baby?” she asked.

  “I miss my pops, Ma. I miss havin’ him around. Even though I was young when he died, I can remember some of the times that we spent together. Damn!” Shamari’s eyes suddenly began to water. “Why he had to die, Ma’?”

  Brandi held her head down. She felt guilty about Maleek’s death, now that she actually saw what her son was going through emotionally without him. However, thinking back to Maleek’s attitude toward her and Shamari at the end, she selfishly figured that he was better off dead. Her son probably would have suffered more knowing that his father was out in the world, but didn’t want to have anything to do with him. That would have killed her.

  She understood how Yadira felt about wanting Sean; she felt the same way about Maleek, but she wasn’t about to take her own life. She loved her son so much that she was willing to conspire to kill someone to prove that, and that was what she did.

  Brandi closed her eyes and held Shamari’s hand tightly. “Baby, your father is in a better place now. Just make sure that you are here for your son.”

  He had been holding the information that Dollar told him for a while. He had to tell his mother what he heard. He figured it was now or never.

  “Ma’, I know what happened between you and my father,” he said softly.

  Brandi felt her throat tighten up. She closed her eyes as if she had to adjust her eyesight. Everything was a blur and she felt herself hyperventilating. “What do you mean, you know what happened with me and your father? We parted ways.”

  “I know that you got him done, Ma’. I know the full story.”

  “Who, how would you know this?”

  “While I was in the Bing, I ran into one of my father’s old homies.”

  Brandi frowned and her heart began to palpitate. “Who might that be?”

  “Dollar. Do you remember, Dollar?”

  Brandi looked around the visiting room and swallowed. “Yeah, he was one of Maleek’s boys.”

  “All I have to ask is, why? What made you do what you did?”

  A part of Brandi wanted to deny it, but she was tired of the charade that she had put on with Shamari. She was going to be honest with him.

  “I . . . I am so sorry, Shamari,” Brandi stuttered. “I’m trying to understand why Dollar would speak on me and Maleek’s relationship with you, but that’s neither here nor there, I guess.” She cleared her throat. “Your father hurt me. He left you and me for another life with someone else. I was pissed about it, of course, because I had given everything to this man. My world revolved him, right down to the hustling and a killing that I committed trying to protect him. I know that we all have choices, but I aimed to please Maleek, who was my first everything. But it wasn’t until he left when I realized that you were one of the most important people in my life. I wanted to protect you from the hurt. The hurt when you realized that your father left you and was not coming back. I would much rather tell you that your father was dead than to tell you that your father didn’t love you enough to stay with us and be a father to you. So I recruited an old connect of mine and convinced him that Maleek needed to go. If he couldn’t be with you and me, then he wasn’t going to be with anybody. That’s how I felt at the time.”

  Shamari kissed his son. “I don’t know what to say and I don’t know how to feel about that, Ma’. You took something away from me and now I would never know how it would have been. He might have come around later on in my life.”

  Brandi’s shoulders tensed up. “You’re right but it wasn’t only about you, Shamari. When Maleek died, that fucked-up side of me died with him. I was released from his clutches and I was able to rebuild my life. He had to go. If he had been alive, we wouldn’t have made it this far in life. We would have all been dead, the three of us. That was the type of life that we were living at the time.”

  “You’re a strong woman. You did a good job raisin’ me alone. A lot of young men and women have been raised just by one parent and they turned out to be okay. Why couldn’t it have been like that for me?”

  “You’re right, baby, you’re right,” Brandi replied.

  Shamari took Brandi’s hand. “Ma’, I love you. You are the best mother a nig—I mean, a dude could have. I know there was no easy way to tell me what happened to Maleek. One side of me does appreciate you keepin’ that a secret for as long as you did. I guess when you livin’ that type of life, death is one of the two ways out. And according to Dollar, jail is the other way out.”

  “But do you know what the end result of all that was, Shaki? Regret. Guilt. Those are some of the things that I had to live with all this time. Do you forgive me?”

  Brandi reached over and embraced Shamari. She gently placed soft kisses on her grandson’s forehead.

  “Yes, Ma’, I forgive you.” Shamari paused. “When Amber died, I thought I was going crazy. I even asked God why didn’t he take me. I’m the one that committed the crimes. I’m the one that was doin’ time in jail, and he passed over me and took Amber. Being in that jail cell didn’t help much, neither. But now I see that He has a purpose for me. Dollar told me that my father lives in me, and with that, I’m gonna be a better man and father to my son. I’m gonna do some of the things that he probably should have done or maybe he wanted to do before he died.”

  Little did Brandi and Shamari know there was a method to Dollar’s madness.

  “Yo’, man, you can’t keep dissin’ your baby mama this way,” a young Dollar said, while riding with Maleek in his truck. Maleek had just ignored yet another phone call from Brandi.

  “Man, go ’head with that! If you so concerned, why don’t you be my son’s daddy? I got too much shit goin’ on right now to be bothered with Brandi and Shamari! Do you see all the money we gettin’ down here?”

  Dollar sighed. “Nigga, you just don’t get it, do you? Nothin’ good is gonna come from you dissin’ your kids the way you do! You got other kids in Brooklyn, too—”

  Maleek cut him off. “Well, I ain’t claimin’ them other ones! Them bitches was nothin’ but hoes to me. Brandi was my wifey!”

  “But now you treatin’ her like a ho! I may be a street dude and a hustler, but my kids . . . I don’t play that with my kids and I got three myself! They get as much of their daddy as I can give them when I ain’t gettin’ that paper.”

  Maleek sighed. His $10,000 dollar Gucci link chain with a diamond encrusted piece glistened in the Virginia sunlight. He pulled off the highway to get out and take a leak. Dollar looked at Maleek and rolled his eyes. Maleek went behind a tree, relieved himself, and walked back toward the truck. When Maleek got back into the driver’s seat, Dollar had his gun out. By this time
, another vehicle had pulled up behind them. It was the wee hours of the morning and traffic was very light. Perfect time for the perfect murder.

  Maleek held his hands up in the air. Dollar snatched the chain off his neck and rifled through his pockets for his wallet. Maleek hadn’t noticed that Dollar had on black leather gloves, gloves that they wore when they were about to lay somebody down-forever.

  “Oooh, shit, Dollar! This is how you gonna do me?” Maleek asked, with a smug look on his face. “You gonna fuck me over like this?”

  “Nigga, you fucked yourself! I don’t like your fuckin’ attitude!”

  Maleek attempted to open the driver’s side door but Dollar shot him in the chest before he could open the door all the way. Dollar stepped out of the truck after killing Maleek. The driver of the second car was standing near the driver’s side door and stepped back, shooting up the Land Rover with Maleek’s dead body in it. After the truck and Maleek’s body were riddled with bullets, Dollar and Smokey got into the Q45 and took off down I-64 together. Dollar looked out the passenger side window and cried like a baby. He wished he could have been Shamari’s daddy because he was secretly in love with Brandi. Why she had picked Maleek instead of him, he could never figure that out.

  “What’s up, man? You straight?” Smokey asked him, as they headed back to Norfolk.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” Dollar replied. He tightened his grip around the warm gun in his hand. Smokey had no idea that he was the next fatality on Dollar’s list ....

  Since Yadi’s suicide, almost everything was pretty much back to normal in Sean’s life. He had been back a work for almost a week and most of his coworkers were extremely sympathetic toward him. Sean was just happy to be finally forgiving himself, realizing that what happened was not his fault. He continued to thank God every day and promised to make sure that he wouldn’t take his life or anyone else for granted. Yes, Yadi had taught him a lot.

  However, there was someone missing from his life and he grieved more about that then he did Yadi’s death. Brandi had not contacted him since the incident. Sean was devastated about that but the space between them gave him chance to put his life into perspective. Now he finally was able to figure out what he really wanted out of life and love.

  One night, after a hard’s day’s work, Sean’s cell phone rang. Asleep in his bed, he leaned over and answered the phone. He had enough of the sympathy calls and he looked at the ringing telephone, hoping that it was not one of those calls.

  “Hello?” he answered, groggily.

  “Hey, Sean. It’s me. Brandi.” There was silence on his end of the phone.

  “So you just now callin’ me, huh? Do you realize what’s been goin’ on for the past few months?” Sean shouted, sitting up in his bed.

  Brandi sighed. “Sean, I know, I don’t have any excuse for not calling you. I . . . I just needed time to get myself together.”

  “Get yourself together? Yadi killed herself in my house! What about me?”

  Sean’s selfish attitude angered Brandi. She could not believe that he would only think about himself at a time like this.

  “Well, since you wanna put it like that, Sean, the reason why I was in that predicament in the first place was because of your ass! I think that you know that because you didn’t attempt to call me neither. Remember, I am the one that she forced, by gunpoint, to your house that night. I don’t believe that you could only be thinking about yourself!” she shouted back.

  Sean paused. He calmed down and realized that she was right. Brandi should be even more traumatized than him because she could have lost her life.

  “You know what, Brandi? I apologize. It’s not your fault. I just thought you had forgotten about me, that’s all.”

  Brandi calmed down, as well. Her voice sounded shaky, like she was about to cry. “I said, I need a moment to get myself together. What I went through that night was traumatizing. I have a lot going on over here, too, you know. I’m helping to raise my grandchild who has no mother and an incarcerated father. I’ve been devoting a lot of my time to family these days. And plus, I’ve been taking little Shamari to his father on a regular basis.”

  “You are? That’s what’s up. How is he holdin’ up in there?” Sean asked.

  “He’s okay. He looks good, been working out and getting his mind right. He has matured a lot.”

  “Well, he’s a grown man, Brandi. He’s in a place with some grown-ass men. From what he went through on Rikers, Shamari seems like he knows how to handle himself. Trust me, I know.”

  Brandi smiled. “I’m relieved to know that but I just want him to come home. We need him here.”

  “He’s gonna be okay. It’s a learnin’ experience.” There was a slight pause.

  “Did you go to Yadi’s funeral?” she asked.

  “No, I didn’t but I spoke to her mother and her daughter’s father. They told me about her mental health and about how she was bipolar or some shit like that. Her daughter’s father told me how she refused to take her medication.”

  “Medication? She was on medication? Wow. She was such a beautiful woman! Who would have ever known?”

  “I know, right? That’s why they say not to judge a book by its cover.”

  Brandi chuckled. “Yeah, I know.” She sighed. “Sean, you know, I really care about you, right?”

  “I care about you, too, Brandi. I know I may be pushin’ it right now because we haven’t spoken to each other in a minute. Would you like to come over? I really wanted to see you.”

  Brandi smiled. “I really wanted to see you, too, Sean. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  When Brandi arrived at Sean’s house, it was as if all the bad events that had transpired there flooded her memory again. Sean was looking good, having lost a few pounds from all the stress that he had to endure the last couple of months. She walked in and there was an uncomfortable silence between them. Sean was the first one to speak, after inviting her into the living room. They took a seat on the couch and just stared at each other for a couple of moments without speaking.

  “You look good, Sean,” Brandi said. “You lost some weight.”

  Sean looked down at his flat stomach. “Yeah, I been workin’ out. I started trainin’ again, you know, with the boxin’ and um, yeah, you look real good, too.”

  “Thanks.” She cleared her throat. “Sean, I know that a lot is going on in your life right now. You’re trying to put the pieces together and I understand that totally. But what I came here to say is—” she began.

  Sean cut her off. “I think I know, Brandi. We can’t be together.”

  Her eyes widened with confusion. That was not what she was thinking. “What do you mean, we can’t be together?”

  Sean sighed. “’Cause it was just too much shit that went on between us. Bein’ together will remind us too much of all the Yadi bullshit. Yadi reminds you too much of you.”

  Brandi looked away with a guilty look on her face. “What made you say that, Sean?”

  “Brandi, I knew about your past before you even told me about it. I knew about your hustlin’ days, how you killed people and caused havoc in the streets. I even knew about Maleek and how you set him up to be killed when he left you for another woman. You didn’t want to let him go so that’s why you did it. You didn’t want the other woman to have him if you couldn’t have him.

  Sean continued. “I’m sorry, baby. I care about you, you know I do, but after all this shit that happened with Yadi, I can’t take a chance and be with another woman that’s like her. Yadi took her own life and she might have wanted to take mine, too. I can’t chance that happenin’ with you or any other woman. I, I just need some time to myself.”

  Brandi was stunned. It didn’t matter how Sean found out about her history because he was right. She looked down. “Um, Sean, I don’t know what to say. I could tell you and prove to you that I’m a changed woman, but at this point, considering everything that happened, you’re not trying to hear that and I don’t blame you.”
She stood up. “Well, I guess that I’m gonna be leaving and I hope that one day, you change your mind and look me up. I know it’s hard to trust a woman right now but I’m telling you that I really care about you, Sean.”

  “And that’s the shit that scares me the most, baby, is you caring about me too much.” Sean stood up and kissed Brandi on the lips. “I care about you, too. That’s why I’m lettin’ you go. This shit has scarred me, Brandi, and you don’t deserve this. Neither of us do.”

  Brandi hugged Sean and he followed her to the door. She turned around and waved at him, half-hoping that he was only joking and would call her to come back inside, to make love to her and tell her that everything was okay. However, that never happened. Sean watched her walk to her car and when she turned around, he was gone.

  Brandi climbed into the driver’s seat of her Lexus and cried her heart out. As she pulled off, she cussed the day that Yadira Cruz was born, not realizing that she, too was also guilty of being “crazy in love.”

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  Crazy In Love ©copyright 2010 Yoshe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-6228-6121-7

  This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living, or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.

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