Blackout: Stand Your Ground

by David Weaver

  “Bitch, come here!” the neighbor said. He grabbed a handful of her hair and went to toss her across the room when she swung on him. She scraped his arm with the knife’s sharp edge forcing him to release the hold he had on her. “Fuck!”

  “Get back! Stay away from me!” Meesie screamed out with the knife out in front for the both of them to see. She huffed out her exhaustion, but her eyes never left his face. Pathetic! She thought.

  “What the hell going on up in here?” the second guy asked as he entered the kitchen.

  “I don’t want any problems. Just take what you already got and leave!” Meesie yelled.

  “Bitch, I seen you and your boy on the news. Y’all wanted just as bad as they want the Taliban. Killing all them white folks like that. They gonna fry you and that nigga. What the hell was y’all thinking?” the neighbor asked with a smirk.

  “Leave!” Meesie said gripping the knife tighter.

  “Come on bruh, let’s get up out of here. I ain’t trying to get caught. You know I’m on parole.”

  “Get caught by who? It ain’t like she gonna call the damn police. Go get that jewelry box out the bedroom that I saw,” the neighbor said. He licked his lips as he ran his eyes over Meesie’s thin curves. She really wasn’t his type, but the fact that she was standing there holding her own turned him on.

  “Please just leave. I don’t want any problems. Please I’m begging you!” Meesie pleaded with them almost coming to tears. She was undoubtedly scared and just wanted them to leave. She now wish that she had went with her first plan which was to try and rob a Walgreens for Jawan’s medicine. The only reason why she didn’t do that was because the pharmacy was all the way at the back of the store and figured by time she got in, got what she needed, and tried to get out, the police would be waiting for her outside. She now regretted that decision.

  “Bruh, let’s go! We got what we need, now let’s go!” the second guy said, and hit his partner on the arm.

  The neighbor dived for Meesie and began fighting with her over the knife. He wasn’t about to let Meesie’s little ass run him out of there with a kitchen knife when there was more stuff in the house that he wanted to get. The two of them scrambled over the knife for what seemed like an eternity.

  “Aahhh!” Meesie gasped and her eyes shot open in horror. Her mouth dropped and she looked over at the neighbor’s partner who stood by frantically watching. He was kicking himself for even coming up in here knowing that any fuck up could send him back upstate for an automatic ten years.

  “Wha—Wh—“ the second guy brought his hands to his head when his partner fell to the floor. His partner’s face was contorted and tight with pain and the knife was stuck in his chest. He dropped down to the floor next to him to survey the damages. “Oh shit! You stabbed him!”

  “I didn’t mean to—he came at me! I didn’t have a choice!” Meesie explained. She slowly tipped her way towards the exit and when she had a clear pathway, she took off running toward the front door.

  “Hey, come back here! Help me with him!” the second guy yelled out to Meesie, but it was too late. She had grabbed Jawan’s clothes and medication for the floor where she dropped them and rushed out of the door. Her shoes pounded against the pavement as she ran down the block to where she’d parked Nay-Nay’s car.

  “Meesie!”

  Meesie damn near jumped out of her skin as her hands flew up in the air. Her heart was racing so fast and so hard. She eyed Jawan strangely and wondered why the hell he was jumping from behind Nay-Nay’s car.

  “Jawan, what the hell are you doing hiding behind Nay-Nay’s car? How long you been out here?” she asked. She reached down to pick up Jawan’s things that she had once again dropped.

  “I just walked up. Hell I been looking for your ass, girl. Why the hell would you leave me at Nay-Nay’s house passed the hell out like that? You know I don’t like that damn girl!” Jawan fussed. It took him a minute to figure out where Meesie would have gone, but he knew his baby girl.

  “You might not like her, but if it wasn’t for her then I wouldn’t have been able to get this. Here! Take it now!” Meesie said, and handed Jawan his medication. “I can’t believe you were out here hiding when I was in there fighting for my life. Why didn’t you come in there and check on me?”

  “Fighting for your life?” Jawan stopped in the middle of taking his medication and looked Meesie over. For the first time he noticed the blood on her hands and the blood that transferred onto the medicine bottle. He instantly felt sick to his stomach and the bottle dropped to the ground with all the pills scattering all over the place.

  “Oh my God Jawan!” Meesie yelled and immediately dropped down to the ground.

  “What happened? Are you okay? Who hurt you?” Jawan was panicky. He hated that he was stuck with that damn seizure disorder. Twice Meesie had been hurt and it was all because of his problem.

  “I’m fine now Jawan. It’s nothing. Help me get up this damn medicine and let’s get out of here. I know somebody done called the cops by now. I’m just so sick of all of this and I don’t know how much more I can take. You know I will ride for you all day long, but we need to find somewhere safe to settle down. We gotta think about the future.”

  Jawan hadn’t heard a word that Meesie said. A frown crossed his face and he grabbed at the flesh wound on his arm. He was utterly confused when he spotted a guy whom he didn’t recognize running out of his house and jumping in a truck.

  “Meesie, where the pistol at?” he asked.

  The hell is he doing coming out of my house? Who is this clown? Jawan wondered as he watched the guy look around before jumping inside of the truck.

  “Meesie, where the pistol at? Hurry up and give it to me.”

  “Damn it Jawan, it’s in the car,” she pointed without looking up. She gathered up the last of the pills that she was able to find and placed the top back on the medicine bottle.

  POW! POW!

  Meesie covered her head and crawled across the rough pavement. She was trying to get behind the car before she got hit by a stray bullet.

  What the hell is going on now? Meesie thought as she peeked around the car just in time to see a truck jumping the curb and crashing into one of the neighbor’s house.

  This whole time I’ve been stuck in a nightmare that I just cannot wake up from. That’s what it is. It’s one of those that you can’t wake up from until it’s over. This shit just can’t be real. Meesie thought. She watched in disbelief as Jawan approached the truck and opened the driver’s side door.

  “Does he not realize that we are wanted? And that I stabbed somebody that is possibly dead by now? And that we need to get away from here as soon as possible? What the hell is wrong with this boy?” Meesie said through gritted teeth. She jumped up from her hiding spot and ran over to Jawan. He pulled the guy out of the truck and now had the gun held to his head screaming all kind of threats and obscenities.

  “What the hell were you doing in my house?” Jawan asked, and shoved the gun into the guy’s temple. “Motherfucker you better pray I don’t blow your brains out! The hell was you doing! Answer me now!”

  “Jawan, what the hell are you doing? Baby, we are wanted! You’re not thinking!” Meesie yelled and looked around. Neighbors were beginning to come out of their houses and she could swear that she heard sirens in the distant. She blinked her eyes profusely and just wanted to lay down and give up. She preached to Jawan about standing his ground, not giving up, and not laying down for the law, but this is not what she meant. She wanted him to think smarter and not make things harder for them.

  “Is this my TV?” Jawan asked upon noticing some of his items in the backseat of the truck. “Meesie, that’s the damn TV I got you for your birthday. You see this shit!” Jawan was pissed. He had saved up for months to get Meesie that TV and here somebody was trying to take what he’d worked hard for.

  “Jawan, I know all about it, but unfortunately we don’t have time to worry about it.”

  “
What you mean you know about it? You let him take our shit and you wasn’t gonna do or say anything about it? You know this fool?”

  “What the hell we gonna do with a damn flat screen TV if we’re locked up? And no I don’t know him! Jawan, you’re not thinking clearly! Can we please get out of here?”

  Just then Meesie realized what was going on. She brought her hand up to her mouth and burst out crying. She could feel it deep down in her soul and felt betrayed. Jawan was thinking very clearly. He was trying to leave her. That was the only rational reason he would be holding a gun to someone’s head in a now huge crowd, fussing about a damn stolen TV that if they stood there a minute longer, they wouldn’t be able to use no way.

  “Meesie—Meesie, what’s wrong?” Jawan turned his attention toward Meesie and noticed the crowd of people that were watching. He saw a few people on their cell phones, some talking, and others recording the scene. “I’m sorry Meesie. I snapped. I just seen him coming out the house and you just came out of the house and damn I started thinking about what my uncle said and you having a secret that I just-- I didn’t know what to think. I’m sorry. Stop crying baby!”

  “The secret was your uncle is a damn pervert! It shouldn’t have been a secret being he look like one, but that was the damn secret!” she asked drying her face with her shirt.

  Meesie was appalled that Jawan had done all of this because of what his uncle had said. In the middle of them running for their lives he had the nerve to be jealous. She didn’t have time to be thinking about a man and wondered how he even had time to be thinking that she was.

  WHOOP! WHOOP!

  “Clear the way people! Clear the way!” the officer said over the loud speaker.

  ”Oh shit, Meesie,” Jawan said and slowly slid the gun inside of his pants. This was it. This was the end and Jawan didn’t know what to do. He was a black man with a gun. They were gonna kill him, he just knew it. “Meesie, I love you baby.”

  “Jawan, let’s go!” Meesie grabbed his hand and pulled him.

  The two of them took off running, breaking through the crowd with hopes of getting away. They didn’t know where they would run or even how far they would get being they were on foot.

  “Meesie, where are we gonna go? We have nowhere to go! Let’s just stop. I don’t want us to get into any more trouble!” Jawan yelled, out of breath.

  “Jawan, we can’t just give up! Not like this!” Meesie looked over her shoulder and could see the police car fighting its way through the crowd of onlookers. She pulled Jawan’s hand and they cut through a couple of houses that led them to the next street. “Jawan, why are you trying to leave me? What am I gonna do without you?”

  Meesie stopped running and placed both hands on her knees as she fought to catch her breath. She was so sick of Jawan doing shit and then turning around and saying let’s give up. She wanted him to stop doing the crazy shit of course, but she didn’t want him to go handing himself over to the police. For some reason she actually thought that they could run away to some foreign island, raise their child, and forget any of this ever happened.

  “I told my daddy I would make this right! I gotta make it right Meesie. We can’t live on the run. I can’t have you looking over your shoulder every day all the damn time. That’s not the kinda life I imagined for you or my first child,” Jawan said and suddenly he had an idea. “Come on Meesie!”

  Jawan took off running down the sidewalk going at a very rapid pace. He remembered that he’d parked his car two blocks in the other direction and walked to his house just in case the police were there, he didn’t want them to spot his car.

  Meesie followed behind Jawan trying to figure out what he was doing. She was sad because she knew that the end road wasn’t a good one. She didn’t want her baby growing up in the system being raised by people that only wanted the baby because of a check. When she first found out that she was pregnant, she wished for a little girl. All she could think about was combing her hair with pretty pink barrettes and dressing her in pretty dresses and sandals. She hoped that by then her and Jawan would have saved up enough money to get a bigger place and shortly after they would be married and living happily ever after. None of this had been in her dreams. This was a nightmare and she wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone, not even her worse enemy.

  “Come on Meesie!” Jawan yelled at her. She was slow to follow. Maybe he is right. Maybe we should just give up. At least we can turn ourselves in and still be alive to save our good name. Lord knows I don’t want our child to think we just this black trash the media will sadly portray us as if they end up killing us both. At least if we’re alive and our child comes looking for us, we can tell her who we really are. The truth about us. Meesie thought as she placed her hand over her stomach and stopped running again.

  She had to think about her child now and even though she wanted to make it to that island and live a happily ever life with just the three of them, she knew it wasn’t likely. Stuff like that only happened in movies.

  Jawan had been running so fast that he hadn’t realized that Meesie was no longer behind him. He stopped in between one of the houses and peeked around the corner. Looking down the street where he once lived, he noticed that there were more police cars and an even bigger crowd. All he had to do was get to his car that was parked a couple of blocks over and he and Meesie could get out of there. He wanted to turn his self in and for this to all be over with no matter what Meesie said, but seeing her stand up for him earlier at his uncle’s house, and then seeing her break down crying moments ago tugged at his heart.

  He knew what the right thing to do was, but he didn’t want the right thing to be the one thing that would break Meesie’s heart. He figured if maybe he could just get them somewhere safe, get some money together, then he can take them to another state. It would be nice if he could at least be around to see his first child being born, and after that he could hire a lawyer and do things the right way. If Meesie had time to process the fact that he was going to jail, then she could better accept it.

  “Meesie look I got this plan….“ Jawan turned around and didn’t see her. “...Meesie! Meesie!”

  Jawan panicked and felt himself about to blackout.

  “Shit, I still didn’t take my—“ Jawan said before collapsing to the ground.

  Meesie sat there in tears as she watched her husband writhe and shake on the ground from yet another seizure. All of the emotional stress had been taking a toll on her body, and she felt as if she would pass out also. She took a deep breath and prepared for the police to come and arrest her. She hated that the last memory that Jawan would have of the free world would be him running from the police without her, and she desperately wished that she could change it. She wanted his last memory to be of her being right by his side like she’d always been.

  She couldn’t stand it anymore. She got up off of the ground and started running over towards Jawan. If the worse was going to happen, then she wanted to be in his presence or a part of it when the worse happened; whether that meant prison or death.

  She ran and laid down next to her fiancé. She wrapped her arms around him and let her tears flow. From the depths of her soul she loved that man, and there was nothing in the world that could change that. She looked to see how close the police were, but to her surprise; the crowd had formed a human blockade, and wouldn’t allow the officers to get through.

  She heard one officer screaming at the crowd, and another one screaming at his partner. “Clear the way or I’m taking everyone to jail damnit! Move out of the way!”

  “Fuck them, let them stand there! They’re going to pay for this shit severely in a minute. As soon as I get the okay from headquarters, we’re going to get through this crowd even if we have to use violent force! They’re interfering with the apprehension of some serial killers!”

  A black man from the crowd spoke up on hearing violent force come out of the officer’s mouth. “Nah honky. I swear to God you won’t be using no violent force on thi
s here crowd. We got a right to stand wherever the fuck we wanna stand. I’m standing my ground you fuckin pig!”

  The officer ran around to where the man was standing, but stopped in his tracks. He noticed the gang symbols tatted on his arm and neck, and saw that the same gang signs were tatted on almost everybody in the crowd. Slowly he backed away so that he could have a conversation with his partner. He wouldn’t even be able to pull out his service weapon around a crowd like that. Of all the cop killings in Florida, he knew that that particular gang was responsible for the bulk of them. They didn’t mind killing cops individually, so he could only imagine what a crowd of them would do.

  He took a deep, nervous breath and walked back towards his patrol car silently.