Torn by the Code

by Eureka

  Chapter 11

  It Ain’t No Fun When the Rabbit Got the Gun

  “Hey, I’m not waiting anymore. I’m out,” I said through gritted teeth. I didn’t want to stand in that house one second longer. I was on my way out the door, with or without Flex. Then my phone rang. “Hello?” I answered, agitated.

  “Yeah, I wanted to call and check on you. I haven’t heard from you in days. Elana, what’s going on? I know the last time we got into it, but we’re going to have to talk about it like adults. We can’t avoid our problems any longer,” Naheri said with concern in his voice.

  “I’m doing okay; I have just been . . .” I tried to say something but felt my emotions starting to overwhelm me. I released a sigh of frustration with a mixture of defeat.

  “Listen, Elana, it’s okay; whatever it is, it will work itself out. Your office called my office for you. They said they couldn’t get a hold of you, and they haven’t heard from you in days. Is everything okay, Elana? What’s going on?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. I’ll give them a call soon. I’ve been working on a case that has me feeling somewhat like I’m in the mob. I mean, they have me so hush-hush. I’m sorry.... I’m sorry for the way I acted the last time. You’re right. . . .” As the words left my mouth, the thought of lying yet again had my head spinning. This has got to stop.

  “When do you think you’ll be home? I need to talk to you,” Naheri said.

  “Ay, yo, Dutch, let’s go!” Flex yelled, unaware that I was on the phone with Naheri.

  “Is that Flex?” he angrily questioned.

  “Yes. We were at a meeting with a few new clients,” I said, trying to come up with a quick, believable lie.

  “Why is he . . . You know what? Never mind; go ahead and handle whatever business you were up to!” Naheri said with a tone full of sarcasm; then he hung up.

  My mouth gaped open wide in shock at the tone he had just used with me. In our entire marriage, he had never raised his voice like that to me. I probably would have sliced his head clean off his shoulders if he had. This was a first. I didn’t have the mind-set or the desire to deal with Naheri’s attitude. But I dialed his number back anyway and reached the voicemail on the first ring.

  Why do men always end up in their feelings? I threw my hands up in submission and shrugged my shoulders as I turned and walked out the door.

  By the time I made it to the car, Flex had it running and almost in drive, ready to pull off. He didn’t say a word to me. He just pulled off into traffic, heading toward I-290. He entered the ramp, headed east on his way to the South Side of town.

  “Where we going? What did Jorge say?” I asked.

  “This will be over very soon. It’s time you start thinking about where we gonna live,” he looked at me smiling.

  I didn’t know what to say. My emotions were on a high. Will this be the day my son is finally in my arms? Are we going to get him? I looked toward the backseat of the truck and saw my blade. At that moment, I knew it was finally going to be over.

  Chapter 12

  Back to the Beginning

  We pulled up on the block—the block I used to call home. When I was younger, that was where I gained my street smarts and learned the survival of the fittest. I started looking around. The more I saw, the more things looked like they had not changed. I spotted the old swing in the park, the same park I spent so many days and nights in. I began to remember back to the times when my mother would leave to feed her nasty crack addiction, sometimes for days at a time. I was forced to take care of myself until the state came and took me away. It was either be a ward of the state, or else a ward of some family member.

  I would have rather been in and out of foster homes than living with my horrible aunt Baelene. She was just as bad as my mother on drugs. She was what you would call a functioning crackhead. That’s when someone appears to have it all together to the outside world, but to those of us who had to experience their horrible habit up close and personal, we knew the real deal. It seemed in those days that was all everyone did. If it wasn’t marijuana, it was crack or that other nasty drug of choice: heroin.

  I always had to survive on my own, trust no one, and let no one in—that was until I met Flex and Ms. Ruby. When I turned the tender age of 16, we met and instantly fell in hate. I was not the type to let anyone come around me and get up in my space. Flex was the neighborhood dope boy. At the age of 18, he had been in and out of jail so many times that everybody just knew when they saw him coming that trouble was close behind.

  I looked around my old neighborhood and started reminiscing again on the moments and times that made me who I am today. The lawyer, the mother, the lover, the wife, and the killer that I am today . . . I owe it all to this small Englewood community right here in the heart of Chicago.

  We drove down a little farther. We were about to pass right by 6125 South Morgan. That building held bittersweet memories for me.

  “Pull over right here,” I quickly said to Flex, causing him to come to an abrupt stop. He looked at me confused but did what I asked.

  I slowly opened the car door and got out. I looked around the old, raggedy building that still had people living in it. Nothing looked like it had changed or even been fixed. In fact, it looked like it had the same paint on it from when I was a little girl living here. I held my head down as feelings of sadness rushed over me. This was the very thing I was trying to keep my son from, but here it was. He was right in the thick of it all because of my way of life.

  I turned my head to the left where the corner store used to be and thought back to the time the neighborhood sex offender tried to get me and my friend Marla. We fought like hell and got away. I inwardly laughed because if I saw him today, I would cut his eyes from their sockets.

  I stood a little bit longer, getting ready to end my trip down memory lane. I had to stop and get some perspective. For me to defeat my enemy, I had to think like them, and what better way to get in their mind-set than by getting in their element, back to the place where I started? No matter where my life had taken me, this was the place where I learned how to survive. By running off of my emotions, I had made some costly mistakes. I needed to go back to the beginning where my motivation was survival, back to the place I learned to do that. That was the only way I would be able to get my son back and regain my life. To kill a rat, I had to think like an exterminator, and this was right where I learned to do that.

  “Elana, is that you?” I heard a light voice call out my government name.

  I turned in the direction of the voice to see who was behind it. My eyes fell on Ms. Ruby, looking not a day over 55. She still looked the same, for the most part. She had a few wrinkles here and there and gray hair, but it was her.

  I was so excited to see her. Ms. Ruby was the one who took care of me when my aunt would leave me for days at a time and let her drug dealers have their way with my young body. “Yes, Ms. Ruby, it’s me, Elana,” I answered.

  “Baby, I wasn’t sure if that was you or not. You look good, chile. My old eyes ain’t what they used to be. How you been, baby? I always wondered what happened to you.”

  “I’m okay, Ms. Ruby. I went on to college and got a degree in criminal justice, which later led me to become a lawyer.”

  “Aw, now, look at God! I always prayed you were doing all right, and from the looks of you, you’re doing just fine. Baby, I searched for you, but them people would never tell me nothing about you. I called and called . . . and nothing. They said because we weren’t no kin, I couldn’t get you.” She paused for a second. “You know they found your mother and aunt dead? Yeah, baby, they owed some money to some of those dope boys. Uh-huh, they found them with their throats slashed awhile back almost right after them folk took you. They had it on the news and everything. They ain’t never found who did it. Some people ’round here said them gangbangers over on Sixty-ninth Street did it ’cause they owed some money, but who knows. Yo’ aunt and yo’ momma was a mess. I remember the nights yo’ grandmot
her cried and walked the streets looking for them girls,” she said, shaking her head in sorrow. “Anyway, did they ever find your little brother and sister?”

  I wasn’t sure if it was old age or what, but I didn’t know of a little brother or sister. “Ms. Ruby, I don’t have a little brother or sister,” I said, confused.

  “Oh yes, you do, baby. Yo’ momma gave birth to them when you were about 13 or so. I don’t know what happen to them ’cause when I saw her that one time, she was pregnant and clean. She looked real nice like she been off drugs. Then the next time I saw her after that day, she looked like she was back on that mess and didn’t have those babies with her. She told me she was having twins. Judging from the look on your face, I take it you didn’t know this.”

  I didn’t know whether I should show any remorse or emotion about the fate that my mother and aunt had met. I wasn’t concerned about my so-called brother and sister. Hell, from where I sat, they were better off without her trifling ass. I hope they ended up in a good place. At least they didn’t have to put up with the hell I did. Honestly, I didn’t care, because I was the one who sent my mother and my aunt straight to hell.

  One night after one of my aunt’s suppliers and one of his friends raped me, I decided I’d had enough. I went in search of my aunt. My first stop was to her usual dope spot, and there she was, sitting at the table smoking her pipe and looking high as hell as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She nodded and twirled in her chair, high as that thang. The one guest who joined in on her smoke session, to my surprise, was my mother. She sat right next to my aunt. I watched both of those sorry-ass excuses for caregivers nodding and laughing as if the pain they had caused me in my life was just a joke. I was furious! I watched as they smoked up all of the state money that was sent to me and left me to be fucked and sucked by anyone who would front my aunt some drugs. I watched until something snapped inside of me. I reached in my back pocket and pulled out a box cutter I kept on me for protection. I held a grip on it so hard it almost pierced my skin.

  I waited until all of them inside the house were good and out of it. My aunt and my mother continued to sit at the table. By now, the drugs they’d just put in their bodies had them zoned out and not on point—as if they ever were. I slowly crept in the door. The first one I went to was my high-ass mother. I stood right over her. She looked up, then dropped her head back down to the table. She was so high she didn’t even know who I was.

  A part of me hoped she would say, “Baby, I’m sorry. I’ll be a better mother.” But that was all in my imagination because when she put her empty, unstable eyes on me, her reaction was as if I was a total stranger. I frowned at the fact that she didn’t even know her own daughter. She didn’t give a shit about me, and she chose drugs over her child. Before I knew it, I had grabbed her by the hair and lifted her face off the table. In one long, swift swoop, I sliced her throat open, then slammed her head back on the table. All I could hear was her making a gurgling sound as she took her last breath.

  My aunt sat there dazed like she was a mummy or something. She didn’t scream . . . She didn’t flinch. Nothing. All she did was sit there with her eyes wide open. All I could see was her leaving earlier and telling me, “Now, you let Mr. Jacks and his friend have some fun. I’ll be back in a little while.” She smiled and left me to the wolves. That man and his friend wasted no time having their way with me. I walked over to her and punched her in the face. Here I was, 14, and they had done stuff to me only seen in porn movies. Every image flashed in my mind. After I punched her in the face, I grabbed a fistful of her nasty, disheveled hair. She tried to fight me, but her swings were off.

  I took my time dragging the box cutter across her throat. I even paused once so I could make sure her blood was spilling from the hole I put in her neck. I took great pleasure in watching these two miserable, low-grade bitches known to me as mother and aunt take their last pathetic breaths.

  Once the last stroke was done, I made sure neither of them had a pulse. I wasted no time stuffing their bodies under a floorboard in the old trap house. All of the rest of the people in there were so high that they didn’t even know what day it was. One of the men in there even offered to help me drag my aunt’s body, he was so high. They wouldn’t tell the police shit out of fear that it would bring heat to their beloved crack house. I lived on my own in that same apartment taking care of myself with the help of Ms. Ruby some days. After Flex and I got close, it was me, him, and Gelow. We were all like the three amigos until Gelow was murdered by his own brother over some drug debt. Sad to say, that was one of the worst days of my life. I cried more for his death than my own family.

  I went to school by day and trapped by night. That was the only way I could take care of myself until Flex came to move in with me. After almost getting robbed by the stick-up boys, Flex was like a bodyguard to me. We weren’t intimate with each other at first. Our love/hate relationship blossomed into a good business arrangement. But after a year or so, the more we hung out, the more our feelings grew. It became more than just him protecting me and the trap house we built. He was everything I needed. We had one of those unspoken attractions that developed as we spent more time together. He watched my back, and I watched his. I’d never experienced anything like it. Not even my mother showed me a love like that. If anyone would even touch a hair on my head, Flex did not hesitate to drop them like a bad habit.

  After we both realized we had more than just a business arrangement going on, I decided I would give in to my desires, and I gave myself to him. He already owned my mind. I thought of him daily, and I could damn near finish his sentences. He made me feel complete, and he owned a part of my spirit. It seemed only right that he’d have my body too. He was my first true relationship.

  When I spent the first time with him, all of that bad stuff that had happened to me didn’t even enter my mind. We had it all set up, the operation, the relationship, and the love . . . until that nosy bitch on the third floor called the landlord, who then called the Department of Child Protective Services. They came and found out I was alone and that my mother and aunt were both missing.

  “Ms. Ruby, you still live here?” I asked, bringing myself back to my reality. “After all these years? Wow!” I said in amazement.

  “Chile, where am I gonna go? This neighborhood been here before me and gon’ be here when I’m gone. I won’t let nothing and nobody run me away from here.”

  I looked down at her and her clothing. It wasn’t the most expensive, but she wore it like it was designer made, and I had to respect her for that. She even still had that bright smile she had when I was younger, that smile that would make me feel that all was right with the world, even when it wasn’t. “Ms. Ruby, I’m so glad I saw you! Will you allow me to do something for you?”

  “What’s that, chile?” she asked with one eyebrow raised.

  “Here, take this. I want to help you get out of this place. I own a couple of houses, and you can have one. Will you let me do that for you?”

  “No, I will not! Listen, baby, nothing in this lifetime is by chance or just happens that the good Lawd ain’t meant it to. All the money and nice thangs ain’t gon’ get me into heaven. Now this here is my community. I was born here and more than likely gon’ die here. But I will take them couple’a dollars ’cause, yeah, see, times is hard,” she said with a slight chuckle. “But for the most part, I love living here. I done watched all these kids and they kids’ kids and even some of they kids’ kids grow up. I done seen four generations in one family been raised here. So, no, I can’t leave here. But what brings you ’round here, Elana? Not that I ain’t happy to see you.”

  I smiled as I remembered how I could never get anything past Ms. Ruby. “Well, to be honest, I’m looking for some new guys that I heard live here in the neighborhood. They took something that means a lot to me, and I need to find them. Someone told they were over around this way. They have some strong Jamaican accents.”

  Ms. Ruby’s eyes grew big,
and she held her coat close to her chest in fear.

  “Ms. Ruby, you okay? What’s wrong?”

  She looked at me in a hushed manner. “Elana, you don’t want to mess with them, baby. Them men is dangerous! I saw them the other night terrorizing one of the girls around here. They beat her up pretty bad. I closed my curtains and called the police. I didn’t want them to see me. I heard one of them say as he stomped her, ‘Bitch, you told where I am,’ but it didn’t sound like the way we talked. He said it in that foreign voice, like ‘you de tell’ or something like that. I heard they were over at Mr. Johnson’s old place, you know, the one down by Ogden Park. The place went down after he died. He left it to his daughter, and she let her kids sell drugs out of it. The city eventually took it.”

  I turned in that direction. I knew which house it was. Then I turned back to Ms. Ruby. “Okay, I’m not going by there,” I lied. “Listen, for what it’s worth, I never got the chance to thank you for everything you did for me when I was coming up. Do you remember that program you made me get in when I was in high school?”

  “Yeah, the one that said they could help you get into college and will help pay for it?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Well, they gave me a full scholarship to Stanford. I graduated top of my class, and I owe that to you because you always told me I could be anything I wanted in this life. I used that advice to make something of myself and to get the finer things I wanted out of life. For that, I will be forever grateful to you.” I reached out to hug Ms. Ruby. “I thank you, Ms. Ruby, for showing me love when my own family didn’t. I sing that song you taught me when I was younger to my son, Naheri Jr. One day, I’ma bring him by to meet you if that’s okay,” I said as I thought about my son and how Ms. Ruby was the only one I could count on besides Flex. Because of her, I was able to show my son some motherly love.